MS-Threats

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20071008205138925

"Users of the Red Hat Linux distribution will have to pay Microsoft for its intellectual property, Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer has cautioned.

"People who use Red Hat, at least with respect to our intellectual property, in a sense have an obligation to compensate us," Ballmer said at a company event discussing online services in the UK last week."

Appearently, now that Vista is a joke, Microsoft has completely given up all hope of creating a product that works and that people want to use, and is going into the lawsuit business. No, strike that. They are only threatening to go into the lawsuit business. Microsoft has not put forward even one single claim of infringement and in fact has refused to do so on several occations now.

If Microsoft wants to monitize alienating the market, maybe they should form a partnership with the RIAA - those people are experts!

Meanwhile, from the "Doing it Right" file, we have Google - a company that looks at the marketplace, sees what potential customers are struggling with, phone lock-down in this case, and works up a business model built on a need, and, they hope, a product or service people will want to use! What a novel concept!

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/08/business/media/08googlephone.html?_r=4&pagewanted=1&ref=technology&oref=slogin

"At the core of Google’s phone efforts is an operating system for mobile phones that will be based on open-source Linux software, according to industry executives familiar with the project.

"In addition, Google is expected to develop mobile versions of its applications that go well beyond the mobile search and map software it offers today. Those applications may include a Web browser to run on cellphones.

"While Google has built phone prototypes to test its software and show off its technology to manufacturers, the company is not likely to make the phones itself, according to analysts.

"In short, Google is not creating a gadget to rival the iPhone, but rather creating software that will be an alternative to Windows Mobile from Microsoft and other operating systems, which are built into phones sold by many manufacturers. And unlike Microsoft, Google is not expected to charge phone makers a licensing fee for the software."