Could this be part of the reason why Novell bought SuSE?
Barred by EU rules from disclosing what was said inside, Ed Black, president of the Computer and Communications Industry Association trade group, hinted that Microsoft had taken some heavy criticism in Thursday's proceeding.
"I would guess at this moment Microsoft is probably not very happy that they asked for these hearings," he said.
The critics include Washington-based CCIA, the Free Software Foundation Europe of Essen, Germany, and Provo, Utah-based Novell, which just bought a major German distributor of the open-source Linux operating system.
Recall that Novell owned DR-DOS, and UNIX at one time. They have a corporate history of having products that directly compete with MS's OS business, and defending their products in court. Perhaps the timing of the SuSE purchase has a little to do with the EU antitrust actions.
Or perhaps not. Either way, I'm sure MS doesn't like Novell being on the other side again.
Cheers,
Scott.
