Comments about ‘Novell, Microsoft antitrust trial gets heated as attorneys spar over testimony’

Anyone there at the time knew 2 things - 1) Microsoft did everything in its power to disrupt Novell and WordPerfect, including misinformation and deliberate changes to the OS and 2)the technology manager knew more about what was going on than the figurehead CEO. Bob was brought in to make the appearance of the public IPO seem palatable, not for his strategic brilliance.

All parties involved in this case suffer. Only the attorney's will benefit.

Most of us who are old enough know what monopolys bring. In the case of utilitys, poor service and bad customer relations with no where to turn if dissatisfied. In the case of the big 3 auto companies of the 70's and early 80s, bad products. Thankfully Japans competetion brought an end to the bad car products when the big 3 needed to up their game to compete. Nothing brings better customer service and quality than competetion between companies and corporations. Even if Microsoft is in the right on some of these issues, it will be very bad for all of us if they are able to marginalize or put out of business the competators. There needs to always be alternatives for the consumer to turn to in every service or product for the best to thrive. Otherwise mediocrity will prevail.

read the history of microsoft it is like a robber baron of the 1800s. printed e-mails in court cases show a true monolithic company unwilling live and let live.

For the world to work there needs to be standardization in some things. For instance, in the way computers work. If there were 10 or 20 different operating systems out there, and programs for all of them, the computing world would be a mess.

Though why anyone would buy WordPerfect or MS Office is beyond me. OpenOffice does the same thing for FREE.