It's interesting you didn't mention the $250,000 limit... not all too much to pay for the big usb flash drive makers... I'm sure if you personally came up with the idea that is used by so many people and devices to maintain and trasport so my types of data you'd want to be a millionaire.
And then put this in the context of the people suing M$ and RIM for patent infringment on another general technology... if others are going to file for patents on general technology why shouldn't microsoft... especially given the money from FAT will probably just help pay for the court costs of that battle.
I truly fail to understand this debate. Would anybody go buy a car that doesn't have a radio, or brakes? Of course not, how would you drive the car to the brake store? And why go to another shop to add the radio when the dealer can put it in? However many, people replace the radio, or upgrade the brakes.
To add to this analogy, only a few years ago did third party companies start making add-on GPS units for vehicles. They sold well and made sense, so car manufactures adopted the device and started making it availible as an option, and mostly likley one day will be standard. Likewise with the radio, then tape set, then CD player. Or seat belts and airbags and side airbags...
So it is with Windows, IE started as an add-ons, and then came standard. There is NOTHING to stop anyone from installing Real or QuickTime. In fact since QuickTime is owned by a ultimatly WB, if I want to see online trailers for movies from the WB I have to install QuickTime (sounds a little monopolistic by some people's terms).
I also will never understand why this debate always circles around IE, WMV and MSN Messenger. I've never heard complaints about: disk defragmenter, backup, system restore, firewall, find, address book or hyperterminal... to name but a few things that have been included in releases, but are also sold by third-party.
In fact MS products most likley create more business then their practices curb. Just look at the recent release of the Sharepoint suite. Many companies formed just to extend sharepoint, and are doing quite well off it. Writing into a well defined and documented API is easier that building a product from scratch, and thus has resulted in more options, which is better for the consumer.
And the idea that anyone thinks these things are 'free' is beyond me. Nothing is free, MS just does a better job at strategy. The IE client out there makes the selling points of IIS and.Net that much better. MSN Messenger paved the path for Live Communication Server. WMV allowed for MSN Music service and the Window Media Center Edition. No one complains about Adobe putting Acrobat reader out there for free and then selling the authoring component for a pretty price.
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It's interesting you didn't mention the $250,000 limit... not all too much to pay for the big usb flash drive makers... I'm sure if you personally came up with the idea that is used by so many people and devices to maintain and trasport so my types of data you'd want to be a millionaire.
And then put this in the context of the people suing M$ and RIM for patent infringment on another general technology... if others are going to file for patents on general technology why shouldn't microsoft... especially given the money from FAT will probably just help pay for the court costs of that battle.
I truly fail to understand this debate. Would anybody go buy a car that doesn't have a radio, or brakes? Of course not, how would you drive the car to the brake store? And why go to another shop to add the radio when the dealer can put it in? However many, people replace the radio, or upgrade the brakes. To add to this analogy, only a few years ago did third party companies start making add-on GPS units for vehicles. They sold well and made sense, so car manufactures adopted the device and started making it availible as an option, and mostly likley one day will be standard. Likewise with the radio, then tape set, then CD player. Or seat belts and airbags and side airbags... So it is with Windows, IE started as an add-ons, and then came standard. There is NOTHING to stop anyone from installing Real or QuickTime. In fact since QuickTime is owned by a ultimatly WB, if I want to see online trailers for movies from the WB I have to install QuickTime (sounds a little monopolistic by some people's terms). I also will never understand why this debate always circles around IE, WMV and MSN Messenger. I've never heard complaints about: disk defragmenter, backup, system restore, firewall, find, address book or hyperterminal... to name but a few things that have been included in releases, but are also sold by third-party. In fact MS products most likley create more business then their practices curb. Just look at the recent release of the Sharepoint suite. Many companies formed just to extend sharepoint, and are doing quite well off it. Writing into a well defined and documented API is easier that building a product from scratch, and thus has resulted in more options, which is better for the consumer. And the idea that anyone thinks these things are 'free' is beyond me. Nothing is free, MS just does a better job at strategy. The IE client out there makes the selling points of IIS and .Net that much better. MSN Messenger paved the path for Live Communication Server. WMV allowed for MSN Music service and the Window Media Center Edition. No one complains about Adobe putting Acrobat reader out there for free and then selling the authoring component for a pretty price.