E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
Jim Urquhart / AP
Microsoft co-founder and Chairman Bill Gates arrives at the federal courthouse in Salt Lake City, Utah, Monday, to testify in a lawsuit brought against the company by Novell Inc.
Microsoft's billionaire Chairman Bill Gates has taken the witness stand in a Utah federal court, where he is defending the company he co-founded against a $1 billion lawsuit filed by a onetime rival.
Gates, wearing a gray suit and a yellow tie, was the first witness to testify Monday as Microsoft lawyers presented their case in the trial that's been ongoing in federal court in Salt Lake City for about a month.
(Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal.)
Utah-based Novell Inc. sued Microsoft in 2004, claiming the Redmond, Wash.-based company violated U.S. antitrust laws through its arrangements with other computer makers when it launched the Windows 95 operating system. Novell says it was later forced to sell WordPerfect for a $1.2 billion loss. Corel now owns it.
The company argues that Gates ordered company engineers to reject WordPerfect as a Windows 95 word processing application because he feared it was too good. WordPerfect once had nearly 50 percent of the market for computer writing programs, but its share plummeted to less than 10 percent as Microsoft's own office programs took hold.
Microsoft is seeking a dismissal, calling the claims groundless.
As he took the stand Gates offered background on how he helped found the computer company in 1975 when he was just 19.
"We thought everybody would have a personal computer on every desk and in every home," he said. "We wanted to be there and be the first."
(The Associated Press contributed to this story.)
Leave a Comment:
Word Perfect is still around?? And has 10% of the word processing market? I would have thought it has more like .01%, if any. I haven't used it since the early 90s when DOS was the predominant OS on PCs and Windows (3.0 and 3.1) weren't even out yet. I haven't seen anyone else using it since the mid 90s.
I use it... I dont see the point in paying such a ridiculous amount for Word... Works great for me...
"early 90's" isn't that far away from Windows 95.
And "early to mid 90's" WAS the time Windows 3.0 and 3.1 were coming out, and DOS was prominent....what's your point?
Good grief, they claim he thought WP was too good? LMAO!! I can tell you it was too something, but good wasn't it. Too crappy was more like it. I was forced to use WP for a while at that time, and it was a terrible product.
No what they claim is that when Microsoft gave away word for free it was unfair competition. It does not matter what word processor you like it was an unfair business practices.
When did Microsoft ever give away Word for free? It's not like IE that came with the OS, you had to buy Word individually or as part of Office.
OK so Company A has a document product. Company B builds a new OS, that doesnt use said document product, and incorporates their own word product into the OS.
Sounds like everyday business to me. WHY support your rival, when you logically want to grow your own product.
That is exactly what the Judge said, he does not see a case in this as of yet.
The judge will likely let the case continue through to jury virdict. That way, if the jury returns something lame and the judge renders a judgement notwithstanding the jury, an appeals court would at least know how a jury would decide the case. Careful balancing of letting a jury decide facts and judges decide law.
So Ford makes a line of cars, say the Explorer, that can only accept Ford wheels and tires. Goodyear, Michelin, whatever, won't fit. You have to go to a Ford dealer to get tires.
Would Goodyear have a case?
wahoo...
I dont think that is a fair comparison, because tires are kind of like a mouse and keyboard.
Or like the Apple mouse and keyboard, that one plug that only works on Macs, so you have to buy theirs if you want to replace it...
When a software company owns the rights to the platform itself (Windoze) and also produces application software on that platform then there should be some sort of wall there to prevent conflict of interest. If not, what stops them from monopolizing the entire market except for low margin stuff that they do not want?
It was in Microsoft's interest to kill Word Perfect, which was HUGE in the business world in the early 90's, to protect their fledgling Microsoft Word product, which wasn't even really on the radar back then as the most used word processor was WordStar which ran on CP/M.. You remember CP/M don't you? The operating system that Gates stole and then bastardized in order to create DOS.
If you go look at a little history you will find that Microsoft has never really innovated anything at all. Every bit of their major software product was either stolen or purchased from others and co-opted as a Microsoft innovation. The company would not exist today if not for a judge in the late 80s who had absolutely no understanding of computer software decided that Apple couldn't patent the Macintosh motif. Personally I would really love to see one of the companies that Gates victimized on his way up crush his company with a major lawsuit. It couldn't happen to a nicer thief and dullard.
When a software company owns the rights to the platform itself (Windoze) and also produces application software on that platform then there should be some sort of wall there to prevent conflict of interest.
