Bill Gates should be Monday most likely appear before the judge. The Microsoft founder must testify in a case that competitor Novell has brought about the alleged monopoly of Microsoft Word in the nineties.
Novell claims, in a complaint alleged that the market share of its word processor WordPerfect by the aggressive marketing campaign from Microsoft in the early nineties, significantly decreased. In six years, the decline in the proportion of fifty to almost ten percent. Novell has in this respect in 2004 lodged a complaint. The company requires 1.2 billion dollars in damages. Bloomberg reports that Gates Monday for the judge to bear witness to the strategy of Microsoft to justify.
Gates would be seventeen years ago when Microsoft ceo the development of word processor WordPerfect have wanted to undermine. So did he in unfair competition by Microsoft’s word processor Word to call, put Novell at the time. According to Gates, however, this was necessary; with a different product name would not be clear that it is a word processor.
Microsoft combined Word and other programs with its operating system Windows 95 and offered according to Novell exclusive agreements to customers. Therefore, the competition the company is reportedly no longer keep up. Gates would be the ceo in an internal e-mail have dedicated to technical information about the operating system, to keep back, so that Microsoft Office an advantage and was able to get in on WordPerfect. Novell had about that in 2004 lodged a complaint, but the court had last year dismissed, because WordPerfect since 1996 in the hands of Corel. The American public prosecutor, the complaint was again under the microscope.