Legal
Note: Microsoft Settles With IBM;
Go Sues Microsoft
Think of this as Legal Ancient History.
First, Microsoft has finally settled
with IBM over the old OS/2 suit (remember when they were wrangling
about Microsoft’s anti-competitive practices versus OS/2 and the
Lotus SmartSuite?). Well,
perhaps as part of their campaign to clean up all their old
lawsuits, which they’ve been pursuing for the last year or two,
Microsoft has settled with IBM for $775 million in cash plus a $75
million credit against future software purchases.
And at just about the same time, Go
(remember them? One of the early operating systems for pen computing tablets)
has decided to sue Microsoft under the antitrust laws. I suspect the statute of limitations will kill this one off.
(I also suspect that Go failed more because the thing
didn’t really work very well and was hopelessly overpriced than
because of anything another company did.)
One of the reasons it didn’t work was
because of the state of handwriting recognition software –
remember Newton? I
can’t imagine that’s anyone’s fault.
Technology just moves on and benefits those who stay around
and continue to invest in it.
Go was sold to an AT&T subsidiary in
1994 and the company’s claims assigned to Lucent in 1996 when
the company was split from AT&T.
Jerry Kaplan, Go’s founder, regained the rights to Go’s
claims in April.
