More Microsoft antitrust angst: now Novell (and improv++)

It's IT Blogwatch: in which Microsoft loses its antitrust appeal, as Novell continues to allege anticompetitive actions over WordPerfect. Not to mention the latest hysterical caper from that wacky Improv Everywhere gang...

Elizabeth Montalbano reports:

The U.S. Supreme Court today denied a request by Microsoft Corp. to halt an antitrust lawsuit brought by Novell Inc. The company claims that Microsoft's anticompetitive behavior harmed its WordPerfect and QuattroPro business in the 1990s ... [Microsoft had] asked the court to review and rule on a decision by a lower court ... In its original suit, Novell accused Microsoft of withholding technical information about its Windows operating system that would help its WordPerfect and Quattro Pro programs work with Windows. As a result, the programs lost critical market share. Novell filed the suit shortly after Microsoft paid the company $536 million to settle antitrust claims over Novell's NetWare operating system. Microsoft said Novell's claims in the case were invalid because its productivity software did not compete with Windows. more

Huh? John Oates tries to untangle it:

The Supremes said Novell can go ahead and sue Microsoft under Federal anti-trust laws. Novell claims Microsoft "specifically targeted WordPerfect and other office productivity applications". Novell claimed Microsoft did this to support its operating system monopoly. But Microsoft argued that because Novell did not offer a competing operating system, it could not bring action ... Novell also accuses the software giant of deliberately witholding technical information which it required to get its products to interact properly with Microsoft products. Novell's evidence includes an email from Bill Gates making clear the competitive advantage of delaying the handover of information. more

Ah, OK, so what does Eric Bangeman have to say?

Microsoft and Novell are partners now, but the companies used to be fierce competitors in the office software space. We know how that war turned out ... Novell sued Microsoft in 2004 ... Microsoft argued unsuccessfully that the statute of limitations over its conduct had expired ... Microsoft and Novell's 2006 interoperability and patent cross-licensing agreement allowed Novell to continue pursuing the WordPerfect case, and the Supreme Court's ruling clears the way for an eventual trial. Microsoft may choose to settle this case out of court, as US antitrust laws allow for damages to be trebeled. more

Phew. It's at times like this we turn to Pamela Jones:

This is a big win for Novell ... more antitrust woes for Microsoft ... With OOXML on the table, it's very timely to read how Novell alleges Microsoft deliberately undermined interoperability, degraded standards, and withheld from competitors necessary technical documentation ... how about the the references to undefined proprietary Microsoft stuff in OOXML? See any wiggle room for Microsoft to make sure it is never really competing on a fair playing field, should that be its desire? more

Rob Weir picks up that ball and runs:

The concerns of 2004 (or 1995 even) are very similar to the concerns of 2007 ... Novell is not arguing that the benefit of a standard is to get information in or out of a single vendor's product, like Microsoft Office. The benefit is that a standard provides for interchange ... Novell complains about ... Microsoft's control over the document exchange format RTF, or Rich Text Format ... He who controls RTF, controls document exchange, controls vendor lock-in and has the sole means of improving the fidelity ... I guess the world didn't realize what dealing with Microsoft meant. But we know better now. So why are we making the same mistakes in 2007? ... The RTF standard was just a dump of Word's features ... As one wag quipped, "RTF is defined as whatever Word saves when you ask it to save as RTF." This should sound familiar. OOXML is nothing more than the preferences of Microsoft Office. Whenever Word changes, OOXML will change. And if you are a user or competitor of Word, you will be the last one to hear about these changes. more

But Mary Jo scratches her head:

Does Novell have a legitimate leg to stand on, here? Or is this just one more example of companies using Microsoft as an ATM when they need a cash infusion? ... Microsoft ... claims that it was Novell’s “own mismanagement and poor business decisions” that tanked WordPerfect. more

And Joe Wilcox recalls:

In 1994, WordPerfect had enormous word processor market share but struggled to make a successful transition to Windows. WordPerfect 5.0/5.1 for DOS was a hugely popular release ... WordPerfect-Novell didn't offer customers enough reason to switch to a Windows product. The first truly Windows version, 6.0—there had been a 5.2—was notoriously buggy. My first home PC, purchased in January 1994, came with WordPerfect 6.0 preinstalled. Being a long-time WordPerfect user, I was thrilled about the Windows version. But, three weeks later, following a series of repeated crashes, I bought the Word 6.0 competitive upgrade from Staples for $130 ... Novell's execution was the problem. The company failed to deliver a compelling Windows version of WordPerfect. more

And finally...

• Food Court Musical: the geniuses who brought you Frozen Grand Central now prove that life can spontaneously burst into choreographed song...
  

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• Mitch Betts: Budget losers: Hardware, consultants, Vista, ERP
• Mike Elgan: Recycle electronics free by mail
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• Frank Hayes: Frankly Speaking: The hard question
• Eric Ogren: Microsoft is getting its virtualization act together
• Mark Hall: Enterprise integration from the desktop
• Michael R. Farnum: Insiders aren't always a risk
• Shark Tank: Let us out of here!
• Shark Bait: What does "default" mean?

Richi Jennings is an independent analyst/adviser/consultant, specializing in blogging, email, and spam. A 20 year, cross-functional IT veteran, he is also an analyst at Ferris Research. You too can pretend to be Richi's friend on Facebook, or just use boring old email: blogwatch@richi.co.uk.

Previously in IT Blogwatch:

• WiMAX and satellite: unhappy together? (and Danny Bork)
• AOL buys British with Bebo (and pursuing trivia)
• Hacking medical implants is worrisome (and dog+cat+squid)