DOJ assault opens Microsoft trial news.com
"Mr. Gates is again trying to distance himself" from behavior that for more than a year was under the microscope of antitrust investigators, Boies told U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, who is overseeing the case. "What [the evidence] demonstrates is that, even down to the details, the top management was directly involved."
One of the most explosive allegations Boies introduced is that Gates asked America Online executives to knock Microsoft rival Netscape Communication out of the browser market.
"How much do we need to pay you to screw Netscape?" Gates reportedly asked AOL, according to an internal AOL document detailing a 1996 meeting. The document, which was blown up on large monitors placed in the packed courtroom, went on to claim that Gates told AOL executives: "This is your lucky day."
As opposed to the day a few years earlier when Bill made an "embrace or demolish" offer to buy AOL, for $50million. It was touch and go for Steve Chase on that one, the vulture capitalists wanted to cash in. But in the browser wars, IE was an offer he couldn't refuse. It was better than free, Bill put a bullet through MSN's head to close the deal.
But the Wall Street Journal reported today that America Online had provided evidence to the government that supports Netscape's version of what happened at a June 21, 1995, meeting between Netscape and Microsoft that is expected to be a major feature of the case.
How ungrateful of them.
Cheers, Dan. |
