Mobile phone developer Sendo said it expected hearings to start at
the end of this month or early February in its lawsuit against
Microsoft.
The suit accuses Microsoft of using false promises of partnerships
to gain access to Sendo's mobile phone expertise.
Sendo formed a partnership with Microsoft in October 1999 to help
develop e-mail- and Internet-enabled mobile telephone handsets
based on the Microsoft operating system codenamed Stinger for use
by cellular carriers worldwide.
That relationship dissolved shortly after mobile phone operator
Orange introduced a mobile phone in October that was manufactured
by Taiwanese company High Tech Computer and based on Microsoft's
Smartphone software instead of Sendo's Z100 mobile phone.
Sendo is alleged that Microsoft developed a "secret plan" to
"plunder" Sendo's intellectual property, proprietary hardware
expertise and trade secrets and transfer them to low-cost original
equipment manufacturers such as High Tech.
The complaint also alleged that Microsoft used Sendo's
relationships with carriers such as Orange to establish its own
contractual relationships with mobile carriers.
Sendo spokeswoman Marljke Van Hooren said Sendo is "looking into
the legal implications" of the Orange/Microsoft relationship, but
she declined to provide further details.
Microsoft spokesman Jon Murchinson declined to comment on the Sendo
lawsuit because the company was still reviewing the filing. Orange
spokeswoman Sally Quigg said her company viewed the lawsuit as a
matter between Sendo and Microsoft.
Sendo has alleged that after gaining access to Sendo's intellectual
property and hardware, Microsoft drove "Sendo to the brink of
bankruptcy". Sendo claimed Microsoft was late in delivering
software and did not respond to Sendo's requests to fix software
bugs and make changes last spring. Microsoft allegedly also failed
to provide $14m in financing, and Sendo had problems raising funds
from outside sourcesd.
The suit said that under their agreement, if Sendo filed for
bankruptcy, Microsoft would be allowed to obtain a royalty-free
licence to use the intellectual property Sendo had developed for
its Z100 Smartphone.
Sendo said that around October, Marc Brown, a director of
Microsoft's corporate development and strategy group and a Sendo
board member, suggested Sendo might consider filing for bankruptcy.
On 28 October, Sendo said Brown resigned from its board, and the
next day the company terminated its relationship with Microsoft.
Since then, Sendo claimed to have made "repeated requests" to
Microsoft to return its intellectual property. Microsoft, Sendo
added, has "failed and refused" to return this property, while at
the same time forging relationships with mobile phone carriers and
handset manufacturers around the world.
Craig Mathias, an analyst at Farpoint Group, said he viewed the
dissolution of the Sendo/Microsoft relationship "surprising,
because it was a quite innovative product". He added that he had no
insight into the allegations Sendo is making in its lawsuit, but he
did say that Microsoft is "a corporation that has acted ruthlessly
in the past".
Tim Bajarin, an analyst at Creative Strategies, said Microsoft
needed partners such as Sendo because it has been unsuccessful in
its attempts to make alliances with major mobile phone players such
as Nokia and Motorola.
"Microsoft has been running behind" in mobile phone technology,
Bajarin said. He added that Microsoft views the Smartphone as a key
extension of its products designed to serve enterprise markets and
workers "anytime, anywhere".