Novell vs Microsoft, a new corporate war

A federal judge from Baltimore has decided that two accusations brought by Novell against Microsoft on unfair competition practices will pass preliminary hearing and will constitute the starting point for a new trial.

At the end of last week, Judge J. Frederick Motz has decided that Novell has enough evidence against Microsoft to sue the company over unfair competition practices towards Novell's WordPerfect and Quattro Pro.

The judge took this decision after reading a famous e-mail message from 1997 sent by Jeff Raikes, head of Microsoft's Office division, to an investor, Warren Buffet. The text of the message announces that applications like Word and Excel can be a barrier against any competitor.

"If we own the key 'franchises' built on top of the operating system, we dramatically widen the 'moat' that protects the operating system business," Raikes wrote. "We hope to make a lot of money off these franchises, but even more important is that they should protect our Windows royalty per PC ... And success in those businesses will help increase the opportunity for future pricing discretion."

Both Microsoft and Novell representatives said they are satisfied with Motz's decision, the first because four other charges were rejected and the latter because it will be able to continue the trial.