When Bill Gates appeared in a television commercial last month to argue his case for keeping Microsoft Corp. intact, Advertising Age columnist Bob Garfield quipped that Microsoft's co-founder and chairman hoped to "look less like Dr. No and more like Mr. Rogers."
Wearing a comfortable sweater and an easy smile, Gates provided an amiable and low-key contrast to the testy and forgetful executive who appeared in videotaped testimony shown during the Justice Department's landmark antitrust trial.
But the world's largest software company is underwriting far more than an occasional commercial as it struggles to shape public opinion surrounding the government's bid to break up the Redmond, Wash.-based company.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ordered Microsoft to be broken up into two companies.
Microsoft has the deep pockets--$21 billion in cash, to be specific--to make its message heard. This is, after all, the company that hired the Rolling Stones to provide the soundtrack for its Windows 95 ad campaign.
Indeed, even before Jackson's ruling, Microsoft had been spending freely in recent years to assemble the public relations and lobbying firepower needed to press its case in Washington and state capitals nationwide.
Microsoft's allies and opponents alike agree that the company kicked its public relations and lobbying into overdrive when it became clear that the Justice Department wouldn't back away from its push to break Microsoft into pieces.
"A lot of people in our industry hadn't been heavily engaged in Washington and the political process," said Jason Mahler, vice president and general counsel of the Computer & Communications Industry Assn., which supports the government in its bid to break up Microsoft. "But Microsoft geared up very quickly. They've hired an army, because they obviously saw this was going to be the most significant issue for the company. "
Microsoft's buildup is evident in its lobbying expenditures. The company spent $2.12 million on lobbyists in 1997, according to the Washington-based Center for Responsive Politics. Microsoft's budget grew to $3.74 million in 1998, according to the center, and the company reportedly spent $4.6 million in 1999. Microsoft's money bought counsel from such seasoned political veterans as former Republican Party chief Haley Barbour and former Democratic Rep. Thomas Downey.
