Gates: States' remedy an industry setback
C|Net | at | by Mike
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates told a crowded courtroom on Monday that a proposed antitrust remedy would fragment the Windows operating system, creating a chaos of incompatibilities and turning back the clock on the software industry. Testifying in person for the first time during the nearly 4-year-old antitrust case against the software giant, Gates argued that the remedy's provision on code removal would split Windows into many different versions. The remedy, proposed by nine states and the District of Columbia, calls for Microsoft to ship a version of Windows with so-called middleware, such as browsing software, stripped out.
"Under the states' proposal," Gates said, "Windows would no longer be uniform. Anyone who licensed 10,000 copies would...be able to make arbitrary changes" to the operating system.
Gates spent most of his written testimony going specifically through the states' remedy proposal and explained why it doesn't make sense, how it would hurt Microsoft, and the ways it would cripple the software industry.