First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.
Microsoft sues Salesforce.com for alleged patent infringement
“If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today’s ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today. - Bill Gates”
“At some point we will have to consider the patents they violate……I am unclear of what their business strategy is with the free version. It is a good product developed by a surprisingly lean team of people. - Bill Gates”
“People that use XXXXXXXXXX, at least with respect to our intellectual property, in a sense have an obligation to compensate us.” - Steve Ballmer”
Having realised that Microsoft faces competitive pressure from more affordable products, he reaches out for his software patents cabinet. Nowadays, as Microsoft’s Marshall Phelps points it, “other than Bill Gates, I don’t know of any high tech CEO that sits down to review the company’s IP portfolio.”
Details are scarce so far, but Microsoft has filed a lawsuit against Salesforce.com for allegedly infringing nine unspecified Microsoft CRM-related patents.
Microsoft posted a statement on its Web site acknowledging it had taken legal action on May 18. Here’s an excerpt from that statement from Horacio Gutierrez, corporate vice president and deputy general counsel of Intellectual Property and Licensing:
“Microsoft has filed an action today, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, against Salesforce.com for infringement of nine Microsoft patents by their CRM product.”
Salesforce officials said they have no comment. Microsoft is not commenting beyond the statement it released on its Web site.
Microsoft and Salesforce are rivals in the cloud-based CRM space. The two also compete in the CRM developer space, with Microsoft pushing its xRM platform as a rival to Salesforce’s Force.com platform.
Earlier this month, Salesforce hired a former Microsoft Vice President, Maria Martinez. At Salesforce, Martinez is Executive Vice President of Customers for Life. At Microsoft, she was Corporate Vice President of Worldwide Services.
Update: I had a chance to look at the complaint. Here are descriptions of the patents on which Microsoft is claiming Salesforce is infringing. Microsoft is seeking treble damages and fees.
- “method and system for mapping between logical data and physical data”
- “system and method for providing and displaying a web page having an embedded menu”
- “method and system for stacking toolbars in a computer display”
- “automated web site creation using template driven generation of active server page applications”
- “aggregation of system settings into objects”
- “timing and velocity control for displaying graphical information”
- “method and system for identifying and obtaining computer software from a remote computer”
- “system and method for controlling access to data entities in a computer network”
Microsoft and Salesforce don’t compete directly on operating systems or office software, which are Microsoft’s biggest sources of revenue. But Microsoft does offer sales software, and both companies have platforms for web-based applications. Salesforce chief executive Marc Benioff (pictured above) is also a frequent (and entertaining) critic of Microsoft as a dinosaur that doesn’t understand the importance of cloud computing — for example, when comparing their cloud platforms, he said of Microsoft, “They hate everybody and we love everybody.”
Microsoft has been a leader and innovator in the software industry for decades and continues to invest billions of dollars each year in bringing great software products and services to market. We have a responsibility to our customers, partners, and shareholders to safeguard that investment, and therefore cannot stand idly by when others infringe our IP rights.”
Say what??…Innovator??…LOL… here is a listing of the most important software innovations, revised as of 2009. The Most Important Software Innovations.
Today the dominant vendor in software is Google.
Jim Allchin, Microsoft’s “Windows operating-system chief,” has been trying to convince the U.S. government that open source software (or at least the General Public License) is a threat to the U.S. and to intellectual activity; one of his arguments is that open source software is a threat to innovation. In its recent court battles, Microsoft also used innovation as justification for its business practices (which have since been determined to be illegal).
However, after examining the evidence, I’ve determined that Microsoft is not a substantial innovator, so its claims that it should avoid punishment “because it’s an innovator” are without merit. Its products are popular, but as determined in a court of law, that’s at least in part due to illegal business practices that restrain customers from obtaining or using competing products (which, without customers, then collapse) [*]. That doesn’t make Microsoft innovative, at least not in technology. There’s nothing wrong with a company that isn’t innovative! But there must be excellent evidence of innovation to even consider eliminating punishment for illegal activity or to consider new legal constraints on competitors.
Here, I’ll provide evidence that (1) none of the key software innovations have been produced by Microsoft, (2) all of the important Microsoft products are essentially copies of previous products, and (3) Microsoft’s underlying technologies are not innovative either. Microsoft is simply not an innovator, and must not be allowed to use “innovation” as a defense, or to convince others that open source software / free software (OSS/FS) is a threat to innovation when there’s no evidence to support the claim.
But first, we must define “innovation.” An “innovation” is not simply combining multiple functions into a single product – that’s “integration” and usually doesn’t require any innovation (just hard work). In particular, integrating functions into a single product to prevent customers from using a competitor’s product (a documented Microsoft practice) is “predation”, not “innovation.” An “innovation” is not a product, either, although a product may embody or contain innovations. Re-implementing a product so that it does the same thing on a different computer isn’t an innovation, either. An innovation is a new idea. And in this context, what’s meant is a new idea in software technology.
Open source software / free software (OSS/FS) has a better track record at producing key software innovations than Microsoft, who has never made one.
