Microsoft To Charge Phone Makers a Licensing Fee 225
angry tapir writes "Microsoft may be one of the only remaining mobile operating-system providers that charges handset makers a licensing fee, but in exchange vendors get at least one important benefit: protection from intellectual property worries. 'Microsoft indemnifies its Windows Phone 7 licensees against patent infringement claims,' the company said. 'We stand behind our product, and step up to our responsibility to clear the necessary IP rights.'"
In related news, Windows Phone 7 will be exclusive to AT&T at launch, and it seems Microsoft is counting on Xbox Live integration to be the "hook" that gets people interested in the new devices.
MOTHERFUCKER!!! (Score:0, Insightful)
AT&T again? After my cell contract is up, I'm done with cellphones.
in other words, microsoft is losing the war (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:in other words, microsoft is losing the war (Score:3, Insightful)
Yep. That damn Windows desktop license fee will surely lead to Linux on the desktop right about... uh, okay, give it time.. uh, keep waiting. It'll finally be this year..... uhm.
Re:You get what you pay for. (Score:3, Insightful)
One of the reasons why big business loves Windows and isn't that interested in Linux other than maybe Red Hat is because if things go horribly wrong, there's somebody with deep pockets to sue.
Yes, because Microsoft came to dominate its industry by paying out on lawsuits. Those deep pockets are more likely to go for paying for lawyers to fight your lawsuit.
As for protection from IP claims, this is the textbook definition of FUD. And it's a lie. Weren't customers of MS subject to lawsuits a few years ago based on IP in SQL Server?
Re:You get what you pay for. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Indemnification already offered on Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
A leopard never changes its spots (Score:4, Insightful)
First MS hints that Linux [slashdot.org] infringes on patents. [theinquirer.net]. Then it says it loves Open Source [networkworld.com]. Now it levels a thinly veiled patent threat against open source Android. Translation: MS loves open source as long as it doesn't compete with them. All we are missing is the horse's head.
Re:You get what you pay for. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:You get what you pay for. (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, clearly no one makes any money using Microsoft software. That's why everyone ditched Microsoft and moved to Linux back in 1995, right?
Eheh, so how often has this happened? (Score:4, Insightful)
This argument keeps coming up. That somehow, when you pay MS for their "software" you get Bill Gates at your beg and call, ready to deliver an emergency patch at your request.
For normal business, this is far from the case. MS doesn't even know you exist, HP or Dell is your point of contact. You would have to buy MS software worth millions of dollars to get them to notice you and even then, support is far from snappy. With open source I have had routine contact with the lead developers over the years.
And as for sane business men just buying off SCO and the like. Eh, no. That is exactly what did NOT happen. A hint to this might have been that SCO went bankrupt. There were a handful of payoffs and they could all be traced back to MS backing. And even that wasn't enough.
A SANE business man knows that if you start paying of left and right you will soon be out of business.
In fact a sane business man will look at this license and stay the FUCK away from it unless he was paying payed to get close to it. Why? Because apparantly, MS is willing to SUE people who it thinks don't pay it enough. So if next year you decide to dumb MS as your tech partner, will they then turn around and sue?
Go ahead, come into my house. I promise you that if you come into my house, I won't kill you... why are you running away?
Re:On the desktop, perhaps (Score:1, Insightful)
Maybe a few hobbling along on their anaemic server products.
This might be the dumbest thing anyone has ever said.
Re:On the desktop, perhaps (Score:5, Insightful)
I do. I seriously would never buy a phone with a Microsoft OS on it. Because I have a great, irrational fear (based on almost 20 years of Microsoft products) of something going horribly wrong or generally not being what I'd hoped.
For the same reason that I cringe when I see Ford commercials touting a Window experience in my car.
They have gotten better over the years, but there are certain kinds of consumer devices I'd rather not leave to Microsoft just yet.
Re:You get what you pay for. (Score:3, Insightful)
And RedHat doesn't have legal representation? I'm sure if a patent troll started hammering RedHat, other people in the supply chain whose futures are tied to the OS will join the fray, such as IBM.
Personally, I'd worry about other factors such as if the OS and platform are up to the task at hand. This generally is far more important than worrying about patent trolls as the primary reason to choose an application stack.
