Drunk On Licensing Fees And Patents, Microsoft Has Become A Joke
Earlier today, it was revealed that Microsoft was suing yet another company for infringing on their patents. The target this time? Barnes & Noble. Yes, Microsoft is suing a book chain. Why? Because they claim the Nook e-reader (which runs Google’s Android OS) copies status bars from Windows CE. Or something. If you’ll excuse my bluntness, it’s all a bunch of bullshit.Devin has a good overview on CrunchGear of what the patents in question actually are. The whole thing is laughable. And everyone knows that except one party: Microsoft. The company has become completely drunk on their patents and subsequent lame lawsuits. And as a result, they’re quickly losing the hearts and minds of just about everyone that doesn’t work in Redmond.
Googlers Buy More Junk Food Than Microsofties (And Why Rapleaf Is Creepy)
If you weren’t creeped out by data-mining startup Rapleaf after reading about their ways in a relatively unsettling Wall Street Journal article published last October (“The San Francisco startup says it has 1 billion e-mail addresses in its database”), chances are you will be now.
For its latest ‘study’, Rapleaf has tapped its database of identifiable information to extract a sample of 6,000 Google employees (email addresses ending in @google.com) and 16,000 Microsoft employees (email addresses ending in @microsoft.com) and subsequently analyzed their grocery purchase behavior in partnership with an unnamed loyalty cards aggregator.
Microsoft has teamed up with Psychster, a research firm that apparently specializes in “the psychology of social media”, to study how companies should use Twitter to address a site outage, unscheduled downtime or interrupted service. Provided Twitter is available, I might add.
Apple, Google, Amazon, And Microsoft Make Up 4 Of The Top 10 Most Admired Companies
Every year, Fortune magazine (where I started out as a reporter) comes out with its list of the Most Admired Companies in the world. In truth, it doesn’t really change much from year to year. Apple, once again for the fourth year in a row, is No. 1, as it should be. The company single-handedly created an entirely new class of touch computing with the iPad last year, and is on it’s way to becoming the most valuable company in the world.
Google is No. 2 (although, confusingly, it’s overall score of 8.22 is higher than Apple’s 8.16—it turns out that those are their industry scores not their separate Top 50 scores, a spokesperson explains, even though they are labeled “overall scores”). And Amazon comes in at No. 7. Microsoft hangs on at No. 9. So four of the top 10 companies are from the technology industry. And IBM is No. 12. After that, the list becomes a mixed bag, and even a little questionable. Cisco, Intel, Netflix, eBay, Sony, and Oracle also made the list. Netflix totally deserves to be there and maybe Cisco, but the others just seem to grandfathered in. Where’s Yahoo?
Microsoft And Google Jointly Hit GeoTag With A Lawsuit To Invalidate Its Patent
Google and Microsoft, tech giants embroiled in a competitive battle that has spanned many years and will continue to rage for many years to come, have teamed up to take down a Texas-based patent troll’s geotagging patent that they claim has been used in lawsuits against more than 300 companies, many of which are their customers or partners.
As tech companies fight for ubiquity, it’s no surprise that there should be disputes like this. Using common words for product names is always a risk, as is establishing generic traditions (like Apple’s “i-” prefix) that are difficult to regulate. At stake today is Apple’s trademark on “App Store,” which as I’m sure our readers are aware, was established in 2008 as arguably the first real platform through which independent developers could offer mobile applications, games, and so on.They filed for the trademark at the same time. Since then, however, it has been contended by Microsoft in particular that Apple has no exclusive right to so generic a term, one which arguably could apply to any other mobile application store. It’s as if Kleenex trademarked “tissue” as well. Apple just turned the argument around, however, noting that Microsoft itself is maintaining a plainly generic term for its most prominent product: Windows. Is it a fair comparison?
