Oh la la!
Quel coup! It's champagne and caviar all around for struggling
French equipment maker Alcatel-Lucent. Last week, a federal jury in sunny San
Diego (where we'll be attending Microsoft's Convergence show in March, we note
as we watch the snow fall outside) ruled that Microsoft had violated patents
on MP3 technology held by the French firm. The ruling?
Microsoft
owes Alcatel-Lucent $1.5 billion dollars
Granted, that's a lot less than the $4.5 billion Alcatel-Lucent wanted, but
still, for Redmond, that's got to sting. In fact, it could be the biggest patent
infringement ruling...ever. So much for Microsoft's legal team getting the company
out of jam after jam with relatively minimal damage. This is, of course, all
pending appeal and lots
of other legal wrangling already underway, and, oddly enough, Alcatel-Lucent
might have sued itself right
out of some potentially profitable partnering opportunities with Microsoft.
Still, for Alcatel-Lucent, the ruling could be a nice little shot in the arm
for a company that's had some hard times lately . (And trust us, any company
that's laying people off
in France en masse is in some pretty serious trouble. Big layoffs
are not easy to pull off over there.) It's also, as about
a billion reporters have already written, potentially an invitation for
Alcatel-Lucent to sue -- or, at least, bully into paying exorbitant license
fees -- anybody and everybody
involved with MP3 technology, including the ultimate
merchant of music-player cool, Apple. Jackpot!
The details of the patent dispute are full of twists and turns (for a good
summary, check out this
article), but the point, as we've told you in
this space before, everybody has to be vigilant about patents. This means
you, if you develop just about anything. Seriously. Do your due diligence, get
a good patent lawyer on retainer, read the news (we love this topic in RCPU,
actually), talk to experts -- do whatever it takes to avoid a patent dispute.
They can be expensive, nasty and very hard-fought. Quel horreur! Just
ask Research in Motion or Microsoft...or maybe Apple in a few months.
What do you think of the proliferation of huge patent lawsuits in the technology
industry? Do you worry about patent lawsuits yourself? Tell me at [email protected].
Coming Thursday, reader e-mails on Vista and bunches of other stuff. And coming
in March -- hang on, you're not ready for this -- RCPU
four times a week. Oh, yes.
Posted by Lee Pender on 02/27/2007 at 1:20 PM0 comments
In a non-surprise announcement that has nevertheless garnered major attention,
a beefed-up version of Google's hosted productivity suite is
out
there for businesses for $50 per user per year. Its
obvious
target is Microsoft Office, but it's hard to say, with volume discounts
so prevalent in so many companies, whether Google's offering will actually be
cheaper than Office for businesses, especially larger ones. It's also hard to
say whether corporate IT directors will open up to a hosted model for a productivity
suite or whether users will be willing to accept applications that don't have
all the options that Microsoft Office offers. (On that last point, actually,
we've often wondered if Office actually offers way too much -- what percentage
of Word's functionality do you actually use?)
Still, if software as a service is going to be the way of the future, this
is where it starts: a lightweight, hosted, reliable (at least according to Google)
suite that won't break the budget. Salesforce.com has done very well for itself
in customer relationship management using the same concept, and Google has the
name recognition, the resources and the innovative drive to make a serious run
at Office -- if not with this somewhat limited offering, then certainly with
the next one or the one after that. And small businesses tired of forking over
$300 or $400 for Office might just have a look at Google's wares right now.
How should Microsoft respond to Google's effort? (Maybe not with something
called Office Live, thanks
to another lawsuit.) How much longer will Office survive as a massive suite?
How coherent a strategy is Office Live (or whatever it will be called) right
now? It's a cliffhanger for now, but we'd love to hear your take at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on 02/27/2007 at 1:20 PM0 comments
Microsoft sponsored a Zune-themed
frat
party not long ago at the
University
of Pennsylvania. Maybe instead of collecting patent money from Microsoft,
Alcatel-Lucent could just put Redmond on double-secret probation.
Posted by Lee Pender on 02/27/2007 at 1:20 PM0 comments
Everybody's favorite malfunctioning anti-piracy software
is back, and it's got a spectacular new wrinkle: a shrug of the shoulders that indicates that it's "not sure" whether your software is genuine.
We're not sure what WGA will do if it's not sure about your installation, but we're curious to get feedback on the new system as soon as folks start using it. So, please, be sure to drop an e-mail to [email protected] as soon as you've had some adventures with the new, less judgmental WGA.
Posted by Lee Pender on 02/22/2007 at 1:20 PM0 comments
Everybody knows that we live in a bottom line, what-have-you-done-for-me lately culture, short on patience and long on desire for short-term results. Sports fans know it. Hollywood watchers know it. Investors know it. And Steve Ballmer knows it, too.
Last week was rough for Ballmer. His plea to financial analysts to tone down the hype on expectations for Vista sales got a cool -- to put it mildly -- reaction from the brutal financial community, and his company's ever-fragile stock price (or, more specifically, its market capitalization) took a multi-billion dollar beating not long after he told everybody to chill. Far from being his usual cool yet hyper-enthusiastic self, Ballmer seems nervous these days ... and maybe even a little lost for words. Check out his response to a financial analyst's question from this article (an article that, off topic and incidentally, offers the tantalizing suggestion that Microsoft should buy Salesforce.com):
"What I basically tried to say in the very highest level was that you shouldn't think of a huge surge in fiscal year ‘08 versus fiscal year ‘07, huge relative -- I mean, in some senses whatever you think the growth is of PCs in developed markets, in developed markets -- because I talked about emerging markets -- we should do somewhat better than that. We shouldn't do that much better, we should do that much better, whatever it means. This is before the accounting one-time blah, blah, blah."
