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Symantec Sues Microsoft, May Delay Vista
AuMatar writes "Symantec filed a lawsuit against Microsoft over patents on the volume management technology in Vista. They're seeking an injunction to stop Vista from being sold until the suit is completed. Given the recent Supreme Court ruling it should be interesting to see if the injunction is granted, since Symantec does produce software which uses the patent. If it is granted, expect MS to settle to prevent another Vista delay."
What Symantec is doing is rather interesting. Either asking for an injunction is to truly stop MS from causing their business damage, or it is just a lever to get into MS's checkbook. Either way, it is going to be interesting to see how this one plays out. While Symantec is not the 600lb gorilla the MS is, it is certainly in the 300lb range.
My
In celebration of it's release, ID Software and Microsoft are teaming up to release Duke Nukem Forever on the same day!
3DRealms, not id. Way to botch a lame joke.
You can't win, Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
The recent Supreme Court decision has (almost) put an end to injunctions. Since the damages in patent cases are restricted to "actual" (meaning lost business profit) damages, it is hardly worth the bother.
Expect to see patent holders pretty much ignored by all large companies, from now on.
I will create a sig when innovation restarts in the U.S.
"If it is granted, expect MS to settle to prevent another Vista delay." Or, if they find yet another reason they should work more on Vista, expect them not to settle to cover their butts much like a certain company once did due to source code theft (A company and game I happen to have the greatest respect for).
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
You are missing the point that if they could do security, they would. They're not making horrid software on purpose -- this really is the best they can do. It's sad, really. There are ten new viruses a day. Millions of zombie bots wreak havoc on the internet. Botmaster spamkings brazenly demand ransom and shut down opponents with traffic storms. Absolutely no other OS from any source provides a fertile ground for this menace to grow. The only possible cure for this absurdity would be to ban Microsoft products entirely.
If Microsoft products were not so easily exploited (or were banned from the 'net), the Internet would be a much more pleasant place for the common person.
So no, they're not able to make secure software for the purpose of putting Symantec out of business. If I had points today I would have modded you funny.
Whenever they ship XP SP3 (Vista) it will have inadequate security. The first security hole in IE is going to be a raging vector for spyware because the default firewall config doesn't block outbound connections. Naturally if spyware doesn't have to overcome a firewall to deliver its reports that's helpful to whom?
I'm in the trade, so dealing with this stuff is my bread and butter -- I've installed more of their product than anybody I know, but really this is truly pathetic. It saddens me to know that my fellow humans reason so poorly as to keep this vendor a monopoly.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
While I don't doubt that Symantec has a valid point and that MS is using some of their IP without licensing it I have to ask...
Am I the only person sick to death of all the lawsuits and patents?
It seems like the world is getting more and more "locked down".
There is less and less anyone can do without knowingly or unknowlingly trampling someone else's IP.
To make matters worse there are Patent Trolls, locking up broad patents with the hopes of suing people to make money.
Those who can't sue.
All this has lead me to question the presumptions behind both copyrights and patents.
They were originally designed to spur innovation by protecting the people who invest their time and resources to research and develop new products or create original content.
It *SEEMS* to me that both are now acheiving the oppsite goal and limiting and hurting innovation.
While I don't think we can just get rid of either overnight, I think some careful consideration needs to go into reforming the laws to make sure that they serve their original purposes.
Just some thoughts that this discussion brought up for me...Cheers.
You forgot all the new features they stole from apple and open source projets. There's real innovation there. Seriously, IE7 is better than IE6 even if it didn't go far enough. I'm concerned about vista and still excited there's going to be a new POS to support. The same old tech calls get boring.
Look at it this way, vista will catch up to apple and KDE/Gnome. That means apple, kde and gnome will have to innovate and get ahead again. It creates competition which benefits everyone. We get 5 years of new features before Microsoft customers and they get 5 years worth of ideas every 5 years. Plus aren't we all running out of new ways to hate XP? The jokes aren't funny anymore.
