Microsoft Corporation

“ Even powerful vendors such as Microsoft rely on the support of third-party software developers whose tools, programs, and computer games make an underlying software platform such as Windows more attractive to the mainstream consumer. ”

“ From the perspective of a producer of a good that shows strong network effects such as a word processing program or an operating system, the optimal position is to be the company that owns and controls the dominant product on the market. The ownership and control is probably by means of intellectual property rights, which are, after all, the type of property rights one finds on networks. The value of that property depends on those positive and negative network effects. This is the reason Microsoft is worth so much money. ”

“ Microsoft is piloting a pay-as-you-go PC in Brazil that will allow low-income households to buy a computer on time, with financing provided by third parties over a year or more and continued operation of the computer tied to on-time payments. ”

“ In order to monopolize across an open commons you have to be very rich, very big, very deep, and have a long time scale. If you do, then you can take everything that is put into the open commons, pull it out, put it in your proprietary products, and compete against the commons advantageously. For years, we expected Microsoft to begin to do that. ”

“ Microsoft sells Windows to end users and computer manufacturers, both foreign and domestic. Purchasing manufacturers install the software onto the computers they sell. Microsoft sends to each of the foreign manufacturers a master version of Windows, either on a disk or via encrypted electronic transmission. The manufacturer uses the master version to generate copies. Those copies, not the master sent by Microsoft, are installed on the foreign manufacturer's computers. Once assembly is complete, the foreign-made computers are sold to users abroad. ”

“ Ibid.; cf. post, at 2 (STEVENS,J., dissenting) (" [A] master disk is the functional equivalent of a warehouse of components ... that Microsoft fully expects to be incorporated into foreign-manufactured computers.") .
Judge Rader, dissenting, noted that "supplying" is ordinarily understood to mean an activity separate and distinct from any subsequent "copying, replicating, or reproducing—in effect manufacturing. ”

“ Microsoft has grown from a two-man operation with Bill Gates and Paul Allen to an 11,000 in 1992 to 48,030 in 2001. And Microsoft employees are not just any employees – they tend to be millionaires on a quite disproportionate basis.
Microsoft has also spawned a whole host of other related software companies in the Seattle area: RealNetworks, Itron, Attachmate Corp, Infospace, and a whole host of smaller companies. Quite unlike the Boeing boom which tied Seattle’s fortunes to one company, Microsoft has served as a catalyst for the creation of a whole realm of industry. ”

“ GUIs (graphical user interfaces) like Windows and Macintosh have hastened the process (and indeed it's no secret that it was Microsoft's marketing strategy to use their operating system to make computers easy to use for the average person) . ”

“ If you consider the Mini‐Microsoft blog, that place where microsofties rails against their managers, and if you take a look at what is said in Mini‐Microsoft, you recognize that the microsofties by and large think that their primary adversary is a company that has three and a half percent of the hardware market and which looks good running a proprietized FreeBSD because they only have to run it on hardware they totally control and design, and they never have to test it on any device that they didn’t make first. ”

“ This is what the Washington Information Service Corp. in U.S.A. did. There's an abundance of software to choose from. Many companies rent private 'conference rooms' on commercial online services rather than doing it in-house. The advantage is easier access to an established multi-user system and user base. Microsoft, Toshiba, Quarterdeck, Digital Research, Tandy, Novell and hundreds of others rent public support forum space on CompuServe to keep in touch with customers all over the world. Others rent space on regional bulletin boards. ”

“ For many years, before Microsoft, IBM was the company hackers loved to hate.
But everything changes. In the 1980s IBM had its own troubles with Microsoft. In the late 1990s IBM re-invented itself as a services company, began to release open-source software through its AlphaWorks group, and began shipping Linux systems and building ties to the Linux community. ”

“ Oct 1998 King Henry VI, Part 1, by William Shakespeare [2ws01xxx.xxx] 1500
MICROSOFT SAYS IT WAS NETSCAPE THAT SUGGESTED A DEAL In the antitrust suit against Microsoft, Microsoft has introduced a December 1994 e-mail message from Netscape chairman James Clark as evidence that it was Netscape rather than Microsoft that first suggested an arrangement to illegally restrain trade. Clark had written to a Microsoft executive: "We have never planned to compete with you. We want to make this company a success, but not at Microsoft's expense. We'd like to work with you. ”

“ The more lucrative parts of the markets are zealously guarded by the company. Through legislation, policy measures, withholding of technology and know-how - the firm prevents its competitors from crossing the river into its protected turf.
Let little firms "develop" an industry and then come in and take it over. - This is precisely what Netscape is saying that Microsoft is doing to it. Netscape developed the now lucrative Browser Application market. Microsoft was wrong in discarding the Internet as a fad. ”

“ Sure, PCs were more powerful, but in commoditizing the PC marketplace with its chips, Intel had created a situation in which proprietary software vendors now held the power. For every new user won over to the free software cause via Linux, hundreds, perhaps thousands, were booting up Microsoft Windows for the first time. ”

“ Windows, the parties agree, contains software that enables a computer to process speech in the manner claimed by the ’580 patent. In 2001, AT&T filed an infringement suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, charging Microsoft with liability for domestic and foreign installations of Windows. ”

“ But even ignoring that, when Microsoft pull out of the contract they said that everything was going to be released from the contract terms. this is the best I can find at present in that regard. Internet Archive indicated that they will rebuild the books without this overlay. ”

“ I'm not a lawyer -- I'm a kind of mouthpiece/activist type, though occasionally they shave me and stuff me into my Bar Mitzvah suit and send me to a standards body or the UN to stir up trouble. I spend about three weeks a month on the road doing completely weird stuff like going to Microsoft to talk about DRM.
I lead a double life: I'm also a science fiction writer. ”

