Gates Won't Testify for Microsoft
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Filed at 1:25 a.m. EDT
By The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Bill Gates, the chairman of Microsoft Corp. and a controversial leader of the computer age, will leave it to others to testify in defense of his company at its antitrust trial later this month.
Eight Microsoft executives, but not Gates, will appear in federal court to dispute the government's claim that the company acted illegally toward industry rivals to preserve the profitable role of its Windows operating system.
''Bill is a visionary for this company and the overall leader, but these people on our witness list were there handling the day-to-day operations,'' company spokesman Jim Cullinan said Friday.
The presiding judge also will weigh testimony by executives from some of the nation's leading high-tech companies, who will appear on behalf of the Justice Department and 20 states suing Microsoft. The case is widely viewed as among the most important antitrust actions this century.
The government and the company on Friday each identified their dozen witnesses allowed for the trial, a list that offers an important glimpse into possible legal strategies.
The roster of companies willing to align themselves against Microsoft -- including Intel Corp., IBM Corp. and America Online -- also suggests the level of fear and resentment directed at the influential software company, even among some of the industry's most powerful players.
Also testifying for Microsoft will be John Rose, a vice president for the world's largest computer maker, Compaq Computer Corp.
Compaq, a long-time ally of Microsoft, is expected to dispute arguments that Microsoft sought to pressure computer makers to carry its own Internet browser over one made by rival Netscape Communications Corp.
The government contends that Microsoft feared that, as the Internet grew in popularity and in its ability to serve as a platform to run software programs, Netscape's Internet browser posed a threat to its Windows dominance.
The witness names offered few surprises, except for one person listed for the government: Scott Vesey, an executive of The Boeing Co. who reportedly works at the company's computer offices in Bellevue, Wash., close to Microsoft's headquarters in nearby Redmond. Neither Vesey nor Boeing have previously surfaced in the case.
''Boeing is a customer of ours,'' Cullinan said. ''I don't know what the exact issue is, but they're a customer.''
The Justice Department declined to comment further on its list.
Robert Litan, a former senior Justice Department official who has been following the case, said Microsoft's decision not to use Gates surprised him as much as the government's mysterious decision regarding Boeing.
The government recently took a deposition from Gates over three days at his corporate offices, but it complained in court documents that he ''displayed a particular failure of recollection at his deposition.''
Several times in its lawsuit, the government quoted excerpts of e-mail from Gates to try to illustrate that he had acted illegally toward rivals, especially Netscape, whose popular browser competes directly with Microsoft's.
Netscape's chairman, James Barksdale, leads the government's witness list.
In one e-mail, Gates is quoted as saying he was ''quite frank'' with Intuit founder Scott Cook ''that if he had a favor we could do for him that would cost us something like $1 (million), to do that in return for switching browsers in the next few months.''
Intuit makes the popular Quicken personal finance software and had been a supporter of Netscape until a business agreement with Microsoft. The government listed its chairman, William Harris, as one of its witnesses.
Microsoft has accused the government of mischaracterizing e-mails from employees as policies approved by its highest executives.
''Their defense to the bad e-mails (was) that this was office chatter and wasn't approved by the guy at the top,'' said Litan, now an economist at the Brookings Institution. ''One would have assumed they would offer the guy at the top.''
U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson decided in June to limit the number of witnesses who can testify, in an attempt to keep the trial from bogging down. It's already expected to last weeks.
The judge limited each side to six to 12 witnesses, but he agreed to allow additional people, ''if good cause is shown.''
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