More trouble for Microsoft
p2pnet.net News:- Embarrassing Microsoft documents that weren’t disclosed in the 1997 federal antitrust lawsuit on the company’s attempt to control the browser markets in the 1990’s have come to light in testimony during the second week the consumer class-action lawsuit in Minnesota.
"Among the documents introduced in court this week was a letter from June 1990 in which Bill Gates, Microsoft’s chairman, told Andrew S. Grove, the chief executive of Intel at the time, that any support given to the Go Corporation, a Silicon Valley software company, would be considered an aggressive move against Microsoft," says John Markoff in a New York Times report here, going on:
"Other evidence presented by the plaintiffs’ lawyers at trial yesterday gave an account of how Microsoft violated a signed secrecy agreement with Go and showed that Microsoft possessed technical documents from Go that it should not have had access to.
"A Microsoft spokeswoman said that many of these newly disclosed documents were not relevant to the trial, which focuses on Microsoft pricing actions."
The greatest harm from the Go story, "was the suppression of innovation and new technology by Microsoft," Eugene Crew, one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs, is quoted as saying.
Microsoft has already paid $1.6 billion in its efforts to settle consumer antitrust claims filed in 10 states, says the NYT, and the new lawsuit contends it overcharged Minnesota customers from 1994 to 2001 and calls for almost $500 million.
If Microsoft loses, it could also be forced to pay triple that amount under Minnesota state law, states the NYT.
