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Microsoft Leaves U.N. Standards Group
pk2000 writes "Microsoft withdrew from a United Nations software standards group for commerce. 'Unfortunately, for now, we have made the decision to stop participating in U.N./Cefact for business reasons and this serves as notification of our immediate withdrawal from all U.N./Cefact activities.' This might be connected to Microsoft's intention to build up its patent portfolio. Currently it has about 5,000 patents and seeks to at least double this number by the end of 2005."
I think it makes sense. With alternatives to Microsoft products going strong, it is not in Microsoft's interest to standardize and create interoperability.
You will see that, historically, standards supported or developed by Microsoft are mostly those that enable Microsoft products to work better, whereas support for standards that enable interoperability of MS products with other products has been lacking, if even considered at all.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
One can only hope that MS' refusal to adhere to real standards will backfire. I just hope that corporations and governments aren't to dumb to realize that it is them who have to pay the prize for MS' tactics.
On the other hand, once patent laws are the way MS and others want them to be world wide open standards will simply not matter anymore. What a bright future lies ahead for freedom of information and freedom of choice...
If you even glance at UN/CEFACT's Mandate, it reads like a mission statement for GNU/Linux. Words like "inclusive", "help", and "free" (as in trade) won't inspire confidence up in Redmond.
With this many patents, Microsoft will win. Their intent is to kill all competition/freeware by patenting everything remotely interesting to them. They don't even put their name on any of their patents until they issue, so it's really hard to spot them. There's no telling exactly how many, or which patents they have in process at any time, unless you do a lot of educated snooping at the USPTO. And that tells you nothing about their international patents. Their pulling out of the organization will have little impact for them.
In this corner, we have Microsoft with a platform-specific lockin solution designed to drain business revenue without actually committing to fix reported problems.
In the other corner, we have IBM, Sun, HP, Novell, RedHat, Mandrake, Oracle, Sybase, and a few thousand other vendors supporting full POSIX stacks, international and national standards, and essentially working on the philosophy of building from a shared technology foundation.
While Microsoft may have bought their way out of court-imposed penalties by delaying the case until a change of government occured, they can't buy their way out of the opinions and mistrust they've built for the past 2-3 decades.
As they've refused to compete on quality, reliability, security, and performance of business solutions, what choice does Microsoft have except to try to use the courts and barratry to survive?
After all, they can't accept (or perhaps can't grasp) a service/quality based market. Their whole mindset is package and sell, not long-term services and support that generate stable revenue instead of bursts during purchase/upgrade cycles.
Business hates upgrades. A minor patch for an existing release means much lower retraining and deployment costs.
Consumers love upgrades, they get a whole bunch of new gadgets, features, toys, and shiny icons.
It's simple: Microsoft can service one market or the other, but not both. Any attempts to use their IP portfolio for barratry are likely to get them pimp-slapped by the vendors I mentioned above: they don't like Microsoft's intrusions on their turf any more than Microsoft want's Linux on the desktop.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Nice to see Microsoft taking a page from the good ol' Bush book of foreign relations and getting rid of those UN pussies.
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"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
-- George Orwell
Companies that join working groups should be forced to say "right, these are my patents, i'll share with you and if i pull out, i cant use them against you".
:/
If Microsoft start patenting things the group is working at making, waiting until the standard is out to start suing (Hi, my names Rambus, id like to help you with your DDR tech!), or perhaps even joined, had a look what the groups doing, realises they have patents that covers it then pulls out.. ooh, i'll be angry!
I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you.
from when Sun withdrew from ISO/IEC and ECMA because they didn't want to give up any control over Java?
That's interesting. This kind'a reminds me of how the USA is isolating themselves more and more.
Does this mean that the USA is cutting its own throat too?
No because the US is good. MS is bad.
Repeat that a couple hundred times per day and you'll feel fine like the rest of us.
I suggest a new moderation reason, +1 "Wishful thinking"
There's still competition. Some make robust, expensive plugs for important equipment that can't afford to fail. Some make cheap plugs for budget consumer kit. Some make plugs with groovy features like circuit breakers and easy fuse access. They compete with one another, and yet none feel the need to breach the standard for how a plug should interact with the socket.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
No company would use "intellectual property" to hinder competition and litigate against its own customers.
I mean really guys. You totally need to take some Prozac or something. This could never happen.
Companies love their employees, competitors, and their customers. They always try to do what is best for everyone!
And on the slim chance they didn't, our legal system is more than capable of putting any company in their respective place!
GOD BLESS AMERICA!
It's very rarely in the interests of a dominant entity to engage with a group like the UN. Whether you're talking about international law and the United States, or IT standards and Microsoft, you have the group wanting everyone to play by the same rules and the dominant player wanting to leverage its advantages.
Doesn't mean that Microsoft (or the US) is bad; that's just logical behavior for an entity in a dominant position.
Now I've just drawn a comparison between the US and Microsoft, so I know my karma's shot to hell.
I should buy some cement.