“Did the tactics that made Bill Gates the world’s richest man
provoke the threat of a breakup? The judge thought so. The road to
a harsh verdict.”
“It was a bleak winter day in early 1998, and Microsoft’s
lawyers had come from Redmond to appear before Judge Thomas
Penfield Jackson in the other Washington. In a legal clash
predating the landmark antitrust suit, Jackson had asked the
company to remove its Web browser from Windows 95 on the grounds
that forcing the browser on PC makers violated a prior pact with
the Feds. Microsoft said a separation was technically impossible.
But to comply with the judge’s order, the company produced one
browser-free version of Windows 95 so old that its shelf life was
even shorter than Bill Gates’s temper. Another browserless version
was so broken its only feature was an error message. The judge was
clearly angry that Microsoft insisted the only way to comply with
his order was to ship defective products. It was a hardball
maneuver that cost Bill Gates & Co. dearly.”
“The judge’s frustration had been mounting. Already in this
early skirmish, Microsoft had submitted a legal brief questioning
the technical know-how of Justice Department attorneys-and by
extension the judge-who “have no vocation for software design.” It
also went over his head to the appeals court. Ultimately siding
with Microsoft, the appellate judges overruled Jackson and told him
the courts shouldn’t be software designers. For Gates’s empire, it
was a short-lived victory. Looking back recently, one Microsoft
insider said that first round clearly came at a high price: “We
shouldn’t have pissed off the judge.”
“Last week Jackson ordered the biggest software redesign
Microsoft has ever known, concluding that splitting the
software giant into two independent companies was “imperative.” …
If upheld, Jackson’s order, aside from causing the biggest
Windows crash in the company’s 25-year history, would bring an end
to a software empire that became the planet’s most valuable
company and an engine of the New Economy. Some-Microsofties
among them-will blame the judge. Some will blame an overzealous
government that has unsuccessfully tried to rein in Microsoft for
more than a decade. A NEWSWEEK reconstruction of the key moments on
the road to Microsoft’s Judgment Day, however, suggests that the
most likely culprit is the same defiant corporate culture that made
Microsoft so successful in the first place. … “Microsoft took a
scorched-earth approach,” says Howard University law-school
professor Andrew Gavil, “and they got scorched.”