NO SOFTWARE PATENTS, NO NAVISION IN DENMARK SAYS MICROSOFT
According to danish newspaper Børsen [1] and the Copenhagen Post [2], Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft is threatening the danish government to move jobs from Denmark to the United States should Denmark continue to oppose the software patent directive.
Although the political players in the European Commission, spearheaded by Commisionner Charly McCreevy, continue to assure the proposed directive would not allow US-style patents on business methods and software to creep in the european patent system, the big companies in the IT sector seem to know better.
FFII, one of the key players in the opposition of the directive, sees its analysis verified by Microsoft and is asking when the council and commission will decide to tell the truth about the planned directive.
They urge the Commission and the Council to accept what democracy wants. Several national parliaments and the european parliament have come to the conclusion that the current proposal is not acceptable. On thursday the european parliament will decide to aks the commission to throw away the beleagured proposal and return to the drawing board.
"We are not opposing a directive, we want a good directive and the current proposal is simply not good", says Hartmut Pilch, founder and president of FFII. "We have seen that the majority of SME in europe know exactly what they would gain from the current proposal - nothing."
For these very reasons FFII has decided to call for a demonstration in Brussels. On Thursday, 17th of february they plan to show the council that they think it has become a "Banana Union". More information on
http://demo.ffii.org Links
[1] http://www.borsen.dk/dagens-nyheder/?ids[]=70135 [2] http://www.cphpost.dk/get/85881.html Prelaminary translation of the article
Gates threatens Fogh [dk PM] with closing Navision
The founder of the world's largest software company Bill Gates is now ready to close Navision in Denmark and move the almost 800 developers in Denmarks largest software company to the USA.
This was firmly stated when he met with Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen (V) [V = liberal party] in November 2004, as well as the minister of economics and industry Bendt Bendtsen (K) [K = Conservatives] and the minister of science Helge Sander (V).
The threat may become reality, if parts of the IT industry succeed in blocking a controversial EU directive on software patents, that Microsoft [more than anything in the world] wants to be approved, but which time and again has been delayed thanks to their opponents very efficient lobbying.
"If I'm to keep my development center in Denmark, then it's a requirement that the question of rights becomes resolved. Otherwise, I will move it to the USA where I can protect my rights" said Bill Gates according to Microsoft Chief legal council[?] Marianne Wier, that also took part in the meeting with Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
Bill Gates bought the Danish development department, which builds upon the merger of the two IT companies Navision and Damgaard, for almost 12 billion DKK back in 2002.
It has not been possible to reach Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen to have him explain in detail [lit. "deepen"] how he reacted on the harsh message from Bill Gates.
Additional information
* Navision is a ERP software provider, no research entity. It was bought for 1.4 Billion DKR, not to gain access to Navision's patents but to enter Navisions enterprise solutions market. Navision has very good ERP solutions and competes with SAP. German SAP also has very few software patents, although they are rapidly increasing their portfolio. At the ERP market there are hardly any software patents. The whole ERP market is dominated by European players.
* Where are those DK Navision software patents? See 35 granted software patents suspected from Denmark. Before Microsoft boug
Yes, the minister (member of Democrats 66) also voted directly opposite to the election program of his own party. Then ignored the european parliament and cast away their amendments. Then his secretary of state misinformed the dutch parliament and as an excuse said it was an "error of the typewriter program". She stated that trivial softpatents would not occur in europe, that while the european patent office has an agreement with the american one. Then a motion was voted to make the minister change his vote. The majority of the dutch parliament then accepted the motion to make him change the vote from a "yes" to "undecided" (the motion to change it from "yes" to "no" did not get accepted as the parties CDA and D66 did not support it).
For more information see (though some should be put through babelfish or something, as they are in dutch).
Slashdot Mirror
NO SOFTWARE PATENTS, NO NAVISION IN DENMARK SAYS MICROSOFT
According to danish newspaper Børsen [1] and the Copenhagen Post [2], Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft is threatening the danish government to move jobs from Denmark to the United States should Denmark continue to oppose the software patent directive.
Although the political players in the European Commission, spearheaded by Commisionner Charly McCreevy, continue to assure the proposed directive would not allow US-style patents on business methods and software to creep in the european patent system, the big companies in the IT sector seem to know better.
FFII, one of the key players in the opposition of the directive, sees its analysis verified by Microsoft and is asking when the council and commission will decide to tell the truth about the planned directive.
They urge the Commission and the Council to accept what democracy wants. Several national parliaments and the european parliament have come to the conclusion that the current proposal is not acceptable. On thursday the european parliament will decide to aks the commission to throw away the beleagured proposal and return to the drawing board.
"We are not opposing a directive, we want a good directive and the current proposal is simply not good", says Hartmut Pilch, founder and president of FFII. "We have seen that the majority of SME in europe know exactly what they would gain from the current proposal - nothing."
For these very reasons FFII has decided to call for a demonstration in Brussels. On Thursday, 17th of february they plan to show the council that they think it has become a "Banana Union". More information on
http://demo.ffii.org
Links
[1] http://www.borsen.dk/dagens-nyheder/?ids[]=70135 [2] http://www.cphpost.dk/get/85881.html
Prelaminary translation of the article
Gates threatens Fogh [dk PM] with closing Navision
The founder of the world's largest software company Bill Gates is now
ready to close Navision in Denmark and move the almost 800 developers in
Denmarks largest software company to the USA.
This was firmly stated when he met with Prime Minister Anders Fogh
Rasmussen (V) [V = liberal party] in November 2004, as well as the
minister of economics and industry Bendt Bendtsen (K) [K = Conservatives]
and the minister of science Helge Sander (V).
The threat may become reality, if parts of the IT industry succeed in
blocking a controversial EU directive on software patents, that
Microsoft [more than anything in the world] wants to be approved, but
which time and again has been delayed thanks to their opponents very
efficient lobbying.
"If I'm to keep my development center in Denmark, then it's a
requirement that the question of rights becomes resolved. Otherwise, I
will move it to the USA where I can protect my rights" said Bill Gates
according to Microsoft Chief legal council[?] Marianne Wier, that also
took part in the meeting with Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
Bill Gates bought the Danish development department, which builds upon
the merger of the two IT companies Navision and Damgaard, for almost 12
billion DKK back in 2002.
It has not been possible to reach Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen
to have him explain in detail [lit. "deepen"] how he reacted on the
harsh message from Bill Gates.
Additional information
* Navision is a ERP software provider, no research entity. It was bought for 1.4 Billion DKR, not to gain access to Navision's patents but to enter Navisions enterprise solutions market. Navision has very good ERP solutions and competes with SAP. German SAP also has very few software patents, although they are rapidly increasing their portfolio. At the ERP market there are hardly any software patents. The whole ERP market is dominated by European players.
* Where are those DK Navision software patents? See 35 granted software patents suspected from Denmark. Before Microsoft boug
A clickable link this time :)
http://wiki.ffii.org/Navision050215En
Here is a good overview... http://wiki.ffii.org/SwpatcninoEn
Picture this, you come home from work.
Oh no, our cat slashdotted again!
Hmm Monty Python food scenes come to mind...
And now what if you use quantum computing: Did I feed it or not? Would this perhaps become Schroedingers new cat.
For more information see (though some should be put through babelfish or something, as they are in dutch).