Hmm ... that statement would apply to Appple, too. They refuse to let their OS run on anything other than Apple hardware. They even put a number of companies out of business when they pulled back the licenses that the companies had been granted to use the Mac OS. Yet, where's the hue and cry? But, let Microsoft favor their own word processor and all of sudden they're painted as evil! Don't like it? Don't buy Microsoft. Go with Apple or Linux or resurrect your copy of OS/2.
You mean your PC doesn't have USB ports? 'Cause I can borrow my PC's USB mouse and plug it into my Mac without any problem. MagicMouse and MagicTrackpad only work on Mac. But they're bluetooth, so I'm stumped as to what special plug you're thinking of. Maybe Thunderbolt? But, that's for external storage and displays, and there are adapters to use the Thunderbolt port with HDMI or DVI or dual DVI, if that's what your preferred display uses. Nope, I still can't figure out what you're thinking about.
It is all very up front with Apple though. Their entire marketing strategy is "the entire widget". They control it from top to bottom. That's one reason their stuff works so well. As for the infamous Mac clones, sure, when Jobs went back he corrected many mistakes that Gil Amelio made. Had Jobs actually stayed at Apple, clones would never have happened. He was rather religious in holding this view. Additionally, other than a small suite of productivity apps (iWork and iLive) apple does not create application software for its own platform, or any other for that matter. Microsoft does. Therefore the conflict of interest. Apple is pleased to help anyone publish for their platform, Microsoft not so much if your product will compete with one of their software offerings and they think your product might eat into their sales channel.
That should be "iLife"
Mac USB keyboards and mice do not work on PCs...Apple refuses to create drivers for them.
I think I had it on Windows ME (it was awful). Either way, I don't think Microsoft violates anti-trust laws by forbidding a program. I'm fairly certain its within their legal rights. But considering software glitches in both windows 95 and that edition of wordperfect, it would be difficult to prove intent.
Apple rejects programs from its iPhone App store everyday, often with little or no stated reasons. I guess they should be sued next.
The best Novell could try to prove is Microsoft had a hidden private API different from the public API and that the private API gave Microsoft and unfair edge in performance.
Yup, that's it, I'm suing Apple because I can't use flash on my Ipad! /sarcasm
Apple rejects apps from the App store. But I don't think they force you to buy their branded apps in their place.
Which Microsoft apps were anyone FORCED to buy?
As a Utahn, I'm ashamed of this. Novell failed because the senior leadership were all a bunch of blowhards who failed to deliver on a number of failed concepts.
Not only did Novell unscrupulously lobby schools here in Utah, but all over the nation, to equip students with their deeply flawed and under-performing office suite software, but they also entered a number of shady deals looking to make a quick buck, namely the SCO deal (I realize that SCO didn't act in full faith to their agreements, but Novell intentionally walked SCO right into a deal that was hardly even approaching fair...showing the true depth of bad faith Novell had learned to operate with).
Novell is just pissed that Microsoft didn't customize Windows or the Windows server environment to accommodate their security suite (though knowingly creating a product that would eventually be unnecessary as security functionality was more viable through Active Directory), and they're looking for blood.
Let's just hope the federal court doesn't play home court advantage to Novell this time.
I lived in Orem, Utah at the time. Word Perfect failed because they bet on OS/2 instead of Microsoft and then were a year and a half late after Word for Windows' release with there own Word Perfect release. And that release was very buggy.
Novell botched it when they purchased Word Perfect and came up with a weak and poorly integrated office suite to try to counter Microsoft Office.
This is a classic example of a market leader becoming fat, dumb and happy and then losing market share. Both companies hated Microsoft tried to bolster the "also ran" companies instead of working with Microsoft. Business rule 102, don't do anything to let your competition roll you over and boy did these two companies flub this one.
All good points, Harold. And, I've got another one. In the DOS days, every program had to have its own printer drivers (unless it was doing very generic printing). WordPerfect's library of drivers was unmatched by any other program on the market. It probably sold tens of thousands of copies simply because it could support just about any printer that someone might have. Since printer drivers are integral to the Windows ecosystem, WP lost one of its biggest selling features.
@Barry
Word Perfect for DOS was an amazing product and as you pointed out the printer driver support was second to none. It's a shame the transition to Windows was so poorly executed.
I wouldn't agree...Novell was successful for nearly a decade after all bets had been called in for the battle between Windows and OS/2. After all, it was clear who was on the winning side by the time Windows 3.1 was released, and there was no question ramping up to Windows 95. I think anyone recalling there being a continued debate is probably a victim of the big blue rumor mill.
