RSSMicrosoft, IBM Settle Antitrust Case
By Ed Oswald | Published July 1, 2005, 10:46 AM
Microsoft settled another of its antitrust cases on Friday, announcing it had reached a settlement with IBM worth some $775 million. The suit was filed in the mid-1990s and said that Microsoft had hurt the sales of its OS/2 operating system as well as its hardware and software business by some of its business practices.
As part of the deal, Microsoft will also credit IBM $75 million for the installation costs of its software on IBM's company machines. The agreement comes after two months of talks, and the group running up against a self-imposed July deadline to come to an agreement.
"With these antitrust issues behind us, both Microsoft and IBM can move ahead, at times cooperatively and at times competitively, to bring the best products and services to customers," Brad Smith, general counsel and senior vice president, Microsoft said in a joint statement.
But not all is settled. IBM still has an outstanding suit against Microsoft that claims impropriety by the company in IBM's server business. However, as part of today's agreement, IBM agreed not to seek monetary damages for a period of two years. Also, the company would not be able to seek damages for claims before June 30, 2002.
"Microsoft has plenty of good reasons for resolving outstanding claims affecting companies like IBM. In his ruling against Microsoft, U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson identified companies injured by Microsoft's anticompetitive behavior, including IBM. The settlement resolves issues related to IBM's OS/2 and Smartsuite products, but not server software.
"I'm not surprised that IBM left open potential issues regarding server software. For one, the server-oriented European antitrust case isn't resolved, because of Microsoft's appeal. For another, IBM is a fierce Microsoft competitor on servers, where Linux has its strongest traction," Senior Jupiter Analyst Joe Wilcox told BetaNews.
"IBM is pleased that we have amicably resolved these long standing issues," Ed Lineen, senior vice president and general counsel, IBM said.
David Worthington contributed to this report.
Why MS gave those losers one red cent is beyond me. Big Blue brought the mess on themselves by woefully inadequate marketing and ignoring developers. MS saw an opportunity and capitalized the hell out of it. Hardware? The IBM hardware of the day was the MCA-based PS/2 and the the ValuePoint line. One was proprietary junk that IBM tried to gouge OEMs with (they essentially told Big Blue to stuff it) and the other was just plain junk (ValuePoint was built by Acer - a company which has a long tradition of building cheap junk).
MS did the only intelligent thing - they took the viable code in the divorce (which they had written anyway) and ran. IBM on the other hand did what it always does on the desktop:
FAIL.
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|windows 3.1 sucks just as bad. If ibm had continued with os/2 then maybe it would be better than microsoft. I like windows and all but only after i tweak it a little. I wish mac os would come to all X86 hardware and not just their x86 macs. For now im backing linux. Maybe if enough users make the switch to linux microsoft will finally improve its os to bring us back. I read an article one time that said Microsoft is probabky going to go under within the next 20 years and then be reborn. Who knows?
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|IBM OS/2 REALLY SUCK B A LL S glad it gone hope it stayes DEAD.
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|wow, you sure know how to spell.
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|you think?. I do that to bypass the foul mouth detector.
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|You must REALLY hate Windows NT/2000 then because most of the core code in those two operating systems were .... liberated.. from camp OS/2
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|All versions of Windows NT from 3.1 through XP originated from the failed Virtual Memory Systems (VMS) operating system, not from OS/2.
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|Incorrect. NT / 2000 came from what was supposed to be OS/2 3.0, which was under developement by (you guessed it) *MS* when the divorce came. Notice that those OSs *didn't* have the baroque monster known as IBM's GDI? That at least in part was responsible for the dovirce. IBM wanted to drag downt heir hackneyed mainframe engine to handle display duties in OS/2 and MS was opposed to that, wanting a more nimble and versatile solution that consumed fewer machine resources. Dave Cutler from DEC spearheaded NT development - not IBM engineers.
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|That's not correct either, it was a joint effort with a large number of developers on both sides. Microsoft tool their ball, and some of IBM's balls home with them when they couldn't agree otherwise there would be no $700M+ settlement in this case.
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|Not quite. IBM assumed dev duties for the then pending OS/2 2.0 while MS was assigned the next generation portable OS/2. That's what became NT under Cutler's expert guidance.
As to there not being the necessity for a settlement if that were true, we're talking Big Blue here - the largest legal fleet in the world who could make Satan look like Saint Peter if required. In short, IBM could sue Satan for the patent on Evil and win.
Sometimes you pay off the jerk rather than fight because even if you won it would take too much time and effort.
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|VMS was no failure - Kenny's company was, primarily because of Kenny, who couldn't predict tech futures with a crystal ball and a vial of Paul Atreides' spice essence.
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|They are both pretty evil, and have significant legal funds.
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