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Novell vs. Microsoft, Again
belmolis writes "As they promised, Novell has filed suit against Microsoft over WordPerfect. Here's the complaint, and here is Microsoft's press release in response. From what I know of the history, it seems very likely that Novell will be able to prove that Microsoft engaged in illegal anticompetitive behavior. Indeed, the complaint cites some of the same acts that figured in the US government case against MS. What isn't so clear to me is how much of the loss of market share they will be able to show was Microsoft's fault, since there seems to be a diversity of opinion regarding the relative quality of WordPerfect and MS Word."
Reader tekiegreg points out Reuters' story on the new suit, as carried by Yahoo!.
I don't know if Microsoft engaged in anti-competitive behavior but I do know that Novell probably nailed the coffin shut themselves with Word Perfect for Windows. That early implementation was so horrible switching to Word was an act of self-preservation.
You want to know who isn't running Firefox 2.x? They spell it "definately" and "rediculous".
Hehe.
Money is the main motivator for Novell, so they are neither the good or the bad guys, they are a potentially usefull ally to others who are into open source software to make money, and to the open source community (whatever that may be)
And as can be seen, they can also be a pain in the ass if they happen to have an issue with you and think they can get some money out of it.
At the time that Novell took over the Wordperfect line, it was a vastly superior product in comparison to Word. WP was very consistent and reacted to various situations with expected behavior...bulleted lists, numbered lists, indentation. It was so much better than Word that is was the defacto word processor of choice for both the legal and medical industries for years to come...mainly because legal and medical documents demanded predictable formatting. Even today I find Word autoformatting in weird or unexpected ways...
-h3dge
It doesn't matter if they can prove it. Microsoft will just write them a check that amounts to less than 1% of their war chest. Microsoft will continue breaking laws because no enforcement technique can control them.
"brxref
it is no longer a "free market" if 1 person is pulling the strings; which is what they (novell) hopes to prove in court... ... you lost on the non-free market, try to get compensated in court; in the process, try to get the market free (as should be)
This is just a tactic to get revenue. This law suit is very late, they should have done that at that time. Also, they don't own WordPerfect anymore. I'd expect Corel to sue them.
This is just stupid.
..." (Sec. 7, Page 3, from the complaint).
If you read Novell's complaint they mention Microsoft's integration of IE into windows, which was the reason WordPerfect failed.
Browsing has nothing to do with word processing, and I just don't buy that "... the integration of browsing functions into Windows, coupled with Microsoft's refusal to publish certain of these functions was a primary strategy for excluding Novell's application
I believe they're just trying to piggyback on the Anti-trust law suite that was filed against MicroSoft by the US government.
I'd be very surprised if the court would even consider their claims.
Novell, be happy with the 500 something million dollars you got for Netware and move on!
If you can't mod them join them.
What surprises me most in reading the last few entries, especially given the usual hatred toward MS that most slashdotters share, is the sympathetic view with MS that WordPerfect died simply because it was an inferior product.
Now, this may partially be true, but MS has a documented history of forcing business partners to nullify contracts with companies that make products that could compete with Microsoft's. This is a huge problem, and very easily could lead to the death of a product. Using their contracts with IBM as an example, if MS demands that IBM no longer sell PCs with WordPerfect as the word processor, and threaten to yank all Windows licenses if they do not comply, two things happen: 1. IBM drops WordPerfect out of necessity, given that 95% of desktops run Windows and that IBM cannot sell a PC without it, and 2. Wordperfect dies a quick death. If losing a contract with IBM, which would have guaranteed hundreds of thousands of sales, is not enough, then they die as the same MS strong-arm techniques are applied to other PC manufacturers like Sony, Compaq, HP, Gateway, etc.
The net result? Wordperfect heavily declines by being illegally muscled out of its main business. Then, with no fresh capital, it cannot integrate newer and more innovative features that consumers demand, and eventually dies from being unable to compete. In the end, Microsoft blames a poor product, while in reality illegal and anticompetitive business practices killed it long before.
