Politech: FC: Microsoft foes open up wallets for Orrin Hatch fundraiser

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

********

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-12/09/212l-120999-idx.html

Microsoft Foes Team Up For Hatch Fund-Raiser

  By John Mintz
  Washington Post Staff Writer
  Thursday, December 9, 1999; Page A26 

  Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) has for years been one of the Senate's most
  outspoken critics of the business tactics employed by Microsoft Corp.
  Now, a group of Microsoft's most bitter corporate enemies are holding a
  Silicon Valley fund-raiser for Hatch's presidential campaign.

  Hatch won many friends in the software industry when his Senate Judiciary
  Committee held a series of scathing hearings on Microsoft's tactics. Last
  month, after a federal judge ruled against the firm in the first round of an
  antitrust trial, Hatch said he wanted to hold more hearings, this time to
  explore how to rein in Microsoft. [...]

  Hatch also has tapped one of the firms putting on the fund-raiser for
  assistance on another front. His campaign recently asked America Online
  Inc. to fly him around on its corporate jet. Although the company agreed,
  Flint said, "the jet wasn't available at the times we requested." 

  [...]

  But Hatch has drawn an impressive roster of e-economy executives to
  sponsor Friday's fund-raiser--a list consisting almost entirely of companies
  embracing the Justice Department's antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft.

  They include Eric Schmidt of Novell Inc.--based in Hatch's home state of
  Utah--as well as Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems Inc., Jeff Henley of
  Oracle Corp., George Vradenburg of AOL and Larry Wolfe of Intuit Inc.
  Another is Andrew Steinberg of Sabre Inc., an airline reservation company
  that isn't even based in Silicon Valley, but is a vigorous opponent of
  Microsoft's tactics.

  Hatch and his Senate staff worked closely with these firms in mounting
  anti-Microsoft hearings over the last two years. A former Hatch chief of
  staff, Kevin McGuiness, went on to become a lobbyist for ProComp, an
  organization formed by a number of these companies to pressure Congress
  and the Justice Department to crack down on Microsoft. Now McGuiness
  is Hatch's campaign manager and helped organize the Silicon Valley event.

  [...]



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