Hang on.. what? Did I type that headline correctly? OK, it seems I did. Technology moves at a rapid pace, but the law is a slow, lumbering tortoise of a thing. How slow, I hear you ask? Microsoft’s still in court regarding Windows 95.
I remember Windows 95 anti-trust issues, but only really in the sense that I was a much younger novice journalist when they were already in full swing; much of the rest of that period is lost in the mists of memory. Not so if you’re a lawyer, or for that matter Bill Gates, who was in court late last week defending Microsoft against anti-trust allegations made by Novell relating to Word Perfect.
It’s coming back to me now. I remember Word Perfect… on my Amiga 500. See also onions, wearing on the belt due to style issues at the time.
That aside, Novell’s seeking $US1.2 billion in damages from Microsoft, alleging that it’s violating anti-trust provisions of US law. Because Gates was in charge of Microsoft at that time, he’s a relevant witness, even if Windows 95 has (more or less) shuffled off to the old operating systems retirement home by now. [WinRumors]
TSH
Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 2:16 PMIf Novell’s case has any merit, how is it that the issue remains unresolved in 2011?
According to the article, one of Novell’s key points is that MS intentionally delayed the release of Win95 so as to prevent Novell’s office programs from gaining any significant market share.
All MS has to do is show other, more important reasons why they delayed the release of Win95. The only winners in this will be the lawyers.
moloko
Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 2:51 PMIt was crap software, thats why it failed. But how the crap did they make a $1.2 billion loss on word precessing software.
StevoTheDevo
Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 3:04 PMCause they didn’t sell millions of copies at hundreds of dollars a time over many years.
brent3000
Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 3:08 PMfrom what i have read on other sites
“It is asking for between $500 million to $1.2 billion in its lawsuit against Microsoft”
brent3000
Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 3:20 PMill finish typing this time =/
Its prob just the amount they have spent on the case since then :P
BJH123
Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 3:45 PMYou obviously did not use WordPerfect, and have little knowledge of the other products that WordPerfect had at the time. The reason it had 70% of the combined UNIX, Macintosh, DOS, VMS. DG, Amiga, Atari and OS/2 , ie the total market for wordprocessors, was that it worked reliably, could produce classy documents limited only by the skill of the operator, I am guessing you did not have this skill.
Osiris Fox
Wednesday, November 23, 2011 at 12:59 PMI agree, Wordperfect was the go to word processor back in the day.
Moloko, this was clearly before your time kid.
Andrew
Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 3:20 PMI think it’s a bold assumption that if they could have launched a new version of WordPerfect at that time, it would have become a defacto standard and equally as successful as the fifth of Office which is it was equivalent to. There is no credit given that the winning product was a package that covered almost all of typical needs rather than just word processing.
They also seem to be arguing that MS moved to the NT environment intentionally just to screw with them. Should we expect exactly the same rigmarol with 50 other companies when Win8 is released with the WinRT environment?
If you want anti-competative behavior, look at Apple, iOS, and the “no duplicate functionality” rules in the store guidelines.
MattW
Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 4:27 PMWasn’t the main problem that all the non DOS versions of WordPrefect sucked?
AJ
Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 5:09 PMAre they asking for $1.2 billion in today’s currency?
Andrew
Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 5:31 PMnope, 1.2 billion in chocholate pirate gold.
Marrowmaw
Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 7:06 PMMade my day.
WTF
Wednesday, November 23, 2011 at 4:35 AMShh, stop using words. The bible will sue you.
Err….
Spencer Adams
Wednesday, November 23, 2011 at 11:07 AMWe didn’t have white onions back then, all we had were those big yellow ones.
Lachlan
Sunday, November 27, 2011 at 10:22 AMThey were pretty expensive too. What were they, 10 bees?