Microsoft Plays Hard to Get

You can have Mr. Gates for eight hours, but no more. And you can't have our Windows source code at all. That was the message from Microsoft to the Justice Department late Tuesday, in the latest sign that the bad boy of the computer industry isn't going to play nice simply because the DOJ and 20 states have brought suit against it. Redmond is fighting hard against two government requests -- to interview Chairman Bill for two days, and to turn over the blueprints for Win 95 and Win 98.

The former, according to a spokesman, would be an "unfair and misguided imposition on Mr. Gates's time." On the latter, Microsoft stuck to its well-worn Coke analogy; the source code, it said, was the "software equivalent to the formula for Coca-Cola." Not only that, handing it over would "reveal plans for future operating systems." That's why they want the government experts examining it to agree not to work for Redmond's rivals in the next few years. No, says the government, that would bankrupt them.

But it's going to be tough for Microsoft not to look hypocritical, since it already agreed to turn over its source code to attorneys in a separate case against software firm Caldera in Utah. Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson has ordered a hearing Thursday to chew the matter over. Chances that this Microsoft veteran will raise a skeptical eyebrow at the latest complaint: High. Chances that Microsoft would appeal such a verdict: Even higher.