WASHINGTON – Microsoft’s otherwise unrepentant chairman wondered after the
judge’s Wednesday breakup order whether an in-person explanation by him of
the innovation and competition in the personal computer industry would have
made a difference.
Would a personal appearance by Bill Gates at the Microsoft Corp. antitrust
trial have averted a judge’s order to split the company in two?
“If we look back, I think it’s clear that the whole story of personal
computing — how the great things that have been done there and how we
created an industry structure that’s far more competitive than what was the
computer industry before we came along — that story didn’t get out,” Gates
said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” program.
“And I do wonder if I’d taken the time to go back personally and testify,
if we might have done a better job in getting that across,” he said in an
interview that was taped shortly after the judge issued his order but aired
on Thursday.
During the 78 days of testimony in the trial that started in October 1998,
Gates, the bespectacled, squeaky-voiced co-founder of the Redmond,
Wash.-based software giant, never set foot in the Washington, D.C. courtroom
where his company defended itself.
He did, however, provide videotaped testimony that later underwent intense
scrutiny by federal prosecutors.
Microsoft has said it will appeal the order by U.S. District Court Judge
Thomas Penfield Jackson that it be broken into two companies and will seek
to have a higher court issue a stay on implementation of other restrictions
Jackson ordered on Microsoft’s business practices. The company will remain
intact pending its appeal.
In his breakup order, Jackson cited the company’s actions, rather than the
words of its executives, calling it ”untrustworthy” because it failed to
carry out his earlier decisions in good faith.
The judge said there was “credible evidence” that Microsoft ”continues to
do business as it has in the past,” despite his finding that it had abused
its monopoly power in violation of U.S. antitrust laws.
Gates insisted Microsoft did not violate federal antitrust laws. But he said
that early in the process he had largely abandoned hope for favorable ruling
by Jackson, whom he expects to be overruled by higher courts.
“Fairly early on, we knew that we’d probably be better off at the appeals
level and what the judge has written today I think really reinforces that,”
he said.
Gates also said he and the company had done everything they could to reach a
settlement with the Justice Department.
A mediator announced on April 1 that settlement talks had failed. Two days
later, Judge Jackson issued his findings of law determining that Microsoft’s
use of monopoly power had indeed been illegal, and setting the stage for
Wednesday’s decision.