Besides, if you were to ask me about OS reliability today i'd tell you i've personally had better luck with Windows XP and Windows 2000 than any linux install i've ever had or Mac OS 10.2/10.4. Of course i tend to use redhat with ext* or reiser file systems too. Mac OS 10.3, FreeBSD and Solaris have all been more reliable than Windows though. Only hardware failures have killed them. That's just my experience and anything from the 9x tree i'd consider to be less reliable than any version of linux i've ever used including redhat 5. Ok, i take that back.. if the power doesn't go out, linux on 2.4 or 2.6 is more reliable than mac os 10.4.
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
No kidding. MS will probably be happy to accept a court-mandated delay of Longhorn just to give them an excuse for further delay. Like when Half-Life 2 was leaked and Valve said "aw, shucks, we were almost ready to release it, but now we'll have to push it back, just because of those darned hackers (whew!)"
it took ten years. Well I was actually there. Msft already had (and still does have) pretty good "volume management" software before they got in bed with Veritas. It was in the product since first release back in 1993. A couple of us were slated to work on improving what Msft already had. From a marketing perspective, being able to say that we had the software, Veritas Volume Management (VVM) that was the "gold" standard (from a marketeers point of view), was something that many thought we HAD to have. I really question whether this turned out to be true. I argued vehemently against this contract, which I read from cover to conver. Clearly I argued ineffectively. One of my arguments at the time, was that we would never be able to claim we were better than what was out there because it certainly wasn't in Veritas' interest to produce a better product for Msft, while they still had a bunch of other OEMS using customized VVM. It was a done deal with Msft though. I certainly got inklings that within serveral years there was at least ONE very senior executive who wondered aloud why the heck this contract got signed. Makes you wonder how many folks actually did read the contract. In my own case, I retired within a year of the contract being signed, and have been happily self-unemployed since.
Hmm... Don't know if Microsoft has been in talks with Symantec, but as for steam rolling over them, I would very much say so (not saying it's necessarily a bad thing though):
...and the list goes on. And their apps are getting a LOT more bothersome for their clients - especially the activation part. Someone I know bought NAV, only to discover it wouldn't let him activate it on 2 PCs or something (unlike the old version), and now it's not working anymore (plus pay for updates - getting too expensive, he moved to AVG too). And incredible bloat (NIS will bring a 2GHz PC to its knees), and countless bugs (we had tremendous problems with SAV at work, countless crashes, problems with office, you name it).
-They're going to offer an antivirus (in addition to their existing spyware removal software), making the use of SAV/NAV/NIS and such junk mostly pointless. [Not counting that most people seem to be moving to other AV apps lately like AVG and such - especially since NAV is getting harder to crack]
-They're including a basic firewall out of the box (not the best, but NIS is crap, that'd be like downgrading, if someone wants a better firewall, they'll get something that's actually better)
-Starting with Vista, they're replacing deployment tools, i.e. replacing RIS for WDS, but the interesting point here is XImage, which will likely replace ghost - the only symantec app that wasn't *total* crap yet (although lots of people have moved to/prefer acronis apps instead).
What's left? Winfax? Nope. Already a basic fax client in windows (it sucks, but I can't say winfax is great either, and most people/businesses that still use faxes nowadays don't do it via PC either). Doubt they sell many licenses.
Oh, PCAnywhere! Well, terminal services/citrix ICA is what everyone and their dog seems to be using these days (and apps like VNC/radmin). I haven't seen someone using it in a LONG time - definitely NOT mainstream either.
What else? Partition magic? Bleh. Those who wanted it bought it while it was Powerquest's - and it doesn't even seem to be updated anymore (symantec's specialty seems to be driving products into the ground - like novell seemingly). Buggier than ever, sounds like everyone prefers acronis apps for this nowadays.
The only thing they seem to have left that's worth buying is their new acquisition, veritas products. But I'm sure they'll manage to make them suck too, and drive them into the ground like everything else.
It seems they're not improving anything, they'd be the LEAST innovative company I could think of, and their junk just keeps getting worse.
Perhaps Veritas licenses alone can't keep the company afloat (unsurprisingly), and they're looking for a ne business model ala SCO (litigation, to prevent a new/better/more secure OS, or plain extorsion)
I'm sad to see many companies and products having been crushed by Microsoft over the years (OS/2, Corel stuff, you name it), but if there's one company I won't miss, it definitely is Symantec.
