Microsoft Patents Page Scrolling

There are times the US Patent & Trademark Office and large corporations can leave you scratching your head. As Om Malik reported, Microsoft has essentially received a patent on paging through a document by pressing keys on the keyboard, like page up and page down, for example. It's absurd, but more of a problem is that the big companies undercut any credibility they had (or didn't have) when they moan about patent trolls. If you're going to make everyone spend time on this level of nonsense, what ethical authority do you have to complain about the practices of others?

• Aug 28, 2008

Microsoft Targets Google Ad Revenues with New IE Version

Microsoft is moving ahead with version 8 of Internet Explorer, but the browser has picked up some interesting privacy features. But aside from privacy concerns, an additional consequence would be to make targeted advertising harder to achieve, which means pressure on Google, a noted Microsoft rival.

• Aug 27, 2008

What is Amazon Trying to Become?

Most companies start their existences in a general direction and then keep moving that way. But sometimes a company takes an unexpected turn, which might be hidden corporate DNA, a stroke of genius, or a mistake borne of managerial ego. Amazon's behavior suggests a major business model change is already underway.

• Aug 27, 2008

Problems in Keeping Employees from Blogging

Although I posted the conversation with attorney Robert Clothier about some of the legal considerations of blogging, his was a view through the eyes of media law. There's also a whole other way of looking at blogging when it comes to corporations. Labor and employment lawyer Devjani Mishra, a partner with Seyfarth Shaw LLP, was on the road ane unable to talk, but she did email some comments.

• Aug 26, 2008

Blogging Issues: What Companies and Bloggers Face

As the Patent Troll Tracker libel suit shows, blogging can bring up some intricate legal issues. Bloggers like Dennis Crouch can find themselves facing subpoenas. A few years ago, Apple sued some bloggers that revealed the date of a new product release; the company wanted the source of the information. And as Cisco is learning, employer bloggers can entangle their employers in legal action. We chatted with media lawyer Robert Clothier, a partner with Fox Rothschild LLP, about some of the questions that arise for the technology industry, where blogging sometimes seems as prevalent as engineering.

• Aug 26, 2008

Patent Bar Brawl: Lawyers Suing Cisco Subpoena Legal Blogger

Since March, there's been a legal brouhaha in patent circles, as lawyer Eric Albritton sued a blogger as well as the blogger's former employer, Cisco, for libel. Now the dispute is spilling wider, as the plaintiff has sent a subpoena to a well-known law professor and blogger, Dennis Crouch, who wasn't part of the controversy at all. What's Albritton after? Only the identities of people who anonymously commented on Crouch's blog, Patently-O. Now there are probably prominent patent attorneys sweating because they left a comment and potentially could get dragged into the middle of the conflict.

• Aug 25, 2008

Change in Iraq Would Have Tech Industry Impact

One of the potentially clear areas of change in the face of a presidential election is foreign policy. As BusinessWeek pointed out, these are unpredictable times for military deployments and for the defense contractors that provide equipment. But any impact on defense spending won't stop there; many high tech companies could find sudden shifts in demand -- and possibly drops that they didn't expect.

• Aug 25, 2008

Google Verizon Deal Should Boost Android and Help More Deals

Google must win the handset operating system wars because Android's true mission is to deliver ads, just as a magazine and its articles generally exist to deliver ads. But today's Wall Street Journal story that Verizon and Google and nearing a mobile ad deal shows the other side of the business equation: the temptation of revenue that will turn Google's efforts into a self-reinforcing upward spiral.

• Aug 22, 2008

Jott.com: an Interview with CEO John Pollard

For about two years, Seattle-based Jott Networks Inc. has provided a service called Jott. People call a toll-free number, record a message, and see the words translated into text and emailed, either to themselves or someone on their contact list. (I tried it with a stanza of Gilbert and Sullivan patter song, which the system got mostly right.) There is also some ability to let the service interact with others, effectively providing voice control for a number of web-based offerings. Earlier this week, the company left beta and implemented a fee structure. We caught up with CEO John Pollard for a conversation.

• Aug 22, 2008

Wireless Recharging Is Business Accident Waiting to Happen

Maybe I'm just old and cranky, but Intel's plans for wireless recharging seem to beg for lawsuits and bad press.

• Aug 21, 2008

Cheap Hardware Will Force Cloud Computing

For all of the availability of such online productivity suites as Google Apps and HyperOffice, applications that live on a computer's hard drive have remained king of the hill. But that's about to change, I think. Intel's acknowledgement of the netbook and nettop markets -- low cost computers designed primarily for Internet access -- with a new chipset for sub-$200 computers not only potentially opens that market wide, but helps set the foundation for hardware to drive software off into a cloud.

• Aug 21, 2008

Apple Gets High Customer Satisfaction Rating, Sued by iPhone User

There's an irony in this week's news for Apple. Abundant consumer good will is evident on one hand. On the other are signs that the company dangerously close to burning bridges with newer customers who never grew up in the Apple brand cult and might have little patience when things go wrong.

• Aug 21, 2008

FiOS: Verizon Thinks Farther Ahead than Analysts

With the New York Times article yesterday, the debate reemerges as to whether Verizon was wise in its FiOS strategy, upgrading the final customer link from copper to fiber optics. Frankly, I think you need to toss the usual stock market analysis aside and look at competitive fundamentals. Over the next five to ten years, FiOS may prove to be a giant club in Verizon's hands because it will have the the bandwidth for the Internet's future, not past.

• Aug 20, 2008

Method Patents Face Legal Infringement Loophole

Muniauction v. Thomson Corp. and i-Deal is a case, decided last month by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC), that could open the door for companies to use a patented method, including but not limited to business methods, without technically infringing the patent.

• Aug 20, 2008

Top 6 Ways to Get Business Execs and Techs Working Together

GigaOM had a good post over the weekend about the top five ways business executives fail to work effectively with product and engineering execs, and that respect, ethics, determination, discipline and humility can solve the problem. I'd agree with that â€" you don't necessarily need a technical person at the top (though an affinity for technology is a smart thing to seek in a high tech CEO). But I think they missed the boat a bit. In describing the problems, Kevin Fortuna and Marty Abbott were specific, which makes it easier to see a situation for what it is. I think the following six positive habits for executives would be a good counterweight.

• Aug 18, 2008

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