While Orem is close in distance to ground zero at Novell, the real hot spot is and continues to be Pleasant Grove/American Fork. My family started a wireless internet venture with a former (and scorned) Novell exec, and we got a golden ticket into the circles of ex-Novell leadership. Call it what you want, a coup d'etat if you will, Novell systematically rid itself of anyone who disagreed with the "screw Microsoft" mantra that lived in Novell HQ. It wasn't about sparring with Microsoft in a healthy business way, it was about "sticking it to the man," and positioning themselves for a legal response to any rebuff Microsoft bothered making. Without a doubt, the people at Novell smelled blood when the antitrust investigations started at Microsoft, and we more focused on drawing their pint of that rich Microsoft blood, than producing a valuable product.
Keep in mind -- Word Perfect wasn't the focus of Novell until their security administration products hit rock bottom.
It's still a mystery to me why they thought NetWare would be a value product for network admins after the advent of Active Directory (which Novell knew point blank Microsoft was working on introducing in Windows 2000, and was a logical course for them given the administration tools equipped in Windows NT server).
Novell "coasted" for some time on their installed base of Netware. What really hurt them was the acquisition of Word Perfect, essentially bailing out the top management of Word Perfect and the purchase of UNIXware. UNIXware and it's integration was was a smart strategy that ran afoul of Drew Major. My understanding that Drew's objection was expressed as "You aren't putting that four letter word (UNIX) on my Netware". While probably not a perfect quote the attitude spelled the death knell for any integration of the NCP and UNIX. The 1.2 Billion dollar purchase of UNIXWare and the equally over paid price for Word Perfect showed how fragmented Novell's business strategy was. Both those products were later sold for pennies on the dollar draining Novell of 2 Billion dollars of cash and worse further eroding business confidence in Novell. Years later their Linux strategy was a good move but it is too little too late and now the company is owned by Attachmate!!!
I think that's just a reflection of the "screw em all" attitude that was fostered at Novell. Rather than seeking out and jumping on innovative ways to complement successful platforms, there was all this petty back and forth of which platform will eventually reign king.
I think that was a major killer in those days...nobody ever fathomed that, with the exception of Apple to an extent, all the major platforms would figure out how to share the playground. The broader business community saw the advantages of each platform and demanded interoperability, while the I.T. community sought to find who was going to reign supreme. This is the also reason why so many of baby boomer generation find themselves cast aside in the workplace...they just don't have enough cross-platform experience.
I see Apple eroding soon for the same reason...you can only hold out so long before business and the consumer public demand seamless integration with competing products. Apple has made minor concessions like adopting the x86 architecture and creating interfaces for PC desktops to their mobile devices, but ultimately consumer demand wins out. Eventually, they're going to have to go all in, or suffer the same fate they did in the 90's. Eventually, OSX will no longer be able to serve as a front to force the purchase of their overpriced hardware...if their market share gets any larger, I imagine anti-trust activity will force the availability of OSX and iOS on non-apple hardware.
Heressssss your towel. Please dry behind ears.
No one is going to sue Apple for anti trust. Not as long as Windows exists and not as long as Android and Blackberry exist. Macintosh is not a huge part of Apple's sales any longer. They make more money selling songs and phones. Also, I would hazard that Apple is king of seamless integration. Try owning a Mac and an iPhone. Try using them in your Microsoft centric office environment. It's seamless, at least to the degree that Microsoft allows it to be. Some of that will go away if Windows phones ever take off as Microsoft put the P on protectionism.
"IF" it was "that good" then it would very likely still maintain STRONG FAN loyalty "of some sort?"
Apparently that's not the case.
This should be no big deal for Microsoft.
Word(Im)Perfect sucked ass back then. It's sucks just as bad now. That is why it lost out to Microsoft Word.
I agree. Yet, after all those years, I still wish that Word had a comprehensive "reveal codes" feature like WP.
Sounds like the sour grapes have fermented and somebody drank them. A 16 year old claim? If you're going to litigate a garbage claim like this you should have to go to Redmond, not the other way around.
Of course Mr Gates also thought nobody would need more than 640k RAM, and wasn't an early adopter of that crazy internet fads. Ooops!
Back in those days the Microsoft battle cry at their developers conference was there was no success until they made sure something would not work with their operating system. Gates didn't like WordPerfect and since only "secretay's" used it, it was expendable.
I guess I'm one of the few people who thought Wordperfect was much better than Word, back in the day. Still, I think they're grasping at straws with this suit and don't think it's going to stick. And by the way, Novell didn't create WP. I don't remember who did, but it used to just be called 'Wordperfect Corp' I think and it was always better than Word. One of the cool features it had was 'make it fit' and it would take a page that had gone over just by a paragraph or two and you could tell it to make it all fit on one page. It would auto scale it and everything, pefectly. I could go on with the great features forever, but Office just was marketed better. That's all. Just like LOTUS was always better than Excel, Wordperfect was better than Word. At some point later, after they were pushed out of the business, the Office products DID improve drastically even surpassing the others, but MS was WAY behind for a long time. Just like Netscape was better than IE of it's day. Gates was good at pushing everyone out of the way. You gotta give 'em that.
