Tuesday, June 5, 2007

Emails from the Edge; Xanadu part deux...

Yo morrie;
I know the first reaction of VCSY haters and peepeeers out there will be “Ahhh, you see there! VCSY won't get anything out of Microsoft!” and that is untrue. Although early appearances are that way as you think through this on a deeper level you find Microsoft is not jumping from the frying pan into the fire. They are jumping from the tea kettle to the volcano is this is a belligerent move.

I do not put it past them, but, I would think a ballheaded bear and a befunct pocket protecting puckerpuss would be outweighed by career reputations and professional bearing. If Microsoft wants a fight rather than a useful competitive position, have at it. I like a damn war as good as the next guy and if I have to wait another seven years to see what will flower, so be it. Patience is a virtue. A virtue is dead without movement.

But, I would argue VSY has already gotten precisely what they want out of Microsoft in that VCSY has forced MSFT out into the open... right where the old cow can get tattooed for beefsteak diagrammatification by the hordes of hungries.

How do I say this? By their actions in building a company rather than a bulwark. [Wow. This is my second pass through this document and I see so many areas to look for evidences of the proferred theory. I will try to detail more although it may also serve best to keep things simple. More detail comfirms the experienced but confuses the newbie.]

We see in the previous articles Microsoft fully intended in 2000 to field an environment for building web-applications using .net with Corel attending a Linux based connection to the web.

By 2001 that ambition was not so sure.

The history of Microsoft's treatment of the web-based application technologies is one of waste and want. Those developers who deceived themselves into thinking by working or committing their knowledge to Microsoft they would be “in on” the latest advancements in web technology will likely appreciate the sentiments in the following for jest: http://www.fromoldbooks.org/proverbs/pages/pp44-45/

Therefore:

We know a few things. The VCSY patent applications note as prior art things like FrontPage and ColdFusion. We see Adobe fielding Apollo and attending capabilities to fill out what Emily says past FrontPage and ColdFusion. We do NOT see Microsoft fielding SilverLight in a manner to fill out what Emily says past Frontpage.

One has to wonder if Microsoft is not being given a face-saving opportunity to meld into the world at large without having to shock their clients and partners with the fact they must indeed settle with VCSY.

This could be a result of negotiations (as I would think at this point gracefulness is what is most desired by MSFT management and a graceful exit is the best opportunity to demonstrate grace without enduring a long stint of activity not accustomed to by the graceless [LOL I can hear them now, “Why can't the SOAB just say something in five words or less?” Hey, they're free. Words, that is, and they're like a filter. Only the sincere will plow through. The feckless agents of protuberance won't waste the time. I can use as many as I want. I used to be a programmer in visual basic and the like traditional languages. With those the fewer characters you use the better. What a nasty habit to have. None of us are so clever as to render in the fewest possible words all we need to say.])

This also puts MSFT on an even footing with IBM and Red Hat (Microsoft+Novell+Xandros roughly equal [in marketing speak but nowhere near in capability] to IBM + Red Hat). We know IBM had shareholders vote recently to allow a number of unprecedented powers be given to IBM management and one of those is the ability to merge with another business. One wonders what that red box is and I say it's a red hat box. Head-size cubed.

Under the present circumstances, March 28 was the deadline past which the GPLv3 draft prohibits companies from making Novell/MSFT-like deals without effectively placing MSFT patent portfolio out on the front porch for all to rifle through.

If the GPLv3 is a legally binding document (and we're not talking here about the ethereal world of “patent” thought as indicated by those who believe description of software architecture is “mathematical”) then Microsoft has walked off into the termite nest dragging a buttload of wood as an offering.

If Microsoft decides to fight the VCSY patent, there are years ahead of wrangling and years ahead where Microsoft will be forced to endure the risk that every dime they will make with .Net could ultimately be forfeited. If that is “good business sense” at Microsoft I bid them all a fine journey. It will be akin to the kings of egypt burying their wealth in the future because the shareholders won't see any of it at anywhere near present.

If that's the case, I am thankful VCSY's future is not wrapped up in the Microsoft lawsuits but has a very large future as holders of the IP describing what is happening in web-services today. A Microsoft lump sum of hundreds of millions would be fine with me, but patent feeding is like the cartoon with the two vultures, one saying “Patience my ass. I'm going to kill something.”

One example of the reasoning? PTSC suffers this kind of stagnation problem as every hardware producer must. Once the maximum number of chipmakers in the finite universe out there have your license, who else will buy?

On the other hand, software virtualization and arbitration promise the ability through the SiteFlash and Emily IP descriptions to build the kind of architectures made available via the cell processor in a virtual field of machines rather than the physical crystalline cells to which our “operating systems” are bound.

There will come a time when Bobby Bigfield in his funky teenage bedroom will build the kind of Turing machines only people like Intel may now construct by employing elements of the virtualized grid at his fingertips. What then is the need for more than a few commodity chip companies needed to crank out standardized cell processor constructs?

The original 8x chip destined to become a processing chip in Intel's hands a historic 'one day' ago actually began as a designation number 4004 procedural processor used to control traffic lights. The 86X chips only recently broke free from that 'not a computer' architecture to begin use as a true processing machine for general purpose uses. Cell processors allow a jump over even that evolved capability as the “architecture” of the processor is placed in the hands of the programmers and not frozen in silicon and metal.

Getting rid of the 86x architectures will serve to blunt and obviate the current traditional “procedural” languages as computation at the “procedural” level is a matter of machine constraints and “parallelism” is the projected goal of the web-based operating system as described by SiteFlash.

Take a step beyond that and the most recent advancements in bringing Bose-Einstein based control over quantum units place us within fairly easy reach of true robust quantum computer reality. What happens once we get there when computers are no longer thought of as architectures in stone but architectures in air or more literally in light on air?

And What will be the abstract description of THAT paradigm disruption?; The Cruz patent allowing every optical fiber to have the information transport capacity of a current day Internet backbone. That's what Intel is terrified of and makes great pains to find someone to argue that issue, I'll bet.

So back to VCSY position? Excellent both ways.

Microsoft will pay a heavy price if they have stepped outside the boundary limed down with the March 28 “do not pass” date and the June 29 (When Apple shows what it can do with virtuality) deadline when GPLv3 jumps up like the boogedy man and makes attached Microsoft software fair game for those brave enough to risk MSFT wrath to build on the MSFT Vista/Office source code (which will doubtless get leaked by a socialist within the rebellious of those MSFT ranks). See, ownership is about what you DO with what you say you have... not just what you say you do with what you have.

And if Microsoft has settled and this is one of the pole positions allowed in the settlement? Then we shall see an amelioration of Linux language accepting MSFT as a prodigal cousin come back fer marryin'.

I thought I detected some softening last week. If other comes across the transom I shall advise.

Either way, VCSY has won. They won years ago. We're only now at the threshold of celebrating that win. Cool breezes. Blue skies. Black death. Let's boogy.

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