Calif. companies could win big from Microsoft deal

Computerworld - WASHINGTON -- Microsoft Corp.'s estimated $1.1 billion class-action settlement in California may deliver up to $45 per PC for businesses in that state, a potential windfall that could total many thousands of dollars across an enterprise.
The settlement, announced late Friday (see story), provides vouchers of $29 for Microsoft Office, per license, and $16 for any Windows operating system covered during the settlement period between Feb. 18, 1995, and Dec. 15, 2001.
Companies that purchased Excel as a stand-alone spreadsheet will get a voucher of $26 per license; if Word was purchased alone, they will get $5 per license.
"There will be businesses that qualify for $20,000, $30,000 and $40,000 ... and there should be some that qualify for hundreds of thousands of dollars," Daniel Furniss, a lead counsel in the case for Townsend and Townsend and Crew LLP in San Francisco, said today.
The vouchers can be used to purchase any software and hardware for four years from any vendor and aren't limited to Microsoft products, he said.
As part of the settlement, Microsoft must let businesses check its seat-management records, according to the plaintiff's attorney. That couldn't be immediately confirmed with Microsoft.
One IT manager, Mark Jongeward at Bacou-Dalloz Group in San Diego, a maker of protection gear, said the amount of PCs purchased by his company for use in California is probably fewer than 500. And "the effort to compile the information, dig out all the records, can be more expensive than what I get back," he said. But he acknowledged that a large end user would have the incentive to do that kind of research.
Jongeward said he would rather see the money go to the California school system.
Two-thirds of the unclaimed settlement will go to California's most needy schools. The deal won't be final until it is accepted by California Superior Court Judge Paul H. Alvarado in San Francisco. The class-action lawsuits charged that Microsoft had violated the antitrust and unfair competition laws, and a trial had been scheduled to begin next month.
Of the 17 state class-action lawsuits pending against Microsoft, the California lawsuit is the largest, representing 40% of the desktops involved. With that size in mind, Thomas Weisel Partners LLC said in a report sent to its brokerage clients today that the settlement "removes a majority of management's concern and liability."
But the San Francisco-based firm also said that the settlement "does nothing to diminish" Microsoft's market power, may actually expand its presence in the education field and "looks small" compared with the company's $40 billion cash balance.
Class-action lawsuits against Microsoft are still pending in Arizona, New Mexico, Kansas, South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Mississippi, Florida, West Virginia, Montana, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Vermont and the District of Columbia.

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