Barney's Blog

Blog archive

A Quick $200 Million

Want to get rich fast? Forget the lottery or American Idol. Just get a patent that Microsoft infringes upon!

VirtnetX has such a patent and Microsoft just shelled out a cool $200 million to settle the case. The patent involved Virtual Private Networks (VPN), an area Microsoft is pushing with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. Actually the opposite is true: With this combo you can set up secure private connections without a VPN.

In fact, the offending Microsoft products are generally far older, and include XP, Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Office Communicator.

Microsoft licensed VirtnetX technology, so as Pete Townshend said, "We won't get sued again."

Posted by Doug Barney on May 19, 2010


Featured

  • Microsoft Appoints Althoff as New CEO for Commercial Business

    Microsoft CEO and chairman Satya Nadella on Wednesday announced the promotion of Judson Althoff to CEO of the company's commercial business, presenting the move as a response to the dramatic industrywide shifts caused by AI.

  • Broadcom Revamps VMware Partner Program Again

    Broadcom recently announced a significant update regarding its VMware Cloud Service Provider (VCSP) program, coinciding with the release of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0, a key component in Broadcom’s private cloud strategy.

  • Closeup of the new Copilot keyboard key

    Microsoft Updates Copilot To Add Context-Sensitive Agents to Teams, SharePoint

    Microsoft has rolled out a new public preview for collaborative "always on" agents in Microsoft 365 Copilot, bringing enhanced, context-aware tools into Teams channels, meetings, SharePoint sites, Planner workstreams and Viva Engage communities.

  • Windows 365 Cloud Apps Now Available for Public Preview

    Microsoft announced this week that Windows 365 Cloud Apps are now available for public preview. This aims to allow IT administrators to stream individual Windows applications from the cloud, removing the need to assign Cloud PCs to every user.