When will the US government impose a worthwhile and equitable penalty that actually means something to a company with nearly 50 BILLION in cash saved up?
How on earth can WP complain about lack of hooks into IE, when the WWW (well, the browser portion) didn't even exist in 1991-1992 !!
And if you do a help/about in IE, it says copyright 1995-2004
Quite possibly they did have an effective monopoly, yes. The key point is that having an effective monopoly is not illegal. Using your monpoly position to unfairly leverage other products - that is what gets you in trouble.
Jedidiah
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
First, defense contractors frequently start with a windoless building at the low end of their security scale. So clearly your collegues didn't take security as seriously as you imply.
How many police reports were filed? How many newspaper editorials written? How many lawsuits filed after apprehending the guys in the parking lot? Former employees sued? After all what's the incentive for keeping it a secret war? The public would love the spectical, and everyone would love the publicity. Then, who did Novell send over to the Microsoft campus? Let's say I take you at your sentiment, and accept that no one did. They had it demonstrated that the rules of the game are thus, and then in the interests of personal integrity they decide not to follow suit. Commendable, but if someone decided to fight dirty you'd better be more talented. It might take two people to have a fight, but it only takes one to deliver an ass-whooping. Then was it in the interests of personal integrity that they let Mircosoft slide back then? Are the too poor to afford personal integrity now? And finally, if they are, who's fault is that? Microsoft fought them for a market which by even your account Novell didn't want to fight for. And you even attribute the act of not fighting for a market as competition? Is Microsoft one company, under Gates, for bitches and by bitches after all? Yeah. And your complaint is that they didn't roll over faster that the wordperfect crew. Give up and die works about as well for programs as it does in the marketplace. In fact it's just behind, "Hurry, let's cobble together some awful crap, that works just well enough to infuriate but not enrage our customers, hoping no one looks and it gets fixed in the coming decade."
Microsoft didn't kill Wordperfect, complacency did. Hell, Microsoft even got the better name.
I read the pdf most of it is just a rehash of the government vs microsoft antitrust case where ms was found to be a monopoly and behave in an anticompetitive manner. A large chunk of the document references this over and over again.
They complain about missing API etc but no specifics, then again we all know what happens when you use undocumented functions.. they become incompatible in later oses. I imagine their complaints are based on the reasoning, "You published API's to open/save/print documents in windows 3.11, but it didn't work properly when windows 95 was released", it could be true but this problem affected the millions of other software that were rendered incompatible in the move to windows 95. Hell even moving from win98 or winXP introduced compatibility problems.
I'm betting they are hoping for a settlement, they aren't going to win anything in this case.. but then again when your business runs on giving shit away, your source of revenue tends to come from lawsuits.
did you forget to take your meds?
Was the calculator you wrote in BASIC once a market leader, and was unable to compete because MS intentionally sabotaged it from running properly on their OS? If so, then you might have a case (IANAL).
MS *has been found guilty* in a court of law. Eg, they are a convict. Why isnt someone in jail? Why are they allowed to *CONTINUE* breaking the same laws?
Why ? I think, in all honesty, it had to do with an ever increasing number of clients and fellow firms sending stuff (attachments) over in MS word format. Eventually that snowball could not be stopped. Why so many users of MS Word ? Look at the PC + Windows + MS Office bundle deals being sold by companies like Dell and Compaq at the time to so many law firms. Word Perfect simply could not compete with that. The question is, were they ALLOWED to compete with that ?
If you don't understand anything I post, please accept that I ate paste as a small boy...
The reason Microsoft is not vilified while Enron is would be that Microsoft is still profitable and making their stockholders money. If Enron had been able to continue playing money games, keeping themselves alive and their stock price rising for another ten years, most of us still wouldn't have heard of them. If Microsoft should someday implode as a direct result of their shady practices, then you will see them vilified. Until then, they're simply being "punished for success".
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