No Chinese wall at Microsoft

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From aaronr Thu Mar 21 18:06:04 1991
To: billg stevb
cc: bradsi
Subject RE: Win 3.1 compatible WinWord 1.1A

Well sproket gaged on this the first time, so lets try again.

> From aaronr Thu Mar 21 17:38:40 1991
To: billg billn stevb
cc: bradsi divid col philba
Subject RE: Win 3.1 compatible WinWord 1.1A
Date: Thu Mar 21 17:33:24 1991

> From xxxxx Thu MAr 21 16:39:54 1991
To: obu - Mail alias composed 100% of people in the APPS division as confirmed by doing a PHONE on them all.
Cc: xxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxx
Subject RE: Win 3.1 compatible WinWord 1.1A
Date: Thu Mar 21 16:35:47 1991

..

Pretending that I am a legal type person doing discovery type stuff I am rather inclined to say:

Microsoft applications division was in the possession of pre release copies of Windows 3.10 well in advance of any non-Microsoft Windows ISVs thus giving Microsoft Applications Division a substantial competitive advantage over any non-Microsoft Windows ISV.

Any statement that a "wall" of some kind exists between Microsoft applications and systems divisions is obviously false.

..

From billg Thu MAr 21 20:00:47 1991
To: arronr steveb
Subject RE: Win 3.1 compatible WinWord 1.1A
Cc: bradsi martyta
Date: Thu Mar 21 20:00:46 1991

I think you should be careful with this amateur lawyering

Who made a statement that any wall exists between applications and systems? No one from Microsoft ever did. Our competitors have trotted that out as a straw man just to shoot it down. It seems you have fallen for that. There isn't a wall and we never said there is.

..

Our applications group has been totally open about their windows strategy - our openness in enplaning what we are doing is a burden imposed by also having a systems group. Every speech I have given for the last 8 years talked about our commitment to do a family of windows applications first.

[edit] Full Exhibit

http://boycottnovell.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/px04385.pdf