Gates mum on antitrust case in LV talk

Wednesday, May 10, 2000 | 11:34 a.m.

Bill Gates received several love letters last week.

But like every other savvy computer user, he didn't open them for fear of what the vaunted ILOVEYOU virus would do to his system.

Gates shared the anecdote Tuesday as he kicked off the Networld+Interop 2000 computer trade show as the keynote speaker at the Las Vegas Convention Center and the Las Vegas Hilton.

About 75,000 people are in Las Vegas for the convention, which focuses on connectivity of computers -- the devices, software and theories about networking computers to make them more productive. Use of the Internet is a key component of the show.

Gates, making his third Las Vegas speaking appearance in six months, touched on last week's viral attack on computer systems worldwide to illustrate the vulnerability of some corporate computer systems. Then, he issued a call to arms to upgrade security.

"We (Microsoft) will continue to include improved support for important security technologies like smart cards, smart-card readers and biometrics," Gates said. "Today, I'm asking the industry to join Microsoft in working to make it easier to purchase and deploy these security technologies."

David Willman, managing director of Integrated Information Systems, Las Vegas, a computer consultant, said Gates' call to action was a small element of Microsoft's bid to be a player in big-platform computer networks.

"Microsoft has done a good job of winning the desktop battle," Willman said. "Now, they want to be an application server. It's readily apparent that they are moving up in the enterprise to take on IBM and Oracle."

Proof of the Redmond, Wash., company's bid to challenge the network computing giants was Microsoft's announcement at Networld+Interop of the launch of Windows Services for UNIX, a cross-platform support program that will run UNIX from a Windows environment.

UNIX, one of the first operating systems to be written in a high-level programming language, is flexible and powerful, but is notorious for its lack of user-friendliness.

While Willman thinks Microsoft is positioning itself to have products that can be used by Fortune 50 companies, he found it ironic that Gates made no mention of Microsoft's antitrust woes with the U.S. Department of Justice.

Prosecutors want Microsoft to be broken up. Microsoft is expected to reply today with a counterproposal and is vigorously opposing the plan.

"I was expecting he might address some of the issues raised by the Justice Department," Willman said. "But instead, he stuck to the message Microsoft has been preaching for the last couple years, that there's stability and security in the Windows applications and answering detractors who say Windows can't support the bigger systems."

Willman said using smart-card technology to improve computer security is something Gates and Microsoft have been preaching for years.

Gates said Tuesday that a password system is the biggest vulnerability to a computer system's security. He said using smart cards -- encoded cards that enable a user to access a system -- and passwords would keep hackers out of computer systems.

He said that while most people are in agreement that a smart card-password combination would effective, there are few companies that have implemented such a system.

Gates recommended that hardware vendors accelerate placing smart-card readers in their systems, that business customers begin deploying smart-card-enabled systems and that software vendors integrate the use of the cards for authentication.