Vertisoft in US courts over software claims

Fresh from announcing that it is to be acquired by Quarterdeck, Vertisoft Systems is going to court in the US over marketing claims regarding its own key product and that of its rival, CyberMedia. The move follows on the heels of another software maker, Syncronys, being forced to revise advertisements for its SoftRAM memory manager after a US government body enquiry.

Vertisoft's Fix-It troubleshooting utility suite goes head to head with CyberMedia's First Aid. Fix-It has had no UK distribution but will debut under the Quarterdeck name inside two months; First Aid, a huge seller in the US, is widely available in the UK and is distributed through Roderick Manhatten.

The court case revolves around claims Vertisoft has made regarding breadth of application support and the respective abilities of its own product and First Aid. It has already agreed to change descriptions that are displayed on packaging relating to the number of applications supported and the ability to crash-protect conflicting applications.

Quarterdeck UK marketing director Caroline Edney said the case will have no effect on the UK as Fix-It packaging will be all new here. "Vertisoft has had no distribution in the UK at all. The laws here mean that we would have had to have been less aggressive in our claims anyhow," she said.