Business deals [LWN.net]

Business deals

Posted Oct 13, 2007 15:22 UTC (Sat) by tony (guest, #3654)
In reply to: An additional note by elanthis
Parent article: Patent Infringement Lawsuit Filed Against Red Hat and Novell - Just Like Ballmer Predicted (Groklaw)

Why not ask someone who understands business?

Oh, I understand business. I understand that big businesses are typically pitiless, underhanded, and work in their own best interest. Therefore, in every business deal, you have to ask, "What's in this for each party?"

In the Novell/Microsoft deal, Microsoft has frequently, loudly, and vehemently proclaimed GNU/Linux and other free software are vulnerable to patents. Microsoft has interest in seeing GNU/Linux die. It has *no* interest at all in seeing GNU/Linux succeed.

So, in view of that, and in Microsoft's ruthless business history, I believe this was no ordinary patent cross-licensing deal (which Novell and Microsoft had for years, anyway). In every analysis, Microsoft had nothing significant to gain.

Near as I can tell, what Microsoft got was a Microsoft proxy to crank out poison pills, such as Moonlight (an attack on web standards, poised to take on "Web 2.0" (a stupid business term)) and OOXML advocates within the free software community.

And finally, there is the reaction by Microsoft itself. Ballmer's statements after the deal were more mafia-like than business-like, implying patent doomsday for anyone who didn't sign a similar deal with Microsoft. This is not typical after a company signs a simple patent cross-licensing agreement. Also, there were reports of Microsoft sales representatives using this deal as pressure against GNU/Linux. (A friend of mine basically had his MS sales rep say, "You upgrade to Vista, everything will be safe. You go with Linux, and there's no telling what might happen.")

So, yeah. In this case, I trust the biased geeks. People who know business don't seem too bright, anyway-- back in 2000, every geek I knew saw the end of the dot-com bubble. Businessmen just kept investing.

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