Taking advantage of a day’s rest in the Washington courts, Microsoft Corp chairman Bill Gates took the opportunity to fight back yesterday, addressing journalists in Washington via video link. He accused the Justice Department’s lead trial attorney, David Boies of being out to destroy Microsoft. Gates claimed that Boies was out to take all the work we have done and make us look very bad.” Gates’ personal image has been damaged by the ludicrously evasive video taped depositions shown in court over the last eight weeks. Microsoft has claimed that the government continues to show short clips from the deposition – which it says was never expected to be shown at all – in order to keep news interest in the trial high. Yesterday Gates said he had answered truthfully every single question that was put forward to me.” Pointing to the merger of Netscape Communications Corp and America Online Inc, and the associated deal with Sun Microsystems Inc, he commented that three of the biggest competitors are banding together and yet the government is still trying to slow us down.” Microsoft’s General Counsel William Neukom said that Microsoft had filed a motion seeking the court’s permission to conduct discovery about the AOL/Netscape/Sun deal by requesting documents from all three companies and the various investment banks that had represented them. Meanwhile, in better news for Microsoft, the state of South Carolina said it was dropping out of the lawsuit because of the merger. South Carolina Attorney General Charlie Condon said that the deal proved that the forces of competition are working.” Further government intervention would be unwise he said. Although Microsoft said that South Carolina’s departure was a sign that the government’s case was beginning to unravel, the remaining 19 states show no sign of wavering. The Bloomberg newswire quoted Mark Wurzel, a spokesman for New York Attorney General Dennis Vacco, as saying that South Carolina played little or no role in this case. This will have no impact on the trial. Microsoft’s share price rose to an all time high of $133.56 yesterday, and was the second most active stock in US trading.
