Go returns to sue Microsoft for "killing" it

by Marc Perton Jul 4th 2005

Go Corp. is one of those legendary Silicon Valley flameouts that people still cite as a cautionary tale — in part, because of founder Jerry Kaplan's excellent memoir Startup (and, no, this is not an affiliate link), which details the company's collapse after Microsoft checked out its PenPoint tablet computing OS and then began work on a competing product (Windows for Pen Computing). Now, Kaplan (who later founded auction site Onsale.com) has returned, and this time he's looking for payback. Kaplan has filed suit against Microsoft, alleging that Microsft tried to "kill" Go back in the early 90s. Kaplan's timing might be good, given that Microsoft has recently been handing out the cash to quiet complaints from old competitors. However, given the amount of time that's passed since the demise of Go, Kaplan might find that his chance to snag some of BillG's cash may have come and gone.

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

broo said 11:29AM on 7-04-2005

Is this the miserable 'GoBack' software that was on Gateway PCs in the 90s- the software that converted the disk from FAT/FAT32 to a proprietary format that you could not read if you put it in another machine? Although that was similar to Microsoft's 'System Restore', at least MS left the system in a readable format...

I hate to say this, but 'Go Microsoft' in this situation...

Wesley Mason said 12:46PM on 7-04-2005

No, it refers to the tablet-form pen-input UI/OS the company worked on, and MS's decision to then jump into the same market and create a competing software after demo'ing Go's UI/OS, i.e. Windows Tablet PC Edition.

Gino said 3:38PM on 7-04-2005

apparently, broo, it is what the article says it is.

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