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Living In Court (5/26/98)
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The Clone Wars are over, but the lawsuits linger on. Just to make sure that Microsoft doesn't hog all the fun of litigation, yet another lawsuit has just been shoveled on top of Apple to keep things interesting. This time it's some outfit called Panorama Designs, Inc., charging that ex-cloner Motorola broke their contract by exiting the Mac clone market after contracting Panorama to produce and sell Mac OS compatibles. Panorama is also suing Apple for allegedly having "advised, persuaded, counseled, and/or coerced Motorola to breach said contract." The gritty details are all in the Business Journal of San Jose.
No word on just how much Panorama hopes to get from Apple, but the Motorola suit is "only" for $13.5 million, so we don't think it's for much. (Certainly nothing like that laughable Imatec ColorSync suit, which seeks over $1 billion in damages. Hey Imatec, just one question: Where do you buy your crack?) Unsurprisingly, as is their wont, Apple "did not return phone calls requesting a comment." What's really funny is the article's statement that "a Motorola representative was unaware of the lawsuit." Now that's keeping on top of current events...
Panorama isn't the only would-be cloner suing Apple over the end of the Clone Era. You may recall PowerTools, the Umax sublicensee who thought really different by sidestepping Apple's "no G3 clone certification" policy; if we recall correctly, PowerTools were the first to ship Apple-certified 604e-based systems with Apple-certified G3 upgrade cards preloaded-- thus producing the world's first G3 Mac clones by driving through a contractual loophole the size of a Mack truck. PowerTools is suing Apple for allegedly squelching their legally-valid G3 clone operation by constraining the supply of components to PowerTools. How's that for anticompetitive practices? If those charges are true, apparently Steve's slogan at the time of that maneuver was "Think Microsoft."
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 5/26/98 episode: May 26, 1998: Bored with the current crop of tech-sector lawsuits? Not to worry-- we've got another one, as another would-be cloner sues Apple for shutting them down. Meanwhile, Microsoft's room to maneuver may be seriously cramped by all the lawyers in the room, and the InfiniteOS resurfaces, source code and all...
Other scenes from that episode: 739: Choking on Red Tape (5/26/98) If you're looking for an interesting analysis of just how much the antitrust actions against Microsoft may affect their business, look no further than this article in Inter@ctive Week Online. It draws fascinating comparisons between the current Microsoft investigation and the antitrust investigation of IBM several decades ago... 740: Infinitely Intriguing (5/26/98) Hey, who remembers the InfiniteOS flap that arose several months ago? Cache Computing's "alternative operating system" for the Power Macintosh hardware platform caused quite a buzz when news of the project made the rounds a few months ago...
Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast... | |  |
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