March 5, 1998

Gates Visits a Carefully Prepared 6th-Grade Classroom

---

By JACQUES STEINBERG

EW YORK -- A day after he was hauled before a United States Senate panel and all but accused of plotting to take over the world, the country's richest man had to settle Wednesday for commandeering a sixth-grade classroom at a middle school in upper Manhattan.

Forgive the students if they didn't exactly recognize their surroundings after he had temporarily redecorated the place.

The special class guest was Microsoft chairman Bill Gates. To help him feel more at home during his one-hour visit, his handlers removed all of the students' desks, hung five banks of movie lights from the ceiling and used electrical tape to affix a brand-new tan rug to the floor for the students to sit on.

The public relations team also attached microphones to the lapels of the district superintendent, the principal, the classroom teacher and Gates, so that their words could be picked up by a Microsoft video crew. More than two dozen print and broadcast journalists were also invited by Microsoft to the occasion.

Gates was at the Mott Hall School, at 131st Street and Convent Avenue in Manhattan, to survey a laptop-computer leasing program that Microsoft has helped finance. But his appearance was also intended to convey another message to the next generation of software consumers: he's not such a scary guy after all.

To the often reclusive Gates, who has made himself increasingly available to reporters in recent weeks to counter criticism that he is intent on running his rivals into the ground and out of the marketplace, the 24 sixth graders represented an audience ripe for persuading.

"Let me just explain to the students what happened yesterday," Gates said. The Judiciary Committee was exploring, its chairman said, "How market power works in the software industry and whether Microsoft is abusing its market power."

As Gates spoke serenely from a wooden chair, his 11- and 12-year-old listeners were arrayed on the rug at his feet. "Yesterday," he said, "I was in our nation's capital, Washington, D.C. A group of senators had asked me to come to talk about the computer industry and the software industry, because they see it as very important and fast-moving.

"They also invited some of my competitors," he said. "You know, it's like someone you compete with in sports. They don't always say nice things about you. They say, 'We want to beat 'em. We want to get 'em.' "

In fall 1996, Community School District 6 offered leases on laptops to 20 fifth graders at Mott Hall as part of a pilot program subsidized by Microsoft and Toshiba U.S.A. The parents pay $35 a month.

Last fall, the district superintendent, Anthony Amato, expanded the program to 500 other students in the district, which is among the poorest in the city. The evidence is preliminary, but officials say the students with the laptops are watching less television and writing more, and are absent from school less often than the students without laptops.

Wednesday, some students showed what they had done with Microsoft programs like Power Point.

Justina Foggie, 11, demonstrated her class project on nuclear energy, as Gates peered over her shoulder.

"This is about why we use nuclear energy and why it's dangerous," she told her guest.

"Hmmm," said Gates. "That's cool."

Michael Pacheco, 11, told how he had traveled the Internet in preparation for a class celebration of Kwanzaa, and returned with a recipe for sweet potato pie.

"Pretty good," Gates said.

Then Gates sat down to field questions from his young audience, which was far friendlier than many senators had been.

"What are your professional goals for the future?" asked one girl.

"I feel very lucky to be in the job I'm in," Gates responded. "The idea is to make these computers a lot easier to use than they are today."

After Gates had departed, (his minions took their lights, but left behind the rug), the talk was of wealth and monopolies.

Though the Justice Department is pursuing an antitrust suit against Microsoft, Jinelle Angeles, 12, said she was comfortable with Gates' contention that there is plenty of room for rivals in the computer business.

"He seemed comfortable when we asked him a question," she said. "He always had a smile on his face. It's nice to see a grown-up like that."