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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.
Yes, SF continues to win contracts from Dynamics or whatever MS is calling their latest CRM this week.
SF are just WAY too nimble in their catering to companies needs while MS expects companies to buy upgraded hardware, software, consultants, etc to conform data to THEIR system.
SF: Here you go, we figured out how to provide x for no extra charge.
MS: Sorry we can't do that without $100,000 and even then there's no guarantee.
So yeah, SF is kickin MS's a$$ets and putting their attempts at a CRM to shame.
Next up, MS buys SF.com. *sigh*
- Yo Grark
Canadian Bred with American Buttering
The're just pissed that SalesForce is using FireFox in all there screen shots.
I consider myself a pretty calm person. I don't get riled up about much. I've never been one to throw a game controller, to punch a pillow to vent frustration. I see stupid things and I don't like them, I talk about how stupid they are, but that's as far as it goes. I'm about as easy going as they come.
And yet every time I see a story about the activities supported by the US Patent and Trade Office, I want to lift the nearest piece of electronics and dash it against a distant wall.
Microsoft, like most other companies, has indeed had it's share of "innovation", popular opinion not withstanding.
It's easy to find things that are "kind of like" a new invention, that can be said for every single product in existence. It's just fun to do it for Microsoft.
Can you name a single software invention by anyone else that was truly unique? Anyone? Bueler? I guarantee anything you name can find something that is "kind of like" something else. That's how invention works, and that's why patents always have a list of references to other patents which the new patent draws upon. Unfortunately, you can't list things that aren't previously patented.
A short list of things which Microsoft has innovated (off the top of my head, without even googling) in would include (whether you like the ideas or not)
The Ribbon
Photosynth
COM (originally OLE)
Internet Explorer Protected Mode
If you google around, you find lots of tongue in cheek and sarcastic comments, and comments like yours that say point blank that microsoft has never innovated anything. It's certainly true they've bought a lot of their technology, but not all of it and even when you consider technology they bought, they've often improved it with their own new technology (IE Protected Mode, for instance).
Also, Microsoft certainly has their share of bad technology they've implemented. ActiveX, for instance. Whether it's a good idea or not, it's still a novel idea (no, plug-ins weren't novel, but auto-installing them, and creating a generic model that could be used by more than just web browsers was).
So in reality, comments like your really are just hyperbole. It's simply not true that Microsoft has never created anything novel. Hell, Clippy anyone?
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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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