Wendy Goldman Rohm claims that Bill Gates personally has it in for her, that he's petitioned editors to bury her stories, and that, according to sources inside Microsoft, Gates's closest minions have nicknamed her "the Bulldog." Goldman Rohm's The Microsoft File: The Secret Case Against Bill Gates is an exhaustive and spirited fly-on-the-wall account of Microsoft's fiercest competitors and the marbled hallways of the US Department of Justice. If the book proves anything, though, it's that Gates has no reason to worry.
Despite the author's intentions, her insider tales of strategy sessions at Novell, Apple, IBM, and even the Federal Trade Commission show that Microsoft's detractors are as responsible for their own undoing as Gates allegedly is.
The Microsoft File does record important scenes from the historic, and worthy, antitrust case against Redmond with unprecedented access and detail. But while the story may be more lively than the meticulously researched Gates by Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews, it snags on its colorful asides - Microsoft president Steve Ballmer and chief counsel Bill Neukom arranged "dates" for their boss, Gates took drugs while on vacation in Amsterdam. Ultimately, the book undermines its own reporting with unsubstantiated dirt. Worse, most stories are told without attribution and usually without fair comment from the company. (The author says her publisher's lawyers worried that Microsoft would identify sources.)
Goldman Rohm's work is more about old battles over DOS than recent scrapes involving Netscape's Navigator. In fact, mention of the current imbroglio appears only in the last 20 pages, ironically earning the work a new term: vaporbook.
The Microsoft File: The Secret Case Against Bill Gates, by Wendy Goldman Rohm: US$25.95. Times Books: on the Web at www.timesbooks.com/.
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