Posted on: Saturday, November 13, 2004

Novell sues Microsoft in U.S. antitrust case

Associated Press

SALT LAKE CITY — Less than a week after collecting a $536 million settlement from Microsoft Corp. over antitrust complaints in Europe, Novell Inc. yesterday filed a lawsuit accusing the software giant of violating U.S. antitrust laws.

The suit, which dovetails with the U.S. Justice Department's antitrust case against Microsoft, claims the company used its market dominance in the mid-1990s to keep the WordPerfect word-processing program and Quattro Pro spreadsheet application from gaining wider commercial acceptance.

The lawsuit alleges that Microsoft withheld technical information about Windows to prevent Novell from updating its software, made its operating system inhospitable to WordPerfect and other Novell programs and leveraged its own ubiquity to prevent Novell from offering its programs to customers.

Microsoft officials argue that antitrust laws don't require the company to disclose technical intricacies, and say Novell is trying to blame others for its own bad business decisions.

Microsoft counsel Tom Burt also accused Novell of latching its lawsuit to the federal complaint to avoid the four-year statute of limitations.