Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, in a published interview, refused to rule out breaking up his company to settle a government antitrust suit, but a spokesman said Monday the company rejected a break-up.
Gates said that although he wants to settle, he would oppose any deal that would restrict the company's freedom to design Windows and assure its consistency. But in the interview with Time magazine he twice refused discussion about a solution that might involve breaking up the software giant.
"I can't go down the path of saying what the settlement would be," Gates replied when asked about breaking up Microsoft so that the Windows computer operating system would be made by a separate company.
In a follow-up question, Gates was asked if Windows must be part of Microsoft. "In terms of discussing the details of a settlement, I can't do that," he replied.
Microsoft spokesman Mark Murray, asked about the interview, said, "We have said throughout this process we don't believe there is any legal or logical basis for these extreme proposals, such as a break-up or a confiscation of Microsoft's intellectual property, and our position on that is completely unchanged."
While Gates did not talk about breaking up the company, he was specific in rejecting other remedies as the basis for a settlement.
He said he did not like limiting what the company can do to Windows and that any settlement must preserve the "principle ... [that Microsoft is free] to add features to Windows."
Gates also said that making the Windows secret source code public, a remedy suggested by some, would be bad for consumers. If the code were public, people might modify it and make it inconsistent, he said.
It would be bad if "when people buy Windows they don't know what is in it," he said.
Gates said he wants to be able to assure that computer makers show Windows on their opening screens in a consistent way. Otherwise, he said, "it can't make sense for consumers."
But US District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson found that Microsoft had not been consistent in this and had often acted simply with the aim of maintaining its monopoly on the Windows computer operating system.
Jackson, in his findings of fact, said Microsoft had used monopoly power to hurt consumers and other companies.
Legal scholars and others say the judge's eventual ruling is sure to go against Microsoft, given his findings of fact.
That ruling, and later imposition of remedies, could be forestalled by settling the case with the Justice Department and 19 states, which sued the company last year. Microsoft may also appeal any ruling the judge makes.
One motivation for the company to settle is that if the judge rules against Microsoft, it will put the company at an immediate disadvantage in private antitrust suits against it.
Even if it were to appeal an adverse ruling by Jackson, other firms could use the judge's decision in their own suits to establish that Microsoft was a predatory monopoly.
