Novell Track at Cloud Expo

Ah, sweet irony. On the day that Novell won against SCO on the basis of an agreement that most people (the die-hard Linux contingent excepted) think transferred IP, it lost to Microsoft on the basis of an agreement that most people (except the judge) think didn't transfer IP, and as a topper SCO is involved in that decision too.

First you have to remember that Novell has been suing Microsoft for antitrust since 2004 for allegedly beating up on its briefly held WordPerfect and Quattro Pro acquisitions years ago figuring to collect a king's ransom from Redmond to go along with the tidy $536 million it already got from them for settling some similar NetWare charges six years ago.

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Well, on Tuesday the judge hearing that case threw out Novell's last two remaining claims out. He decided that Novell had sold the right to sue Microsoft to - guess who - Caldera, the Utah company that changed its name to SCO, back in 1996, which, if you'll also remember, bought DR-DOS from Novell and settled claims against Microsoft arising out of that widgetry for around $290 million on the courthouse steps.

Anyway, Judge Frederick Motz in Baltimore decided that he was wrong to let those two Novell claims go forward and that the Asset Purchase Agreement Novell signed with Caldera was unambiguous, that it didn't just transfer claims relating to DR-DOS to Caldera but all the claims "associated directly or indirectly" with operating systems products like the applications.

Novell bought WordPerfect in 1994 when it was already in decline. Its market share went from ~50% in 1990 to less than 10% in 1996 when Novell sold it and Quattro Pro to Corel up in Canada.

Novell claimed that it was all Microsoft's fault and that Microsoft had withheld information to run the WordPerfect word processor and the Quattro Pro spreadsheet on Windows. Microsoft, in turn, said Novell should blame its "own mismanagement and poor business decisions." It lost a bunch of other claims against Microsoft in 2005 when Motz threw them out because it took Novell so very long to sue.

Novell, which apparently needs to practice writing clearer contracts, says it's going to appeal. The suit was the last of the private antitrust complaints arising from the government's antitrust suit against Microsoft.