How Apple and Microsoft intend to destroy Android
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sun 29th Jul 2012 10:48 UTC
Legal Groklaw nails it: "In other words, [Apple and Microsoft] want to disarm the companies that got there first, built the standards, and created the field, while the come-later types clean up on patents on things like slide to unlock or a tablet shape with rounded corners. Then the money flows to Apple and Microsoft, and away from Android - and isn't that really the point of all this, to destroy Android by hook or by crook? The parties who were in the mobile phone business years before Apple or Microsoft even thought about doing it thus get nothing much for their earlier issued patents that have become standards. Apple and Microsoft can't compete on an even field, because the patent system rewards the first to invent (or now, after the recent patent reform, the first to file). Neither Apple nor Microsoft got there first. Samsung was there, since the '90s." To illustrate: Apple is demanding $24 (!) per Samsung device for design patents, while at the same time, Apple also demands that Samsung does not charge more than $0.0049 per standards essential patent per device. This is absolutely, utterly, and entirely indefensible. And then Apple and its supporters have the nerve to claim Samsung is ripping them off. Yes, this pisses me off, and no, that's not because it's Apple doing it (Microsoft is just as guilty). It's because this is plainly, utterly, clearly, and intrinsically unfair.
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RE: Whining by proxy
by tomcat on Mon 30th Jul 2012 19:09 UTC in reply to "Whining by proxy"
tomcat
Member since:
2006-01-06

Best.post.ever.

What I cannot abide though is that whilst pursuing this hard nosed and aggressive strategy, in the same dedicated way the other successful and hard nosed and aggressive big tech companies pursue their strategies, that Google whines so much about anybody who fights back or stands up to them. It's the incessant whine of martyrdom that grates. Oh dear you tried to destroy the business of some very big companies and the bastards fought back - boo hoo. Poor you.


Yes. Google likes to wave around its "open" flag, and use it to bludgeon others, while whining about limits on its access to data. It's incredibly annoying, to those of us who actually pay attention to the fact that Google could give a damn about any form of openness other than that which serves its own business model.

What's even worse are those who whine on Google's behalf, like this tosh from Groklaw, hypnotised by Google's waving of the 'open' totem who will whine nonsensically on and on about how 'open' Google is or how 'open' Android is, and how poor old Google, and poor old Android is being bullied by all the big boys. Is it not obvious? If you punch someone in the face expect them to punch you back. If you set out to undermine another companies business model expect them to fight back. It has nothing to do with fairness, nobody, least of all Google, is doing anything because it is fair, they are doing it for the money. All of them. There isn't enough of a gap between the ethics of any of the big tech companies to insert a cigaret paper. I prefer Apple's approach to product making and technology, others prefer Microsoft, other's Google. Fine let's ague the merits of what these companies offer. But when you start to prattle about fairness in a trillion dollar market you leave reality behind and enter the realm of the fairytale.


Many people have been lulled into submission by Google into believing that it offers them nirvana technology for FREE; without realizing that the cost of that technology is built into every single product that they buy that's advertised through Google. At least, with Apple and Microsoft, the cost of the technology is right in front of your face -- a specific piece of hardware and/or software; whereas, Google rides on the backs of hundreds of thousands of businesses, like a hydra. Trouble is, many people are simply dumb, and don't understand the game that Google is playing.

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