Gates on Tape: Scant Memory of Key Details nytimes.com
Dang, I got to get back on top of this stuff, I've been distracted again. I missed yesterday's show!
The Bill Gates on the courtroom screen was evasive and uninformed, pedantic and taciturn -- a world apart from his reputation as a brilliant business strategist, guiding every step in Microsoft Corp.'s rise to dominance in computing.
That's come up before, he notes dryly. Premature senility? Deposition dependent amnesia? Lying under oath? You be the judge. At any rate, it's a Microsoft trade secret.
For the most part, both Gates, the nation's wealthiest man, and his questioner, David Boies, the Justice Department's trial lawyer, remained civil and polite. Boies, however, did show a flash or two of irritation at Gates' plodding evasions -- so at odds with his public image as a quick-witted tactician, immersed in every significant detail of Microsoft's business. At times, Boies pointedly reminded Gates that he was under oath.
Maybe Bill was operating under the recent Microsoftese definition of "honesty"- getting the Chinese to pay for his software. There's a song about that in Hong Kong, I hear.
When asked about these allegations in general, Gates gave his most unequivocal reply. "Are you aware," Boies asked, "of any instances in which representatives of Microsoft have met with competitors in an attempt to allocate markets?"
Gates replied, "I'm not aware of any such thing. And I know it's very much against the way we operate."
Boies probed further to ask, "It would be against company policy to do that."
And Gates answered, "That's right."
Standard Microsoft business practice, but against company policy? I'm confused, as usual. Still waiting for the Microsoft version of what really happened at the famous Netscape meeting. First Bill said it was to tell them about neat features in Windows, but then he forgot. Then it was all Andreeson's fantasy, then Microsoft was set up. Did I miss anything since then?
Cheers, Dan. |
