41.   Friday, a key Microsoft executive negotiated with the Justice Department and two state attorneys general in an effort to avert the lawsuit against the software giant.

42.   Gorton delivered a lengthy speech on the floor of the Senate defending the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant.

43.   Gorton, a Republican, and Murray, a Democrat, share a loyalty to the Redmond, Wash., software giant that trumps their usual partisan differences.

44.   He built Lotus Development Corp. into a billion-dollar software giant.

45.   He fires potshots at the Justice Department lawyers prosecuting the software giant including David Boies, who Lewis notes was wearing his signature cheap suit on opening day.

46.   He said the software giant should be split in two to prevent future violations but stayed the order pending appeals.

47.   He now gets more e-mail from shareholders and customers siding with the Justice Department in its ongoing battle with the software giant.

48.   He said the Redmond, Wash., software giant had never intended to use the data for marketing purposes.

49.   He was at Lotus when the software giant transformed itself from a spreadsheet company to a communications company.

50.   How the software giant copes with these multiple challenges will have bear heavily on its prospects well into the new century.