Microsoft vs. Novell (just for you Trav)

There is an ongoing lawsuit between Novell and Microsoft in which Novell has accused Microsoft of using its monopoly position in operating systems to gain an advantage in office productivity software. Novell alleges that Microsoft withheld or delayed publishing interface information to Windows 95 that would allow the seamless integration of the office suite offered by Novell. As a result the Novell office suite appeared unfinished and clunky compared to MS Office. This ultimately killed the Novell office suite that had at one point held a 50% market share.

The actual complaint against Microsoft can be found here
http://www.groklaw.net/pdf/NovMScomplaint.pdf

This story by Groklaw rightly points out that the tactics alleged in this case are similar to the tactics used to fight and discredit the ODF format.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20090523231352189

This article describes the process used by Microsoft to pack supposedly unbiased standards committees. The Microsoft memo outlines a deliberate coordinated process to pack committees such as the one used to develop the MS OOXML standard they tried to compete against ODF.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20071023002351958

To be perfectly clear there is nothing wrong with trying to make your product more popular or better. There is nothing wrong with hardball tactics as long as they are ethical and legal. The issue at hand here is that many of the tactics used by Microsoft to achieve these legitimate goals are neither ethical nor legal.

If you Google for a while you will see a lot of documents supporting this. If you just search this blog for the keyword "Microsoft" you will find a fair number of linked articles too.