“ Suppose we say about the 21st century political economy again in a more general way, that there’s a phenomenon by which products in 20th century economic life become services in 21st century economic life. This happens not just with respect to the stuff we do, it happens in all variety of ways. Jeremy Rifkin wrote as usual an insightful if somewhat tendentious book on the subject and then went off to do something else.
The problem of the service as opposed to the product, it’s the product company. Like, say, Microsoft, or Verizon. ”

“ Every Xbox has been sold way below cost -- Microsoft makes most of its money charging games companies money for the right to put out Xbox games -- but the Universal was the first Xbox that Microsoft decided to give away entirely for free. ”

“ For its part, AOL says that Microsoft's attempts to undercut monthly charges will ultimately not be successful, as even deep-pocketed Microsoft cannot afford to lose money on Internet access forever. Meanwhile, Microsoft says its moves against AOL are protective in nature, believing that in the near future AOL is planning to become an online software platform to rival Microsoft's Windows. ”

“ MICROSOFT RESPONDS TO PRIVACY ISSUE Reacting to a controversy started when a programmer in Brookline, Mass., discovered Windows 98 generates a unique serial number that is implanted in every electronic document and that can be used to trace the identity of its author, Microsoft said it will create a software tool to allow customers to remove the number, which was created to help support specialists diagnose problems for customers who call with questions. ”

“ Microsoft Corp., 399 F. 3d 1325 (2005) , held that software qualifies as a component under §271 (f) . We are unable to determine, however, whether the Federal Circuit panels regarded as a component software in the abstract, or a copy of software.↑ "Component" is commonly defined as "a constituent part," "element," or "ingredient." Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language 466 (1981) ↑ The dissent, embracing AT&T's argument, contends that, "unlike a blueprint that merely instructs a user how to do something, software actually causes infringing conduct to occur." ”

“ One moment we may be claiming Intel is a monopolist in the market for the x86 processor (the only major processor that most of us use for daily computing) and is seeking to take control of the entire computing platform, but the advent of tablets and smartphones may mean that the market tips such that ARM or some other processor is the dominant processor. ”

“ If anything, it was overly conservative as to the extent to which market applications of computer processing technology would evolve. Not only has there been an exponential growth in data information services for business purposes, but, as indicated above, the services are now being directed at residential consumers. The market is truly competitive. Experience gained from the competitive evolution of varied market applications of computer technology offered since the First Computer Inquiry compels us to conclude that regulation of enhanced services is simply unwarranted. ”

“ Each such separate corporation shall operate independently in the furnishing of enhanced services and customer-premises equipment. It shall maintain its own books of account, have separate officers, utilize separate operating, marketing, installation, and maintenance personnel, and utilize separate computer facilities in the provision of enhanced services. (3) Each such separate corporation which provides customer-premises equipment or enhanced services shall deal with any affiliated manufacturing entity only on an arm's length basis. ”

“ The stock market’s need for the computer lies in the usual two factors: tremendous paperwork and increasing pressure for speed. Trading of stock amounts to about three-fourths of a billion shares in a year, and occasionally 3 million shares a day change hands. A major brokerage house has confirmations to handle on thousands of trades, dividends to credit to nearly half a million active accounts, and security position and cash balances to compute for each customer. The increasing amount of business, plus the demand for more speed and accuracy, make the computer the only solution. ”

“ B As the parties agree, an inventor can patent a machine that carries out a certain process, and a computer may constitute such a machine when it executes commands—given to it by code—that allow it to carry out that process. ”

“ Microsoft has advertised Windows 2000 as offering "increased reliability, availability, and scalability with end-to-end management features that reduce operating costs." Microsoft studies indicate companies migrating to Windows 2000 will see benefits immediately. Microsoft concedes that migration can be expensive, but says Windows 2000 can significantly reduce operating costs by streamlining help-desk operations, improving PC manageability, and offering businesses greater control over software applications. ”

“ As we stated in the Tentative Decision:
[this] structure flows from a recognition that computer processing technology has substantial benefits for communications users and the desire to minimize regulatory obstacles to the full development of its market applications, and not solely from a concerted effort to force competition per se into the telecommunications market; It so happens that the potential for a competitive environment to evolve is very real, and such a possibility should be viewed as a positive contribution. ”

“ The Computer in Business and Industry The government, of course, is not the only user of the electronic computer. Business is faced with the same problems as government, plus others perhaps, and can use the same techniques in planning, producing, merchandising, and keeping track of its products. To General Electric goes the distinction of first installing the large-scale electronic computer for its business-data processing. ”

“ We should pay attention to open source software because it shows us something about business methods in the digital world—indeed in the entire world of "information-based" products, which is coming to include biotechnology. The scale of your network matters. The larger the number of people who use your operating system, make programs for your type of computer, create new levels for your game, or use your device, the better off you are. A single fax machine is a paperweight. ”

“ Certainly, from the huge consumer electronics firms in Japan to software development businesses in India, the rest of the world participates and competes. But few can deny that U.S. industry provides the leadership in and is the preeminent developer of information technologies as they are most broadly defined. ”

“ Never buy a computer without seeing for yourself that it and the software will together serve your needs. Don’t take the sales rep’s word. Instead, make him or his software specialist put the machine through its paces. Do so even if you’re not buying software at the store. Of course, the sales rep may not have access to the software, in which case you may want to visit another store for a demo. And if no one can assure you, no ifs or buts, that the computer-software combo works fine? Then you may want to hire a consultant.
Use of CP/M Software CP/M is a kind of operating system. ”