Microsoft Wins Over Novell in WordPerfect Court Hearing

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Does anyone remember WordPerfect? Yes, there was a viable competitor to Microsoft Office at one stage. Back in 1994, Novell bought WordPerfect for $US 1.5billion. After just 18 months, Novell then sold WordPerfect to Corel for a measly US$ 146million. A huge loss at the expense of Novell. Whilst under the ownership of Corel, in 2004 Novell

sued Microsoft. Novell’s claim was that Microsoft deliberately developed Windows 95 to be incompatible with WordPerfect and to strengthen the position on its own Office Suite. Novell was seeking US$ 1.3 billion in damages and compensation.

Fast forward 8 years to 2012 and we finally can report that the court has reached a decision. Unfortunately, the court has ruled in favor of Microsoft on the basis that Novell cannot bring forward enough evidence that Microsoft was the cause of the imminent downfall of WordPerfect.

A spokesperson for Microsoft stated that they were happy with the outcome and that Microsoft was glad that the matter has finally been put to rest. Novell on the other hand, not content with the result have announced that they will be appealing the decision.

Source TechWeek Europe

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