Google made a big deal yesterday about how competitors like Microsoft, Apple and Oracle are using patent lawsuits to “strangle” Android but Microsoft is firing back and, quite frankly, making Google look pretty silly.
Essentially, Google said that companies like Microsoft and other Android competitors were teaming up for a “a hostile, organized campaign” against Android with patents. Microsoft’s Brad Smith made that look like a gross exaggeration.
“Google says we bought Novell patents to keep them from Google. Really? We asked them to bid jointly with us. They said no,” Smith tweeted. He then proceeded to share an image of the e-mail asking Google to jointly bid.
There have been many people killing Google for this blog post, as people like Jon Gruber believe this blog post sounds hypocritical and, well, whiney. I do think that Google comes off as naive and this complaining doesn’t do much to really move the needle in its favor. In fact, for a company which loves to talk in such broad strokes about the future of the Internet and even the world, I think it could be using its might and lobbying dollars to get the software patent system reformed in a way that would be more fair to companies and individuals and allow innovation to flourish.
[Via AllThingsD, photo credit]
