Gates testifies in $1bn lawsuit
Publish date: 23 November 2011
Issue Number: 1412
Diary: Legalbrief eLaw
Category: Competition
Microsoft's Bill Gates returned to the witness stand this week to defend his company against a $1bn anti-trust lawsuit that claims the software giant tricked a competitor into huge losses and soared onto the market with Windows 95.
Novell sued Microsoft in 2004. ABC News reports that the company says Gates duped them into thinking he would include its WordPerfect writing programme in the new Windows system, then backed out because he feared it was too good. The report notes Novell said it was later forced to sell WordPerfect for a $1.2bn loss. According to the report, Gates testified that Microsoft was racing to put out Windows 95 when he dropped technical features that would no longer support the rival's word processor because engineers warned it would crash the system. Full ABC News report
