Judge OKs Novell’s Case Against Microsoft
From Associated Press
A federal judge threw out four of Novell Inc.’s six antitrust claims against Microsoft Corp. but ruled that the case could proceed.
Novell alleges that Microsoft used its monopoly power to limit sales of Novell’s office productivity applications, including WordPerfect, a word processing program, and Quattro Pro, a spreadsheet program.
U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz cited a 1997 e-mail from Jeff Raikes, head of Microsoft’s Office software unit, to billionaire investor Warren E. Buffett in allowing two of the claims to proceed. Raikes sought to persuade Buffett to invest in Microsoft, saying Microsoft’s word processing and spreadsheet programs -- Word and Excel, respectively -- could secure its operating system business.
