The Microsoft Probe Looks Like A Bust For The Trustbusters

With their three-year-old probe of Microsoft Corp.'s business practices in limbo, staffers at the Federal Trade Commission could use a little levity. So their spirits were lifted by a recent National Enquirer "expose" detailing Microsoft Chairman William H. Gates III's computerized courtship of his fiancee, company executive Melinda French. The story said French received Gates's proposal as an electronic message, delivered at the end of an interactive computer game. Microsoft officials dismissed the tabloid's "bombshell" as pure nonsense. No matter. A few FTC staffers have posted the story on their office doors. Says one staffer: "It gave everyone around here a good chuckle."

But Chairman Gates may have the last laugh. Nearly three months have passed since four FTC commissioners were deadlocked over a staff recommendation that a federal antitrust complaint be brought against the software giant. Now, it looks as if Microsoft may walk away from the probe in better shape than anyone had expected. "It's less of a case than it was before," says one FTC official.