Ballmer's Asian IP warning set to backfire

By Steve Malone

Posted on 19 Nov 2004 at 10:59

When Steve Ballmer wants to make a stir he makes sure that he makes a big one. At the same venue where he spoke of Bill Gates receiving 4 million emails a day he also chose the meeting of Asian Government Leaders Forum in Singapore to spread another generous helping of fear, uncertainty and doubt about open source software.

Citing a report published a few months ago, Ballmer said that Linux violates some 228 existing software patents. The report Ballmer referred to was published by the Open Source Risk Management Group. In its report it in fact referred to 283 possible infringements which had not been tested in the courts. So there are not 228 infringements, as Ballmer would have it, but rather 228 possible infringements.

However, it is worth remembering the the OSRM is in the business of offering patent litigation insurance policies for Linux users and developers starting in 2005. Whilst the claims are moot, it is in OSRM's financial interests to put the willies up companies using Linux and convincing them that some company will slap a writ on them for patent infringement.

Ballmer is also in the business of putting the willies up organisations who are considering stepping out from the Microsoft camp and investing in Open Souce. According to Reuters, Ballmer went on to say that 'Someday, for all countries that are entering the WTO (World Trade Organization), somebody will come and look for money owing to the rights for that intellectual property.'

Of course, Ballmer was not as crass as to suggest that it might be Microsoft who comes knocking on the door asking for money. But certainly, the implications will not be lost on his Asian audience. East Asia, headed by China, is expanding at a phenomenal rate and it grieves Microsoft that many of the copies of Windows around are counterfeit.

If China wants to join the WTO, it is going to have to clean up counterfeiters and pirates and put in place some kind of copyright laws and enforce them. And so the world will see fewer bootleg copies of The Invincibles, Rolex watches and Tommy Hilfiger clothing as well as Microsoft software. All well and good.

More worrying from Microsoft's point of view is that many of these Asian countries, and not just the poorer ones, show little inclination to buy Microsoft software, full stop. As with Britain's local authorities, they see value in developing their local software ecosystem with open source rather than shipping licence royalties to Redmond.

As Poland demonstrated yesterday, the rest of the world is not nearly as keen on software patents as the United States. Many countries see US lobbying not as a fair reward for intellectual property but as an commercial weapon to be wielded to maintain American dominance in software.

The Chinese government is already developing a local version of Linux which, if successfully deployed across the world's most populous country and by general agreement well on the way to becoming a 21st Century economic superpower, could provide a serious alternative to Windows hegemony a decade or so down the line.

However, the Chinese are not likely to take kindly to threats of this kind. If the choice is between joining the WTO and seeing a queue of patent and copyright lawyers stretching across the Pacific or not joining, it may decide to stay out and continue to expand as it has done.