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Nikon Buckles To Microsoft, Will Pay "Android Tax" For Smart Cameras
walterbyrd writes with news that Nikon is the latest company to agree to pay Microsoft for the privilege of using Android on its devices — as you might expect from Nikon, the devices in this case are cameras. (Microsoft's press release.)
You settin' up shop on my street? Nobody, I sez *nobody*... sets up shop on my street without talkin' to me foyst. OK, listen pal. Here's what I'm gonna a do for you. You just pay me a little bidda money on everything you sellz, and I'z a gonna look dee otha way, capiche?
You callin' this "extortion"? That's a big word, my friend. 'Round here we just call it biz niss.
They are a leach on modern businesses, their operating systems are found lacking, their office products are crap, their hardware is of the scaliest, slimiest design. In other words, they are dinosaurs in modern society.
MPAA - On warning for extinction.
RIAA - On warning for extinction.
Microsoft - On warning for extinction.
Time to open up the hunting licenses, and finish them all off.
They also license patents from Apple, IBM and god knows who else, but it's not a big story then.
Why try and spin it as some sort of evil "Microsoft tax", when we could actually have a discussion on the patent system, instead of some retarded online version of two minutes hate.
This site has become completely worthless as a place to discuss technology.
So what happens if MS loses the patent claims to Google? Does the "Microsoft tax" get paid to Google instead? Or just gets them invalidated for being obvious?
Seriously, "a record button on a computer system"... what the hell, US patent system. What the hell?
Right?
No wrong. I am tired of closed being the new open , and well closed being the new open [Thank you Ars]. Android is an a modular OS where various parts are under different licenses GPL2 (Linux the Kernel) most of the userland (Apache which is why Honeycomb never got released) and proprietary (most first party Applications) with various stuff happening in the cloud (maps; various storage; mail)...and nothing has changed.
Android does not protect you from patent trolls like Microsoft, but then it never did or claimed to...your choices have always been, work around the patents; pay them off; fight them in courts.
In short though this topic has nothing to do with being open...and unless your a Tizen fanboi your just trolling [lets face it iOS and Bada the only serious contenders are closed], with an off-topic comment, now if you has said "But Android is still free [beer]?" you would have least been on topic...still a troll...but on topic.
They also license patents from Apple, IBM and god knows who else, but it's not a big story then.
Except we do in the case of Apple *endlessly* Its not just been big news here, but in every damn newspaper worldwide. In fact very little is said of Evil Microsoft(sic) shady deals which are in the main back room affairs "While the contents of the agreement will not be disclosed" , with it being spin as a joyful agreement "Microsoft and Nikon have a long history of collaboration".
Perhaps if your not happy you could register and submit stories you feel more worthwhile, rather than attack a community.
One less brand to ever appear on my shopping list.
Help me understand - you are mad at the victim? Do you stop talking to friends because they paid for Windows? Don't buy anything with a Samsung-made component?
I'm sure Nikon looked at the cost of fighting and decided it made business sense to pay them. Consider the volume of Android devices Nikon sells vs. Samsung and other cell phone companies. If it doesn't make sense for the cell phone vendors, it is unlikely to make sense for Nikon to fight in court.
Frankly, your anger toward Microsoft might be better directed at Microsoft. And Google. Why hasn't Google challenged this?
Place nail here >+
Most of the people here get it. They get that Software Patents are inherently evil and wrong and should be abolished... and the patent trolls of the world need to all die in a fire. Reforming the Patent system to prevent patent trolls would go a long way towards making the Patent system what it was intended for...
Until then, we'll see extortion like this from Microsoft (and everyone else).... I rather like the "hippie free-love software"... but then again I don't play in Apple's or Microsoft's sandbox.
The rest of them can suck my balls.
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
Extortion doesn't necessarily have to be a big player threatening a small player. How does the age or size of Nikon change the fact that this is extortion? It doesn't change a thing, scale is irrelevant.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
Because Windows doesn't support anything else besides FAT and NTFS out of the box.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
How does the age or size of Nikon change the fact that this is extortion?
It is not extortion if Nikon considers the Microsoft patents valid and a useful addition to their portfolio.
This is the argument the geek cannot accept.
It has to be extortion. He has no other way of explaining what happened.
No matter how wildly improbable it is that so junior and foreign a competitor as Microsoft could bully a core component of a Japanese industrial cartel as old (1870), culturally insular, rich, proud and powerful as Mitsubishi.
Yeah - I get all that. In principle, I agree with you.
But the practical is different. Nikon has it's hands full with its primary competitors, and a shrinking market. Smartphones are killing the compact camera market, and new "mirror-less" cameras are eating into the D-SLR market. Canon and Sony make lots of products outside the camera business, but 75% of Nikon's sales are dependent on cameras and lenses. They are being super aggressive in the D-SLR segment to make up for that revenue, and trying to find something to fit in the space between the smartphone and D-SLR. And they need the support of Microsoft, Apple and Adobe for processing those files. Right now, they need friends - not another enemy.
I suspect the Android camera is an experiment to see if consumers will accept a compact camera that does pretty much everything a smartphone does, except for phone calls. Do consumers want Android-based cameras? Nikon makes just a single model with Android. It could be a flop, and something Nikon might drop. Do the sales justify an expensive legal fight in the USA - Microsoft's home turf.
I'm sure they see two giants (MS and Google) about to face-off in a war, and they will pay the MS "tax" and sit this one out. This is a bit like someone fighting cancer who decides not to get involved in a conflict between nations.
Nikon is fighting for survival, so I think we should give them a pass on this one.
Place nail here >+
Yet most people don't really get it:
The concept of ownership of ideas is inherently immoral and a disgrace to the human intellect.
It is corrupted capitalism, and it really does not matter if it's about software or something else.
And the exploitation of resources is something humans have been doing since, well, forever. It's something that we do, and will continue to do. Ideas are a resource - a resource that should be shared and not "owned", but there's nothing wrong with you exploiting your own expression of an idea, be it selling your novel, or your software - or even selling your rights to exploitation of that product - it's the idiots who grant patents for "rounded corners" that need fixing. I haven't got a problem with you obtaining a patent and exploiting your innovative variation on an idea (your idea or someone else's), as long as it's innovative. I guess the problem here is that it's too easy to prove "rounded corners" are innovative and deserve a patent.
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom