May 19th, 2006
Symantec Sues Microsoft
By Jimmy Daniels
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews
Symantec is suing Microsoft and has asked a U.S. court to order a halt to further development of the Windows Vista operating system, claiming Microsoft is including Veritas storage technology in the OS.
Symantec sued Microsoft yesterday, seeking unspecified damages and also asking the court to remove Symantec’s storage technology from a variety of Microsoft products, including Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and the upcoming Vista and “Longhorn” Windows Server products.
“We’re asking them to remove the technology, because it belongs to us,” a Symantec spokesman said.
The dispute centers around an August 1996 agreement between the two companies that granted Microsoft the right to use Veritas Software’s volume management technology in its Windows NT product. Symantec purchased Veritas in a $10.2 billion acquisition that closed last year. Source: PCWorld
We Say: They claim Microsoft has even tricked the US Patent and Trademark Office into granting them patents, No. 6,553,387, No. 6,629,202, No. 6,681,310, No. 6,684,231, and No. 6,735,603. Microsoft would’ve probably delayed it anyway.
Sean Brody says:
With the speed that patent dispute lawsuits run at, don’t be suprised to see the release of Vista pushed to the end of 2007 or maybe even later if they have to rewrite parts of the code.
May 19th, 2006 at 2:20 pm
Alice says:
Lord, I can’t take all the lawsuits. Patent law is a total disaster and the lawyers are getting rich.
May 19th, 2006 at 4:05 pm
Gord says:
Terds and ankle biters! That’s how I feel about the parasites who can’t find a better way to make money than suing someone else. Imo, or imnsho, Symantec is like a big fat bloated bully calling out another big fat bully. Maybe the real reason they’re cranky is because of the idea of built-in av for Vista? I could be wrong. I’m in a pissy mood.
Gord
May 19th, 2006 at 7:09 pm
Perros says:
Vista won’t have built in AV… because MS was trying to avoid lawsuits! It will have built in anti-spyware and Firewall though from what I can gather. And AV will be available seperately from MS, in the form of OneCare Live.
This won’t delay Vista, MS will just release a patch changing a wee bit of the code if they lose.
-Perros-
May 19th, 2006 at 11:44 pm