Linked List: May 23, 2011

Monday, 23 May 2011

Full Text of Apple Legal’s Letter to Lodsys 

Apple general counsel Bruce Sewell:

Therefore, Apple requests that Lodsys immediately withdraw all notice letters sent to Apple App Makers and cease its false assertions that the App Makers’ use of licensed Apple products and services in any way constitute infringement of any Lodsys patent.

Apple Says Developers Are Licensed for Lodsys Patents 

Jim Dalrymple reports:

In a letter sent to Lodsys on Monday, Apple asked that the company withdraw letters sent to app developers demanding they license the technology.

“Apple is undisputedly licensed to these patents and the App Makers are protected by that license,” wrote Bruce Sewell, Apple Senior Vice President and General Counsel.

No equivocation there.

Craig Hockenberry on the Lodsys Patent Threat 

Hockenberry:

In and of itself, paying half of a percent of our App Store sales to Lodsys isn’t going to put us out of business. The fear we have is that this is the first step on a very slippery slope.

He titled his piece “Predators”, but I’d say parasites is the better description.

‘The Zune Strategy’ 

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, discussing his company’s quarterly results:

Our flagship, Sales Cloud, continued to crush the competition in the quarter. Microsoft’s desperate strategy of underfunding, pricing with undifferentiated and highly proprietary products basically has had the same impact on our business as the Windows tablet and Zune did against the iPad and iPod. We call Microsoft’s strategy, “the Zune strategy”.

It’s the concept that they can take a proprietary, undifferentiated offering at a lower price and somehow make an impact on a high-value, highly differentiated product that’s loved by customers. Microsoft has not changed our exceptional win rates or affected our average selling price with this Zune strategy.

Spot-on critique of everything wrong at Microsoft.

‘The Grapes of Wrath’, Classix Comix Edition 

“Not a substitute for reading the text or for classroom discussion of the text.”

Giving 110 Percent 

Matt Warman, reporting for The Telegraph:

HP will emulate its PC market success in the tablet world when it launches the Touchpad over the summer, the company’s European head Eric Cador has claimed.

Speaking at a press conference in Cannes, Mr Cador said that “In the PC world, with fewer ways of differentiating HP’s products from our competitors, we became number one; in the tablet world we’re going to become better than number one. We call it number one plus.”

Just plain number one would do just fine. And until they actually ship, under-promising and over-delivering would be a better strategy. (Or, is “number one plus” just a euphemism for “number two”?)

Charlie Miller on Mac Defender 

Brian X. Chen:

Should Mac customers install anti-virus software by default like most Windows customers do? Charlie Miller, a security researcher who has repeatedly won the annual Pwn2Own hacking contest by hacking Macs and iPhones, told Wired.com he doesn’t think so.

Miller noted that Microsoft recently pointed out that 1 in 14 downloads on Windows are malicious. And the fact that there is just one piece of Mac malware being widely discussed illustrates how rare malware still is on the Mac platform, he said.

Speaking of Charlie Miller, don’t forget his advice on web browser security.

Android Market’s New Movie Rental Service Blocked From Rooted Devices 

I’m not sure why anyone is surprised by this, but Jerry Hildenbrand of Android Central is:

So now people who root their phones, whether to get rid of the crap “open” that’s forced down their throats, or to have a current version of Android, are punished and lumped in with folks who steal movies. Nice move, Google. That makes me want to buy more of your products and use more of your services, so I can be treated like a criminal just because I’m smart enough to get rid of CityID, or want a safe version of Android on my phone.