Chilligavva

Microsoft taken for 1.5 Billion…….

“Like hundreds of other companies large and small, we believe that we properly licensed MP3 technology from its industry recognized licensor — Fraunhofer,” Burt continued. “The damages award seems particularly outrageous when you consider we paid Fraunhofer only $16 million to license this technology.” -from MacNN

Kevin Maney has talked about this to some extent in his article . It seems Karlheinz Brandenburg was an employee of Bell Labs way back in 89-90. The plot thickens.. I so love conspiracy theories, dont you?
The article even has a link to the list of companies holding a license aka licensees over here.
Looks like there is a lot of German Angst on Microsoft. But analyzing this situation from a political point, it seems that the German government has decided to take on MS and in a big way. When you catch a whale, tiny fish in the net is inevitable. But with so many companies being affected, I guess they will all come together and work something out.

1. June 2003, the German Government decides to switch to Linux. “Another interesting aspect of the Munich decision is that it was not driven simply by cost savings, because industry gossip has it that Ballmer offered heavy discounts on Microsoft software to stave off the threat. This was also the case in the Ministry decision to plump for open source. According to a BBC report, Interior Minister Otto Schily said the move was motivated by a desire to improve security in the nation’s computer networks as well as to save public money. ‘We are raising computer security by avoiding a monoculture,’ he said, ‘and we are lowering dependence on a single supplier. And so we are a leader in creating more diversity in the computer field.’
2. In October 2006 , Jurgen Gallman, a VP of Microsoft Europe, Middle East and Africa and CEO of Microsoft Germany resigned.
3. In November 2006 Gears Of War was banned beacause of violence.

I personally am excited to see how this will play out at the end.

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