Novell's CTO Urges Court To Endorse Stricter Remedies

Novell Microsoft

In his testimony before the U.S. District Court on Wednesday, Novell's senior vice president for engineering/research and development and chief technology officer, Carl Ledbetter, said the court should adopt a plan that prevents Microsoft from gaining another monopoly in the Internet server market.

Toward that end, Ledbetter proposed that Microsoft be forced to sell a stripped-down version of Windows and release all of its proprietary Application Programming Interfaces (API) and communications interfaces, both key recommendations of the nine states that oppose the proposed content decree agreed to by Microsoft and the U.S. Department of Justice last November.

In person, and in his 50-page testimony submitted before the court this week, Ledbetter said he supported the dissenting states' request that Microsoft be forced to "uncommingle" its Windows and middleware code to ensure fair competition in the rapidly growing Internet server market.

The Novell CTO disputed Microsoft's claim that it cannot sell a stripped-down version of Windows for technical and business reasons.

"I do not believe that the states' uncommingling remedy imposes an undue burden on Microsoft," Ledbetter wrote in his 50-page testimony. "Indeed, the provision merely requires that Microsoft create a version of Windows from which Microsoft middleware can be readily removed by Microsoft, Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) or third-party licensees. Microsoft has said that States' Proposed Remedy would obligate Microsoft to create and test a multitude of versions of its operating system. Based on my experience in the computer industry, that concern is unwarranted."

He also blasted Microsoft for holding back important APIs from competitors, saying he supported the states' revised remedy that would require Microsoft to disclose all the developer's APIs, file formats, communications interfaces and other interface information.

Many ISVs have charged Microsoft with withholding key APIs to gain competitive advantage by tightly integrating its office and Windows clients and server products.

"To date, Microsoft has never admitted that it has withheld interface information to competitors. It is obvious to me and independent observers that while Microsoft has often published interface information that allows competing products to work with Microsoft's operating system products, it frequently does not publish information that allows competing products to work well with Microsoft's products . . . or in the same way as Microsoft's products," Ledbetter added.

Novell competes with Microsoft on a variety of fronts, including the network operating system front, the directory services market and in a variety of Internet Web caching and firewall products and services. Novell is pushing hard to gain more traction in the Internet arena and will stand up against Microsoft's .Net platform in the contentious Internet server market, directory services and Internet services.

The Provo, Utah-based company, whose NetWare OS once dominated the server platform market, has seen its share erode rapidly over the past several years since Microsoft NT and Windows 2000 shipped.

"I believe that Microsoft has allowed its own programmers and developers to access and rely upon unpublished APIs, calls or other interface information to assure full interoperability of its products, while forcing competitors to use only limited sets of information that allow for interoperability," but only in inefficient and constrained ways.

Ledbetter said the states' revised remedy will solve the problems Novell currently faces when it attempts to interoperate with Microsoft's server operating systems and other middleware in a heterogeneous server environment.

The Novell executive is the ninth witness called by the dissenting states as part of a revised remedy trial that began on Monday March 18.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who is charged with ruling on the less strict settlement between Microsoft and the government, is also overseeing the revised remedy trial.