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Technology Stocks : All About Sun Microsystems -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: High-Tech East who wrote (11707)	11/16/1998 8:23:00 PM
From: High-Tech East	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 64865

Is Anyone Alive Out There Along The Pacific? OK, I'll try humor ..... I hope the last laugh is on Bill Gates and not on us. He is making a complete fool of himself. Monday November 16 4:06 PM ET Judge Laughs Over Gates' Testimony By TED BRIDIS Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates appeared so uncooperative and forgetful in interviews with government lawyers that the judge overseeing the company's antitrust trial laughed and shook his head while watching Monday. As the trial entered its fifth week, the government played another hour of videotape of its lawyers questioning Gates over three days last summer. The government used the video to introduce its fifth witness, Glenn Weadock, a private computer consultant paid $100 an hour by the Justice Department. Microsoft lawyers quickly attacked his qualifications. In the video, government attorney David Boies asked Gates about e-mail he wrote in January 1996 to top executives saying: "Winning Internet browser share is a very, very important goal for us." At the time, Microsoft Corp. felt immense pressure from rival Netscape Communications Corp., whose own browser software was the industry leader. A browser lets people view information on the Internet. In its antitrust case, the government alleges that Microsoft illegally used its influence as the maker of the dominant Windows operating system to extend into other markets, such as for Internet browsers. But on the video shown Monday, Gates appeared to go to great lengths to avoid directly naming his chief rival. At one point, Gates denied understanding what the government meant when asked about "non-Microsoft browsers." "You seem to be suggesting that just because share involves comparing multiple companies, that when I wrote that sentence I was talking about other companies," Gates said. "You keep trying to read Netscape into that sentence, and I don't see how you can do that." At the time that Gates wrote to his executives that winning browser share was "very important," more than 70 percent of people used Netscape's software. Gates, whose personal worth of about $50 billion makes him the world's wealthiest person, is not among the 24 witnesses who will testify during the trial. But under court rules, the government is allowed to use his sworn testimony as evidence. During another exchange over the same January 1996 e-mail, U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson seemed incredulous. Jackson ultimately will decide the case because there is no jury. The judge laughed and shook his head at the verbal sparring as Boies asked Gates about the line, "Winning Internet browser share is a very, very important goal for us." "I'm not getting your question," Gates said. "Are you trying to ask what I was thinking when I wrote this sentence?" "Let me begin with that," Boies said. "What were you thinking when you - " "I don't remember specifically writing this sentence," Gates interrupted. "Does that mean you can't answer what you were thinking when you wrote that sentence?" Boies asked. "That's correct," Gates answered. "So, since you don't have an answer to that question, let me put a different question," Boies said. "I have an answer. The answer is, I don't remember," Gates said. "You don't remember what you meant," Boies said. "Let me try to ask you - " "I don't remember what I was thinking," Gates said. "So, you don't remember what you were thinking when you wrote it, and you don't remember what you meant when you wrote it. Is that fair?" Boies asked. "As well as not remember writing it," Gates said. After the hourlong excerpts played in court, the judge asked Boies: "How long did that deposition take?"