Madness
by Volker Weber
A Canadian company that rules the market with excellent handhelds. A customer base which dearly loves the addictive products. A patent office which blindly grants patents on the most obscure applications. A company whose sole purpose is to extort as much as possible out of those patents. An army of lawyers charging by the hour. A single judge that wants to rule. A government who wants to be excepted from such ruling. And now an analyst firm which tells its customers to hold investments.
Isn't that a bit too much for just holding up the competition until the local IT industry has woken up?
Comments
Can Vowe or somebody else explain the exact meaning of:
"Isn't that a bit too much for just holding up the competition until the local IT industry has woken up?"
local = United States of America
Blackberrys are made by Research in Motion which is a anadian company. I'm going out on a limb here, but I detect a bit of sarcasm here on Volkers behalf. The way I read it, he's pointing to Micro$oft to once again 'innovate' with software for their Windows Mobile platform which will do what the Blackberry does (email push...) and dominate yet another market.
I think it's as simple as "Be the first - and be rewarded!" and not "Be the first - and be harassed so that everybody else has ample time to rip off your ideas."
Let's not forget that RIM was only too happy to sue on the basis of its own (spurious?) patents for thumbwheels® and angled keys®. Live by the sword, die by the sword.
The chances of the Crackberry™ network going dark are very slim - every provincial, state and federal politician in Canada and the United States carries one to receive their daily talking points update. The political process in North America would grind to a halt without it.
@David: And exactly how would that would be a bad thing? :-)
