Antritrust litigation brought against Microsoft by Burst.com and Be, Inc. can go forward, says U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz.
LA Times coverage is here.
Burst.com litigation centers on streaming video technology. The company alleges that Microsoft a) wrongly incorporated Burst's patented technology in Corona; and b) "essentially muscled all the other competitors aside, and [thus] seized" the streaming video technology market. Microsoft's practices, says the complaint, have caused "serious and continuing damage and have deprived consumers of valuable new technologies that threatened to disturb Microsoft's strategy to maintain and expand its operating system's dominance to the delivery of high-quality video over the Internet."
Be, Inc. is making a claim about Microsoft's heavy-handedness in the OS market: the company is arguing that Microsoft pressured computer manufacturers (e.g., Dell and Compaq) not to install BeOS on their machines, even though dual-boot machines were user-friendly. Be sued for "the destruction of its business as a direct result of the illegal and anti-competitive practices of Microsoft."