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Technology Stocks : Ascend Communications (ASND) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gary Korn who wrote (37201)	3/3/1998 9:22:00 AM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 61433

Gates rallies against Justice, Senate panel Reuters Story - March 03, 1998 00:23 %DPR %ENT %US %BUS %PRO %TEL %PUB MSFT IBM NSCP SUNW V%REUTER P%RTR WASHINGTON, March 3 (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp Chairman Bill Gates had harsh words for the Justice Department and the Senate committee investigating his company's business practices in an interview in Tuesday's Washington Post. Gates warned that the Justice Department's efforts to block the software giant from adding new features to its Windows software could topple the company if it succeeds. The department, backed by 27 states, is in litigation against Microsoft, charging it is in violation of a 1995 consent decree -- sometimes called a "final judgment" -- aimed at increasing competition in the software industry. Microsoft has appealed a U.S. District Court preliminary ruling that bars it from bundling its Windows 95 software operating system with software used to peruse the Internet's World Wide Web. "If we can't innovate in our products then you know we will be replaced," Gates said, according the Post story. In the interview, Gates, who is due to testify on Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, criticized the panel and said the investigation headed by Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch was "certainly coupled" with the Justice probe. "Senator Hatch and members of this committee have never commented on or shown any interest in things related to Microsoft" before the Justice Department lawsuit, Gates told the Post. He said the committee had "put up a flag that says, 'We're the new Microsoft complaint bureau.'" He also complained that the Justice Department's chief antitrust official, Joel Klein, had met with officials at Microsoft competitor firms, including International Business Machines Corp ., Netscape Communications Corp . and Sun Microsystems Inc . to "talk about how they're going to coordinate their competition with us." But Klein, reached by the Post late Monday, denied that he had any such meeting with Microsoft rivals. "There is absolutely no basis for the charge," he told the newspaper. Gates also suggested that the department brought the consent-decree lawsuit to justify its long-running investigation of Microsoft. "If a policeman follows you for a thousand miles ... you might decide he needs to write you a ticket at some point," Gates told reporters and editors at the paper. "In other words, he kind of looks a little stupid."