KenMan - I agree with you. Word was a word processor, great for simple documents. Where as WordPerfect was a desktop publisher that could be used to create indexes, glossaries, chapters, tables of content, etc. all back in the DOS days. There were great features in Wordperfect that Word is just now able to do.
I believe the lawsuit is alleging that MS "coerced" computer manufacturers to not include and reject WordPerfect in their offerings. It might have merit.
WordPerfect lost it for me at version 8. It was horribly unstable and would crash after 15 minutes of work. Rendering of documents was also horribly botched. I grew up using WordPerfect in DOS, but had to switch to Word/Works because its instability. Novell killed its dominance all by itself. Didn't need any help from MS.
Kenman, you are not alone. WP was a much more user friendly product than Word. Try to do a mail merge in Word...it's a nightmare. Word still blows....gotta get rid of "styles" ...
If I was the judge, and I saw the Word For Windows 'easter egg' that shows the big purple Wordperfect monster getting trampled into the ground by little microsoft suits, it would make this a whole lot easier.
They don't call microsoft the evil empire for nothing. They systematically took Lotus 1-2-3, WordPerfect, and Novell Netware and destroyed them. Those are facts.
Don't forget about Borland Quatro.
Improving on a product doesn't make a company evil. That's capitalism. Innovate or die. An integrated suite of programs running a graphical user interface was a good idea. Too bad for Lotus and WordPerfect that they didn't think of it first. As for Netware, who needed to spend all that money on a network server that basically just served up files? By running essentially the same OS on both desktops and servers, Microsoft allowed programs to scale from one machine to many (yeah, I know, it isn't that easy, but the programming paradigm is the same) and allowed servers to start competing with minicomputers.
At the time, lots of people. Real networking didn't exist yet and no one was using Ethernet yet. Microsoft had tons of trouble getting networking right. NT was still a hybrid as it used OS2 LAN Manager and a new protocol at the time called TCP/IP which Microsoft derived from STREAMS since Microsoft never really innovates. They did, later, write their own TCP/IP stack but that isn't how it all started.
If Microsoft hadn't come along with an application server, people would've been happy with a Novell file-only server. Microsoft opened their eyes to the potential of an application server that was fully integrated with the network. Novell should've been on the ball.
Word Perfect was way better than Word because it was easier to use. Gates has been successful for the same reason many other businessmen are. He is ruthless and totally without a heart when it comes to business. His philanthropy makes up for it in his mind. But ONLY in his mind.
Oh come on, really? Microsoft was a happy accident for those involved...Bill Gates has never been the evil overlord that people would like to imagine him.
Just because a movie tells you to hate him doesn't mean you need to be suckered into it.
FYI -- do even one search on Steve Jobs (the one that the movie portrays as a little bunny who got screwed) and you'll find that he was a manipulator, a tyrant, and above all, never afraid to ruin someone's life to achieve his goals.
Bill Gates is nothing more than a successful businessman who held his ground when he found someone hurting his company (a company which is known to stand by their people and reward them, well beyond other companies). There's a reason why the Microsoft family is well taken care of, and the Apple "family" is all young people who fear for their lives.
And by the way, he has been very modest about his philanthropy...had anyone else given away as much money as he has, they'd be promoting themselves left and right.
WordPerfect was considered 'good' until Microsoft Word was released. Word was WYSIWYG, but WordPerfect required the user to input all these strange codes for even the simplest formatting changes; WordPerfect was impossible to learn, and even more difficult to teach to the typists. When MS Word was released, I could suddenly teach any junior employee to type the finished product, perfectly formatted. No one wanted to use WordPerfect, so everyone I knew back then bought MS Word, and WordPerfect disks got thrown in the trash alone with their 5 large volumes of complex instruction manuals. These days, Apple dominates and people are dumping Microsoft products for Apple.
Word is the best. Why not just agree and get on with your life?
m$ stole or copied ***everything*** it sells !!! it leads in nothing !!!
Get over it, Novell, you were and are not competitive. Good night.
What Microsoft should be sued for is fraud. They have never completed the process of debugging their software, instead coming out with an even worse bug situation. They have also forced people to buy new equipment to replace perfectly good equipment by modifying their operating system in a way that it cannot function with the old devices. There is no valid reason for them not to accommodate legacy software and equipment. They have been fleecing the public long enough.