Microsoft Sues Motorola Over Android Smartphones

EnterpriseMobileToday ^ | 1 October 2010 | Stuart J. Johnston

[ShadowAce]

[The_Victor]

I wonder if Microsoft has patented the blue screen of death?

[utherdoul]

why is that success always breeds endless lawsuits?

[ShadowAce]

No need. Neither Linux, nor Macs crash as often or as hard as Windows does.

In fact, I cannot remember the last time one of my personal computers crashed.

[Seruzawa]

Ah yes, Microsoft, going where companies go that can’t compete in the open market.

Now maybe if MS ever released a product that didn’t still need a year or two of beta testing....

[antiRepublicrat]

Aside from any actual relative merits, the Apple suit against HTC said "We've worked hard to produce a wildly successful device, so quit leeching off of us."

This Microsoft suit just says "We're WAY behind in the market, so we're going to sue you to slow you down so we can catch up."

Way back I said the Microsoft deal with HTC was so HTC could avoid a lawsuit. Looks like I was right. Moto didn't settle and pay Microsoft any protection licensing money, so got sued.

[The_Victor]

To be fair to Microsoft, the only BSoD I’ve ever seen were due to hardware failures; the fault of Intel and PNY, but not Microsoft.

[Wooly]

Most “blue screens of death” that I have seen on Windows XP machines were related to the low quality memory that was used or to the owner buying memory at Office Max. I build my computers and did not see any BSOD on my XP machines or my Windows 7 machines.

[sniper63]

"I wonder if Microsoft has patented the blue screen of death?"

I believe they have, as well as the your system has become unstable an needs to be restarted pop up window......

[Still Thinking]

Microsoft: Suing the companies SCO won’t sue!

[dfwgator]

Microsoft Patents Ones, Zeroes

[TheBattman]

Can’t beat ‘em, sue ‘em!!!

I truly believe MS sees the writing on the wall regarding smart phones - Android and Apple’s iOS blow the doors off of the Windows Mobile platform, making that antiquated mobile OS look like a kludge. MS cannot compete without directly copying those other two, so instead - send up a lawsuit and see what they can do...

[The_Victor]

Microsoft Patents Ones, Zeroes

I woulda bet that Apple owned that patent.

[Wooly]

The lawsuit is becoming a tool for these companies to SLOWDOWN their competitors and most of them are thrown out.
I was read and article a few weeks back that addressed the growth of Android and how the profit structure to the carriers was much greater than the iPhone or Windows based phones. As such the carriers were more likely to talk up and push Android based phones on customers looking to join the smartphone revolution.
Now when you think about the fact that without the carriers (ATT, Sprint, Verizon, T-Mobile) both Microsoft and Apple could lose big time. This is really true of Apple, which has seen it share price go up dramatically with the success of the iPhone. So where would the stock price be if the carriers decided that the iPhone would not be available or as a special order only? (I can see this coming due to Apple's pricing policies) Apple would be stuck trying to sell and unlocked phone like Google tried with the Next One, which we all know was a real success or they would be stuck doing deep discounts and having to accept lower profits.

[rahbert]

The BSOD I used to see in NT/2K/XP were from driver or installer problems not the Windows kernel. You can’t
blame MS for third party priveleged code.

[Still Thinking]

I have no problem paying them 10% on the zeroes, but the ones...not so much.

[antiRepublicrat]

The lawsuit is becoming a tool for these companies to SLOWDOWN their competitors and most of them are thrown out.

US Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, a.k.a., the Copyright Clause, "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."

I'm starting to think that all patent and copyright lawsuits should first go through an arbitration board. Make it a $100 filing fee and a maximum filing of two pages, plus one page per claim. The first job of the board will be to see whether the lawsuit within the whole of the situation fits the aims of the above clause. If not, the suit is dismissed. Next, the board could make a summary judgment, if there is obvious merit and infringement, immediately award to the plaintiff, and vice versa. Otherwise, direct to trial. Staff the board with copyright experts and patent examiners. Make them all extensively read the writings of Jefferson and Madison (the two who most shaped the Copyright Clause) before taking their positions.

[antiRepublicrat]

You can’t blame MS for third party priveleged code.

You can blame Microsoft for allowing third party code that privileged access as of NT 4, where previously it did not have such access. OS X does this too, but then all that privileged code goes through or is written by Apple for its known set of hardware.

Computers are fast enough now that I think it's time to finally go to the microkernel architecture. We have so much computing power we can afford to waste some of it to gain that robustness.