THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Monday, July 22, 1996                 TAG: 9607190011
SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A6   EDITION: FINAL 
TYPE: Letter 
                                            LENGTH:   39 lines

BILL GATES' INNOVATION HAS NOT BEEN ILLEGAL

Regarding ``America needs to wake up to Bill Gates' spell'' (letter, July 15) and the statement ``His thrashing of the Justice Department has left his monopolistic practices to run free'':

Bill Gates did not thrash the Justice Department. The department had no evidence or legal foothold to prosecute Microsoft or Bill Gates, so it dropped the cases. As for ``monopolistic practices,'' Microsoft is not doing anything different from the local electric company, Cox Cable or the phone company.

Microsoft has developed several products that not only outsell the competition but also outperform them. There is plenty of competition from companies such as Lotus, Corel and IBM. Microsoft has just produced better products than any of the others. Windows 95 is outselling O/S2; Office is outselling both Lotus SmartSuite and Corel WordPerfect Office; and Windows NT is quickly overtaking Novell NetWare. The competition is there but is rapidly falling by the wayside.

The statement: ``Bill Gates is taking over the Internet with his lawyers and his money. . . .'' is made by someone who obviously does not know what the Internet really is. The Internet is a collection of private, public and governmental networks. One person cannot ``own'' the Internet, no matter how powerful or rich that person is.

For the Internet to become the ``lifeline of the nation's commerce,'' it must first be accepted by the banking industry. Unless there is dramatic innovation in the encryption techniques used to conduct business over the Internet, there is no way it will be accepted by the major banks of the world.

The Internet has been in place since the 1960s, and it has taken 30 years to get where it is today.

Bill Gates may be the richest man in the world, but he has not used any illegal methods to become this. I am not a fan of Bill Gates, but I do admire his American spirit.

DOUG BECKER

Virginia Beach, July 15, 1996 by CNB