Gates to testify in Microsoft case
By James Rowley
Bloomberg News
WASHINGTON — Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates is due to testify next week against proposals by nine states to restrain the company he founded.
Lawyers for the No. 1 software company plan to call Gates to the witness stand Monday to explain why he believes that the states' anti-trust remedies would harm the company, the personal computer industry and consumers, Microsoft spokesman Jim Desler said in an e-mail to reporters.
Gates' appearance has been long anticipated by followers of the 4-year-old case. He gave a sworn deposition before the original trial and videotaped portions of it were played in the courtroom in 1998 and 1999, prompting the trial judge to describe him as evasive and forgetful.
"He better be more prepared than he was in the first trial to respond candidly to questions," said Andrew Gavil, who teaches antitrust law at Howard University in Washington.
Gates' appearance in the courtroom will mark his debut as a live witness in the case. He never appeared in person at the 78-day trial before U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson that ended in 1999. His videotaped testimony was played in court by the government, prompting complaints that Gates' answers were being used unfairly against him.
"Your problem is with your witness, not with the way in which his testimony is being presented," Jackson told the lawyers in a meeting in his chambers that was transcribed by the official court reporter. "It's evident to every spectator" that the chairman "wasn't particularly responsive" in his answers, the judge said.
During interviews that prompted the appeals court to disqualify him from the case, Jackson disclosed to reporters that Gates had made a poor impression on him. The judge told writer Ken Auletta of The New Yorker that Gates "has a Napoleonic concept of himself and his company, an arrogance that derives from power and unalloyed success."
Microsoft executives will try to debunk state proposals seeking to force the company to make a stripped-down version of Windows to let computer makers easily remove programs such as Internet Explorer.
Another proposal would force Microsoft to place the code of Internet Explorer in the public domain. The states are also demanding that Microsoft disclose more code to allow rival software to easily run on Windows.
The proposed settlement requires Microsoft to give computer makers more freedom to promote software programs that compete with Microsoft products, such as RealNetworks Inc.'s RealPlayer for digital music.
