Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : MSFT Internet Explorer vs. NSCP Navigator -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Daniel Schuh who wrote (21709)	11/23/1998 11:20:00 PM
From: Daniel Schuh	Respond to of 24154

Live Testimony by Gates Would Pose Risks nytimes.com Of the live performance being more amusing than the video? No guts, no glory, Bill. By now, with repetition, the Gates tapes have lost much of their punch to shock or amuse. The subject may vary, but each excerpted section is much the same. Hunched forward, staring down, like a student being punished in the principal's office, Gates comes off as forgetful, evasive and endlessly quibbling over the meaning of the simplest business terms like "market share." The joke making the rounds in the industry is that it was the word "share" that Gates found confusing. . . . Microsoft says that all this is "spin" and that Gates' deposition performance was a triumph of stonewalling. "The substance of his deposition testimony has not helped the government's case," said Charles Rule, a former senior official in the Justice Department's antitrust division who is an adviser to Microsoft. And who would know spin better than Microsoft? Since there was no substance to his deposition testimony, I have to give Rick credit for technical correctness, though. Personally, of course, I've always called Bill's performance a triumph of premature senility. The legal advice Gates received going into his deposition was clearly to give his adversaries little or nothing to work with. He may have done that to a fault, because he appears to be almost lifeless. "He's almost dead, Jim. We'll have to transport him back to the Enterprise for an emergency reformat and reinstall. I can't do that here, I'm a doctor not a PC Tech." Other antitrust experts, however, advise Microsoft to stay with its nine lower-level Microsoft witnesses and leave Gates out of the trial. "I think it would be a mistake, especially with a litigator and cross-examiner as skilled as David Boies," said Stephen Axinn, a partner of Axinn, Veltrop & Harkrider. "If Microsoft calls Gates, they're crazy." It'd make my day, though. Cheers, Dan.