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Sendo vs. Microsoft: The Truth Comes Out
igotmybfg writes "The Register has a story which includes many details about the phone maker's Texas suit against the software giant. It seems that Microsoft had much more to gain from letting its partner fail than helping it to succeed: in the event of a bankruptcy, Microsoft acquired all of Sendo's intellectual property related to the z100 Stinger SmartPhone, and was then free to do whatever it wanted, which in this case turned out to be going behind Sendo's back and making a deal with Orange SPA." Read our original article about this to get more background information.
When you walk into the lion's den, you need more than a g-string on. To have put themselves in a position where M$ could grab Sendo's intellectual property by not giving them anything is stupid.
That said, dealing in bad faith is something that is tortous. I hope Sendo recovers the stars the moon and the sky from these bastards.
I'm under no imaginable obligation to contact the seller and let him know he's an idiot.
No legal obligation, but there are plently of moral and ethical ones. In a like vein, if you were to contact the seller and your appraisal was accurate, he'd be under the same kind of non-legal obligation to give you first crack at the antique--or just a "finder's fee."
As someone else pointed out, there are laws against getting into extremely one-sided deals--Usury, bad faith, court policy, etc. No law against making a bad deal, but there are laws against one-sided "mafia" deals.
They insult everyone, to try and be fair.
Hence Intel is ChipZilla and AMD is ChimpZilla.
The only exception to this really is when it comes to figures in the Linux world.
Seemed to be a smart choice after all..
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
Over the Week-end this was plastered all over the UK's Broadsheets (quality) news papers in the last few day; and not technology sections but in the Business. The damage to Microsoft's reputation for bad-faith with the 'Captains of Industry' from this episode will be profound.
There is also refuge for Sendo in UK bankruptcy laws, where Creditors have an incredible amount of power in the say of the winding up of a company. There are two forms, Administration, a private sector accountant is appointed to take over running of the business. He has absolute authority in to persue the Creditors best interests, even if the only real assets are IP, bad debts and damages. In this fails the next step is Insolvency, Government investigators from the DTI investigate why the business failed, have criminal investigative powers and can sequestrate assets of bad debtors, and prosecute offenders. If Sendo do go bust that is only the start of Microsoft problems.
IIRC Microsoft has a stake in General Magic, which developed video software for handheld devices. It was of note, a few years ago, because General Magic was down to $1 a share when Microsoft took interest. Last I looked General Magic closed September or early October and was winding down completely about December. Guess who will get their IP, as a significant debtor
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
remember, MS had a man on the Sendo board. MS cannot now claim to not know the situation Sendo was in. If Sendo can show that the MS man acted against the interests of Sendo he's wide open to be sued by the shareholders. If Sendo can show that the MS man acted in bad faith on behalf of MS then MS is in deep s.h.i.t.
Do not partner with Microsoft. Do not become inolved with a company that has a long, pathetic history of screwing-over anyone and everyone they even remotely deal with.
Learn, people! If you play with fire, you'll get burned! Instead, choose to deal with organizations that are friendly because they understand the concept of doing good work to stay in business (open source vendors for example).
Why bother.
> In the Anglo Saxon legal system, a contract has equal status as the law...
Not quite. Clauses that require breaking the law are themselves illegal and can't be enforced.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
The thing about things we don't know is we often don't know we don't know them.
I agree with your points. But I must add, the DOJ had all the right evidence, and yet, it failed.
I am not going to analize why, that would really take us quite far, but I can't help thinking that 40 billion in cash gets you a long way.
Sigged!
Just a typo, but looks like there's a dyslexic editor on the Register's website. 5/1/2003 appears to be a bit too far into the future.
Only if you're in North America. In Europe and much of the world, dates are written day/month/year, instead of month/day/year.
Incidentally, it was a date-style conflict that convinced many people the anthrax letters from late 2001 were written by an American.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
Here is why I wonder. The software industry and the telco industry are TWO separate things. Even now with MS going with T-Online has Orange concerned. Orange networks had a MS device, but now is one of many providers of that "same" MS device.
Basically MS is giving punches before they are even established in the market. I am tempted to believe that they will not make it.
Here is why. My wife just got a new phone. It was an Ericsson T68. REAL sweet. Small, has colour and many other neat features. MS competitors are huge devices with little battery power. And having talked to my MS friend in the US he tells me only MS employees are the ones using these types of devices. BTW this includes the Palm devices as well. It seems that people want small devices....
What does this have to do with Sendo? I think that MS seriously has the lower hand and will loose this battle. And the reason is because they cannot get traction like they could in other markets.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"