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The mind-numbing number of lawsuits filed by so-called patent trolls has inured us to the consequences of patent suits that actually have merit. But despite the fact that i4i filed its suit against Microsoft in a district known to lawyers as "rocket docket" because of the speed and likelihood of win...
When my colleague Michael Hickins called, getting me to break away from some writing, and told me that the district court in the eastern Texas district granted a permanent injunction barring Microsoft from selling Word, I was sure he was kidding. Apparently not. In the patent infringement lawsuit that i4i brought against Microsoft in the Eastern District of Texas, a court considered -friendly to plaintiffs in patent cases, Judge Leonard Davis issued the following permanent injunction:
Loudon Owen, chairman of collaboration software vendor i4i, which was just awarded an injunction barring Microsoft from selling Word 2003 or Word 2007, told me his company has "no intention of trying to stop Microsoft from selling Word." That's kind of funny, because that would seem to be the imm...
Ian Paul at PCWorld had a great catch yesterday with pricing for the new Microsoft Zune HD media player appearing briefly on Amazon. Depending on the model, the price may be $70 to $100 less than a comparable Apple iTouch. Maybe the price was a mistake, but I'm thinking maybe not. And that got me wo...
Google is one of those companies that markets by use. It gets more ad dollar share because people use the search engine more than others. Pretty simple, and helps control costs. But although that has worked in the core business, the company has assumed that it will work the same way in everything, i...
Memory chips take over the world -- that's actually the subtext for this story. In the world of NAND versus NAND, 3-bit memory seems to be the current bet for manufacturers to continue the march to dropping cost of production and -- eventually -- making some money. Wait, did I hear a yawn? Before you drift off, realize that manufacturers expect this technology to be part of a long-term strategy for flash-style memory to take over much of the overall memory market from other technologies, driving demand and, in the end, prices so all the companies involved make out like bandits.
The simple lesson both Apple and Google learned from Microsoft is that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. You might be of the opinion that every application Microsoft ever rolled out sucks -â€" Word, Excel, Outlook, SharePoint, etc. â€"- but you'd still have to admit that combining al...
There's been buzz aplenty over the Jason Calacanis rant called The Case Against Apple. Apparently his six-year-long love affair with all things Steve Jobs recently ended, with Calacanis planning to give up what he calls over-paying for his perception of Apple product quality and moving back into the PC camp. When you boil down all his reasons, you can state them simply: Apple wants to control everything. But being in control is over-rated.
Yesterday, Facebook went shopping and picked up some FriendFeed. Many, including my colleague Michael Hickins, are shaking their heads in disbelief over how unwise an acquisition this likely was. And I can't completely disagree, as there's a lot of evidence for this strategic view. But the result may not be quite as terrible as all that. I know, not the rousing vote of confidence. But you have to ask whether sometimes businesses must take a move that doesn't seem wise, but that is less dangerous than doing nothing.
Facebook acquired Friendfeed today, lighting up the Twittersphere, where reactions ranged from giddiness to despair at the presumed loss of a favored service. The reasons for the acquisition are muddled (and short-sighted at best), making it a foolhardy acquisition for Facebook, destined to join Sky...
Facebook must turn over source code in a patent suit; TechRadium sues Twitter; the first criminal prosecution of domain name theft is about to happen; Microsoft and Yahoo start the regulatory paperwork for their deal; SCO gets a bankruptcy trustee appointed by a judge; and the Activision/Double Fine dispute over game title Brutal Legend seems over.
My recent post about Oracle backing Open Office, an open source productivity suite to rival Microsoft, elicited a great response from Gary Edwards, former executive director of alt-Office effort Open Document Foundation, which I've reproduced below: What Web business systems really need are advan...
Rumor has it that David Kappos leaves IBM today to start as head of the USPTO tomorrow. Although many are wondering exactly what he'll do there, it's also interesting to consider whether his successor at IBM will change the company's patent filing habits.
In the face of the continuing controversy over Apple not approving Google Voice for the iPhone app store, David Pogue reports that Google is creating a web-based version of the application. It's tempting to keep riding that editorial wave. (Or would that be the editorial Google Wave?) But I think th...
Apple is about to repeat the same mistake with the iPhone that it committed with the Mac twenty-five years ago, and Google is going to end up with the lion's share of application sales. That said, most developers currently prefer the iTunes app store system for a number of reasons: customers ...
