Symantec Accuses Microsoft of Stealing Virtualization Technology

Published: May 24, 2006

by Alex Woodie

Symantec filed a lawsuit against Microsoft last week for allegedly stealing intellectual property from its Veritas storage management software and then incorporating it into several current and upcoming versions of Windows. Microsoft rejected the suit, calling it a "very narrow disagreement" of an existing contract.

In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle, Symantec accuses Microsoft of taking advantage of an OEM agreement partnership that began in 1996 between the software giant and Veritas, which Symantec acquired last year. The lawsuit says Microsoft reverse engineered Veritas' Volume Manager software, and used that technology to build Virtual Disk Service and Volume Shadow Copy Service drivers for Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, and the upcoming releases of Windows Vista and "Longhorn" Server.

A Symantec lawyer was quoted as saying Symantec and Microsoft had attempted to negotiate a deal that would allow Microsoft use of the virtualization software, but that those negotiations broke down. Symantec is seeking an injunction to stop the development and sale of Vista until the disputed technology is removed.

Microsoft rejected the charges and issued a statement Thursday that said: "We worked hard to try to resolve these issues with Symantec, but were not able to reach an agreement." Furthermore, Microsoft says it bought the necessary intellectual property rights from Veritas in 2004.