Word: microsoft
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...began with an eleven-page complaint over the alleged violation of an arcane bit of copyright law. But by last week it was clear to the computer industry that the federal lawsuit filed by Apple Computer against Microsoft, a leading U.S. software firm, and Hewlett-Packard, a major electronics company, could be just the opening salvo in a monumental legal battle. The dispute pits two of the best-known figures in the industry against each other: John Sculley, 49, president of Apple; and Bill Gates, 32, chairman of Microsoft. It also seems calculated to derail the plans...
Apple's success with the Mac inspired a host of imitators who incorporated elements of the computer's visual display into their own systems. At the heart of the current dispute is Apple's charge that Microsoft, with a program called Windows 2.03, and Hewlett-Packard, with NewWave, took imitation beyond the point of flattery to copyright infringement. "The computer industry was created through the innovation of individuals," said Apple Chief Operating Officer Delbert Yocam. "It is critically important to the entire industry that innovation be protected from illegal copiers with the full force...
...Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft all express confidence that they are not in violation of Apple's copyrights. Microsoft's Gates is especially puzzled: in 1985 he and Sculley signed a confidential agreement, made public last week, that gave Microsoft a "nonexclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, nontransferable license" to use parts of the Macintosh display in an earlier version of Windows. Apple argues that the latest version of Windows is too Mac-like and thus violates the agreement. But when Gates spoke to Sculley two days before the suit was filed, the Apple chairman made no mention of the problem...
...moment at least, Apple has succeeded in casting a pall over the hundreds of independent software developers whom IBM is counting on to write programs that run in conjunction with the Microsoft product. Suddenly, they have to worry about whether the programs they are working on will be declared illegal. "For years Microsoft has been telling us Windows was safe," says - Philippe Kahn, president of Borland International, which has already spent nearly $1 million developing an information-retrieval program based on Windows. "It's like waking up and finding out that your partner might have AIDS...
...Beverly Hills, Calif., plastic surgeon. Brown jumped into the stock market for the first time last week as the Big Board reached its record bottom, on the theory that things could hardly get worse. He bought $30,000 worth of shares in high-technology firms like IBM, Microsoft and Apple, with no intention of selling at all. Said Brown: "Now I'm just going to sit on them and watch and wait." By Friday the doctor's first foray into stocks was already beginning to look prescient: on paper at least, he had made a profit...