Microsoft chairman Bill Gates will be quizzed in court today in the antitrust suit that will not die - the one first brought by Novell against the firm in 2004. Novell accuses MS of unfairly restricting competition for Novell's WordPerfect and Quattro Pro programs, a word processor and a spreadsheet app that it owned for a …

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Monday 21st November 2011 11:41 GMT Tomato42

Microsoft

Come on, it's MS, they should be guilty by default.

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Monday 21st November 2011 13:18 GMT Ken Hagan

threatened to crash

"Microsoft claims that the apps threatened to crash Windows 95 and couldn't be sorted out in time for launch."

Probably true. None of the other apps that crashed Win95 were sorted out in time for the launch.

Of course, one might reckon this was a problem with Win95, rather than the apps...

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Monday 21st November 2011 13:56 GMT Anonymous Coward

Microsoft @Tomato42

Actually, it appears that the judge has already decided that, by default, Microsoft is *Not Guilty*!

Take a look at the latest trial reports on Groklaw to come to your own conclusions: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20111112150717289

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1. Monday 21st November 2011 22:18 GMT Paul Shirley
  
  More accurately the judge has decided this time to "go directly to appeal, do not even pretend to have a real trial". Lazy and in no way excusable by the certainty this will go to appeal whatever happens.
  
  ...worth pointing out that they're in court because the same judge pulled the same stunt at the original trial. Something the Novell lawyers seem happy to remind him off in open court. Suicidal, insane or corrupt? Can't even begin to guess.
  
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Monday 21st November 2011 13:59 GMT Anonymous Coward

wordperfect sucked. not surprised it died.

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1. Monday 21st November 2011 22:46 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  I only rrealised
  
  how good it was when I had to use Word.
  
  At least WP did what it was told, instead og making up some format for a whole page because you change one line.
  
  Word. An abomination. It is a tragedy that OPen/Libre Office decided that Word imitation was the only way to go.
  
  Hey... at one point there was even a Unix version of WP :)
  
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Monday 21st November 2011 14:25 GMT Anonymous Coward

This office suite is no more.

It has ceased to be. It has expired and gone to meet its maker. It's a stiff, bereft of life, if you hadn't nailed it to the perch it would be pushing up the daisies! It's run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. This is an ex-office suite!

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1. Monday 21st November 2011 15:56 GMT raving angry loony
  
  ...fjords...
  
  I believe the point of the lawsuit is to determine not who nailed the bird to the perch, but who suffocated the thing in the first place.
  
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Monday 21st November 2011 16:44 GMT TeeCee

Of course it was MS's fault they died.

WordPerfect? Ah yes. That'll be the one that was complete shit as it wouldn't cooperate with the OS in any way, shape or form, insisting on doing everything its own way. So bloody awful that even WordPerfect diehards preferred Word on Windows once they tried it.

Quattro Pro? Ah yes. That'll be the originally successful Borland product that handed a shoeing to Lotus 123 when GUI desktops took off. Flogged to Novell when it became obvious to everyone[1] that the johnny-come-lately Excel was going to win that war.

[1] Ok, everyone *except* Novell then.

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1. Monday 21st November 2011 17:17 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  @TeeCee - Of course Microsoft had both hands in this
  
  The quote I love the most is this quote from an email Jim Allchin sent to Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and others : [quote]We need to smile at Novell while we pull the trigger [/quote].
  
  Get yourself familiar with some of the court documents before taking sides with one or another party.
  
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2. Monday 21st November 2011 22:20 GMT Keep Refrigerated
  
  Ah yes.
  
  "Ah yes. That'll be the one that was complete shit as it wouldn't cooperate with the OS in any way, shape or form..."
  
  What, you mean the OS that was owned by the same company who decided to build itself a competing product and therefore kill WordPerfect by changing their APIs at the last minute?
  
  I'm sure Microsoft appreciates customers like you.
  
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Monday 21st November 2011 22:18 GMT John McCallum

@AC 21/11/11 1714

Donn't tell me let me guess you are Linux user.

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1. Tuesday 22nd November 2011 01:10 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  @John McCallum - Or he could very well be
  
  an angry Microsoft customer who's had enough paying through his nose for Office software because the lack of any trace of competition enables Microsoft to collect at will huge amounts of cash.
  
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Monday 21st November 2011 22:38 GMT John Smith 19

a note on Word Perfect

It was popular because it was designed to be OS *neutral*, part of which meant a non *Windows* standard way of doing things.

It was robust enough for Boeing to use it for *all* of the manuals on their aircraft, which is a bit more serious than a 2 page CV.

I'm pleased this law suite has continued to survive.

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Tuesday 22nd November 2011 01:06 GMT Anonymous Coward

>It was robust enough for Boeing to use it for *all* of the manuals on their aircraft, which is a bit more serious than a 2 page CV.

...and yet enough of a pig for most people to walk away from it. No fan of Word but it was leaps and bounds more user friendly than WP and THAT is what mattered.

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