Microsoft Employees Barrage Gore on Antitrust Case

Impassioned Microsoft employees who said they were disillusioned and confused by the government’s prosecution of the software giant pressed Vice President Al Gore to explain the administration’s position Monday during a forum at the company campus.

Calm but forceful, Gore refused to comment on the antitrust case but defended the principle of maintaining competition in the high-tech industry.

“If competition is valuable, which I think it is, then antitrust laws have a place in embodying the values of our country,” he said. “If dominance in one area is used to prevent that competition in another area, that’s wrong.”

On Nov. 5, a U.S. district judge ruled in a finding of fact that Microsoft uses its position as a monopoly to stifle competition.

The hourlong session Monday with about 200 Microsoft employees, one in a series of candidate forums hosted by the company, was dominated by workers quizzing Gore about the case, even as the vice president insisted he couldn’t discuss it. Bill Gates, head of Microsoft, was absent; he was in Las Vegas at a technology convention.

“I want to vote for you, and I’m deeply conflicted,” said one employee, who said he started interning at Microsoft when he was 14. “I have these strong social values the Democratic Party also shares, but they also seem to accuse me and my employer of trying to harm the American public. It doesn’t add up.”

At one point, after the employees continued to push him to talk about the case, an exasperated Gore asked: “How many of these [questions] are there?”

Almost everyone in the room raised a hand.

Gore said he could respect the employees’ feelings. But he reiterated that preventing a monopoly from taking over an industry is an important American principle.

“I’m not going to say anything about this case,” he said, but he added a few minutes later: “An entrepreneur or a company that wants to develop an application interface--just to pick a random example--and is not able to go into the marketplace and compete has a right to say, ‘Hey, wait a minute, that violates a fundamental American value.’ ”

The exchange with the employees, punctuated by laughter and applause, was a friendly one overall. Nevertheless, the debate about Microsoft was intense, with many employees arguing that they saw themselves as struggling to stay ahead in a viciously competitive market--not dominating the industry with monopoly power.

“It sounds like you would characterize the software industry as having troubling competitive issues, that capitalism needs an assist from the greater wisdom of government to sort of push innovation along,” one employee said.

Gore interrupted him: “No, that’s not what I’ve said at all.”

Beyond the debate about Microsoft, the audience applauded enthusiastically at Gore’s policy positions on establishing a national hate-crimes law and more gun control. At the end, they gave him a standing ovation. Jeff Raikes, a Microsoft vice president and a member of Gore’s national finance steering committee, presented him with a green fleece Microsoft vest.

“His credibility came through,” said Rajeev Dujani, a software developer. “He didn’t tell us what we wanted to hear. He told us how he felt. I thought his answers were appropriate.”

Later, at a press conference, the vice president distanced himself from the decision to prosecute Microsoft, saying that the Justice Department makes those calls independently. “These are not political decisions,” he said.

Gore also chose to use the forum to emphasize the importance of pursuing new technology, saying he supports creating permanent tax cuts for research and innovation and doubling the country’s investment in information technology. He said he backs the use of privacy software and complemented the steps Microsoft has taken to give parents tools to monitor their children’s computer use.

Meanwhile, Gore’s Democratic challenger, Bill Bradley, appeared at a New Hampshire Catholic college Monday with former Secretary of Labor Robert B. Reich, who endorsed the former New Jersey senator’s presidential campaign.

Reich, a former Harvard professor, said he was torn over which Democrat to support but finally chose Bradley because of his stances on health care, child poverty and other domestic issues.

Chris Lehane, Gore’s spokesman, said the endorsement came as no surprise because Reich has made it clear in the past that he disagrees with the Clinton-Gore administration’s welfare policy.

Times staff writer Stephen Braun contributed to this story.