Emails from the Edge: the Deadline...

It's June. It's summertime. Barbecues, kids flying kites, baseball games in the park, all those good Hot Dog and American Pie and God Bless America feelings that the summer inspires. Pretty soon it'll be 4th of July, and patriotic fireworks, and it's just been a little slow around the ol' VCSY blog #3. Good things are happening behind the scenes, so why disrupt the peace of the oncoming summer, but the computer is still turned on and lo and behold, a few emails started popping in my box from my Peninsula Pal...

Hey Morrie-

This is an interesting and illuminating blurb concerning Microsoft's coming deadline (June 28-30) for resolving the difficulties they seem to be having interoperating with third party operating systems and software. Not looking too good for the fat cow locked in the barn while the barbequers flick matches into the hay loft.

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070529151256367#comments

So, the way this all adds up to my understanding is that it's certain to happen. It's not just a worst-case scenario. It's a train coming straight at Microsoft's patent threats, and I'm guessing Microsoft is trying to figure out how to untie itself from the track. No doubt Microsoft will in time address the matter and say something, but I can't help but think that the current "but we never meant to rattle our patent saber" talk may stem from an awareness that the game is over, or at least this part of the game.

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I think Microsoft's essential problem is they are trying to fend off different attacks with the same weapon... “When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.”.

Careful when you hammer that blasting cap, Microsofty boys and girls. Thus, the June 28-30 GPLv3 deadline is much more dominant on Microsoft's reasoning than is the July VCSY response date as GPLv3 will chop off their strategy of going after the corporate Linux users ... but overshooting the VCSY date and goign to trial will guarantee Microsoft will not be able to do virtualization with the greater universe of third-party applications.

In fact, the GPLv3 deadline cuts off Microsoft's effort to enable their virtualization capability by Linux proxy. Blowing the July VCSY deadline cuts off Microsoft's ability to virtualize the applications that run on Windows.

That's a real big bind to be in... kind of like getting tied up with haywire. How ironic all those smart lawyer strategies for delay are the one thing that's killing viable options for MS. The more their lawyers maneuver, the deeper into the bog Microsoft sinks.