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DoJ case ‘effort to advance competitors’ – Gates

The government is a stooge for a shadowy conspiracy, apparently

Bill Gates yesterday lashed-out at the DoJ antitrust case against Microsoft as a plot to boost Microsoft's competitors at the expense of the public. Speaking to the most pro-Microsoft audience on the planet, Microsoft shareholders, Gates said: "The more we see of the case, the more clear it is that there's an effort here to advance the interests of a handful of competitors over the interests of the public and the economy." Aside from Netscape, the companies comprising this "handful of competitors" aren't obviously identifiable -- they certainly don't seem to be in the government's witness list. But in Gates' view, the DoJ is clearly working to an agenda. "I think people will be surprised to see how the DoJ has misused email snippets to create a false impression," he said, promising that Microsoft's witnesses would be able to show "that the facts simply don't support the Government's claims." But who's pulling the DoJ's strings? Curiously, the witnesses who've inflicted the most damage so far have been Microsoft (the Great Man himself, whose camera technique needs a lot of work), and its at least theoretical allies, Apple and Intel. Jim Barksdale of Netscape may be a nice enough fellow, but he didn't land many serious punches when his testimony opened the trial. One is led to the inescapable conclusion that the "handful of competitors" is standing well back, a shady conspiracy manipulating the government for its own nefarious ends. Sun? Oracle? ODESSA? ® Complete Register trial coverage

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