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Microsoft Sues Salesforce.com Over Patents
WrongSizeGlass writes "CNET is reporting that Microsoft is suing Salesforce.com in Seattle federal court, claiming it infringes on nine patents. Two of the patents in question are a 'system and method for providing and displaying a Web page having an embedded menu' and a 'method and system for stacking toolbars in a computer display.'" Microsoft says it first notified Salesforce more than a year ago about the alleged infringement.
Looking for the MSFT agenda here. Are salesforce.com people going after microsoft sales reps? Has the saleforce.com people brought too much competition to MSFT? What gives?
I'm fairly sure that if a Model M experiences excessive force, it simply breaks the user and continues on its implacable course...
Laugh all you want, but office has had a number of innovative ideas, whether you like them or not. Assistants (ie. the universally despised clippy), The Ribbon, OLE integration of different kinds of docuemnts within a single document, OLE Automation control (Yes, we all know about ARexx capable word processors on the Amiga, but that was really only a tiny fraction of the capabilities that OLE automation exposes).. hell, Word was the first word processor to provide live spell-checking with the red squigglies.. (again, whether you like it or not.. lots of people do like the feature, lots don't).
Don't you think it's just as dishonest to claim there is no innovation when there is, as claming more innovation than there is?
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Laugh all you want, but office has had a number of innovative ideas, whether you like them or not. Assistants (ie. the universally despised clippy),
in a word processor which they were not the original authors for, which was the first use of a piece of clipart for a function other word processors already had in help panes, status bars, tool tips or pop-ups... (wow, that's innovation... someone else's idea - with a piece of clipart)
The Ribbon
Which still confuses users of older versions of Office to this day by the way it can take what was a simple, easy to use interface and mangle it - and which other word processors did a long time ago in a better fashion by simply hiding and showing the appropriate toolbars for the task at hand...
OLE integration of different kinds of docuemnts within a single document
...which was an idea long since in existence in the Xerox Star systems...
OLE Automation control (Yes, we all know about ARexx capable word processors on the Amiga, but that was really only a tiny fraction of the capabilities that OLE automation exposes)
While on the other hand, REXX enabled word processors had even greater capabilities than OLE automation, as did various competitor products in the Windows and non-Windows marketplace marketplace... and even in the areas where OLE Automation shone, it also caused a bunch of security issues due to it's poor implementation with no thoughts of the consequences caused by it's design (but thats a topic for a different discussion).
.. hell, Word was the first word processor to provide live spell-checking with the red squigglies..
As long as you discount various TSRs for word processors as old as the DOS (non-Windows) age version of word processors, a variety of other implementations on non-PC systems, and the fact that Microsoft introduced it in Word 95, almost 20 years after a team for IBM came up with the concept and 8 years after Spellbound came out with that functionality you tout as having been a Microsoft innovation.
Other than those points, I guess you are right! Either that, or you bought into Microsoft's propaganda (errr... marketing, I mean).
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
Saying it does not prove it. Show me the prior art. Bear in mind that merely being a tabbed toolbar doesn't make it the same thing. The Ribbon's functionality is what makes it innovative, not the fact that it has tabs.
Regarding Photosynth, All new ideas are based on research of others. Newton said something about standing on the shoulders of giants, doesn't make his work any less innovative. Photosynth, as a product, was highly innovative.
Are you fucking kidding me? OS/2 was created by Microsoft and IBM together. Microosft wrote nearly all of OS/2 up until OS/2 1.3, and COM and OLE goes back to 1987, the same year OS/2 was released *WITHOUT A GUI OF ANY KIND*.
Wow, you are ignorant of history. Wow, that's just plain stupid.
And Xeros Star had nothing like COM or OLE. It's object embedding technolgy was entirely different.
Now you're just being stupid. Of course it works. Just because it can't protect from every possible exploit doesn't make it useless or "non working". By that argument, just because someone can root a unix box, that means all of it's security doesn't work.
Wow, I just can't believe what passes for logic these days.
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An not to forget:
- Clippy and the Windows XP Search Dog
Also I think Microsoft is the main innovator on user annoyance technology.
They are using it to suppress competitor. It is still about revenue.
They are using patents as a defensive measure; namely, as a defense against being outcompeted by superior products.
And Microsoft has never been well-behaved, they earned their reputation as the Mordor of computing.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.