Bullies, Thugs and Extortionists ...

[GreyGeek]

True to its nature, Microsoft has bullied yet another smartphone OEM who is selling Android smartphones into paying Royalty Payments to them for the "privilege" of using Google's OPEN SOURCE software.

In fact, Windows mobile phone sales have TANKED worldwide.
[img width=400 height=248]http://static8.businessinsider.com/image/4e00896bcadcbb1225210000/us-smartphone.png[/img]

Microsoft had concealed this thuggery behind NDAs they force their victims to sign. But, Barnes & Nobel called their bluff and described their thuggery:

Microsoft has a scheme, Barnes & Noble asserts, to dominate Android and make it undesirable to device manufacturers and customers by demanding "exorbitant license fees and absurd licensing restrictions" -- a license fee that it says is more than Microsoft charges for its entire operating system for mobile devices, Windows 7. Others have, it believes, signed it. Barnes & Noble says the deal with Nokia is in furtherance of this scheme.

The patents asserted are "trivial, not infringed and invalid", Barnes & Noble says, and merely a vehicle in furtherance of the scheme, as they "are not even close to covering the entire functionality of Barnes & Noble’s NookTM and Nook ColorTM devices, or of the AndroidTM Operating System."
...

[woodsmoke]

Re: Bullies, Thugs and Extortionists ...

We have a B & N in the fair city and I frequent the place, I'll mention this to a clerk, bravo!

woodsmoke

[saurav]

Re: Bullies, Thugs and Extortionists ...

The situation with Android is not clear at all. You may want to take a look at this - http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011...ign-up-as.html.

[woodsmoke]

Re: Bullies, Thugs and Extortionists ...

OHMYGAWD

I thought the title of the thread was Bullies, Thugs and EXHIBITIONISTS!!!!! MY BAAAD!!!!

how thoughtless of moi!!!

woodwaytoomanyrum'ncokessmokethoughtless

[GreyGeek]

Re: Bullies, Thugs and Extortionists ...

The situation with Android is not clear at all. You may want to take a look at this - http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011...ign-up-as.html.

That is a FUD article by a well known Microsoft sycophant who, in his article ASSUMES as true what has yet to be proved: that Microsoft's patents are valid, and that the "infringed" patents actually cover the technology in the devices. And, he puts clever but misleading twists on his arguments For example:

When Microsoft's lawsuit against Barnes & Noble was announced, I already pointed out that it's a matter of of a level playing field that Microsoft has to require all competitors in that market to pay so as not to put those who pay at a disadvantage vis-à-vis non-paying infringers.

Do you get that weird twist? Microsoft is suing OEMs of it major competitor, (and he doesn't ask "Why not sue Google itself?) out of its concern for a "level playing field"!!
Ludicrous.

many patent license deals are never talked about in public.

Duh! What part of an NDS does Mueller not understand? And, why is signing the NDA such an important part of Microsoft's bully club. ("If youse tell anyone how we beat youse up we come back and break another leg...")

their [Microsoft] focus on licensing (rather than litigation) reflects a cooperative approach that allows all players to innovate.

And he writes that with tongue planted firmly in his cheek. Players can only "innovate" IF they cooperate in Microsoft's extortion plan and not do what that EVIL Barnes & Nobel have done.


The world wide smartphones sales reveal one OUTSTANDING fact, namely that Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 sales have totally TANKED, and they started tanking BEFORE Android's climb to the top took off. The ONLY way Microsoft can make money on the smartphone market is by extorting it from players too small to fight them in court or too big (Samsung) to care and feel it is easier to pay a license fee than spend millions and years in court, regardless of the outcome. And, as I said before, IF the technology in Google's phone, which is blowing Microsoft's phones out of the market, was Microsoft's to begin with, WHY didn't they use THAT technology in their own phone rather than the trash they market now under the label Windows Phone 7?

By the way, have you noticed that even though Microsoft has bullied several small time OEMs into paying MS for the "privilege" of selling Android smart phones, obviously in the hope of making the profit from selling Android phones too small or even non-existent, it hasn't increased the sales of WP7?

Why, the poor man was once against patents, but now, no longer living in a "hypothetical world", he supports them in the same way Microsoft does. Imagine that. I smell the exchange of money here.

Most people have understood by now that Android isn't truly "open" in light of Google's heavy-handedness. Android is neither "free" as in "beer" nor "free" as in "speech".

"Many people"? Ballmer and his lawyers? Let's see. Who's charging "royalty payments" for Android? What's that, you say? Microsoft? Correct! Android is not free if you are paying Microsoft, who didn't develop it and doesn't own it, to run it. But, that's not Google's fault.

Oh, he "likes" Android and, he says, he uses a Samsung... but ...

But the facts are still the facts concerning Android's intellectual property issues.

What facts are those? The ones he is ASSUMING? That Android "infringes" on Microsoft's IP? IF those are the facts then it should be a SIMPLE thing for him to list the patents and the specific patent claims that are being infringed by Android. But, alas, he cannot. That doesn't stop the copious flow of FUD, though.

Every device maker who feels forced to take a patent license on Android disagrees with Google's claims in the sincerest form: by putting his money where his mouth is. That is exactly what Google fails to do: it doesn't indemnify device makers because it's aware of Android's infringement.

That's one spin. The most likely one is that they are too small to fight or too rich to care. It is common for large companies with large patents to make "arrangements". Mueller knows this. He also knows something else. NDA prevent the nature of the deals to be revealed. In past deals protected by NDA, where only the news MS wanted to release was, but more eventually leaked out, we've learned that Microsoft spun their deal to look like a victory when, in fact, it was merely a quid quo pro exchange. The most common example is where Novell's CEO "admitted" that Linux contains Microsoft IP (I can admit that you stole money, too, but does that make it a fact, or a slander?), then agreed to pay Microsoft a Royalty for every copy of SUSE Enterprise Linux sold. What finally came out was the Microsoft paid Novell $340 Million up front to make that phony confession, and purchased two or three $75 Million bundles of "SELS coupons" that they later used to GIVE to Enterprises that were running Red Hat to prompt them to replace the RH servers, which were also acting as "Domain Master Browsers", with SLES servers which were configured never to act as Master Browsers, thus easy to offload and replace with Windows servers. Novell's management and board burned through that $500 million in less than time than the life time of their agreement with MS, and went out of business. I suspect a LOT of that money went into their own personal fortunes, their worker drones not being a concern. That's the usual case with bribe money. Take it and run.

Read all of that article again. Then analyze it careful to separate the fact from the FUD. It's classic Mueller. He tried the same stuff against PJ at Groklaw, making all sorts of outrageous claims, but was shot down. He was probably the source and the architect that created the lie shouted around by SCO that she was an IBM employee.

[woodsmoke]

Re: Bullies, Thugs and Extortionists ...

now now GG. we must not let facts get in the way of one's agenda!

woodsmoke

[saurav]

Re: Bullies, Thugs and Extortionists ...

That was enlightening, GreyGeek, thanks. I don't come across much FUD so I'm not always able to recognise it if I do. The sad fact is that not many companies are interested in developing devices based on alternative platforms such as MeeGo. Android remains practically the sole choice in phones based on FOSS. The choice that we have in the desktop Linux arena is missing. And what makes me angry about Android-based devices is that the manufacturers are actually paying MS for them and that MS is making more money out of Android than it does out of Windows Phone 7.