A pioneer of handheld computing who claims that Microsoft pressured companies to boycott his new invention has sued the software giant for antitrust violations between 1987 and 1994, the San Jose Mercury News reported on Wednesday.
The new lawsuit came just days after Microsoft announced a $775-million settlement with IBM to settle an antitrust dispute.
The company has spent about $4,5-billion in recent years to settle legal disputes.
Entrepreneur Jerrold Kaplan (53) claimed in the latest lawsuit that Microsoft misappropriated Go’s technology for pen and handheld computing. Microsoft, the suit says, pressured other companies not to assist the start-up.
Though the statute of limitations on antitrust charges is four years, this can be waived if plaintiffs can show that previously unavailable information has surfaced.
Kaplan says a recent class-action suit in Minnesota against Microsoft revealed that company chairperson Bill Gates helped orchestrate Go’s demise.
Microsoft, after failing to produce a similar pen-computer operating system, pressured Intel not to invest or work with Go, according to the suit.
Gates, in a letter to Intel’s then-chief executive Andy Grove, was able to convince the chip company to reduce its investment in Go and prohibit it from publicly disclosing Intel’s past support, according to the suit.
”I guess I’ve made it very clear that we view an Intel investment in Go as an anti-Microsoft move, both because Go competes with our systems software and because we think it will weaken the 386 PC standard … I’m asking you not to make any investment in Go Corporation,” Gates wrote, according to the lawsuit.
A spokesperson for Microsoft dismissed the claim.
”These claims date back nearly 20 years,” Microsoft spokesperson Stacy Drake said on Tuesday. ”They were baseless then, and they are baseless now.”
”The handwriting recognition industry had severe limitations in the late ’80s and early ’90s,” she added. ”There were a number of companies that attempted pen computing, and none of them were successful during that time frame.” – Sapa-DPA