* Judge dismisses four of Novell's claims against Microsoft; lets two go forward
Is the glass half empty or half full? Nowhere was this better illustrated than in the news stories about Novell’s adventures in court last week. U.S. District Judge Frederick Motz ruled on motions in the company’s suit against Microsoft concerning Novell’s anti-trust claims related to its ownership of WordPerfect between June 1994 and March 1996.
Novell’s suit alleged six different claims. Judge Motz allowed two to go forward while dismissing four. Generally, in a suit such as this, the plaintiff (i.e., Novell) will put forward as many claims as possible knowing that some, if not most, will be dismissed so the ruling wasn’t a surprise to the company – nor should it have been a surprise to Microsoft. But editors had a field day creating headlines to accompany the mostly straightforward news stories:
* “Judge OKs Novell’s Case Against Microsoft” (LA Times)
* “Novell Rejected In Court Against Microsoft” (WebProNews)
* “Novell’s Microsoft antitrust action OK’d” (The Register)
* “Judge Throws Out Half of Novell-MS Suit” (eWeek) – [note, the headline doesn’t contain the right math – the judge actually dismissed two-thirds of the claims]
* “Ruling bolsters Novell suit” (Salt Lake Tribune)
* “Blow to Novell’s Microsoft battle” (Australian IT)
So was this a victory for Novell, or a stinging defeat?
Microsoft had sought outright dismissal of the suit based on two major facts:
1) Novell no longer owns WordPerfect.
2) The Department of Justice didn’t allege that Microsoft had a monopoly in the office productive applications market.
The judge agreed that no monopoly in the office productivity category was ever alleged or proved, but did allow that the office productivity component could have been used to strengthen Microsoft’s hold on the operating system market, which was an illegal monopoly. The first argument seems even more strange, as Novell certainly did own WordPerfect at the time of the alleged improper actions.
It does look, to me at least, as if Novell has a long way to go to prove that Microsoft intentionally damaged its Windows implementation of WordPerfect (see “Why Novell’s assertion that Microsoft killed WordPerfect has no legs,” http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/netware/2004/1122nw1.html). In all the testimony and documents uncovered in the Justice Department’s anti-trust case against Microsoft there was nothing which implicated Bill Gates & Co. in illegal (or anti-competitive) activity vs. WordPerfect so it’s hard to imagine anything new coming to light at this late date – more than 10 years after the alleged activity occurred.
Let’s just hope this wild goose chase doesn’t tie up too many resources at Novell.
