Bill Gates, chairman and CEO of Microsoft, brought all his friends in the personal computer industry together yesterday to voice their support for Windows '98. He also aimed to show the United States government that in either halting or delaying the release of Windows '98, innovators and consumers and the US economy would be hurt.

The timing was perfect. The US Department of Justice and several attorneys general are currently considering possible legal action against Microsoft. Windows '98 is scheduled to debut on June 25th One by one, Mr Bob Herbold, chief operation officer at Microsoft, introduced Microsoft proponents who gave short speeches: they included Mr Eckhard Pfeiffer, president and CEO of Compaq, Mr Ted Johnson, co-founder of Visio, and Mr James Halpin, president of CompUSA. "The current controversy was brought about by a handful of our competitors who wish to wrap up the free market with regulation," said Mr Herbold.

This reference was aimed at Sun Microsystems, IBM, Netscape and Oracle, all of which are opposing Microsoft. They lobbied Washington to do something about its "monopoly".