I was on vacation last week, so here’s my slightly delayed edition of Particle Debris. It was a relaxing vacation that included the Georgetown Loop Railroad and the Renaissance Festival in Larkspur.
Georgetown, Colorado Loop Railroad
Microsoft has a new source of cash flow, and it’s called Android. That’s because Microsoft has a strategy of going after technologies in Android that Microsoft thinks violate its patents. The goal is to keep Android from being free. And because Google is relatively patent poor, Google doesn’t have the patent protection other companies like Microsoft have. Here’s the article: “Microsoft patent division taking cash from at least 5 Android vendors.” Now you know why Apple and its partners went after the 6,000 Nortel telecommunication patents and collectively spent US$4.5B.
From a business perspective, I think Google launched into Android rather naively, and is now suffering the business savvy wrath of its competitors.
So how did Apple and its partners manage the coup? Here’s some fascinating background by MG Siegler. “How Apple Led The High-Stakes Patent Poker Win Against Google, Sealing Ballmer’s Promise.”
One of our steadfast readers, Nemo, pointed out to me this morning that it is also a bit naive for Google to believe that they’ll end up being able to obtain licenses for those patents on a favorable basis.
I think that Apple can negotiate this and still keep useful ownership of the Nortel patents. That Google started putting in silly bids doesn’t help its argument that Apple, Microsoft, et al. teamed up to anticompetitively attack Android with Nortel’s patents. If Google was serious, why didn’t it make serious bids? Google certainly could have afforded a US$5 billion, which might have won.The antitrust laws are not for the purpose of protecting those who won’t compete or who don’t wish to pay fair value for the right to license someone else’s IP. But if push comes to shove, Apple and its consortium can agree to license any essential patents to Google for a royalty that reflects the economic value of those patents. In that event, Google still loses and the Apple-Microsoft consortium still wins, because choosing Android over Windows Phone 7 and/or Web OS doesn’t make sense if Android OEMs must pay significant licensing fees.
And Google and its Android OEMs can’t object to paying a fair price for Nortel’s patents, hoping that the DOJ and the FTC will require that the Apple-Microsoft consortium give it, Google, the Nortel patents for free or for less than they are worth, at least at the value reflected in the price, $4.5 billion, paid for those patents at auction. To simply void the Apple-Microsoft consortium’s winning bid not only does great harms to Nortel’s creditors but would itself be anticompetitive in that Google would be awarded the patents without having to compete for them and would get them for less than they are worth. The DOJ and FTC can’t go further than fair and reasonable licensing terms for the Nortel patents, and, once again, that means Android loses and the Apple-Microsoft consortium wins.”
For all you Apple and Nikon fans, you can now attach Nikon lenses to your iPhone with this US$200 attachment. It seems like an odd thing to do if you already have a Nikon camera body, but on the other hand, what if you’re on an outing and want to exploit a second or third lens you have laying around. Besides, it’s just one of those things you may just have to have.
Social media is a mixed bag. Sometimes it’s a lot of fun, and sometimes it seems that there are just too many social media forms and some are pointless. You can get lost in all of them and lose you’re sense of personal balance. Here’s some food for thought on all that, even if the title is intended to be a bit lurid and arresting: “Stop using social media.”
Read My Patent!
There are differing opinions about the new Hewlett Packard TouchPad. In the last P.D., I pointed to some of the major reviews, all of which expressed a degree of disappointment. On the other hand, viewed in isolation, the TouchPad, had there never been an iPad, looks like a pretty good first try. And that’s the key: first try. The upshot is that technology development is like a flowing river, a time line. At any given time in your product development, you’re constrained by the state of the art plus your own corporate learning curve. (And parts availability.)
When you’re late to the game, you have to work incredibly hard to catch up, and it’s almost a super human effort. So as HP comes out with what is essentially an iPad 1, Apple is moving to the iPad 3. Closing the gap means pushing the technology beyond what you’re accustomed to, stressing your company talent, and accelerating the necessary infrastructure to the point of high strain. It’s almost more than any company can achieve, even one with HP’s engineering talent. So the inevitable occurs: you’re graded in comparison to the competition, and the appearance is that “HP fiddles while Apple innovates.”
That’s why Apple’s competitors have to be on the ball and be no more than 6 months behind with competing technology and prompt patent applications. Being 15 or more months behind Apple is the kiss of death.
Finally, flaws in server software that led to security breaches, in the past, were just considered a fact of life. You couldn’t sue the developer or the host. Nowadays, however the stakes a much higher. And when that happens, the rules can change. As Tim Lee points out at ars technica, “That’s changing rapidly. Recently, Sony faced a class action lawsuit for losing the private information of millions of users. And this week, it was reported that Dropbox is already being sued for a recent security breach of its own.” As the pain gets greater, the lawyers get more involved and figure out new ways to compensate victims. Here’s some background with an ominous title: “So sue me: are lawyers really the key to computer security?”
Technical Word of the Week
Buggage (n.) Emotional baggage. Example, “I hope my visitors don’t bring their buggage.” Thanks to Andrew Stone of Stone Design, via Twitter.