14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has just won another lawsuit, as the United States Supreme Court has decided that Redmond did not infringe any competition rules with Windows 95.
Novell started a lawsuit against the software giant in 2004, accusing the company of using its Windows 95 operating system to harm its very own business by trying to make Microsoft Word more popular and removing support for the WordPerfect suite, which Novell purchased for no less than $1.4 billion (€1 billion).
Just as expected, Microsoft Word quickly gained traction, as it was offered as the default text editor in the Windows operating system, which in turn experienced a terrific success.
Novell, however, was seeking damages and claimed that Microsoft ruined its business by using its operating system monopoly and promoting Word as the only solution for working with documents.
Microsoft founder Bill Gates himself got involved in this dispute, explaining in 2011 that his company hasn't actually tried to slow down WordPerfect's integration in Windows 95. If something like that actually happened, it was because WordPerfect sometime led to OS crashes, so Microsoft has no other option than to tweak its operating system in such a way that it could become more stable and reliable.
Microsoft has already won several trials, but Novell always appealed the decision, claiming that large companies are protected even when they violate competition rules.
"Our company still believes in the strength of its claim and we do intend to pursue an appeal," Jim Lundberg, vice president of the company's legal department, said in a statement rolled out in 2012, just after Novell lost one of the trials against Microsoft.
The Redmond-based software giant, on the other hand, always explained that it never wanted to infringe competition rules and tried to end the legal dispute as soon as possible.
"We've maintained throughout this case that Novell's arguments lack merit, and we're gratified with today's ruling dismissing the last of Novell's claims and putting this matter to rest," David Howard, Microsoft deputy general counsel, explained a couple of years ago, just after a US judge ruled in favor of the tech giant.
This time, however, Microsoft applauded the judge's decision and explained that everyone is happy that this lawsuit has come to an end. Novell has, of course, refused to comment on this decision.
"We're happy this case is now over for good and think it shows we'll persistently defend ourselves from lawsuits we think are meritless," a Microsoft spokesperson was quoted as saying.