Original Sender : Ari <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------- http://detnews.com/1999/technology/9903/31/03310159.htm Microsoft worried about rival Caldera product, documents show ------------------------------------------------------------------------- By Vivien Lou Chen and James Rowley / Bloomberg News SALT LAKE CITY, Utah -- Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates expressed concern in a 1989 confidential e-mail that competition was undermining the software giant's ability to set prices for its DOS operating system. "Our DOS gold mine is shrinking and our costs are soaring -- primarily due to low prices, IBM share and DR-DOS," a competing product, Gates wrote to Microsoft executive Steve Ballmer, who later became the company's president. "I believe people underestimate the impact DR-DOS has had on us in terms of pricing." The contents of Gates' 10-year-old private e-mail were made public Tuesday, as part of Caldera Inc.'s private $1.6 billion antitrust suit against Microsoft. Orem, Utah-based Caldera accuses the world's largest software maker of trying to eliminate competition posed by the DR-DOS operating system, which it had acquired. Caldera on Friday filed a motion urging a federal court in Utah to unseal several confidential Microsoft documents out of hundreds of thousands collected for the case, which is set to go to trial in January. Caldera is citing Gates' memo and other Microsoft documents to support its claim that the company engaged in illegal predatory business practices. "This is just a very small snippet of the evidence we have," Bryan Sparks, Caldera's chief executive, said. "We've literally gone through millions of documents and this is evidence of the things we allege Microsoft does to inhibit competition to make sure nobody else gets a foothold in the marketplace." In one 1990 internal report, for instance, Microsoft discussed plans to "block out" DR-DOS by pushing one computer equipment manufacturer, Hyundai Electronics Inc., to sign a license that required it to pay a license fee for every machine they shipped, regardless of whether the computers ran on Microsoft products. The practice "acted as a tax for any other viable alternative" to DOS, Sparks said. Microsoft, though, claims all of the documents cited in Caldera's motion were reviewed during the early 1990s by government antitrust regulators who took no action against the company. "It appears to be an attempt by Caldera to sensationalize the case by taking a handful of documents out of millions provided by Microsoft out context," Microsoft spokesman Tom Pilla said. Gates' e-mail, for instance, directly contradicts Caldera's assertion that Microsoft monopolized the market for computer-operating systems, he said. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Compu-Mania MailingList is provided by PT Centrin Utama Maintained by : [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Post a msg : Send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe : Mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] BODY : unsubscribe Compu-Mania For more information, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "HELP" in the BODY of your mail (without quote). ----------------------------------------------------------------
