[Am-info] Reilly embarks on lonely quest

[Hans Reiser]

MS forces are beginning the process of portraying him as socially 
isolated. Let's give him our support, he is a fighter. It doesn't 
surprise me at all that he is the only one continuing, and Lockyer never 
seemed to really believe in the lawsuit, he was just joining the 
bandwagon. I wonder where I should send a check for Reilly....?

Hans

Erick Andrews wrote:

>URL:
>
>http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/337/business/Reilly_embarks_on_lonely_quest+.shtml
>
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>Few vocal, cheering allies surface as AG pursues Microsoft
>
>By Ross Kerber, Globe Staff, 12/3/2002
>
>The decision by Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly to continue a
>lonely pursuit of an antitrust case against Microsoft Corp.  would
>have generated cheers a few years ago from companies like IBM and
>Sun Microsystems, whose complaints about the software giant
>persuaded federal and state prosecutors to take on the company in
>the first place.
>
>But those days are over, and the political payoff of Reilly's
>decision to appeal the most recent court finding is no longer
>obvious.  Both companies face other threats now, and other firms
>are focused only on their very survival.  Yesterday, even some of
>Reilly's business supporters said they regarded his actions as
>something of a Quixotic quest after goals no longer at the center
>of their interests.
>
>The appeal "is worth pursuing as a matter of principle, but I
>don't know if it doesn't fall in the category of tilting at
>windmills, and powerful windmills at that," said Shikhar Ghosh,
>chief executive of Burlington software maker Verilytics
>Technologies and former chairman of the Massachusetts Software &
>Internet Council.
>
>On Friday, Reilly broke ranks with most of the other states who
>called off their case against the Redmond, Wash., company and said
>they would focus on enforcing an earlier court decree limiting
>Microsoft's behavior.
>
>Instead, Reilly - joined yesterday by West Virginia Attorney
>General Darrell V. McGraw Jr.  - said he would press forward with
>an appeal of a federal judge's approval of a broad antitrust
>settlement between the company and the US Justice Department,
>struck last year.  The deal requires Microsoft to provide
>outsiders access to various software code and other steps, but
>Reilly said the settlement was filled with loopholes.  He
>suggested further restrictions, such as prohibiting Microsoft from
>"commingling" computer code between its Internet Explorer browser
>and its Windows operating systems.
>
>Paul Egerman, chief executive of transcription systems provider
>eScription Inc.  of Needham, said he found Reilly's actions
>"neither good nor bad." Egerman, vice chairman of the influential
>software council, added that "by coming down in the middle, I'm
>showing the same ambivalence that the whole software industry in
>the state feels about it." Indeed, the council's members are so
>divided on the matter of Microsoft that the group doesn't even
>take a formal position on the case, the most important federal
>technology-policy issue of recent years.
>
>Among prosecutors, however, some said it makes sense that Reilly
>would be among the last left standing.  For one thing, Reilly just
>won an unopposed election, and hasn't been worn down by years of
>bruising rhetorical combat with Microsoft.
>
>"He's fresher, and there may be some merit in the idea that it's
>his turn to carry the ball," said Steve Houck, a former New York
>antitrust official who remains in contact with Reilly and other
>state officials on the case.
>
>In an interview yesterday Reilly said he's heard privately from
>many supporters since announcing his decision.  The politics of
>the situation, he said, didn't play a part in his thinking anyway.
>"I have a core principle that I believe in, that there's no place
>for politics when it comes to law enforcement," he said.
>
>But he also acknowledged Microsoft has outlasted many opponents,
>and that he could face a trying crusade going forward.
>
>"Microsoft is powerful and has unlimited resources and from the
>beginning has been able to wear down and crush anyone who gets in
>their way," he said.  Once it reached a more amiable agreement
>with the US Justice Department last year, Reilly said, Microsoft's
>"goal was to split the states and wear them down one by one, and
>they've accomplished that goal," he said.  "But it's important
>that someone stays the course, and Massachusetts will, and bring
>this to a conclusion."
>
>Reilly's predecessor, Scott Harshbarger, helped develop the
>state's case against Microsoft, filed in 1998, but Reilly wasn't
>always the company's most vocal critic and often let the attorneys
>general of California, Connecticut, and Iowa take the lead in
>hearings.
>
>All three were among those who agreed to settle the matter last
>Friday, leaving some long-time activists surprised that Reilly
>stayed with the cause.  "I can tell you Reilly wasn't first on my
>list" of those expected to fight to the end, said Mark Cooper,
>research director at the Consumer Federation of America, a harsh
>critic of Microsoft.
>
>State records of contributions to Reilly's 2002 reelection
>campaign show donations from people involved in a wide range of
>banks and law firms, but relatively few who listed employment at
>technology companies.
>
>Reilly said he decided to become more active a year ago, after the
>Justice Department struck an agreement with Microsoft that lacked
>the harshest remedies suggested by Clinton administration
>officials such as breaking up the company, an idea a federal
>appeals court rejected.
>
>Reilly said the state's legal costs since the case began total
>about $1 million, mostly reflecting the time of staff attorneys
>rather than cash expenses.  The state expects to recover those
>costs from Microsoft eventually, he said, though by declining to
>join the settling states, his office in effect has passed up the
>chance to have its costs paid from a $25 million pool Microsoft
>agreed to set up.
>
>A Microsoft spokesman said that Massachusetts and West Virginia
>can only expect to recover their costs going forward "if they win
>their appeal." Asked if the states would be repaid their costs to
>date, he said, "that's still an open question."
>
>Among the state prosecutors, some of the largest expenses so far
>have been paid by California to a Washington law firm, Williams &
>Connolly.  The firm also handled Reilly's notice of appeal last
>week, but Reilly said talks are still continuing over exactly what
>role the firm will play going forward.
>
>Some policy groups, including Citizens Against Government Waste
>and the National Taxpayers Union, have blasted Reilly's decision
>as a waste of resources.  In Boston, Mike Widmer, president of the
>Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, said he wasn't as concerned at
>the cost, which is already built into the budget of Reilly's
>office.  "The issue of taxpayer dollars is a red herring," he
>said.
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