Microsoft lawyers might want to be careful of the arguments they make.
Microsoft is facing a bit of trouble with the i4i patent infringment case – in which it has been fined just under $300 Million and is prevented from selling Word under a court injunction.
There’s a whole issue of the irony of one of the largest patent holders – and one of the most enthuisatic promoters of software patents – that comes up whenever Microsoft finds itself on the business end of a judge’s gavel; but we will skip over those issues because there’s an interesting argument coming up from Microsoft lawyers.
When I say interesting, I mean Microsoft probably doesn’t really want you to think about what they are saying.
Consider this quote from Microsoft lawyers in a PC World article covering recent news:
Even if the injunction will not affect Microsoft’s existing Office customers, consumers and businesses who require new copies of Office and Word would be stranded without an alternative set of software.
[...]
[The situation could be a] major public disruption [and would] have an effect on the public due to the public’s undisputed and enormous reliance on those products.
Microsoft Monoculture
Every once in a while, someone might point out that reporters have to actively avoid mentioning Microsoft Windows when discussing computer problems; but largely – at least ever since Dan Greer lost his job for pointing out the danger of a Microsoft Monoculture - there is virtually no mention that Microsoft products lie at the root of virtually all security and computer-related problems today.
And yet here we have Microsoft’s own lawyers implicitly admitting that relying on Microsoft software presents an enormous risk to the public!
The wider issue
Of course, the issue goes beyond Microsoft – they are illustrative, but not unique. The issue is that relying on Closed, Proprietary Software is an enormous risk.
Could you imagine any other area so vital to business where one company so casually turns over control to a third party -often with no formal relationship outside of a sales reciept? An executive that suggested buying paper that could only be written on by Bic pens would be laughed out of the boardroom, yet many companies do the exact same thing when it comes to making software decisions!
There are alternatives, Free and Open Source products that do not and can not present the same risk to the public. Where commercial business are certainly entitled to weigh the risks of relying on Closed and Proprietary Software, public interests such as governments, medical record keeping institutions, schools and so forth should be using different criteria.
Smart businesses should be looking at Free and Open Source products as well – not only for significant cost savings, but for the competitive and self-reliant advantages that Closed and Proprietary products simply can not offer.
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