Last week Microsoft lackey Brier Dudley commented on how Jobs was “getting too big for his breeches“. Macalope countered his arguments effectively. I want to draw attention to Brier’s principal argument, which was that Jobs has become so arrogant that he’s decided to ignore the law:
he’s been flippant about U.S. trademark protection, accounting standards, securities regulators and European antitrust enforcers … After ignoring Cisco’s trademark on the term “iPhone,” Apple called the resulting lawsuit “silly.”
It turns out that even Cisco CEO Chambers thought the lawsuit was silly (his term was “minor skirmish”). Anyway, it looks like the infraction was indeed much ado about nothing – perhaps suggesting that Cisco did not have a very strong case.
Brier claimed that the “new” Microsoft is humble and would never stray into arrogant territory again:
Microsoft emerged intact but humbled, with a different culture, a new chief executive and lawyers watching every move.
So, maybe he can explain this to us:
In November, Microsoft’s Internet-based business software, Office Live, became generally available in the U.S., with such features as customer management tools, e-mail accounts and Web site building and hosting.
Office Live, based in the Los Angeles area, registered the “Office Live” trademark in 2002. It initially filed its lawsuit against Microsoft in December in U.S. District Court in California but agreed to withhold serving the suit to allow the companies to pursue settlement negotiations.
Brier, you told us that they would never do anything like this. What will we tell our children about the new, humbler Microsoft?