Re:You get what you pay for. (Score:3, Insightful)
In other words: "Nice handset you got there, it would be a shame if it burnt down..."
Re:You get what you pay for. (Score:5, Insightful)
Protection (Score:2, Insightful)
Isn't there a legal phrase for that?
Read between the lines (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a signal that if WinCE 7 (or whatever) doesn't sell well, they're going to go after Android and iPhone handsets with patent claims. Switch to WinCE 7, or something bad might happen to your platform.
Re:You get what you pay for. (Score:2, Insightful)
Extortion (Score:3, Insightful)
Thats nice software you have there. It would be a pity if something were to 'appen to it.
After examining the recent patent litigation it seems that Microsoft is the target of phone patents already, and another patent troll is not attacking Microsoft because they are owned by the co-founder of the company.Basically what they are saying is that you should use Windows ONLY because of patent protection. Innovation be damned, what matters is how many patents you and your allies have to throttle the competition. Gates was right; if software patents had been in common use when Microsoft started he wouldn't have stood a chance.
Re:A leopard never changes its spots (Score:3, Insightful)
You're misplacing your anger. Microsoft's not the one that sued HTC for patent infringement over Android.
Re:You get what you pay for. (Score:3, Insightful)
Like Google? Amazon? Or every other successful company of the last 10-15 years?
Or did you mean companies that *sell* Linux, which obviously you should not expect killer profits from.
Re:You get what you pay for. (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly.
There has not been a single case when someone has successfully sued Microsoft for "something going wrong". I have not heard of a single case of it settling either.
That is not the reason businesses like Microsoft. Microsoft is extremely good at catering to Joe Average Middle Manager needs. It may be a resource hog, it may be unstable, it may be utterly non-scalable, but it is what the middle management needs and wants. From there on, it does not matter what the top brass want or what the grunts want. There is no way to turn a company around to want something different from powerpoint, microsoft word and most importantly excel and project.
Congratulations, you've reinvented the wheel (Score:3, Insightful)
The rest of us will just keep using bash, thanks.
Re:On the desktop, perhaps (Score:5, Insightful)
In the same ways Windows generally is lame compared to Linux/Unix. No forking. Spawning processes is slow. CLI is an afterthought because the default CLI sucks and Power Shell doesn't offer much over a Perl install. Remote access is very anemic compared to SSH (no tunneling, it uses SOAP, ..) and what's the point of a remote shell if the shell sucks.
I've learned that the ability to script anything and everything on a server and to be able to do it from anywhere should be essential for an administrator. I say should be because after you've done it for a while, the Windows way feels so, what's the word ... oh yea, anemic, yet Microsoft has serious "not invented here" syndrome and doesn't include this ability by default and the installable options don't compare to those on a base Linux/UNIX install.
And even if you can point at Unix tools for Windows to enable awk, sed, grep or install perl and bash or ssh whatever, it's not the "Windows Way" and the way that nearly all Windows admins run Windows servers. As I'm writing this, I'm frustrated with a Windows admin because they can't write a script to watch a Tomcat log for errors and email the log entry. You know, something simple like grep ERROR logfile | mail -s "to_address".
So yes, Windows Server is anemic.
--Randall
Re:You get what you pay for. (Score:3, Insightful)
One of the reasons why big business loves Windows and isn't that interested in Linux other than maybe Red Hat is because if things go horribly wrong, there's somebody with deep pockets to sue.
Yup, that's why the London Stock Exchange sued MS after the entire fscking exchange went down in flames, right?
Oh, wait - no they didn't. They licked their wounds and switched to Linux.
Methinks your premise is flawed.
Re:On the desktop, perhaps (Score:3, Insightful)
Automatic transmissions are inefficient and require more maintenance than standard transmissions.
Much like graphical interfaces.
Re:Congratulations, you've reinvented the wheel (Score:1, Insightful)
I will also point out that Bash was an improvement that was necessary for the environment it was to operate it - it brought added benefits to UNIX beyond that of the shells it replaced. Powershell does precisely that for cmd.exe and Windows and you deem it necessary to demean it.
But of course, troll away, its in your nature.