Jury Close To Verdict In $1 Billion Microsoft Lawsuit

Jury members involved in a $1 billion federal antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft have revealed that they are close to a verdict.

The lawsuit stems from a Novell Inc. filed suit in 2004 in which the company claims Microsoft duped them into developing a new version of their WordPerfect writing program for Windows 95. Later Microsoft would pull the plug on the program, giving their own Microsoft Word program a dominating share of the marketplace.

In his testimony during the month of November Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said the program was pulled because Novell was incapable of creating a compatible WordPerfect program in time for the Windows 95 OS premiere. Gates also testified that Microsoft Word was a more competent program than the Novell created application.

Jurors involved in the case said their main goal now was to determine whether Novell was entitled to damages and that those decisions were nearly ready to be read.

Do you think Microsoft should be forced to hand over money to Novell if the WordPerfect program was in fact deemed less competent in the word processing space?