By John Rogers
Just a few days after the relationship between EarthLink Network Inc and Microworkz.com Computer Corp deteriorated, each company announced Monday that it was taking legal action against the other. EarthLink, which pulled out of the distribution agreement between the two last week, says it filed suit on July 30 in a Federal District Court in California alleging that Microworkz breached the deal by failing to make mandatory payments to the internet service provider. The payments in question were based on Microworkz’ distribution of Webzter PCs containing EarthLink’s internet access software and the suit seeks to recover the unpaid fees.
Meanwhile, Microworkz fired back by announcing that it will file litigation against EarthLink next week. The low-cost PC distributor says it will allege in its suit that EarthLink provided faulty software products and failed to adequately educate its technical support staff about the Webzter program. Microworkz charges that the resulting EarthLink sign-up chaos slowed shipping of Webzter machines to a crawl, damaging Microworkz and its customers.
A spokesperson for EarthLink said the company doesn’t feel that Microworkz has the grounds to sue, asserting that millions of copies of EarthLink software have been shipped and there have never been problems before. The spokesperson also raised the possibility that any service problems experienced by users may have arisen due to an incompatibility between the processor and the modem in the Webzter.
The move by Microworkz comes in stark contrast to the tone of an open letter by CEO Rick Latman posted on the company’s web site last Friday to explain the breakup of the deal with EarthLink. In it, Latman said, We have every reason to believe that customers who already enjoy a relationship with EarthLink under the Webzter program will continue to receive uninterrupted, high-quality service from them.
Yet in its announcement of the pending suit against EarthLink, Latman said We are most concerned about the frustration experienced by many of our customers in their dealings with EarthLink. Some customers have informed us that even after two months of trying to register with EarthLink, they are still not connected. In addition, we have had customers complain about their treatment by EarthLink’s service representatives, and in some cases, they are inappropriately being billed for what is supposed to be free. Microworkz could not be reached for comment before press time.
