10.19.07
Blast from the Past: A Look Back at Microsoft’s Predatory Response to Novell
Novell’s case against Microsoft is resumed, so now would be a good time to look back and also group together some of our past postings about Microsoft’s crimes again Novell. We strive to show that Novell should never have entered a deal (any collaborative deal) with Microsoft.
Have a look at the following exhibit which reveals Microsoft’s concerns about Novell [PDF]. It comes from Bill Gates.
From: billg
Sent: Thursday, April 06, 1995 2:55 PM
To: craigmu; nathanm; paulma; peteh; russs
Cc: brianf
Subject: Internet as a business tool[…]
The analogy here is that the major sin that Microsoft made with Netware was to let Novell offer a better (actually smaller & faster, with simpler protocol) client for networking. This got to critical mass and can now evolve both client and server together. Hence we had and still have a really hard time displacing Novell at the server.
In fact I am still of the opinion that we will not really deliver a really telling blow against Netware until we make some significant user-visible, client-side feature that Novell would have trouble matching in their servers. One of the reasons why I remain such a fanatic OFS believer.
Remind yourself of Microsoft’s brutal behavior that these concerns led to, including sabotage [1, 2, 3, 4] and coordinated attacks [1, 2]. Bill Gates’ obsession with patents as a method of nuking rivals has a ’smoking gun’ example here, among other places. All of these examples show that Microsoft is going back to old tricks, but Novell is too blind to see it. More recently, software patents have replaced FUD and vapourware. That happened last week and there are already attributions to Microsoft.
If the “new Novell” does not wake up and retract/escape from the deal, it will be as fried as the “old Novell”.
Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy.