[Am-info] Add witness tampering to the list

[Mitch Stone]

Keep your eyes on the ball, gentlemen. The real news here is that 
Microsoft called as their first witness a person who knew about the 
proposed settlement only what Bill Gates had told him. You'd think 
Microsoft's lawyers would be smart enough to to ask Sanders to read the 
document, so he could at least answer that question in the affirmative, 
and be able to say his opinions were his own. Unless this is part of some 
"secret plan" that I don't understand, it looks like more bad lawyering 
from Microsoft's team.

On Wednesday, April 17, 2002, at 05:32 AM, John J. Urbaniak wrote:

>
> =====================
>
>    http://news.findlaw.com/business/s/20020416/microsoftdc.html
>
> Microsoft Witness Sought a Favor From Gates
>
> By Peter Kaplan
>
> WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp.'s <MSFT.O> first witness against
> antitrust  sanctions sought by nine states admitted in court on Tuesday
> that he asked for a favor when Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates called
> seeking his testimony.
>
> Jerry Sanders, chief executive of computer chip-maker Advanced Micro
> Devices Inc.   <AMD.N>, also conceded he had not read the states'
> proposed sanctions, but that Gates had  told him they were "crazy" and
> would fragment the Windows operating system.
>
> Howard Gutman, an attorney for the states, told U.S. District Judge
> Colleen Kollar-Kotelly that Sanders asked for Microsoft to announce
> support for its chip technology, code-named Hammer, ahead of a competing
> product just being developed at rival Intel Corp. <INTC.O>
>
> "Mr. Gates said he would talk to his people about that," Gutman said of
> the Feb. 8 call by Gates to Sanders.

   Mitch Stone
   mitch@accidentalexpert.com