Dave has another great post on Microsoft's supposed "fiduciary duty" to wave the patent FUD flag. Imagine if, at Microsoft's next shareholder meeting, they said, "Rather than providing new innovation in the market for our consumers and potential consumers, we're going to stifle innovation at every opportunity. We're not going to innovate our business model either. Instead, we're going to use our size to force as Dave has another great post on Microsoft’s supposed “fiduciary duty” to wave the patent FUD flag. Imagine if, at Microsoft’s next shareholder meeting, they said, “Rather than providing new innovation in the market for our consumers and potential consumers, we’re going to stifle innovation at every opportunity. We’re not going to innovate our business model either. Instead, we’re going to use our size to force as many companies out of the software market as possible. We’re going to use our patent portfolio to intimidate anyone who dares to enter our market. Additionally, we intend to spend as much money as possible to preserve our existing business franchises rather than explore new ones.” The alternative statement could be, “Rather than rely solely on the successful franchise we’ve already built we will be spending our resources to invent new products, new capabilities and new business models. We intend to out-innovate any potential competitors and run faster than anyone else can run. No one will be able to keep up with us because we have the resources to invest like no one else.” Perhaps the reality is that Microsoft realizes they are structurally incapable of innovating and must rely on the first option, what I refer to as the buggy-whip strategy – preserve the existing business at all cost.Even if we take Sam/HIlf at face value on the fiduciary duty thing, let’s remember that we’re talking pennies on the dollar. Microsoft makes tens of billions of dollars selling products. The best it can hope for is a billion or so in patent license fees and, if all of its agreements look like the one it struck with Novell, then the money will be flowing out of Microsoft, not into it. Regardless, Microsoft has a job to do, but its business is based on selling value, not patents, to customers. Open Source