By Rachel Chalmers
US District Court Judge Dee Benson has denied four of Microsoft Corp’s nine Motions for Partial Summary Judgement in its other antitrust trial, the one involving Caldera Inc. On April 28 1999, Caldera published a mammoth Statement of Facts, outlining its claims that Microsoft used fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD), vaporware announcements, exclusionary licenses and technological tying to eliminate DR-DOS as a technical threat to its own MS- DOS.
Microsoft responded with its nine Motions for Summary Judgement, asking the judge to consider various pieces of Caldera’s evidence in isolation. Caldera has insisted all along that the evidence should not be broken up in this way, but should be taken together as proof of a pattern of anti-competitive behavior on Microsoft’s part. On June 10, the judge acknowledged that Microsoft’s divide and conquer strategy may be arguably improper, a comment widely interpreted as favorable to Caldera (CI No 3,679).
Now Judge Benson has dismissed four of the nine Motions. The judge is still deliberating on a further three motions, and the final two remain to be heard next Wednesday. When these preliminary skirmishes have been resolved, Caldera’s case will go to jury trial on January 17 2000 in Salt Lake City, Utah.
