Microsoft Ends Disputes
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Company settled legal disputes Monday with two of its largest remaining antagonists in a move that will ensure its antitrust deal will not be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. -The Washington Post
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Microsoft has made substantial concessions to the European Commission, finally bringing the company into compliance with a&#160;2004 antitrust ruling, the Commission said Monday.&quot;Microsoft has finally agreed to three substantial changes to bring them into compliance with the decision,&quot; the Commission said in a statement.Following the 2004 ruling, Microsoft paid a fine of &#8364;497 million (around $600 million) and published a version of its Windows XP operating system without a bundled media player. The Commission also ordered a third remedy, that Microsoft publish details of the communications protocols used by its server operating system products to communicate with one another and with its desktop clients.The Commission was initially&#160;unhappy with Microsoft&#39;s response&#160;to the third remedy, fining it an additional &#8364;280.5 million last year, but has now reached agreement with the company. One of the sticking points was how open source software developers could make use of the communications protocol information Microsoft published.The first change the company has agreed to is that open source software developers will be able to access and use the interoperability information, as required in the 2004 ruling.Second, the royalties payable for this information will be reduced to a nominal one-off payment of &#8364;10,000 and third, the royalties for a worldwide license, including patents, will be sharply reduced, the Commission said.
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Nov. 10, 2004. Microsoft is extending the policy that currently protects some of its business customers from potential legal costs associated with intellectual-property disputes to all of its customers, including consumers.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft has agreed to settle a multimillion dollar lawsuit brought by thousands of Iowa consumers and businesses who say the company's anticompetitive practices forced them to pay inflated prices for software including Microsoft's Windows, Word and Excel. Seven years after it was filed, the class-action suit finally began on Dec. 1 in a Des Moines, Iowa, courtroom. Microsoft agreed to settle before the jury reached a verdict. Neither the company nor the plaintiffs' law firm announced the amount that Microsoft agreed to pay, but the suit had originally asked for $329 million in damages. In a statement, Microsoft said the terms of the settlement would not be disclosed until judges approve the agreement during hearings in April and August. The case covers Iowa residents who bought certain OS and application software between May 18, 1994, and June 30, 2006. Microsoft also agreed to pay half of any unclaimed proceeds to the Iowa Department of Education, to be used for bridging the digital and technical divide in Iowa schools through the purchase of computer hardware and software, according to a statement by Rich Wallis, associate general counsel for Microsoft. Customers across the U.S. filed dozens of antitrust class-action suits against Microsoft, but this was only the second one to go to trial, according to a statement by the plaintiffs' law firm, Zelle, Hofmann, Voelbel, Mason and Gette. Microsoft also agree to settle a Minnesota case for $182 million before it reached a verdict. In 2001, Microsoft agreed to settle a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Department of Justice and the attorneys general for 19 states, the company said. Microsoft has also reached settlements with three more state governments. Whereas all those cases alleged that Microsoft harmed competition by including certain applications in its OS (thus essentially barring other software vendors from the market), the Iowa and Minnesota cases allege that Microsoft used its enormous market share to overcharge consumers. The only remaining private class-action lawsuit of that type is in Mississippi, according to Microsoft. Microsoft has denied overcharging those customers. "During our opening this week, we showed the real reasons for Microsoft's success. We demonstrated that the plaintiffs' core allegations in this case are decades old, long resolved and have no impact on the issues in this case," Wallis said when the Iowa case opened in December. "The majority of the plaintiffs' claims predate the class period in this case. The allegations that came afterward were addressed by the government case eight years ago. Microsoft accepted responsibility, changed its practices, and to this day we continue to live and work under a consent decree." The Microsoft operating systems covered in this case include MS-DOS, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition, Windows Millennium Edition, Windows for Workgroups, Windows NT Workstation, Windows 2000 and Windows XP. The applications include Word, Excel and Office versions designed for computers with the above MS-DOS or Windows operating systems. Â
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Software giant settles with Novell and the CCIA, ending years of legal wrangling.
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Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) has settled antitrust disputes with Novell (Nasdaq: NOVL) and the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), a Washington, DC-based trade organization that had supported the European Union's antitrust case against the software giant.
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WHAT MICROSOFT DID: Paid $536 million cash to rival Novell Inc. to settle potential antitrust complaints over Microsoft&#39;s alleged actions toward Novell&#39;s Netware operating system, which competes with Windows software.
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Microsoft last week announced antitrust settlements with Novell and the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), ending years of legal wrangling.
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Plaintiffs in 2002 Iowa antitrust case say Microsoft has been complying with settlement.
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Microsoft Corp. and Eolas Technologies Inc. have settled their long-running legal battle, according to a letter...
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WHAT MICROSOFT DID: Paid &#36;536 million cash to rival Novell Inc. to settle potential antitrust complaints over Microsoft's alleged actions toward Novell's Netware operating system, which competes with Windows software. Paid a smaller amount to the Washington-based Computer and Communications Industry Association, a trade group.
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Microsoft Corp ended three years of resistance on Monday, finally agreeing to comply with a landmark 2004 antitrust decision by the European Commission.
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Microsoft Corp  ended three years of resistance on Monday and finally agreed to comply with a landmark 2004 antitrust decision by the European Commission.
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SEATTLE/NEW YORK  - Microsoft Corp. MSFT.O said  on Monday said it will pay $536 million to its smaller rival  Novell Inc. NOVL.O to settle an antitrust suit and resolved a  10-year dispute with a computer trade group.
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InfoWorld - Microsoft has agreed to settle a multimillion dollar lawsuit brought by thousands of Iowa consumers and businesses who say the company&#39;s anticompetitive practices forced them to pay inflated prices for software including Microsoft&#39;s Windows, Word and Excel.
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After years of expensive litigation aimed at weakening its hold on the software market, Microsoft (MSFT:Nasdaq - news - research) is on the verge of settling with nearly all of its opponents.
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Microsoft this week reached legal and financial settlements with two of its most vocal antitrust critics -- Novell and the Computer &amp; Communications Industry Association.