Senate calls Gates, McNealy and Barksdale to testify

The chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday asked Bill Gates, chairman and CEO of Microsoft Corp., to testify at a hearing March 3 on competition in the software industry.

Also invited to testify were Scott McNealy, president and CEO of Sun Microsystems, Inc., and Jim Barksdale, president and CEO of Netscape Communications Corp.

A Microsoft spokesman said Gates had a "previous long-standing commitment" that conflicts with the hearing date, which he could not specify for security reasons. If Gates cannot make it, Microsoft will send another senior executive, the spokesman said.

"We hope that the hearing will be fair and balanced," he added.

At Netscape, even though Barksdale was freed up for the event, it was not certain that he would make it.

"Mr. Barksdale's schedule is open. We've juggled some things around to make him available to be at the hearing," said Netscape spokeswoman Chris Holten. "Mr. Barksdale would welcome the opportunity to appear with Mr. Gates...," she said. "If Mr. Gates does not attend it's highly unlikely Mr. Barksdale will."

Officials at Sun said they did not yet know if McNealy was available.

"We're taking a look at it right now. Until we've checked his calendar we won't know whether or not he will be available to attend," said Sun spokeswoman Anne Little. "We definitely feel that the issues Sen. Hatch is raising are important ones" and that all of them should be covered, she added.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) has expressed concern about Microsoft's dominance in the marketplace and is looking at competition, innovation and public policy in the computer industry. The hearing is part of the committee's ongoing investigation into those issues.

The committee expects to hear "industry perspectives on the competitive dynamics underlying significant structural shifts in modern computing," the committee said in a statement.

"This should provide an important step in our consideration of how antitrust policy could best serve consumers and the long-term health of the software industry and the Internet generally," Hatch said in the statement.

The hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m. EST in Washington, D.C.