On Friday, Microsoft and IBM said they had settled many of the outstanding antitrust issues between the two companies raised during the United States Department of Justice vs. Microsoft antitrust case during the mid-1990s.
Microsoft will pay IBM $775 million and will extend $75 million in credit toward the deployment of Microsoft software at IBM under terms of the deal, which the two parties negotiated over the last two months.
The settlement is meant to address the discriminatory pricing and overcharge claims that were highlighted in the findings in the U.S. antitrust case. The settlement also resolves remaining antitrust claims pertaining to the IBM OS/2 operating system and Lotus SmartSuite products, according to the two companies.
OS/2 is an operating system on which Microsoft and IBM originally collaborated. Microsoft ended up dumping OS/2 and developing, instead, Windows NT. SmartSuite is IBMs alternative to Microsoft Office.
But the settlement announced Friday does not cover claims for alleged harm done by Microsoft to IBMs server hardware and server software businesses. IBM agreed that it wont assert claims for server monetary damages for two years and wont seek to recover damages on server-related claims incurred prior to June 30, 2002.
