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Technology Stocks : Disk Drive Sector Discussion Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LK2 who wrote (4255)	8/27/1998 1:19:00 PM
From: LK2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9256

personal use only- (This statement copied from Lawrence Kam. Does this protect me from anything?) Article below is on potential bug MSFT might have designed to deal with a competitor. US govt thinks intentional bugs might be illegal. So do the companies the bugs are designed to deal with. But MSFT probably thinks all is fair in love and war (and in business, too, I guess). Will MSFT 'fess up, like Wild Bill? abcnews.com >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> If the bug detected a rival's program, a MS Windows developer wrote, it would "put competitors on a treadmill" and "should surely crash at some point shortly later." N E W Y O R K, Aug. 27, 1998 - In 1991, when a competitor threatened to break Microsoft's lock on desktop software, Microsoft engineers apparently discussed an unusual counterattack: a software bug to be hidden inside an early version of Microsoft Windows. The Wall Street Journal reports that in a Sept. 30, 1991, message about the plan that referred to members of his team in the shorthand of electronic mail, David Cole, head of Windows development, told another executive that "aaronr had some pretty wild ideas after three or so beers-earleh has some too." If the bug detected a rival's program, he further wrote, it would "put competitors on a treadmill" and "should surely crash at some point shortly later." Cole also warned that the existence of the bug had to be kept secret, the Journal reported. Cole's e-mail came in response to a challenge from what Microsoft saw as a clone of its DOS operating-system software. Now the e-mail is at the center of a private antitrust suit brought two years ago in federal court here by tiny Caldera Inc., of Orem, Utah, with the backing of Ray Noorda, the 72-year-old former chairman of Novell Inc., of Provo, Utah. The suit charges that Microsoft intended "to destroy competition in the software industry." The e-mail is among previously secret internal documents subpoenaed by the U.S. government in a 1995 antitrust suit against Microsoft that was settled; these documents are also at the center of the Caldera suit and could be introduced as evidence in the government's current antitrust suit against Microsoft, which is scheduled to go to trial next month. (In pursuing its suit against Microsoft, the U.S. government has subpoenaed documents from Intel) Microsoft concedes the authenticity of Mr. Cole's e-mail, but its lawyers deny Caldera's antitrust allegation and have asked that the lawsuit be dismissed, the Journal reported. Copyright 1998 Reuters. All rights reserved. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<