"and communication with a web site"
That seems awfully broad especially since prior art can easily be proven.
Salesforce.com has fired back at Microsoft, claiming parts of Redmond's cloud and Windows 7 violate its intellectual property. Microsoft has trampled five Salesforce patents, the company claimed, with the Windows Server AppFabric for installing and provisioning apps on Azure; Windows Live Services including Hotmail and …
Microsoft will quite happily lose this case as it will strengthen their patent FUD... If they do go into bat to defend themselves here, it will be on the grounds that the patent itself is invalid for some reason, They will never go in to have software patents per se invalidated as non-patentable subjects as that would immediately render their own FUDchest of patents useless
They take all of your data and "look after it for you", but only as long as you pay the protection money. If there is, as they claim, "no software", then why do they charge so much for their non-services? And woe betide you if you stop paying, because you will lose all access to your own hard-won data.
Even Microsoft wouldn't be so brazen as to come up with a scam like this one.
Yes it is. Salesforce is the thug, SaaS is very nasty business. But why Microsoft sued Salesforce first? Because they want to be the thug instead of the thug. ( kinda like Iznogoud).
They want to remove Salesforce and spread they Azure. They want to be one stealing people's data and then say: Sorry, you have to buy new version of Windows with Interned Exploiter and SilverBlight installed to access your data.
So I prefer Salesforce, if I decide to use SaaS sometimes. It easier to pay money for cloud services and use any software you like, then to be locked-in to inferior software and still pay money for inferior cloud services.
So I prefer Salesforce here as a lesser evil, but I would like them both to rip each other throats on court and lose lots of money, because they are both scum.
Not at all, my good man.
Microsoft is the neighborhood kingpin. He stops in front of the alley in his limousine, presses the button to get the smoked window down, and watches you get beaten to a pulp by his lackeys while smoking a $50,000 cuban cigar.
When done, he signals to his driver to move to the next alley and totally forgets he ever saw you.
Salesforce's response should probably be interpreted as "this lawsuit will damage both our companies, lets just sign a cross-licensing deal". The number of claims, and the strength of the claims, will affect who pays who and how much money is involved. (If both sides have equally good patents, they'll sign a zero-royalty cross-licensing deal. If one side has much better patents, they'll get some money from the other side).
Lawsuits like this don't go to court - it's too big a gamble for both sides. Now both sides have put their cards on the table, the lawyers can figure out the settlement.
Like IBM before it, Microsoft are trying to "monetise" their patent holdings. With many of the same people, nowdays working for Microsoft rather than IBM.
But with software patents floating around like junk bonds it isn't clear to me that the strategy can work these days. The larger party is taking a considerable risk, since their revenue is higher (do you want 0.01% of Microsoft's revenue or 0.01% of Salesforce's revenue). A risk that Salesforce are keen to maximise in their request for Microsoft to cease use of their patents.
We're very much at the "he said, she said" stage of proceedings. Without reading the code against the patent -- which occurs later in the legal process -- it is impossible to say if there is merit to either parties' claims. Thus all the public posturing.