Uh, thanks for that, um, guidance, Steve. We're sure that Microsoft investors, partners and customers feel much better now or will as soon as they get your answer translated into something closer to Standard English.
We're not here to bury Ballmer. Yes, things are little tough for Microsoft right now. Vista is on somewhat shaky ground so far (despite the fact that Bill Gates is trying to rally the troops), and the all-important stock price, which showed serious signs of life throughout the fall and winter, is starting to become an issue again. Redmond has even suffered some public humiliation at the hands of Apple and its advertising agency without really being able to mount an effective response.
But let's not go crazy here. Microsoft still rakes in billions upon billions of dollars every year. It has massive cash reserves. It has overwhelming market share for Windows and Office and probably will continue to dominate those markets, at least for the time being. Yes, there are challenges: Apple is making a serious consumer push, Linux might be on its way becoming the OS of choice in developing countries, and the specter of piracy worldwide looms. But Microsoft's doom is not imminent, nor is it even hovering in the distance. The company is still a juggernaut.
All of that considered, we're not ready for Redmond to throw a veteran like Ballmer under the proverbial bus. Not at all. What we're wondering, actually, is whether Ballmer himself is getting tired of the game. He has obviously had a stellar career, and he's not likely worried about retirement funds. The question is whether his recent dip in enthusiasm (and, perhaps, coherence) is just that: a dip or a sign that he'll be taking his gold watch and heading for the easy chair soon. Ballmer's no quitter -- never has been, as far as we can tell. But there would be no shame in him joining his old buddy Bill in Microsoft lore and handing over the operation to a new generation. We'll see how many battles he has left in him, and how many he can win.
Is Steve Ballmer still an effective CEO? How long do you think he'll continue to lead Microsoft? Tell me at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on 02/22/2007 at 1:20 PM0 comments
The long, protracted, embarrassing (Jim Allchin saying he's buy a Mac if he didn't work for Microsoft is now part of industry lore) anti-trust trial in Iowa is over for the Redmond legal team.
Microsoft settled, but we're not sure for how much.
Who won? Well, that's hard to say, but for a hugely entertaining and completely dead-on read, check out your editor's former colleague, Dan Lyons, and his take in Forbes on the whole mess.
Posted by Lee Pender on 02/15/2007 at 1:20 PM0 comments
Amazingly, Congress actually decided to do something. Not so amazingly, it's going to screw life up royally for pretty much everybody in the United States. Get ready for
changes in Daylight Savings Time to mess up your clocks, your calendar and lots of other stuff.
Maybe one of those old-fashioned paper agendas wouldn't be such a bad idea.
Posted by Lee Pender on 02/15/2007 at 1:20 PM0 comments
From
Vienna to another great European city, Barcelona: Microsoft announced this week the
latest version of Windows for mobile devices and crowed about having
lots of industry support for it.
More interestingly, at least one analyst sees Microsoft as moving in on Research in Motion's Blackberry territory more than ever, targeting the mobile professional with this release. Only one problem with the article linked in the story above, and this is it:
"Indeed, Mr. Knook made Microsoft out to be a turnaround story, comparing it to the British rugby team which, although once beaten by rival team Scotland, earlier this year trounced its rival."
No, no, no. It was England (strictly speaking a "British rugby team," but that tag wouldn't be too popular in Scotland or Wales) that lost to Scotland last year in the 6 Nations rugby tournament (defending champion: France, sans doute) but came back to beat the Scots this year. Honestly, this stuff is too important to leave to non-rugby fans.
Do you work with Windows Mobile technology? Where do you see the 6.0 release taking the OS? Have a prediction for the rugby? Send me everything at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on 02/13/2007 at 1:20 PM0 comments
Reuters
came out this week with rather a splashy story saying that the Free
Software Foundation is considering, as some sort of retribution for the
big deal with Microsoft, banning Novell from selling its Linux distribution.
Apparently, though, the FSF
can't, and wouldn't, really do that.
One might suspect, too, that Microsoft's deep pockets and pretty
good (everything considered) track record in the legal system might win
the day over the open source zealots if push came to shove.
Meanwhile, one
commentator says that Bill Gates will have to step in for Steve Ballmer
and quiet the continuing row between Microsoft and the open source community.
We're not so sure that the open source community wields quite as
much clout as it thinks it does (as Microsoft has, after all, been concentrating
on getting some new OS out the door lately, which might explain its relative
silence on open source issues), but it's an interesting perspective,
anyway. And we're all about an exchange of ideas here.
Posted by Lee Pender on 02/06/2007 at 1:20 PM0 comments
In
Pirates of Silicon Valley, the epic late-‘90s TV movie about Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, power, passion and pocket protectors, Anthony Michael Hall's Gates bellows at Noah Wyle's Jobs during a heated discussion, "I got the loot, Steve!"
Uh, not so fast, fictional Bill. Apparently one analyst thinks that Apple could be generating more revenue than Microsoft in five years time. Maybe Steve will end up with the loot -- and the coolness -- after all. It hardly seems fair to have both.
Posted by Lee Pender on 01/30/2007 at 1:20 PM0 comments
After a long, hot summer of pressure from investors, Steve Ballmer has to enjoy the cool, soothing sensation of a
rebounding stock price, which appears to have the potential
to keep rising.
Not to be left out, Apple, stock-backdating scandal and all, racked up the numbers in its fiscal Q1.
Posted by Lee Pender on 01/18/2007 at 1:20 PM0 comments