Microsoft may have lied to DoJ

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20041007.html ^ | 10/7/04 | Robert X. Cringely

[Peelod]

... Burst, a two-person dot-com survivor from Santa Rosa, Calif., where I used to live, has been suing Microsoft for two years for anti-trust, breach of contract, restraint of trade, and patent infringement. In the great panoply of Microsoft civil anti-trust lawsuits, Burst's might be the last, and for Microsoft, it has to be the worst because Redmond looks so bad. This week, the news from recently unsealed court documents is that Microsoft may have deliberately lied not only to Burst, but also to the other anti-trust litigants right up to and including the U.S. Department of Justice.

You will find the two relevant unsealed documents in their entirety in this week's list of links. ...documents are unsealed when the judge decides that it is more important for the public to know what is in them than to not know, so Judge Motz, too, thinks this is worth your time. By the way, this is probably the first time these documents have been broadly released. ... One huge issue in Burst v. Microsoft is missing e-mails that should have appeared in the discovery portion of the case, but didn't. Burst knows there are lost messages because many of them were to and from Burst, itself, so they have their copies. But not only are the known messages lost from Microsoft's e-mail archive, so are any messages on the same subject that may have been sent between the Microsoft people, themselves, and not shared with Burst -- messages that Burst only believes to exist, but it's a pretty fair assumption that some such mail did happen. I have written about this before, and it plays back to a haphazard corporate e-mail retention policy at Microsoft that seems to conveniently lose any damning evidence. ...

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20041007.html

[Always Right]

I hope the courts come down on Microsoft as hard as they came down on Clinton for Lying, assuming they even did lie.

[Peelod]

I have been following this remarkable case since this thread appeared on FR in 8/03.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/973466/posts

[glorgau]

Cringely writes some pretty astute stuff.

[Peelod]

If we keep our e-mail longer than 30 days, it starts to smell


http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/business/columnists/gmsv/9892415. htm

[glorgau]

IMHO, Micro$oft looks at the occasional $400 or $500 million court judgement as a cost of doing business. The cost will have to get up intothe tens of billions to make them change their spots.

[hoosierham]

Just like the criminals who pay off cops and judges;or the manufacturer who pays liabilty claims because its cheaper than redesigning the product.ZThis is what happens when money triumps over morals.