Caldera settles Microsoft dispute out of court

Linux specialist, Caldera, has settled its long running antitrust case with Microsoft out of court. The two companies reached a mutually agreeable settlement said by industry watchers to be worth close to $150m.

The case had been scheduled to go to trial on 17 January, but a spokeswoman for Microsoft said the company was pleased the case has now been settled.

Martin Brampton, analyst at Bloor Research, said he was surprised by the result though. "I thought things were going to go all the way to court. In the past the Judge has only thrown out a few motions from Caldera but on the whole has been very supportive. Caldera has also succeeded in keeping the case in Utah which was seen as favourable to Caldera and not to Microsoft."

Caldera filed the private lawsuit against Microsoft in July 1996, alleging the company had undermined its competing operating system DR-DOS through licensing agreements, pricing schemes and misleading public statements. It claimed Microsoft had forced PC manufacturers to use Microsoft's own MS-DOS in order to run early versions of Windows instead of offering the choice of using DR-DOS instead.

Caldera has so far refused to comment.