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Dec. 18th, 2004 11:11 amFrom Cringely:
Microsoft is also on a tear lately to sign patent cross-licensing deals with all its major OEMs. This is part of a new concentration on intellectual property in which Microsoft is patenting everything it can think of, and a lot of things already thought of long before by other people at other companies. By cross-licensing, Microsoft gains access for free to all the neat stuff at its OEMs while simultaneously positioning itself to concentrate its own IP enforcement actions on smaller competitors, in the belief that if anyone is going to eventually take down Microsoft, it will be a startup. In this Christmas season think of this as Gates and Ballmer emulating King Herod, who ordered that all male children under the age of three be killed.
Microsoft is also on a tear lately to sign patent cross-licensing deals with all its major OEMs. This is part of a new concentration on intellectual property in which Microsoft is patenting everything it can think of, and a lot of things already thought of long before by other people at other companies. By cross-licensing, Microsoft gains access for free to all the neat stuff at its OEMs while simultaneously positioning itself to concentrate its own IP enforcement actions on smaller competitors, in the belief that if anyone is going to eventually take down Microsoft, it will be a startup. In this Christmas season think of this as Gates and Ballmer emulating King Herod, who ordered that all male children under the age of three be killed.
