Microsoft offers $44.6B for Yahoo

[Ming]

You can laugh all you want at Yahoo (which I do) and they do suck right now, but they are still in second place when it comes to getting search advertising dollars. You combine that with MS's own third ranked search engine, and they probably think they will be able to compete against google.... and pigs fly

A classic case of if you can't beat em, buy em

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Asher
Vista's sold over 100 million copies in a year.

Are there numbers on how many of them actually run, i.e. don't have been downgraded back? Also it would be interesting to know the business use to private use ratio.

[Imran Siddiqui]

MS is the #1 company in terms of patents granted on a yearly basis

PWNAGE

[Asher]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph


Are there numbers on how many of them actually run, i.e. don't have been downgraded back? Also it would be interesting to know the business use to private use ratio.

I don't think those numbers are available, and I do think that the people who insist it's very common are retards.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Ah, how the mighty are fallen.

I remember as early as 13 years ago, and definitely at around 10 years ago, Yahoo email was pretty much unsurpassed. They were up against little leaguers like Mailexcite, Hotmail, and other services all jostling for a piece of the pie. Of all my mail services, Yahoo was the one that kept out the spam and gave me enough storage space.

But Gmail knocked them off the pedestal in about 2004 or so. And the Yahoo search engine had long been supplanted by the almighty Google.

Much as I dislike Microsoft, they have still remained a competitive force, even if you discount their near-monopoly status. Yahoo seems poised at this stage to drop into the category of "couldn't quite escape relegation to the footnotes".

And yes, Vista has all sorts of problems. The law school I'm at has laptops and offered Vista upgrades to all the students. Most of the ones I know turned them down and those who didn't have experienced crashes and teething problems. My computer is XP, which is a decent enough OS, though my favorite has to be Win98.

And if you're having difficulty naming innovative Apple products that are currently wowing the market, you've evidently got a few newsflow problems of your own.

[Ming]

Originally posted by Asher
I do think that the people who insist it's very common are retards.

Enough of the personal crap. Discuss this in a civil fashion or don't bother to post.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Alinestra Covelia
And if you're having difficulty naming innovative Apple products that are currently wowing the market, you've evidently got a few newsflow problems of your own.

The key is original idea. Please read properly before making snarky comments, otherwise it backfires just like this.

Do you think the iPod was an original idea?
The iTMS an original idea?
The iPhone an original idea?
Multi-touch an original idea?
MacBooks an original idea?
MacBook Air an original idea?

The answer is "no", across the board.

[Dinner]

The only problem I've had with Vista is the most recent ATI driver. It was supposed to improve performance but it causes the odd crash while the old driver didn't cause any.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Originally posted by Asher
MS is the #1 company in terms of patents granted on a yearly basis, so I don't think this is quite right.

That does go to show for something, although probably not the resounding proof you're looking for.

In order to qualify for patent status, a company basically has to show the US government that what they're doing has not in its entirety been done before. (See 35 U.S.C., which has a few other subtleties, mostly procedural.) If you've taken a look at the vast majority of patents held in the US Patent and Trademark Office you'll see at a glance the problems with the patent system today.

Companies can claim overly broad categories and thus "squat" on patents to hammer after-arriving legit developers with lawsuits (as happened to the Blackberry device).

There is a very reduced need to show actual utility - as long as it's not merely described as usable as "landfill" or "herbicide" or "fertilizer" it'll pass muster.

Furthermore, because you can use any type of language you want to describe the claims in a patent filing, there's no way the PTO can realistically trawl through hundreds of millions of previous patents searching for near-equivalents. The main mover in these processes are... surprise surprise... rival companies, who hire people to trawl through the patent lists and raise red flags when they see something that looks like something else the PTO has already granted.


So yes, the number of patents does stand for something, and a private individual who has one in his or her study is definitely holding something to be proud of. But for a large corporation, the patent process has so many arbitrary loopholes and inconsistencies that it's as much a political process as an innovative one.

[Asher]

By definition, a patent is some form of original idea.

There's other evidence of original ideas as well, but it's hard for people like Agathon to understand since it's not something simple like filosofy: http://research.microsoft.com

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Originally posted by Asher
By definition, a patent is some form of original idea.

RIM would like to speak to you.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Koyaanisqatsi
RIM would like to speak to you.

They have, but it was more along the lines of employment opportunities...

[DanS]

Originally posted by Ming
A classic case of if you can't beat em, buy em

This isn't precisely what Microsoft is doing. Rather, they're creating a loser's club very expensively.

[Dinner]

The price is to high in my opinion but my opinion doesn't matter since I don't have billions to spend. On the other hand if they can improve their search engine capabilities by merging the best of both engines plus improve data mining & relevant ad placement then it might be worth it.

It all depends on if they can increase ad revenue enough to justify the $44 billion upfront cost.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Asher
By definition, a patent is some form of original idea.

Tell that to Eli Whitney and his cotton gin.