I think perhaps the steamroller is on the other foot. Microsoft is incorporating features into its operating system that they have taken copious amounts of flak for not having over the years. When someone wants to flame their OS the first part that gets raked across the coals is security. With Vista they seem to want to step up and take responsibility for security by including a virus scanner. Isn't this something everyone has been saying they should have been doing all along?
"We shouldn't have to buy 3rd party software to be able to use Windows! That just ain't right."
So they step up, granted they sure shuffled there feet getting there.
"M$ is steamrolling 3rd party software that we bitched about having to buy in the first place! That just ain't right."
I'd say Microsoft just can't win no matter what they do, but the opposite seems to be more the case in reality.
As for Symantec "talking" with Microsoft, what do they really have to say? "Hey Microsoft, please don't make your product better because we want to continue to profit off picking up the slack." That'd kinda be like the oil companies saying, "Hey car companies, please don't make your cars more fuel efficient because we want to continue...
oh nevermind
Holy sh*t! All of the comments in this thread about Symantec being worried about Microsoft's anti-virus product!
Technically, you may be right. Practically though, it'd be very difficult fo Symantec to challenge MS' anti-virus offering and succeed on merit. Many big-time legal battles are fought to achieve something other than stated in the suit... SCO vs IBM being a prime example.
Symantec would love it if MS continued to remain their biggest source of revenue. And for that, MS has to keep releasing virus-prone OSes forever. With MS changing tack with Vista, Symantec would definintely look to collect as much as possible, before going down.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Not just that, but Veritas also wrote a file system for NT. I suspect it is this that they are accusing Microsoft of pinching.
You all laughing but in Turkish version of Windows XP (and 2000 IIRC), the Volume word in Defrag program translated as in sound volume meaning.
MS then distributed IE for free and never paid a penny to them.
i remember that MS recently did lose a lawsuit for this, but the damage was done
Oddly enough, a lot of my open source friends like to stay with older, more stable OS's and keep lamenting that particular new software "just won't run" on their antiquated systems. Often this is because their hardware is limited, but often it's because leading edge development goes down a lot of wrong paths: so they prefer extremely stable, trusted environments and only upgrade when absolutely forced to.
This is particularly vital for so-called high availability and extremely large architecture systems for which companies pay a lot of money: it takes time to work out all the bugs in complex failover systems. The results are often unfortunate: basic system and debugging tools and especially security patches are not available for those systems. I'm afraid that XP and 2003 are going to be considered "good enough" for a long time, and if it's not, the open-source 64-bit operating systems will have gained quite a lot more market share.
It has probably be noted before, but now that I see Duke Nuke'em Forever abrieviated, it occurs to me for the first time:
In sports results, "DNF" means "did not finish". Coincidence? I think not.
(if this is a well known fact, i'll rephrase that to "coincidence? I don't think")
Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
... you are seriously forgetting about the most used symantec product in the corporate environment. Symantec Corporate Anti-virus. We use it, every company I support uses it (lots of companies). One client has over 7,000 machines running the client end of it, meanwhile there's all the domain controllers running the server end as well. Licenses... cha-ching cha-ching cha-ching! Unlike their comsumer level Norton AV, Symantec Corporate AV, in my experience, actually does it's job without being intrusive, AND it's nowhere near the resource hog that Norton AV is.
Ghost isn't as big as it used to be, and the rest is junk as you mentioned. I just needed to add in the corporate AV... it's their one decent product. If Symantec goes under, I won't miss all the other products, but the corporate AV would be missed.
Here is the deal. I dont think that I am taking sides, but in a way, everytime im "fixing" a windows box, I wish with all my heart that MS had some kind of "security" or scanner that could detect or clean malware.
Vista is starting to have the workings of anti-malware/security right? (or its supposed to) and thats not a bad thing from the users perspective.
However, this is a bad thing for Symantec. Like the integrated browser "solving" the browser war, Vistas integrated features may make many portions of Symantec's software redundant. Yes, we want Windows to have some security, backup, spyware detections etc, (and even a virus scanner would be nice) but that would hurt companies who specialize in this! And, unfortuneate for semantic windows Vista will be the only OS of the near futre that would need a security/backup suite (ok maybe a few macs)
I think Symantec senses a possible "end is near" and is moving to head it off. Yes, i would like free builtin security tools but at what cost? Thousands of offshore outsourced jobs could be lost!