12.28.12
Gemini version available ♊︎Google Dodges Microsoft Patents as the Anti-Google Lobby Grows
Summary: Google gets around Microsoft’s patent attacks against Android by removing ActiveSync support (as a whole!) while Microsoft grows its anti-Google lobbying team
MICROSOFT has been trying to use software patents to make its main rival less appealing an option for hardware companies. Despite having no software patents in Europe, at least in principle, Microsoft used them there to extort companies like TomTom. In general, despite having no legitimacy in the patent sense in the EU, FAT and ActiveSync patents have been used by Microsoft extensively in order to tax Linux and Android, respectively. ActiveSync is Microsoft patent tax for Google, as we noted years ago. Now it looks like Google responds by removal:
Google has officially announced that it’s removing support for Microsoft’s Exchange ActiveSync protocol (Google Sync) as of January 30, 2013. Those currently using Google Sync to connect their mobile devices to their Gmail will remain unaffected, but new users will not be given the option to use Google Sync.
Microsoft is very worried about Google and it shows. Based on this report from the middle of the month, Microsoft has been hiring more lobbyists to fight Google’s cash cow:
Mark Penn made a name for himself in Washington by bulldozing enemies of the Clintons. Now he spends his days trying to do the same to Google, on behalf of its archrival Microsoft.
Since Mr. Penn was put in charge of “strategic and special projects” at Microsoft in August, much of his job has involved efforts to trip up Google, which Microsoft has failed to dislodge from its perch atop the lucrative Internet search market.
Drawing on his background in polling, data crunching and campaigning, Mr. Penn created a holiday commercial that has been running during Monday Night Football and other shows, in which Microsoft criticizes Google for polluting the quality of its shopping search results with advertisements. “Don’t get scroogled,” it warns. His other projects include a blind taste test, Coke-versus-Pepsi style, of search results from Google and Microsoft’s Bing.
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