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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Karin who wrote (11529)	10/21/1998 9:30:00 AM
From: Daniel Schuh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

Microsoft Defiant in First Response to Antitrust Case nytimes.com And here's today's news from a source that doesn't have ms in its name. Stinging from the Government's opening statement, a defiant Microsoft Corporation forcefully defended its chairman, William H. Gates, in Federal court Tuesday, asserting that the no-holds-barred tactics of his company are not only common in the computer industry but also good for the economy. Microsoft's opening salvo in the sweeping antitrust suit was devised as much for public opinion as for the court. The company faces weeks of being portrayed as a commercial predator in a highly publicized trial, which could badly tarnish Microsoft's reputation even if it wins. PR has always been at the forefront of Microsoft's defense on antitrust, as near as I can see. As ever, I don't make any legal judgements here, hearts and minds is what I've been following closest all along. "Standard Microsoft business practice" is a defense I heard long ago, along with the ever popular "antitrust is so unfair". Those are more honest than "Microsoft must be free to innovate" and "the integrity and uniformity of the Windows experience", but still a bit dubious as legal arguments. As Bill's former favorite rag, The Economist put it: Yet the case against Microsoft remains compelling. The government will describe in detail a pattern of “predatory and exclusionary” practices illegally carried out over many years, often aimed at intimidating partners as much as competitors. At the very least, Microsoft's belief that other firms do the things it is accused of demonstrates a refusal to concede that, under antitrust law, monopolists should be whiter than white. ( economist.com Cheers, Dan.