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Microsoft sues Salesforce

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Re: Microsoft sues Salesforce

#31

Post by awa »

1. Somehow I feel this is because MS is trying to push dynamics CRM more

2. MS rarely sues over patent matters, usually they do cross licensing deals, so maybe they tried that here (as clear from Salesforce jan filing) and that didn't work out. I am sure Salesforce being quite a old player will have patents MS might be interested in using/licensing.

3. People criticizing the patents they are suing for, remember two latest case that MS lost, one of them for basically saving a word file in xml format. They lost millions and The judge actually ordered them to stop shipping Office till they fix it. Based on that as a shareholder I would want them to go out and make some money from their patent arsenal even if it involves suing.

Re: Microsoft sues Salesforce

#32

Post by nopassrecover »

thasmin wrote: post #30

Microsoft says it only uses lawsuits as a last resort when a licensing agreement can't be reached. It sounds like they're trying not to be bad guys, but I read this as Microsoft using lawsuits to force companies to license their patents. I'm not under the illusion that any other company does differently, just commenting on their attempted PR spin.

Seems like using a monopoly in one market to force another market into submission.

Re: Microsoft sues Salesforce

#33

Post by codexon »

rbanffy wrote: post #18
papachito wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I could understand that if Microsoft was a dying company but last time I check they are still making billions record profits. So why? Because salesforce is doing integration with google apps?

They are a dying company. They just have too much inertia. It will take a while. Desktop software will be irrelevant shortly, as will the personal computer as we knew it. Companies will redeploy internal desktop apps as web apps, first to their own servers, then for cloud platforms like GAE. Microsoft is doomed. This is its future.

Desktop software will be irrelevant shortly

Desktop software will never become irrelevant.

I will continue to choose MS Word for the foreseeable future because the documents are on my machine, and not on the web where it is vulnerable to MITM attacks or the whim of Google employees and government agencies.

Re: Microsoft sues Salesforce

#34

Post by jcooney »

andreyf wrote: post #25
rbanffy wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are a dying company. They just have too much inertia. It will take a while. Desktop software will be irrelevant shortly, as will the personal computer as we knew it. Companies will redeploy internal desktop apps as web apps, first to their own servers, then for cloud platforms like GAE. Microsoft is doomed. This is its future.

Desktop software will be irrelevant shortly Shortly? To me, it's pretty damned irrelevant now.

Unless it runs on OSX, in which case it's cool and edgy, right?..right?

Re: Microsoft sues Salesforce

#35

Post by MichaelGG »

rbanffy wrote: post #18
papachito wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I could understand that if Microsoft was a dying company but last time I check they are still making billions record profits. So why? Because salesforce is doing integration with google apps?

They are a dying company. They just have too much inertia. It will take a while. Desktop software will be irrelevant shortly, as will the personal computer as we knew it. Companies will redeploy internal desktop apps as web apps, first to their own servers, then for cloud platforms like GAE. Microsoft is doomed. This is its future.

Funny, I've been hearing this for at least 15 years now.

Re: Microsoft sues Salesforce

#36

Post by robryan »

rbanffy wrote: post #18
papachito wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I could understand that if Microsoft was a dying company but last time I check they are still making billions record profits. So why? Because salesforce is doing integration with google apps?

They are a dying company. They just have too much inertia. It will take a while. Desktop software will be irrelevant shortly, as will the personal computer as we knew it. Companies will redeploy internal desktop apps as web apps, first to their own servers, then for cloud platforms like GAE. Microsoft is doomed. This is its future.

It's a crazy world where a company like microsoft with almost 100000 employees and $58 billion on yearly revenue is dying. Whereas something like Twitter which may have just become profitable with about 150 employees is the future.

I guess it depends how you define dying, dying as in no longer being the most influential player in all of computing, probably. Dying as in a failing business with in eventually go bankrupt or sell, not a chance from where I'm sitting.

Re: Microsoft sues Salesforce

#37

Post by SoftwareMaven »

Microsoft typically only uses their patent portfolio to counter the attacks of others. It makes me wonder if Salesforce has some patents that Microsoft wants so it is trying to force Salesforce to do a cross-licensing deal.

Re: Microsoft sues Salesforce

#38

Post by jonhohle »

_delirium wrote: post #24
jimfl wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like anyone doing automatic software updates is in violation of "Method and system for identifying and obtaining computer software from a remote computer." When a user accesses the remote update service, an update service computer conducts an automatic inventory of the computer software on the user computer. The data collected from the inventory of the user computer software is then used to make comparisons…

The claims don't make it look too much better, either. Here's claim 21: A computer-implemented method of acquiring computer software for a first computer, the method comprising: establishing communications with a second computer over a network to determine whether computer software not installed on the first computer is available for installation on the first computer; responsive to determining computer software not…

It seems from these blurbs that the server has more logic than something most distopros have. The typical unix model is to publish an index and have each commuter determine its own updates, rather than having the server determine anything about the client.

Re: Microsoft sues Salesforce

#39

Post by cookiecaper »

benologist wrote: post #9
percept wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ouch. Sounds like they're being sued for making money. I looked at the complaint but not the underlying patents. Seems a little generic, huh?

Sued for making money .... using common practices we've probably all violated most of, repeatedly! Shameful act on MS's part.

Patent trolling has been a key part of MS's strategy for years now. When someone without an exhaustive counter-portfolio of patents make a lot of money, Microsoft shows up with an offer to license the patents, and if the company refuses and there still seems little possibility of retaliation, they bring suit on the patents.

MS shouldn't really be singled out for it, I guess, because a lot of bigger tech companies do this.

Re: Microsoft sues Salesforce

#40

Post by nailer »

robryan wrote: post #36
rbanffy wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are a dying company. They just have too much inertia. It will take a while. Desktop software will be irrelevant shortly, as will the personal computer as we knew it. Companies will redeploy internal desktop apps as web apps, first to their own servers, then for cloud platforms like GAE. Microsoft is doomed. This is its future.

It's a crazy world where a company like microsoft with almost 100000 employees and $58 billion on yearly revenue is dying. Whereas something like Twitter which may have just become profitable with about 150 employees is the future. I guess it depends how you define dying, dying as in no longer being the most influential player in all of computing, probably. Dying as in a failing business with in eventually go bankrup…

Same crazy world where Lotus and Novell died despite massive revenues and lots of employees (if you consider number of employees as a measure of success).
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