If you thought that Microsoft and Google, two massive public companies, would quickly and quietly retire behind the scenes to continue their fight after their very public back-and-forth over the past couple of days, you’d be wrong. Well, maybe they are fighting behind the scenes too, but the pissing match continues in public as well. Good for us!
In the interest of covering both sides of the story (and certainly not because this storyline is full of great fodder, generating massive interest — and pageviews), here’s the latest retort from Microsoft. Once again, Microsoft’s head of communications, Frank Shaw, is firing back at Google’s head legal guy, David Drummond, for his most recent update to his blog post from yesterday. And Shaw is doing it again on Twitter.
For those who have no idea what the hell I’m talking about, a refresher:
Shaw’s most interesting Tweet in response reads as follows:
Why? BECAUSE they wanted to buy something that they could use to assert against someone else.
That’s Shaw asserting that Google held out of a Novell patent partnership bid so they could find other patents to assert against others. Google’s stance on the patent matter has always been that they only want them for defensive purposes, so you know this jab must really piss them off.
Hopefully that means another response!
Until then, here are Shaw’s Tweets:
Hello again David Drummond. This is going to take a few tweets, so here we go. Let’s look at what Google does not dispute in their reply.—
Frank X. Shaw (@fxshaw) August 04, 2011
We offered Google the opportunity to bid with us to buy the Novell patents; they said no.—
Frank X. Shaw (@fxshaw) August 04, 2011
Why? BECAUSE they wanted to buy something that they could use to assert against someone else.—
Frank X. Shaw (@fxshaw) August 04, 2011
SO partnering with others & reducing patent liability across industry is not something they wanted to help do—
Frank X. Shaw (@fxshaw) August 04, 2011
And if you’re really interested, more on this topic:
Microsoft, founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, is a veteran software company, best known for its Microsoft Windows operating system and the Microsoft Office suite of productivity software. Starting in 1980 Microsoft formed a partnership with IBM allowing Microsoft to sell its software package with the computers IBM manufactured. Microsoft is widely used by professionals worldwide and largely dominates the American corporate market. Additionally, the company has ventured into hardware with consumer products such as the Zune and...
Google provides search and advertising services, which together aim to organize and monetize the world’s information. In addition to its dominant search engine, it offers a plethora of online tools and platforms including: Gmail, Maps, YouTube, and Google+, the company’s extension into the social space. Most of its Web-based products are free, funded by Google’s highly integrated online advertising platforms AdWords and AdSense. Google promotes the idea that advertising should be highly targeted and relevant to users thus providing...
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