11.02.08
Microsoft Blast from the Past: Lawsuit Comes from Justice Department, Novell Serves as ‘Puppet’
THIS post is part of a series that will explore old news involving Microsoft and/or Novell. We bring back some ‘dirty laundry’, which we shall squeeze and wash over the next few months (or years). It’s assumed that for better understanding of any corporate relationship, a glimpse at the past is often needed. Groklaw, for example, has done plenty of this by researching Caldera and SCO matters (not just post-lawsuit era).
Here is an interesting story about Microsoft getting sued by the American Justice Department for attempting to buy Intuit and entering a little deeper into the banking industry (scary thought [1, 2, 3]).
The Justice Department challenged Microsoft’s planned $2 billion takeover of Intuit, the maker of Quicken personal finance software. In an antitrust suit, it said the deal — the largest software acquisition ever — would lead to higher software prices and less innovation, if completed. The suit was a big blow for Microsoft, which wanted a commanding position in the electronic banking market. It had proposed selling its rival Money program to Novell, but the Government said that would not be good enough.
Novell’s role here is interesting because it’s not the first time that Microsoft uses Novell to appease regulators and Microsoft’s strategy of buying out competitors (or squashing them) is explained in this good video.
it’s worth adding that several month ago Intuit announced the introduction of GNU/Linux support, starting with the server side. For reference, see past news, e.g. [1, 2]. █
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[1] Intuit joins the Linux revolution
Intuit has been sniffing around open source for at least a year now, but predominately as a platform (Linux) upon which its applications could run. It
opened the door a bit more in April when it opened up QuickBase to developers, but now seems to be paving the way for a more complete launch into open source with its Linux Business Resource Center.
Yes, that Intuit. Promoting Linux and open source.
[2] Intuit QuickBooks Enterprise Enters Linux Fold
The move acknowledges that Linux has found a home in some business accounts, at least in the back office. Until now QuickBooks Enterprise shops had to run their accounting database on a Windows server even if they ran other applications on Linux. That now changes.
