In 1998, Gates gave evidence in a video-taped deposition. His performance was described by the then Presiding Judge, Thomas Penfield-Jackson, as “evasive, dissembling, defiant, arrogant." Judge Penfield-Jackson also complained that he was "offended by Microsoft’s constant ‘spin,’ their effort to explain away everything and admit nothing." He went on to compare Microsoft senior management to a street gang of drug dealers and murderers.
Yesterday, press reports indicate that Gates performed much better. He is expected to give evidence again today.
While Microsoft has agreed settlement terms in the antitrust case with the Department of Justice and nine of the eighteen US states still involved in the action, the remaining states are pushing for stiffer penalties.
Gates said the non-settling states’ proposals covered too many product categories, straying from the subject matter of the original action. He said that the demand to remove certain code from Windows – most notably its internet browsing software – would split the operating system into many different versions. He argued that some of these versions would support some applications – but not others, and that this would “turn back the clock on Windows development by about ten years and effectively freeze it there.“
Gates also described many of the proposals as vague and ambiguous or impossible to comply with. He added that:
“[they] would undermine the Windows platform, to the detriment of all who benefit from it, in many different ways. In fact, the [proposals] would hobble Microsoft as a competitor and innovator across many product categories because many of its provisions are broadly worded to apply to any Microsoft product, service, feature or technology.”