Novell vs. Microsoft, Again

belmolis writes "As they promised, Novell has filed suit against Microsoft over WordPerfect. Here's the complaint, and here is Microsoft's press release in response. From what I know of the history, it seems very likely that Novell will be able to prove that Microsoft engaged in illegal anticompetitive behavior. Indeed, the complaint cites some of the same acts that figured in the US government case against MS. What isn't so clear to me is how much of the loss of market share they will be able to show was Microsoft's fault, since there seems to be a diversity of opinion regarding the relative quality of WordPerfect and MS Word." Reader tekiegreg points out Reuters' story on the new suit, as carried by Yahoo!.

A lot of their complaints appear to be about IE

[Anonymous Coward]

It looks like the majority of their complaints come about because Microsoft didn't document the hooks in shdocvw that IE is using, which meant that they couldn't integrate web browsing into wordperfect...

They also claim that Microsoft represented Windows 95 as a 32 bit operating system even though it wasn't. Which is a wierd claim.

Re:History

[yorkpaddy]

I have read that too. I think Bill Gates is quoted "We went to all the software shops and asked them to write for Windows, they all declined. Our internal software shop didn't have that option". I read this in "the plot to get Bill Gates"

Novell finally getting justice after many years

[zap_branigan]

Those of you like me who have been Novell shops since the dawn of time, do remember how Microsoft screwed Novell so many times years ago. Purposely putting code in NT support packs to slow down the Netware client(has been documented), amongst many other things. I am glad Novell will finally see their vengeance with these 2 lawsuits. And of course we have NLD, groupwise for linux is taking off, and Netware for Linux due in February.

Re:Business strategy of the FUTURE :)

[HiThere]

I think you have a short time horizon. WordPerfect was once the dominant word processing program. Actually, for a long time it was the dominant WP program (measuring "long time" in software turnover times. And it was sufficiently good that it survived until at least quite recently. (Perhaps lawyers no longer insist on WordPerfect, but if not that's a relatively recent phenomenon.)

Calling it a phoney product is a gross unfairness. A couple of versions of it were pretty bad, and their Mac version was never stable (or rather, I never used a version on the Mac that was stable), but that's a very different comment.

Re:Word Perfect for Windows was horrible

[natd]

although, in that case, Novell hastened their own doom by refusing to acknowledge that IPX was doomed and TCP/IP was the wave of the future.

Interesting post, but I don't agree that IPX was the cause of Novells loss of market share. I was able to dump IPX on my NetWare networks in late 98 and early 99. Before that we did use IP and route it on our NetWare boxes. And when Novell dumped it, they dumped it - no encapsulating their old protoculs in tcp/ip as Windows did (does?).

NetWare (and all the benefits of NDS that came with it) remained a better product for all but those who wanted a combined workstation/server or something that you could run end user utilities on. Novell lost mind share by not recognising that good engineering alone doesn't make you sucessful - no matter how strong a position you start with.

The world changed, IT departments dumbed down as Windows PC users came out of school (I'm one of that vintage - only 30 y/o now). Marketing was king and you rebooted things, not fix them. Bad server performance is solved with a faster cpu, not faster code. Windows fitted perfectly into this world with a glossy veneer that the decision makers love.

Re:Business strategy of the FUTURE :)

[nurb432]

Dont forget the apple II version..

And i think there was a CPM version too at one point..

Re:Word Perfect for Windows was horrible

[Malfourmed]

But that doesn't make MS's anticompetitive behavior any less illegal: "Well, I murdered him, but he had terminal cancer, so it's not as bad."

Maybe not for criminal prosecution. But if the victim only had six months to live, in a civil suit it would probably affect damages based on future earnings.

Re:History

[Deviate_X]

WordPerfect History [neowin.net]::

November 2004

1980s WordPerfect is the leading word processor software when most PCs ran character-based operating systems such as MS-DOS and DR DOS.

1985 Microsoft introduced early versions of Windows® with a graphical user interface (GUI).

WordPerfect for several reasons decided not to write a version of its product for Windows, and deliberately delaying writing software for Windows as way of trying to hurt Microsoft.

"We didn't write for Windows" because" we were rooting for anybody but Microsoft to win." WordPerfect co-founder W.E. "Pete" Pederson, March 2002 deposition

WordPerfect believed that "the impending GUI revolution would take some time to catch on." WordPerfect co-founder W.E. "Pete" Pederson, Almost Perfect, 1994

"Just when we were winning decisively in the DOS word processing market, the word processing world wanted Windows." WordPerfect co-founder W.E. "Pete" Pederson, Almost Perfect, 1994

November 1991 WordPerfect released its first Windows word processor, 18 months after Microsoft released Windows 3.0 and never fully recovered from this late start.

March 21, 1994 Novell announces that it's buying WordPerfect

March 22, 1994 Novell's stock declined by more than 15 percent.

In conjunction with the WordPerfect purchase, Novell also purchased the Quattro Pro spreadsheet application from Borland and planned to continue WordPerfect's and Borland's established practice of marketing the products together. (Consumers by this time were seeking product "suites.") This package, consisting of products from two companies, lacked key features offered by competing suites from Microsoft and Lotus and never gained a following with consumers.

1994-1996 Novell failed to successfully merge WordPerfect and Novell, failed to create a competitive application suite from the separate applications it acquired, and failed to recognize the importance of investing in sales and support teams in this market. Many former WordPerfect executives and employees left the company.

March 1996 Novell announces it's selling WordPerfect and Quattro Pro to Corel for approximately one-eighth of what Novell paid for it only 20 months earlier.

Previous press reports state that WordPerfect and Quattro Pro are for sale, and discusses management failures, including the inability to merge the two companies' cultures and failure to develop a WordPerfect sales force. One newspaper notes that sale includes "none" of WordPerfect's senior executives and only about 1/3 of its employees.

November 1996 Novell "did not understand the desktop applications business." International Data Corp., "PC Office Suite, Word Processor and Spreadsheet Markets Review and Forecast," 1995-2000

Re:Wordperfect was a superior product...

[Spy der Mann]

I personally used WordPerfect. It had a WONDERFUL styles management. I knew where a style began, and where it ended. Underline, italics, etc. It was perfectly marked on the screen. Wysiwyg wasn't a real need... that's what the preview button was for, after all.

I'm sure Wordperfect would have excelled in exporting to HTML format.

MS Word, on the other hand... well you know the story.

I guess this was the REAL reason for MS to launch windows. Not to provide a Multitasking environment, but to provide an environment they could CONTROL. The software market was being populated by non-microsoft products. Word, Lotus, QEMM386, etc. With Windows, Microsoft could bundle software and have complete advantage over the competition.

Re:Two words: Reveal Codes

[Qool]

This is already possible in OpenOffice (with a small workaround) . Just unzip the .sxw file (yes, its a simple zipped archive), and edit the extracted "content.xml" file in your favorite text editor.

It contains all the document content along with XML formatting (kinda HTML-like). Also if you google for it, you'll probably find the XML schema (structure documentation) for it too.