aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South
Saturday, November 26, 2005
Trading places
This has got to be the year that Google officially becomes the company Sillicon Valley loves to hate and Microsoft settles into its kinder gentler giant role.
Larry Lessig on patent progress at Microsoft:
There’s been lots of interesting commentary about Microsoft’s recent decision to submit its Office Document Formats to ECMA for “open standardization.” That’s good news, depending, of course, on the details.
But this is even better news: Microsoft has also promised that “it will not seek to enforce any of its patent claims necessary to conform to the technical specifications for the Microsoft Office 2003 XML Reference Schemas.”
This shows some hope to the complex of issues around patents affecting software in the land of Microsoft. Even opponents of software and business method patents will advise companies to secure them - given others can as well. But behavior like this goes a long way to neutralizing the negative effect of such patents. No license. No agreement. Just an unequivocal promise - at least with respect to those who don’t sue Microsoft.
Meanwhile, following all the evil Google press could keep a blogger mighty busy. Wired has helpfully compiled a fun roundup of who’s worried and why. From the intro:
It seems no one is safe: Google is doing Wi-Fi; Google is searching inside books; Google has a plan for ecommerce.
Of course, Google has always wanted to be more than a search engine. Even in the early days, its ultimate goal was extravagant: to organize the world’s information. High-minded as that sounds, Google’s ever-expanding agenda has put it on a collision course with nearly every company in the information technology industry: Amazon.com, Comcast, eBay, Yahoo!, even Microsoft.
In less than a decade, Google has gone from guerrilla startup to 800-pound gorilla.
And today the Times highlights a slew of anti-Google articles for your Google-bashing pleasure.
Me, I liked Microsoft when they were the definition of evil and I still think Google’s better than Pfizer or Wal-Mart or GM or BP or Exxon or GE or AXA or Citigroup. Heck, I even enjoy the thought of a Google nation.
There is one point on which I agree with A VC’s Google is lame post. I’ve been uploading video to Google for a week and like last time around it’s still not there!
I’ve been meaning to get up and going with Participatory Culture and Our Media. Maybe tomorrow…
