Microsoft, Novell, and a settlement worth USD 536 Million

It looks like another case of Microsoft paying off to save legal hassles and possible bigger punishments in the future. Microsoft has reached a settlement worth USD 536 Million with the much in news corporation Novell.

It also reached an agreement with Computer and Communications Industry Association, a trade group in Washington on antitrust issues in the United States and Europe. This news is just another addition to a series of out-of-court settlements Microsoft is making. Some other big players having already settled are Time Warner and Sun Microsystems.

Microsoft claims, this move suggests that they can settle competitive issues in cooperation with others in the industry without any interference from governments and courts. The company has been found guilty in the past for forcing competition to run out of business by integrating external applications in the operating system.

Novell and CCIA said they would withdraw support of EU’s antitrust suit against Microsoft, which is appealing EU’s ruling. Microsoft said it would pay legal costs incurred by CCIA.

As for Microsoft, they are already having a pretty interesting week. Halo 2 released and is already a huge success. In addition, their biggest nightmare might be just beginning with Mozilla Foundation releasing Firefox 1.0 final today.

Novell on the other hand would be releasing their own version of Linux for Desktop later this week based on SuSe.