Novell Founder Noorda Files Suit Against Microsoft
A company backed by Novell Inc. founder Ray Noorda said Wednesday that it filed an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft Corp., resurrecting charges raised in a lengthy federal probe of the software giant.
Caldera Inc., a computer software developer mostly owned by the retired Novell chief executive, filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City seeking injunctions and damages that could top $1 billion.
According to the Provo, Utah-based company’s complaint, Microsoft’s “predatory acts and practices” have shut out competitive products, including DR-DOS, an operating system very similar to Microsoft’s MS-DOS that Caldera bought for an undisclosed amount from Novell on Tuesday, the same day the lawsuit was filed.
The lawsuit represents the latest attack against Microsoft by Noorda, 73, a legendary computer industry executive who appeared to become obsessed by the growing dominance of his rival after two failed attempts to merge with it.
“It’s kind of a theme that Ray can’t get out of his head,” said Jesse Berst, executive editor of industry newsletter Windows Watcher. “He likes suing Microsoft so much that he’ll even buy a company for the purpose of suing Microsoft again.”
Caldera executives denied they bought DR-DOS for the express purpose of filing the lawsuit. Novell took DR-DOS off the market after Noorda’s retirement in 1994, saying the product had not made significant inroads against MS-DOS.
Noorda has long contended that at least part of the reason that DR-DOS--which Novell had acquired from PC software pioneer Digital Research--did so poorly was because of allegedly anti-competitive business practices by Microsoft.
In July 1994, Microsoft signed a controversial consent decree with the Justice Department in which it agreed to change the way it licenses its operating system software--including DOS and Windows--to PC hardware manufacturers, and change a few other business practices.
Noorda said in a statement Wednesday that the federal antitrust settlement was “too little, too late” and that the Caldera lawsuit could benefit the entire computer industry.
Caldera Chief Executive Bryan Sparks said the company plans to reintroduce DR-DOS this year for sale in retail stores and to computer manufacturers--though the product has long since been rendered obsolete for most purposes.
Microsoft spokesman Mike Murray said Caldera’s charges were unfounded. “If we were violating our consent decree, I’m sure we would have heard from the Justice Department. This lawsuit appears to be a rehash of tired, old allegations without any merit.”
Wall Street largely ignored the lawsuit, and Microsoft rose $2.625 to close at $114.75 in Nasdaq trading.
