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The True Believer | |
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| Time: 03:55 EST/08:55 GMT | News Source: E-Mail | Posted By: Byron Hinson | ||
|
These are happy days in Redmond, Washington, with Microsoft having defeated, coopted, or survived the Department of Justice, depending on what side of the issue you stand. Microsoft shares are surging, and the future seems bright with only a few more legal speed bumps in the way. There are the private anti-trust suits from AOL/Netscape, Sun, and others. There are a few class-action lawsuits still pending in California, where Microsoft runs afoul of a state anti-trust law. And there are the inevitable patent infringement cases that have dogged Microsoft for years. These latter lawsuits are the topic of this column. | ||
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| #1 By 1845 (12.254.162.111) at 11/10/2002 6:18:35 AM |
|
"It would sure be nice for someone to actually consider all of this from our point of view, rather than MS's," wrote Doyle in a recent message to me. "It amazes me that everyone just assumes that MS will be able to merely write a check and make the whole thing go away. What if someone went through the following, purely theoretical, of course ;-), logical analysis?"
Some people in the world don't seem to understand the purpose of business. The purpose of a business is to make money. What does a company have to gain by holding a patent? They have money to gain in licensing fees. What does a company lose if their patents are violated? Licensing fees. Any way you look at it, loss of market presense, loss of shareholder equity, loss of leverage in negotiations with other companies, etc... it all comes down to money. The only thing this company can possibly gain that would be inline with its fiduciary responsibility would be more money. Now that I'm done with that soapbox, let me climb onto another one. What specific company will suffer the most if Microsoft loses this case and Eolas refuses to license its technology to Microsoft for use in IE? As a single company, Microsoft arguably has the most to lose. Who else will lose it Internet Explorer loses the ability to have embedded objects? Let's name just a few - Sun, Real, Apple, Macromedia, and every other vendor on the market who makes ActiveX controls. Who else? I'd say at least 70% of corporate websites on earth have web pages which are designed for IE that use embedded objects. All of those corporations stand to lose if the main browser they target can no longer display content as they had planned. Who else stands to lose? Every company that has an intranet and uses embedded objects (this includes every company that offers access to Exchange from a browser). Who else? Every developer will need to be trained to rework their IE pages to work without embedded objects or they'll have to be trained to write pages for other browsers. Who else? Every person who has come to expect high quality web sites from all of the producers I've just mentioned. Presupposing Microsoft loses this case, it is utter foolishness for Eolas to withhold a license to this technology from Microsoft. If Eolas has a goal to punish Microsoft, they need to realize the drastic effect they could have on the rest of the industry. Puninshing the browser maker also punishes everybody that is in anyway connected to that browser. As for making money. If you want to maximize your profits, doesn't it make sense to license a browser technology to the largest company on earth who also has the browser with the largest market share on earth (95% was the last number I saw) ? Eolas's point of view is foolishness and pride. It isn't financially sound. If they were a publically traded company and I were a shareholder and they withheld a license from Microsoft for this technology, I'd sue for criminal negligence. Clearly board would not be meeting its fiduciary responsibility by commiting such an act. |
| #2 By 135 (208.50.201.48) at 11/10/2002 12:46:27 PM |
| This is an example of why software patents for obvious ideas are bad. |
| #3 By 3653 (65.190.70.73) at 11/10/2002 8:41:52 PM |
| joachimkaufmann, if there is a way... you can bet MSFT has already got the work done and its waiting in the wings. They aren't one to sit idly by and do nothing. They "mitigate risks" like a son of a bitch. |
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