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A L S O_ T O D A Y
T A B L E__T A L K What's the dream operating system for cruising the Internet? It's another Mac vs. Windows go-round in the 21st area of Table Talk
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R E C E N T L Y Let's Get This Straight: Gathering of the Linux tribes Molotovs and mailing lists Terrors of the Amazon In defense of day traders
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Fortress Microsoft
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Bill Gates appeared before an audience of journalists via a satellite link at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., in December to clear up some of the mysteries and confusion surrounding the Microsoft antitrust case. It was, in a sense, the ultimate tech support call -- and as is the case with many calls to Microsoft for assistance, the results left users frustrated, angry, resentful and stymied. "There was only time to take two questions. It was hardly a press conference -- it was an audience," says Steve Young, an anchor for CNN Financial News. Whatever you call it, the event epitomized the mess Microsoft has been making of its media relations. The company keeps reaching out, convinced of its own righteousness; but reporters, faced with Microsoft's unyielding party-line mind-set, increasingly mistrust it. Recent conversations with a wide range of reporters, few of whom would speak on the record, suggest that, even as the company's credibility has been battered in the courtroom, Microsoft faces a crisis of trust among the press. For the National Press Club event, about 80 reporters were crammed into a boxlike room along with a platoon of Microsoft lawyers, technical experts and PR representatives. Microsoft spokespeople say they were clear about the purpose of the gathering. "A lot of reporters wanted to know Microsoft's perspective and point of view around the middle part of the trial," says Greg Shaw, one of the company's lead spokespeople. "The event was not a Gates event." The session's goal, Shaw says, was to provide a midcourse look at Microsoft's case. But attending journalists were looking for something more. On trial days, Microsoft presents its point of view before, during and after the court sessions; these presentations had become so routine that most journalists were skipping them. "Bill Gates was bait," one reporter from a leading West Coast daily says. But the lure didn't stay hooked: After two questions, Gates announced he was leaving. "People started yelling. People mocked him mercilessly. There were names being called. And so he let us ask another question," the reporter says. After the avalanche of abuse, Gates answered one more query -- then he signed off. Microsoft officials remember things a bit differently. Yes, Gates was only on-screen a short time. But Microsoft had enough people present to ensure journalists' questions would get answered. "He took three questions, and all three questions were essentially the same, but the floor remained open, and many questions followed that," Shaw says. "The trial lawyers were available ad nauseam," he adds, and journalists were able to get what they needed. Many members of the media who were present don't seem to feel that way now, and certainly didn't then. "After Gates left, the questioning was nasty, it was very hostile and combative," one technology writer says. Trade and business journalists are not known for their combativeness and hostility. They tend to get into the field because they love writing about new gadgets and interesting people, and they are usually more comfortable shouting at unresponsive hardware than at warm-blooded human beings. If they're not somehow just becoming nastier as a group, then Microsoft must have done something to rile them en masse. The journalists who cover Microsoft seem to feel that the individuals working for the company are decent enough. "The people who are there are genial, nice people. They are personable. They are people you wouldn't mind hanging around with," says one reporter with a daily newspaper known for quality tech coverage. The problem, reporters say, is that Microsoft execs and employees simply seem to see things through different eyes than the rest of the world. N E X T_P A G E .|. "They're reading from a script -- they can't go off script"
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