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To: Gerald R. Lampton who wrote (21162)	10/30/1998 3:39:00 AM
From: Daniel Schuh	Respond to of 24154

Microsoft's Strategy Leaves Gates in the Wings nytimes.com The word filibuster was repeatedly uttered by the politically savvy audience that filled the courtroom on Thursday as Microsoft's lawyer, John Warden, slowly picked apart the testimony of David Colburn, a senior vice president of America Online. Anticipation of the Gates testimony had brought renewed interest -- and long lines for seats -- back to the courtroom of Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson of United States District Court. Microsoft officials denied any effort to deliberately delay the playing of the deposition, saying they were simply engaging in a careful cross-examination. But the company has made no secret of its aversion to portions of the Gates deposition being played. Microsoft filed a motion to try and block the Justice Department from playing the tape, arguing that if the government wants to hear from the billionaire, known for his temper and sometimes combative attitude, that they should call him as one of their 12 witnesses. Jackson ruled against them on Tuesday, saying antitrust law provides no limitations on the use of depositions of the chief executive of the company on trial. Then there's this other law that says the deposition was supposed to be in public in the first place. Jackson reluctantly read that law as written. The sage appeals guys are still sitting on it, though, they apparently took seriously Microsoft's argument that deposing Bill in public would reveal "Microsoft trade secrets". Like the all-important trade secret that Bill's gone prematurely senile. He couldn't remember a thing about any of this stuff!!! Probably not even his last known line about the famous meeting, where it was just to tell Netscape about cool new features in Win95 they might want to use. Bill wouldn't lie under oath, would he? Boies said the government plans to show in court roughly 8 of the 20 hours they spent questioning Gates. That will include an hour of portions selected by Microsoft lawyers, he said. "We tried to place what is being said in context," he said. "I think the video will give a pretty good opportunity to judge Gates's credibility." Bill's sort of gone undercover of late. Anybody who's followed Bill's voluminous public pronouncements over the past year or so couldn't help but form an opinion on his credibility. Dang, there was this NYT article about Bill version 2.0, just before the start of the trial, but I didn't post it and it's not in their trial coverage index ( nytimes.com , many good articles there, best coverage I've seen ). All about how he was going to go back to being the geeky nerd technology guy. Tee hee, personally I muchly doubt if that was ever the case, by all indications he was always a cutthroat businessman first and foremost. Except in the PR department, of course. He's always been really honest too. Cheers, Dan.