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Novell's WordPerfect Antitrust Suit Ends In Mistrial

Posted by timothy on from the lots-of-lawyers-love-wordperfect dept.

According to a Bloomberg News article carried by Business Week, "Jurors said today they were unable to reach a unanimous verdict in Novell Inc.’s antitrust trial against Microsoft Corp. over the WordPerfect computer program. A mistrial was declared by the judge presiding over the case in federal court in Salt Lake City ... Novell sought as much as $1.3 billion in damages over allegations that Microsoft, while developing the Windows 95 operating system in 1994, blocked an element of the software to thwart Novell’s WordPerfect and Quattro Pro programs."

8 of 98 comments (clear)

  1. Little late... by RobinEggs · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Excellent, we got a non-verdict almost 18 years after the events subject to the trial, during which time Microsoft, Apple, and most of the other serial abusers of anti-trust and/or patent law have only maintained or even increased their presence in the market.

    I'm satisfied with our justice system. Everything looks totally cool. Everyone else happy?

    1. Re:Little late... by CohibaVancouver · · Score: 5, Insightful

      People are switching to handheld devices running mainly iOS or Android. In a few years, the average college student may not be using either Windows or MacOS, but instead they will be mainly familiar with these phone/tablet systems.

      Do you actually work in the real world? I work in software product management - I create complex documents, flowcharts and work on spreadsheets. I collaborate on UI wireframes. My colleagues in accounting run sophisticated apps. I have friends who are lawyers, others who are structural engineers... Many of us work across two 22" monitors...

      How exactly do any of us do this work on tablets or phones? Microsoft OWNS those environments, hands down - From the desktops, to the servers...

      The real world isn't twitter updates from your iDevice.

    2. Re:Little late... by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This is rather like saying "He violated a contract a decade ago, but because the wronged party found other business, pursuit of the initial violation is pointless."

      Just because events have moved long past this period, so far as I'm concerned, if Microsoft deliberately used its monopoly to damage a competitor, it should be made to pay for it.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    3. Re:Little late... by jd · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If Microsoft can get lawsuits to age out of the court cache, just by paying for enough delays, it becomes immune to prosecution by anyone. Anyone at all. For anything. The same would go for any other corporation.

      That kind of precedent is very relevant.

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  2. I just read TFA by MoronGames · · Score: 5, Insightful

    and it sounds like one guy held up the whole thing. It was an 11-1 vote AGAINST Microsoft. Sounds like we spotted a fanboy!

    --
    hey!
    1. Re:I just read TFA by ulricr · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I am baffled by this. Removing shell namespace extension during beta is absolutely not an obstacle to a third party shipping a word processor or a data base. The standard Open File dialog was just fine and everyone else used it - and still use it. There is no equivalent on any other OS. It's totally irrelevant to why WordPerfect lost the market and they have proof that the database was late anyway and would not have shipped until the year after. I cannot understand what the other 11 juries saw there that was a predatory move, they probably just don't understand all of this tech stuff, it is quite complex to a non programmer, isn't it.

    2. Re:I just read TFA by Gr8Apes · · Score: 4, Insightful

      you have absolutely no idea what MS did.

      However, to MS's defense, WordPerfect never really go the GUI until MS was long out of the gate. However, MS used an entire series of underhanded tricks at the time to improve their products by using secret unpublished APIs that no one else knew about.

      Should they lose this case? Yes. Should they be punished? Yes? Is 1.3B too much? NO!

      Tying products together the way MS did, and utilizing proprietary data on what essentially was, at the time, a near monopolistic eco-system should be punished. Personally 1.3B might be too low. Perhaps increasing it by an order of magnitude or 2 just for the delays I'm sure MS put in would put a stop to it. Or, better yet, grant the 1.3B and then increase it by 10% for each year MS delayed judgement,

      Gee - their purse might get hurt? It's quite possible that all of it was ill gotten gains and therefore subject to forfeiture.

      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
  3. Re:Why was this a jury trial? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yes it is - it's just the lawyers are the 'somebody else' you get to choose from.