In Two Years, Most Of You Will Be Reading TechCrunch From An Apple Device
In February of 2007, 83.24 percent of users visiting TechCrunch did so from a Windows machine. One year later, in February 2008, the stranglehold remained firm at 80.44 percent. In February 2009, the number was at 74.04 percent. Last year, it was 61.59 percent. And this year? The number of people visiting our site from Windows machines dipped to 53.84 percent.The writing is on the wall.
Look at those numbers again for a second. In four years, Windows share among TechCrunch readers has fallen 30 percentage points. That’s incredible.
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Bing Friends Facebook With New Version Of Toolbar
Bing is rolling out a new version of its toolbar today, that features deeper integrations with search, Facebook, email clients and more. You access your Hotmail, Yahoo Mail or Gmail accounts and you can bring in your Facebook network and push status updates from the actual bar.Unfortunately, it’s only available for Windows and IE right now. Microsoft says the approach for the new version was “make the stuff you do every day online easier,” hence the integration with Facebook, search and email. One notable difference in the new version is that the search box is smack in the center of the toolbar. Search history, suggestions and deep links are all marked distinctly in the box (by color) to help users search faster.
It’s hard to believe that it wasn’t even a year ago when I wrote the following post: What Happens When Apple Passes Microsoft In Value? Yes, When. It’s even harder to believe just how many people thought I was crazy for saying that — it happened just two months later! And while plenty seemed to think that the passing of the torch to Apple as the most valuable tech company would be short-lived, let’s look at where we are today. As of market close this afternoon, Apple is now a full $100 billion past Microsoft.Yes, Apple is the most valuable tech company in the world by $100 billion dollars. To put that in some perspective: the market cap of HP is $105 billion. Apple is now worth an HP more than every other tech company.
Former Microsoft Vet Chris Weber To Lead Nokia’s USA Business, Louison Is Out
Following Nokia‘s strategy shift announcement, the Finnish mobile phone giant has just announced that it has appointed former Microsoft executive Chris Weber as President of Nokia Inc. (United States), and head of Markets, North America.
That means Mark Louison, a long-time Nokia employee who wasappointed that role back in March 2007, is out to “pursue new career opportunities”.
Weber comes to Nokia from his own consulting business, but he’s mostly known for his career at, yup, Microsoft.
Nokia Confirms Microsoft Partnership, New Leadership Team, Organizational Changes
Ahead of its Strategy and Financial Briefing in London, Nokia has sharedsome details on what it plans to announce at the event. As expected, the company is aligning its strategy with Microsoft.
By now, you’ve probably seen the ‘burning platform’ memo penned by the fresh CEO of the world’s largest mobile phone manufacturer, former Microsoft executive Stephen Elop (the existence of the brutally honest memo was first reported by TechCrunch Europe and later published in full by En-gadget).
The Funny Coincidence between Bing’s Rise And Conduit’s Declining Traffic
The Many Brilliant Layers Of Vic Gundotra’s Nokia-Exposing, Microsoft-Bashing Tweet
This morning, the Google Vice President decided he was going to have some fun on Twitter. “#feb11 “Two turkeys do not make an Eagle”.,” he tweeted. To anyone outside of the tech space, that sounds like gibberish. Hell, even to many of those in the tech space, that seems like a completely random thing to say. Except it wasn’t random. It was cool and calculated.
The February 11 date that Gundotra references is clearly meant to signify Nokia’s annual Capital Markets Day, which takes place this Friday, the 11th, in London. There, new CEO (and former Microsoft president) Stephen Elop is expected to announce radical changes to the company’s plan and vision. For weeks, rumors have swirled that Nokia may ally with either Microsoft or Google going forward in the smartphone business. Gundotra’s tweet this morning made it very clear who Nokia is going with. The other guys.
