BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, MAY 18, 1998) MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: The first shots in what could become known as the "Windows war" were fired today. The Justice Department launching a massive antitrust lawsuit against the most successful company in a generation: Microsoft.</s>STUART VARNEY, CNN ANCHOR: Microsoft was taken to court by the Justice Department on the grounds that it held a monopoly in the operating system applied to personal computers, PCs. It was assumed that because Microsoft enjoyed a monopoly position, it had abused that monopoly position by stopping innovation in personal computers and software and actually doing down his competitors. (</s>BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, MAY 18, 1998) JOEL KLEIN, ASST. ATTORNEY GENERAL: At present, Microsoft is using its monopoly power to ensure that all PCs are, in reality, Microsoft PCs. It does this largely by controlling the first screen that consumers see when their computers boot up.</s>VARNEY: At first, Bill Gates responded to the charges in a very personal fashion. He assumed it was a personal attack upon him, not the company that he had built. When he appeared on the stand during the course of the trial, he appeared to be ill at ease. And the way he took it personally probably detracted from his cause. Subsequently, Microsoft was, indeed, found guilty on those terms, in rather harsh terms by Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson.
CNN 20: Antitrust Lawsuit Against Microsoft, May 18, 1998