$ cat ./records/testimony-details-how-microsoft-punished-ibm-for-backing-rival-so-1999.txt
Testimony Details How Microsoft Punished IBM for Backing Rival Software
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Testimony at Microsoft's 1999 antitrust trial detailed how the company punished IBM for supporting rival software. IBM executive Garry Norris recounted that because IBM kept shipping its competing OS/2 operating system and SmartSuite applications, Microsoft charged IBM higher prices for Windows and withheld technical help — at one point IBM faced paying far more for Windows 95 than rivals did, with a discount dangled in exchange for dropping OS/2. Microsoft later paid IBM $775 million, in 2005, to settle related antitrust claims. The account illustrated the coercive tactics Gates's company used to protect the Windows monopoly.
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Related Accomplishments
2026
Gates Foundation Trust Sells Off the Last of Its Microsoft Stock
In the first quarter of 2026, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust sold its remaining Microsoft shares, fully exiting a position in the very company that created Gates's fortune — capping a long, deliberate diversification away from the stock. The endowment that funds Gates's philanthropy, managed separately from its grant-making through Cascade, is now anchored instead by Berkshire Hathaway, Waste Management, railroads, and heavy-equipment makers. The sale underscored how thoroughly Gates's giving had decoupled from Microsoft's day-to-day fortunes.
2026
Gates's Charitable Endowment Is Now Led by Berkshire, Not Microsoft
By 2026, the publicly disclosed stock portfolio of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust — the endowment that funds Gates's philanthropy — was led not by Microsoft but by Berkshire Hathaway, Waste Management, Canadian National Railway, Caterpillar, and Deere. Decades of diversification, plus Warren Buffett's stock gifts, left it concentrated in railroads, waste, heavy equipment, and Buffett's conglomerate, while Microsoft — the source of the original fortune — had largely been sold down. The unglamorous, value-oriented mix reflects the long stewardship of Gates's money manager, Michael Larson, through Cascade Investment.
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