Nokia Heading To Silicon Valley? And The ‘Standing On A Burning Platform’ Memo
With Nokia expected to unveil a shift in its long term strategy at the company’s annual Capital Markets Day this Friday, it should be no surprise that rumor and conjecture are rife. Much of that has focused on whether or not the Finnish mobile giant will be adopting a third-party platform with talk of Windows Phone 7 given new CEO Stephen Elop’s previous connection with Redmond. A rumor that our well-placed sources would appear to confirm – see below.But we’re also hearing that Nokia is planning to lay down stronger roots in Silicon Valley too – like so many a European tech outfit – something that The Register’s Andrew Orlowski is also reporting. And in what looks like preparing the troops for a major change of direction, an internal Nokia memo titled ‘Standing on a burning platform’ has been doing the rounds. The widely distributed circular penned by Elop himself is a description of Nokia’s somewhat precarious position – and I say that as someone who has been fairly bullish on the handset maker’s recent products.
Google Employee Redirects Hiybbprqag.com To Google Jobs Page
In what is perhaps the most brilliant move in the whole Bing copies Google search results fiasco, it looks like Google Taiwan employee Chih-Chung Chang has redirected http://www.hiybbprqag.com, a URL inspired by thenonsense terms Google used to bait Bing, straight to the Google Jobs page. Search Engine Land points out that that Changregistered the domain on February 1st, the day the story first broke, using the Google Taiwan office address.Microsoft Fully Backs H.264 And Has 3,000 Words To Prove It
In case you weren’t aware, Microsoft and Google aren’t exactly seeing eye-to-eye right now. In fact, they really seem to hate one another in a public manner not normally exposed. So it should be no surprise that the two are also opposed to one another when it comes to their views of web video. Yes, it’s the H.264 versus WebM debate once again. But while Google, Apple, Mozilla, Opera and others have had their say, Microsoft has remained largely quiet. Until today.Dean Hachamovitch, the man in charge of Internet Explorer for Microsoft, has taken the time to write a nearly 3,000 word piece about the situation today. It’s a long, great post well worth the read. But just in case you can’t make it through the entire post, I’ll summarize it simply: Microsoft is fully behind H.264 as the codec for web video going forward. Why? Because they have just as many reservations about WebM as Google all of a sudden seems to have about H.264.
Wow, Microsoft And Google Are Punching Each Other In The Face Right In Front Of Us!
By now, you’ve undoubtedly heard the news. Google set up a sting operation (how cool is that?) in an attempt to catch Microsoft red-handed stealing their search results. And according to them, they did just that — and made it known. Microsoft has seemingly both sidestepped and denied the claim — and then has sent accusations back Google’s way. The whole thing is amazing, and to be honest, I’m still trying to parse it all. But you can get the whole gist by reading what’s on Techmeme, starting with Danny Sullivan’s original post on the topic.But what’s most interesting right now is that Google and Microsoft are engaged in a full-on war. Yes, they’ve more or less been at war for many years. But it’s mainly been a quiet war, that takes place behind the scenes and only occasionally includes quick jabs at the other one in public. But now they’re straight-up calling each other liars on Twitter, and their own very popular blogs!
Microsoft Calls Google’s Cheating Examples “Extreme Outliers”
At the “Who Will Win the Spam Wars” roundtable at the BigThink conference this morning Google’s Matt Cutts, Bing’s Harry Shum and Blekko’s Rich Skrenta got together to discuss recent dramatic turns of events in the search market, most notably Google’s accusations today that Bing is using Google user data gleaned from Internet Explorer and the Bing toolbar to improve its own results.
Cutts took issue with Microsoft’s statement that they did not copy Google’s results,“Microsoft said they don’t copy the results and we have screenshots that prove that happened.” Indeed it does seem from Danny Sullivan’s post that the Google honey pot nonsense queries are showing up on Bing weeks later.
