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To: Harry Sharp who wrote (17523)	2/17/1998 7:52:00 PM
From: George Bielski	Respond to of 24154

biz.yahoo.com

To: Harry Sharp who wrote (17523)	2/17/1998 9:45:00 PM
From: Daniel Schuh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24154

Texas's Microsoft suit thrown out news.com For a somewhat less, er, Microcentric view of the ruling: According to a person familiar with the case, Texas District Court Judge Joseph Hart of Austin dismissed the suit on the grounds that the state failed to show that the confidentiality agreement had in any way interfered with its probe. . . . Unlike the Justice Department's action, however, the sole matter at issue in the Texas suit was the inclusion of NDAs, leading at least one outside observer to doubt the significance of today's dismissal. "This is not a particularly significant event," said Lloyd Constantine, former chief of the antitrust division of the New York attorney general's office, now in private practice in New York City. "It was curious to me that Texas would file an action on this discrete issue." Constantine added that today's ruling, along with Jackson's similar decision last December, by no means settles the issue of whether or not NDAs are illegal because neither judge ruled on whether the provisions are allowed, only on the fact that the government had not submitted evidence proving the agreements were being used illegally. "If the Justice Department feels aggrieved by the pervasive use of NDAs and is able to make an argument that they are part of an overall pattern of conduct, [the issue] may not go away," she said. But, many would like the issue to go away, of course. "No high-tech company wants the various battles with Microsoft resulting in the weakening of NDAs," Gray said, "because they're too important to the industry." So, there you go. Cheers, Dan.