Villi D'Hors, CEO of the Caliphates based software giant, Calisoft, has denied any wrongdoing after the Free Trade Organization of Ganymandian Worlds (F.T.O.G.W.) Monopoly Commission found against him and imposed tough penalties on his company, including a hefty fine - amounting to ten percent of the sum of the last four years' revenues - and the possibility of an enforced breakup of the company. Six other software companies - all based in Caliphates' Silicon Canyon - have also been indicted. 'Scafe Systems', 'Terrascan Corp.', 'Navisoft', 'Geosic Inc.', 'Graphical Corp.' and 'Carsmil-DataStore' have been accused of restrictive practices - applying pressure on third party distributors to bundle their products only with Calisoft's Operating System (OS). They must all wait for the F.T.O.G.W.'s announcement next week to find out what penalties they will face.
The lawsuit was brought by the F.T.O.G.W. after representations were made by no fewer than eighteen of its twenty-six permanent members.
Within an hour of the Commission handing down its judgement, Ano Scafe, CEO and founder of 'Scafe Systems', was holding forth on the finding, saying, "D'Hors is being penalized for trying to establish standards in software design; standards which a certain group [he was referring to the 'open code' movement] are desperate to demolish."
Dealing with the charge leveled at the seven companies that licensing costs were also held to be exorbitant, he replied, "Good software, like wine, food and a first class berth on a cruise ship cost money to buy - often a great deal of money." His eyes twinkled as he added, "And so does a good woman." Then, as if suddenly remembering that the broadcast was 'live', and presumably that his wife might be watching, he said, "Or so I'm told."
Serin Shimah, CEO of Graphical Corp., was more forthcoming in his damnation of the decision. "What do they want," he cried, "the kind of disaster 'Omnidyne' are having to clean up?" He was referring to the news item we published last month, reporting that a target drone manufactured by 'Omnidyne' accidentally incinerated a large percentage of the Cotch Orbital Defense Force. (Click to Read) "Omnidyne tried to save on costs and implemented Ano's [Scafe] first rate software on an 'open code' OS. Result: tragedy. Like Ano says, it's all about standards, reliability and safety, not price. Price considerations and a free OS are for poor people."
Navisoft's CEO, Chas Oppihima, suggested that the 'open code' movement were behind the prosecution, and added, "What we at Navisoft have developed is widely acknowledged to be the finest navigational software available today. Take our WayFinder product, sit it on Calisoft's OS, use their API's to plug into Scafe's Stellar Predictive Suite, then present the output on a display driven by Graphical Corp's. TrueView 7 and you have the most advanced and reliable navigation system anywhere in the known universe."
Despite the ruling, which Calisoft have three weeks to appeal, stock in the company - still the darling of the Caliphates' bourse - was trading up seven eighths on the day. Stock in Municipal Holdings, Cotch's largest landlord, was also up more than two and an eighth on rumors that D'Hors might relocate Calisoft to Cotch, which is not a member of the F.T.O.G.W., should his appeal fail. So far, he has rejected this option; but in the light of today's decision, he may want to reconsider. None of the other CEOs was prepared to comment.