Microsoft Still More Profitable Than Apple — Barely
A week and a half ago, after Apple announced theirblowout earnings for the holiday quarter, I wondered if the third and final pillar of Microsoft’s financial strength over Apple was about to fall: profit. In 2010, Apple surpassed their longtime rival in market cap and revenue, but profit has remained elusive (mostly because Microsoft mainly sells high-margin software while Apple mainly sells relatively lower margin hardware). Well it’s still elusive — for at least one more quarter.As I suspected, Microsoft was barely able to eek out a profit win over Apple. For the quarter, Microsoft earned $6.63 billion in profit compared to Apple’s $6 billion. Assuming the trends hold, Apple should indeed take the profit crown next quarter.
Why Microsoft Desperately Needs To Become More Acquisitive
We’re on the verge of hearing how Microsoft performed in the last quarter of 2010 – the general consensus seems to be that the world’s largest software maker is set to report a dip in earnings.
We’ll be covering the quarterly earnings release, which is scheduled for after the market closes, and we’ll be zooming in on Microsoft’s online businesses in particular. But before we do, I wanted to address something else.
I’ll start with a rundown of mergers and acquisitions announced by major Internet and tech companies since the beginning of this year, which, notably, is less than a month ago:
Gillmor Gang 1.22.11 (TCTV)
The abrupt retirement/resignation/deck chair shifting of Google CEO Eric Schmidt couldn’t have been timed better — if you were Facebook. As dissected by the Gillmor Gang, the news of Larry Page’s reascension to the throne seemed just one more shoe dropping in the wake of Steve Ballmer’s axing of Bob Muglia, Steve Jobs’ step back to focus on his health, and other reboots from companies including HP, SAP, and I forget. Actually, mentioning HP and SAP served to bore me into stopping the last sentence.The one connective tissue is the tectonic shift in technology caused by the iPad, or as @Scobleizer pointed out, the iPhone. Though @DannySUllivan and @KevinMarks insisted on extolling the virtues of the free and open Web, there’s no doubt in my mind that Apple’s (and particularly Steve Jobs’) combination of design, control of a hungry niche marketplace, and political savvy adds up to a defining moment that rolls up media, technology, consumers, and the enterprise.
Next Question: Did Apple Surpass Microsoft In Profit Last Quarter? Or Will It Be Next Quarter?
Earlier today, Apple announced their earnings for Q1 2011. The record-breaking numbers saw revenue surge to $26.7 billion — over $6 billion ahead of their previous best quarter (which was Q4 2010). But even more impressive may have been how much profit grew. Apple’s net income was also a new record for them at $6 billion for the quarter. That’s a full $1.7 billion above their previous record (again, Q4 2010). And it begs the question: could Apple have passed Microsoft in the one remaining financial stronghold this quarter as well?For years, we’ve all heard how Apple was so pitifully small compared to the behemoth that is Microsoft. Then something funny started happening: Apple started growing. Fast. But instead of focusing on market share growth, Apple focused on bottom-line growth. And soon Microsoft wasn’t laughing anymore.
R.I.P. Microsoft Zune, 2006-2011
Bloom berg is reporting that Microsoft has finally decided to put an official end to its Zune media player line. “A person familiar with the decision” has informed them that Microsoft will not be putting out any new hardware in the line, and will be henceforward focusing on integrating Zune functionality with the Windows Phone 7 platform.Not exactly unexpected; the Zune hardware hasn’t changed since mid-2009′s release of the Zune HD, although it has received several significant software upgrades. The writing has been on the wall for a long time, but whether Microsoft would double down (again) or cut their losses was far from clear. Let’s take a quick trip down memory lane.
Microsoft Now Hawking Windows Phone 7 On Groupon
I’m almost rooting for Windows Phone 7. I mean despite positive reviews from critics the phone has had a hard time catching on, most recently suffering through reports that it was less popular than Windows 98, in terms of traffic referrals. WP 7 has been on the market for around three months and while execs are still not talking sales numbers, it doesn’t seem likely it will catch up to iOS and Android anytime soon.Maybe that’s why the Microsoft store in Oak Brook, Illinois has decided to offer a 51% discount on the Samsung Focus and/or the HTC HD7 Windows phone through Groupon?
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