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Blackberry Blackout Threat to Software as Service?
TheIndifferentiate writes "In light of how CEOs are reacting to a possible court injunction which could shutdown their RIM BlackBerry service, what impact do you think this will have on the 'Software as a Service' business model? The conventional wisdom in some commercial software corners has it that the threat of patent litigation should stop Open Source Software development in its tracks. If my business depends on an OSS application, and it gets shut down, I can potentially go on about my business as I have the executables and wouldn't have to stop using them until someone came knocking at my door. If an SaaS application gets shut down and my business depends on it, I'm dead in the water. Seems like one of the prime arguments against OSS also takes out SaaS too. Rhetorically speaking, how could a commercial ISV in good faith talk any business out of an OSS application and into an SaaS application?"
All it took was one little patent holding company to bring down a legitimate product used by millions of business users. Does NTP even make a product of their own? The main reason that I see this as a problem is pretty simple: software patents' shelf-lives are too long to do anything but make them a pay day for the lawyers. A one or two year term would work, but the 17 year term makes the format/approach/algorithm completely unusuable to most competitors for derivatives, extensions, etc. for its entire useful life. Does anyone honestly think that a company in Microsoft, Apple or Oracle's position would license their patents to a small, but viable competitor without charging near bankrupcy rates?
Software development is the cheapest type of engineering there is. Unlike other industries, it's far easier for a small outfit to grow on a small budget and see a return on its investment.
Actually, RIM's main data center is already located in Waterloo, Ontario. RIM has already argued that US patent law didn't apply because of this, but that didn't get them anywhere with the judges.
Eric
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Because this shutdown wouldn't affect the government members that might actually move to do something about it, it's not going to change anything there. If anything, with all the execs seeing how it could hurt their competition, it's going to fuel even more patent attacks.
I Don't Think So Tim.
"Washington is BlackBerry central. Members of Congress were issued the contraptions after 9/11, when cell phones died but BlackBerries kept working, and no political operative or reporter can be seen without one."
From the little research I have done, that is true for just about anything *but* patents. If you are thinking of WIPO, Canada is not a signatory of that.
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
Interesting article from today about the Canadian government's reply, and the ongoing IP jurisdiction battle...
Canada wants to save Blackberry
US Patent nonsense can't cross the border
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=20924