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RIM Strikes Back, Files Countersuit Against Visto
SilentOne writes "Research In Motion Ltd. launched an all-out assault on competitors yesterday, countersuing its latest legal nemesis and introducing software to pre-empt imminent launches by other challengers. The countersuit also gives RIM a chance to move the patent battle to a courtroom where it has a better chance of beating Visto. Visto filed suit against RIM on Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division, which reportedly favours patent holders in 92% of cases heard by the court. Jim Balsillie, RIM's co-chief executive, said the company wants the trial moved to the Dallas area, where RIM's U.S. headquarters are located, for practical reasons.
Meanwhile, RIM is giving away a free software package, valued at US$3,000, to hook the e-mail accounts of small businesses and consumers up to BlackBerries instead of competitive devices from Palm and Microsoft."
This just highlights fundemental flaws in our countries IP laws. Here is a successful company with a sought after product, and they can't keep themselves out of court for violating IP concerns.
Nevermind the technical merits of said device, which I have never owned or had to work with.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
What you're discussing is only a small portion of the problem. These sort of incidents are what will directly lead to nations like China and India taking the lead in technological developments.
While American companies are mired in legalities, and restricted in their ability to produce and innovate (two things which any successful economy requires), Indian and Chinese companies will not be so restrained. As American companies are wasting resources on petty legal fights over patents, Chinese and Indian teams will actually be taking part in the development of the next generation of technology.
Many suggest that the trade ties between China and the US are enough to prevent China from saying to hell with the US. Such people are naive. They don't realize that the 2 billion people of China and India far eclipse the American market. Soon enough, the demand for technology in China and India themselves will be enough to fuel future innovation, regardless of what the American market demands.
It's likely that in the future, historians will discuss how the freedom of innovation in places like China and India, and the lack thereof in the US due to excessive legal barriers, directly led to the decline of the US in favor of India and China.
Having used the latest BBs for over a year with the best set up (I work for RIM btw), let me give you a few reasons why the BB is different and so good.
:\
-full integration with Exchange/Lotus/groupwise. Any important action which I can do from outlook, I can do from my BB and everythign is mirrored and synchronized
--typically any mail sent to my email gets to the device less than 1-2s after it gets to outlook. deleting, marking as read, forwarding, replying etc, everythign you do to a message on the BB is mirrored in outlook an vice versa.
--calender is wirelessly sync'ed and you can accept requests, send out invitations etc.
--memos, tasks, contacts etc, etc are all wirelessly sync'ed as well. Entering any such data on the BB will automatically send it to outlook. Beleive me, this is VERY useful.
--the BB is efficient and uses A LOT less bandwidth than MS PPC handhelds.
--RIM's has infrastructure is very reliable.
--Security is very very important. The US government uses is extensively, and they even have a BB smart card reader.
--it can be administered remotely, have applications pushed to it, different IT policies enforced etc, pretty easily.
Basically, the handhelds themselves are pretty nice (though not exceptional), the whole package is unbeatable. No wonder the only way companies are trying to stop RIM is through the courts.
The whole series is of course:
I. The NTP Menace
II. Attack of the Lawsuits
III. Revenge of the USPTO
IV. A New Lawsuit
V. RIM Strikes Back
VI. Return of the Blackberries
Now available on DVD in classic and digitally re-mastered editions!
"Valued at $3000". By who? How can they say something like this wiht a straight face?
You were told you have no soul?
Kind of like how America took the lead over Europe in the 19th century because Europe had relatively restrictive IP laws which America did not respect, so Americans (notably Edison) freely stole European innovations while Europeans were forced to respect American property rights and could not steal back?
Listen up, America. If you don't want to go the way of Europe and sink into mediocrity and irrelevance, you have two choices... either you loosen up your crazy draconian IP laws, or you declare all-out war on China and India. Sadly, the way things are going, I suspect it'll be the latter...