Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Pays $536M to Novell
_mArk writes "This morning Novell announced that it had settled a potential law suit with Microsoft related to its NetWare product line. Microsoft agreed to pay $536 million to Novell, but this is not the end as there is another litigation against them pertaining to WordPerfect."
It was already slow for me, with 0 posts, so here it is:
WALTHAM, Mass. -- Nov. 08, 2004 -- Novell today announced an agreement with Microsoft to settle potential antitrust litigation related to Novell's NetWare operating system in exchange for $536 million in cash. Novell also announced that by the end of this week it will file an antitrust suit against Microsoft in the United States District Court in Utah seeking unspecified damages in connection with alleged harm to Novell's WordPerfect application software business in the mid-1990s.
Under terms of the settlement, in exchange for the cash payment, Novell has agreed to a general release of claims that it has as of the date of the agreement, with certain exclusions that include patent claims and claims associated with Novell's WordPerfect business. The agreement also includes a release by Microsoft of claims that would have been compulsory counterclaims to the NetWare claims asserted by Novell. Finally, Novell has agreed to withdraw its intervention in the European Commission's case with Microsoft.
"We are pleased that we have been able to resolve a portion of our pending legal issues with Microsoft," said Joseph A. LaSala, Jr., Novell's senior vice president and general counsel. "This is a significant settlement, particularly since we were able to achieve our objectives without filing expensive litigation. While we have agreed to withdraw from the EU case, we think our involvement there has been useful, as it has assisted the European proceedings and facilitated a favorable settlement with Microsoft. With the EU case now on appeal, we are comfortable with our decision to withdraw from the proceeding. There is simply not much left for us to do.
"We regret that we cannot make a similar announcement regarding our antitrust claims associated with the WordPerfect business. We have had extensive discussions with Microsoft to resolve our differences, but despite our best efforts, we were unable to agree on acceptable terms. We intend to pursue our claims aggressively toward a goal of recovering fair and considerable value for the harm caused to Novell's business," LaSala said.
The WordPerfect suit that Novell will file seeks unspecified damages arising from Microsoft's efforts to eliminate competition in the office productivity applications market during the time that Novell owned the WordPerfect word-processing application and the Quattro Pro spreadsheet application. The suit is based in part on facts proved by the United States Government in its successful antitrust case against Microsoft. In that suit, Microsoft was found to have unlawfully maintained a monopoly in the market for personal computer operating systems by eliminating competition in related markets.
Legal notice regarding forward looking statements
This press release includes statements that are not historical in nature and that may be characterized as "forward-looking statements," including those related to future financial and operating results, benefits and synergies of the company's brands and strategies, future opportunities and the growth of the market for open source solutions. You should be aware that Novell's actual results could differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements, which are based on current expectations of Novell management and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, Novell's ability to integrate acquired operations and employees, Novell's success in executing its Linux strategies, Novell's ability to deliver on its one Net vision of the Internet, Novell's ability to take a competitive position in the Linux industry, business conditions and the general economy, market opportunities, potential new business strategies, competitive factors, sales and marketing execution, shifts in technologies or market demand and the other factors described in Novell's Current Report on Form 8-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on July 2, 2004. Novell disclaims any intention or obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of developments occurring after the date of this press release.
Robert Bindler
A Computer Science student's views on technology.
We appear to have slashdotted Novell. That's how we repay them on a Monday morning, huh? Oh wait, here it is.
The WordPerfect suit that Novell will file seeks unspecified damages arising from Microsoft's efforts to eliminate competition in the office productivity applications market during the time that Novell owned the WordPerfect word-processing application and the Quattro Pro spreadsheet application. The suit is based in part on facts proved by the United States Government in its successful antitrust case against Microsoft. In that suit, Microsoft was found to have unlawfully maintained a monopoly in the market for personal computer operating systems by eliminating competition in related markets.
Now, I can't stand MSFT's business tactics as much as the next Slashdotter but WordPerfect missed the fucking boat on a lot of shit when it came to the migration from DOS to Windows...
Novell bought out WordPerfect 3/94. They were supporting legacy versions of WordPerfect for DOS and updating several versions for Windows. How they expected to compete against Word was really beyond me. Any software application that basically required a function key explanation chart at the top of every keyboard was doomed when GUI took hold.
I have fond memories of WP5.1 for DOS but I am so glad that we have moved away from SHIFT+ALT+CTRL F11 for foo. WordPerfect took over from WordStar because of superior interface and design. While many people adore WP I wonder if it is more of a holdover from years gone by rather than actual superiority.
Personally, Word is easy to get and use and it happens to be better than what Corel/Novell was offering at the time and that's why it won out. Maybe this lawsuit was better served 10 years ago in 1994 and not now in 2004.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
It is one of those things that are supposed to help you read by preparing the reader for what they are reading.
It is similar to having the upside-down question marks and such in spanish... it is so the reader knows up front that they are reading a question.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
NetWare basically existed just to make up for the Windows networking components being shitty at the time.
Not up on your computer history, are you? You *must* have meant to say:
"NetWare basically existed just to make up for the Windows networking components being NON EXISTANT at the time."
Novell Netware predates ANY Microsoft networking. For most of the late 80's/early 90's until Windows for Workgroups came out, Netware and Banyan Vines were the only way to get a bunch of PCs to form a network. I am presuming you didn't actually work with computers and networks during this time frame, because if you did, there's no way you could have made such an erroneous statement.
