FUD and Dud
June 15, 2007 —
(Page 1 of 2)
Generally, the business goings-on of Microsoft are sufficiently distanced from the facts of their technologies that I leave business analysis to others. Reciprocally, the Wall Street Journal hardly ever takes a stand on threading models. Two recent items, though—the ugly patent-violation claims against Linux and the staggering US$6 billion purchase of aQuantive—are impossible to ignore, going, as they do, to the greatest shortcoming that a technology company can suffer: appearing to be unable to compete on merit.
Given the Kafka-esque absurdities of the patent system, it is entirely possible that Microsoft’s intellectual property portfolio contains some claims that are duplicated in Linux components. Nonetheless, the patent-violation claims made by Brad Smith and Horacio Gutierrez in an interview with Fortune magazine are textbook examples of FUD. Sowing “fear, uncertainty, and doubt” was, remember, a contemptible practice originally deployed by IBM to maintain dominance. The claims of Smith and Gutierrez, with specific numbers associated with various subsystems, were not the result of a plausibly deniable slip during a question-and-answer period, but rather were as accidental as a carrier group in the Strait of Hormuz. The McCarthy-like refusal to be specific (“I have here in my hand a list of names…”) was additionally off-putting.
Yet the possibility of a serious Microsoft assault on IP violations in open source software is minimal. At the risk of overstretching the military metaphors, a strike against Linux would draw retaliation from IBM, Novell and any number of minor powers. The logic of the Cold War and mutually assured destruction applies.
The aQuantive acquisition is less clear-cut in its noncompetitiveness, but the numbers don’t seem to add up. The $6 billion aQuantive purchase is a direct response to Google’s US$3 billion acquisition of DoubleClick. aQuantive earned US$442 million in 2006. Microsoft paid around 14 times that; Google bought DoubleClick for around 10 times that company’s US$300 million revenue. The premium paid relative to earnings is startling enough, but when you look at just the ad-serving components, it gets even more stark. aQuantive’s Atlas Suite earned only around $152 million in 2006, a level not much greater than DoubleClick’s ad-serving earnings in 2004 prior to being taken private. (The majority of aQuantive’s revenue comes from Avenue A/Razorfish, which Microsoft will almost certainly sell or spin off.) Since DoubleClick serves about 50 percent more impressions per month than Atlas, and DoubleClick has already sold off most of its non-ad-serving components, it’s a virtual certainty that Google got a much better rate per ad impression than did Microsoft.
Share this link: http://sdt.bz/30741
Most Read Latest News Blog Resources
Zeichick’s Take: Radio moves from analog waveforms to digital packets
Streaming radio highlights the need for streaming applications to be designed to take up as little bandwidth as possible
|
|
Taking enterprise architecture to the business side
Startup Corso is bringing out a cloud-based planning platform that ties into business plans
|
|
Appcelerator Acquires Cocoafish to Add Instant Mobile Cloud Capabilities to its Industry Leading Titanium Platform
Appcelerator Offers Messaging, Social, Location and Storage Mobile Cloud Services to All Mobile App Publishers
|
|
ComponentOne Releases a Collection of 40+ UI Widgets Powered by HTML5 and jQuery
ComponentOne has announced the 2012 release of Wijmo: a kit of UI widgets for HTML5 and jQuery development
|
Taking enterprise architecture to the business side
Startup Corso is bringing out a cloud-based planning platform that ties into business plans
|
|
Top five apps to manage your workload
Web applications offer new ways to track your “to-do” lists
|
|
Not so fast when it comes to testing in the cloud
Developers face outsourcing, virtual lab management and mobile devices as obstacles
|
|
Xceed releases UX-focused suite for Microsoft’s WPF
"Blendables" helps match user experiences to developer visions
|
Are you at risk for burnout?
Burnout is a severe problem and it can strike at any time. Here's how to tell if you are nearing the edge.
|
|
Agility, mom, and apple pie
If we're to evaluate the state-of-the-art in software development, we should start with the values espoused in the Agile Manifesto.
|
|
RIM woos developers with free tablet
How do you get more apps ported to the BlackBerry PlayBook? By giving every developer a free tablet, of course!
|
|
GitHire: Use Headhunters to Find Your Perfect Programmer
Are you a hiring manager tired of scouring the job boards? Check out this new service that will find 5 people interested in your jobs.
|
The Hidden Costs of Software Licensing
Moving beyond paper-based software licensing to more flexible, software-based licensing is a business decision. There is a growing trend tow...
|
|
Case Study: You May Need a Development Mechanic
As a contractor for a major financial player in Germany, SOBEGE, a German-based consultancy specializing in embedded IT and web services, wa...
|
|
Ensuring Software Quality at a Major International Bank
One of the world’s leading international banks has adopted AgitarOne technology for delivering generated unit tests for their Java software...
|
|
Load Testing Adobe Flex Applications
Adobe Flex applications may be different from applications you’ve worked with before. For classic HTML web applications, the server does all...
|
Related Articles
Slinging Mud, FUD
After months, nay, years of being the technology industry’s punching bag, Sun Microsystems went on the offensive in August, accusing...
|