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Tables Are Turning (1/14/98)
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That karma wheel just may be taking Microsoft on a downward cycle. In today's episode of "Redmond Justice," the contempt hearing between Microsoft and the Justice Department finished up with the software giant poised precariously on the edge of a million-dollar-a-day cliff, and Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson poking them in the butt with a sharp stick.
Okay, maybe it's not quite that dramatic, but it's pretty clear that the judge is just plain out of patience when it comes to entertaining the specious arguments put forth by Microsoft's lawyers. A Techweb article describes an incredulous Judge Jackson asking Microsoft's counsel, "It was absolutely clear to you that I entered an order that required that you distribute a product that would not work?" Microsoft's lawyer responded, "In plain English, yes. We followed the order. It wasn't my place to consider the consequences." What a hoot... Both sides will present summaries on Monday and closing arguments on Thursday, and the judge is expected to issue a ruling within a week thereafter.
To add injury to insult, news.com reports that today Judge Jackson also denied Microsoft's request to disqualify Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig as a "special master" in the ongoing case, despite Microsoft's claims that Lessig is "biased" against them. So as of today, it seems that the official expert in this Microsoft anti-trust case is a Mac user. The possibilities boggle the mind, don't they? Lessig is already known to have gotten upset when installing Internet Explorer on his Mac screwed up his Netscape bookmarks; Microsoft had better hope that Lessig wasn't a Mac Word user who got burned by the "upgrade" from version 5.1a to 6.0, or the temptation to exact revenge will be far too great for a mere mortal to resist...
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 1/14/98 episode: January 14, 1998: (Sorry—this was before we started writing intro text for each episode!)
Other scenes from that episode: 357: An Extra $2 Million (1/14/98) It's official, now-- the profit that Steve Jobs reported at last week's MacWorld Expo has been posted, and surprise! It's even a little bigger than he said: $47 million instead of 45. The really interesting phenomenon, though, is seeing all the different "spin" imparted on the story by various news sources... 359: Claris Rumors Abound (1/14/98) What the?!... We must say, it came as a bit of a surprise when we started noticing all the rumors about Claris selling off a slew of products and then being reabsorbed into Apple. For example, the buzz at MacOS Rumors is that Home Page may be bought by Netscape, Emailer will either be sold with Home Page or will simply be dropped, Filemaker Pro may be sold to Oracle, and ClarisWorks may be assimilated by Apple and renamed...
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