And Novell has innovated quite a bit. Or were you just being ironic? Where do you think Microsoft got the "inspiration" for Active Directory, among other things?
Microsoft had LAN Manager, which was direct, if crappy, competition to Netware and Banyan, before they incorporated into WfW as peer-to-peer filesharing. Indeed, if you peek at even the NT networking layer dlls, I believe you will still see ID strings titled "LANMAN" -- showing that there still either exists some LAN Manager code in Windows, or at least that the NetBEUI layer is still codenamed after what it originated from.
Not being able to get WordPerfect pre-installed and being forced to take Office or crappy Works pretty much killed WordPerfect. Wordperfect is still a better product than Word ... Quattro and Paradox have been exceeded by their MS counterparts, but WP is still better in my opinion.
Legal precedents ARE NOT set by out of court settlements. That is the big problem with them. The suits continue without any legal platform until a judge rules in a case somewhere. Just like when RIAA started writting letters to ISP's demanding names of subscribers they wanted to sue, they continued the practice without anyone stopping them until verizon stood up and forced the courts to make a decision on this practice. Only after the 'legal' precedent was set did the action on RIAA's part actually stop. NOw they have to go to court themselves to garner a supeona before enumerating the suit with a defendant's name. The only way to legitimize a claim is to have it heard in court. Otherwise it is illigegitimate and without precednce. That is actually exactly the way MS wants it too. They don't want precedence set and therefore making it easier for them to be sued. NOw the next person who presents a suit carries the entire burden of proof and evidence where legal precedence would provide much of that for you.
Exactly. Novell brought WP not because it was the market leader (by then Word and Ami Pro had overtaken it), but because Novell wanted a cheap quick office suite to compete against Lotus and Microsoft with.
:-)'s
Wordperfect for Windows was a dog, theres more chance of finding a pro SCO supporter in a Linux User group than a good review of that product.
From memory Quatro has always been the runner up spreadsheet to 1-2-3 (and it could be argued that if Lotus hadn't got distracted with Improv, 1-2-3 would still be the market leader).
So we have a lawsuit settled that Microsoft could have won, a protagonist in its EU problems brought off, and we all know what companys that settle with Microsoft in their favour end up doing...... In other news Novells Linux architect/strategist moves on to other challenges
First off, this isn't a criminal case per se. MS is involved with the EU in a civil case - meaning no one is going to go to jail if the case goes one way or the other. Your choice of terms "prosectuion witness", etc do not jive with what the case is. The judicial world is more complex than a 40-minute episode of Law and Order let's on. What the EU is doing would be closer to investigation here. There isn't a big dramatic trial going on, or anything like that. This is a regulatory issue.
Secondly, you say that "[MS should] be tried to perverting the course of justice". You assume that what they've done here is plainly illegal, when it's not. Filing a regulatory complaint against a competitor is a technique that is perhaps hundreds, if not a thousand years old. Commonly used for leverage, and to force settlements on other issues. Filing a complaint or statement should never cause a person - regardless of your opinion of the group being targetted - to assume guilt.
Thirdly, you say "Imagine you were a witness in a blackmail trial and you were called into an appeal" . Again, your analogy displays a lack of understanding of what is going on. The EU hasn't tried MS. This isn't an appeal of a criminal or civil conviction, but rather, a regulatory setting where the word "appeal" means very little.
Finally, your argument displays a clear bias against MS without examining any side of the argument other than your own. It is much more likely in this case that Novell, knowing of MS's legal trouble with the EU, decided to file a complaintant for the sole purpose of using it against MS in financial settlement negotiations. This is a tactic which has been used since literally the dawn of commerce. A similiar version is used in divorce cases aka "He beats our daughter.. but if he ups his alimony payments 50% then I will withdraw my legal complaint".
For a business isn't the ultimate intimidation "if you don't do what we want we won't give you buckets of cash"?
It is much more likely that in this case Novell said to MS: "look, you are going to owe on this issue anyways. If you don't pay up what we want when we want it, we will make your life more difficult with regards to the EU case, and that could cost you WAY more than this piddly $500M."
MS here is the one being blackmailed, almost certainly.
Well, I for one bought computers for a company around that time. We still had standardized on WordPerfect/Qpro and Paradox. Buying a computer from Gateway at the time highlighted MS bundling to me. Basically it ran soemthing like this - Gateway had a a machine with certain specs that met our requirements. Salesperson first ( the numebrs are not exact, but the gist is): "That will $1950." "Oh, ok. I see that MS Office is included with that." "yes" "We dont use MS office we use Wordperfect office, can we get that instead?" "Sure, that would be $2200". "Umm but WP office is cheaper than MS Office" "Well MS gives us a special deal". "Oh, ok. How much is the machine without MS Office?" "That would be $1950". "What?, It costs the same with office or wiotout?" "Yes, MS will not allow us to sell a machine cheaper. It is a special arrangement for using Windows." So if that doesn't constitute bundling, I do not know what is. Yes i know this is anecdoatal to everyone else - but it certainly happened to me. It certtainly showed that Microsoft's success at that time had little to do with superior product.
Yes, IBM was too slow to keep up. That's why IBM is number 9 on the fortune 500 list. IBM is doing just fine.