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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."
"Finally, Novell has agreed to withdraw its intervention in the European Commission's case with Microsoft."
All these whiny dinosaur software companies need to quit blaming Microsoft for their lack of success and come up with something innovative on their own. WordPerfect became the market leader, then they got all fat and lazy, providing the opportunity for Microsoft to come along and eat their lunch with just a few new features that the folks at WordPerfect were too lazy to implement.
Novell should have moved into the operating systems market long ago, since NetWare basically existed just to make up for the Windows networking components being shitty at the time. Once Microsoft figured out how networks operate, there was no more need for Novell NetWare.
Well, you know what they say. Those that can't innovate litigate.
I would like to see Novell overpower Microsoft more often. From the looks of Novell's new linux product lineup, it appears they may be a major competitor against microsoft in the future.
WordPerfect... The OTHER Monopoly. Several Law, Insurance, & State departments are still forced to use WordPerfect because they archived in WPDs.
I really don't feel for WordPerfect's side on that suit.
So is *this* the reason that Chris left Novell on Friday?
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If you're not living on the edge, you're just taking up space!
... to prevent obvious karma whoring?
Someone make a nice chart with who paid who what...
I have a snakeing suspiscion that the IT world, for all thier intelligence and success, are being played by sleeping agents of lawyers who deliberately steer companies to collide, and the resultant lawsuites just move money around, while the lawyers skim the cheddar off the top...
So, to draw sides:
Novell, Sun, IBM, AMD
versus
Microsoft, SCO, Intel and... erm...
Man this hurts my head, who to trust...
I noticed Novell came from nowhere (IMHO) recently exposurewise, they really built themselves up as a player (IMHO) and this linux offering is becoming the dotCom tradition now, make a any company, and you have to have your own distro! (Yeah yeah I know about novell and unix)
Maybe one day Microsoft will have thier own linux distro...
Oh, I forgot, they are buying licenses off SCO, and rewriting gnu code into longhorn (true!)
Well done those guys.
Now who hates kodak?
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
Microsoft settles with Novell. Result: We don't know yet, but I'm expecting something ugly. Maybe some bizarre legal cross-licensing to prevent non-commercial software from existing?
And let's not forget the recent resignation of Chris Stone from Novell. Maybe it's just a coincidence.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Here's hoping Novell loses big, and no judge is stupid enough to think that a word processor (one of the first functions PCs were designed to be able to do) is a market you can hijack with patents.
Word had a sensible GUI, WP stuck with cryptic keyboard shortcuts. WP lost on the usability front. They once had a monopoly on word processing, just like Netscape once had a virtual monopoly on browsers. And they both lost it by never adapting their sucktastic products.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Is it a strategy on Microsofts part to legitimize software related lawsuits?
They have really deep pockets. They can afford to pay. When the pay they achieve two things:
1) They can stop worrying about the lawsuit and continue with their business.
2) They also legitimize the claim of the other company, in this case Novell, thereby setting a precedent.
When Microsoft sets a precedent it means that the next company that Sun or Novell or SCO sues will almost certainly have to pay. There is a precedent after all. But that company might not be able to pay. And then Microsoft has one competitor less.
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
Looking at Novell's product line, they seem to be a dead company... or a totally restructured one from the past...
Better check and be sure first:
www.netcraft.com
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
My take on Chris Stone is that he had a falling out with Waltham in September when he was 'sent' to harvard business school. His 'resignation was just a formalization of Messmen et al. giving him the axe
I think you'll see that NetWare pre-dated LanMan, which, by Novell Engineers, was often referred to as "LandFill." Novell created the market (very innovative). Banyan innovated with their Directory component. Novell improved on the Directory (a huge gamble and innovation). Microsoft just kept trying to catch up. Eventually they had an inferior product that worked just well enough to compete. Then the FUD and marketing took over. The rest is history (notice the absolute lack of techincal innovation).
This brings up a question I have had - how come I can open up Word documents in OpenOffice, but not WordPerfect documents? OpenOffice has conversion tools built-in for many formats, but not WP.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Finally, Novell has agreed to withdraw its intervention in the European Commission's case with Microsoft.
Hrrm... I usually just sign my name.
Novell's lawsuits regarding DR-DOS?
Do not anger the worm.
Wordperfect lost out to Word due to one plain and simple reason, GUI version. I still remember back in early 90s when people were still sticking to simple text mode WP without WYSIWYG v/s the appeal of word for windows. That plus the fact that word did try to help migration by providing same/simillar keystrokes, templates, conversion etc.
Also, microsoft has to patent their ideas lest someone else patents it and holds it for a ransom (we all remember the lawsuit on plugins) once it becomes commonplace.
WordPerfect is superior to Word in the same ways that Mozilla is superior to Internet Explorer. More relevant and modern features, greater stability, tabbed document views, better writing tools and extensions, export to PDF functionality, legacy compatibility modes (WP12 can be made to look and feel exactly like WP51/DOS). WP also has legal-specific functions that make it the standard among judges and lawyers.
It's also cheaper individually, and bigger businesses can do volume licensing deals with Corel.
WP is hands down a better product than Word. This is coming from a professional writer who has used both programs since their first versions. I'd use WP all day if I could, but WP for Linux kind of sucks, and I have this thing about not using proprietary software if a free alternative is available.
-Jem
AFAIK, the first viruses were spotted in 85-86 and they were on dos. The first 2-3 years were pretty quiet (well, there was the Robert Morris internet worm).
Then in the beginning of the 90s or so there were Brain, the Jerusalem-family, Michelangelo, and most notably the first kits, Dark Avenger and VCL. All for DOS/Windows. According to my memory, at this time viruses were already 'Microsoft country'.
So was the Mac virus hegemony between these periods, or does one of us have a memory fault?
Microsoft Word has NEVER had the legal features that serious lawyers still need, which is why WordPerfect became so entrenched there.
Sure Bill Gates father was still using WordPerfect quite long into the game.
Blows a hole in your theory about WordPerfect dying because it sucked.
Word has always sucked, especially in a legal environment, but the war was never about a good implementation of features, but about control and forcing all industries to the same stupidity.
I had this conversation just a few days ago with lawyers who had current versions of Word which they knew how to use and have used for a long time, but still went back to WordPerfect to get many important things done. Word never properly understood, for example, a table of authorities, ir if it did, kept it a big secret.
As for poor user interface of keyboard-based WordPerfect, we have IBM to thank for that. A function-key-based user-interface was efficient in the days of "standard" keyboards when function keys were on the left. IBM came along and said that their PCs and Mainframes should have the same user interface, and moved the PC function keys across the top. This is what is called an "Enhanced" keyboard. If you've never used a "Standard" keyboard, you have no right to complain.
Even today Windows has remnants "Standard" keyboard legacy. ALT-F4 closes an application and ALT-F6 closes a child window within an application. Notice the keys are both even numbered -- that was because they were adjacent in the two-by-five arrangement of function keys on the left of a "Standard" keyboard.
"It wasn't until later when MS-WORD was the leader that they finally let the WP Programers have access to the APIs. "
Is this true? Very interesting if so.
The MS Word coder that started a blog said in his blog that basically this was wrong. That in MS the windows team and office team didn't even talk to each other, let alone have secret api's, and that wordperfect used this api conspiracy theory to cover up that their code sucked.