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To: Daniel Schuh who wrote (18403)	4/9/1998 1:10:00 PM
From: Daniel Schuh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24154

Microsoft spins in ad campaign news.com Now there's an innovative legal strategy- advertise your way out of it. People always expect the truth from advertising. Microsoft (MSFT) is launching a national print advertising campaign to win the hearts and minds of the American public in the midst of its antitrust investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice and numerous states. Hearts and minds is what I watch for, but the lawyers got to watch out for other stuff. Microsoft is nothing if not thorough, though. They got lawyers, lobbyists, PR guys, ad men all on the case. All lead by Bill the humble, politically naive software engineer, of course. Taking time off from his important software engineering task of hobnobbing with foreign heads of state. It is buying the ads "to refocus the current debate over competition onto the central principal that the company is standing up for--the ability of every American company to continually innovate by integrating new technologies and ideas into its products," Microsoft said in a statement. "We believe the marketplace should determine what innovations consumers want," the text of the ads reads. "At Microsoft, the freedom to innovate for our customers is more than just a goal; it is a principle worth standing up for." Right. The marketplace has determined that the customers really want the original retail Windows95 release, not that OSR2 malarky the bonehead OEMS insist on. Microsoft must have the freedom to innovatively cut off the air supply of companies they find threatening, by copying their products and giving them away. Or paying people to take them. That's the marketplace for you. "We want to begin a discussion with the American public, and PC users in particular, about the principle we are fighting for," said Microsoft chief operating officer Bob Herbold. "Some of our competitors have been working to hobble competition." Uh, right. The law's the law. Microsoft wants it repealed, they should say so. Where's the OS competition? Oh, I forget, Windows could be replaced in a day, if only there were some bright innovators around, like the spirited clone artists at mighty Microsoft. Cheers, Dan.