Microsoft just spent 1 billion on AOL patents. This includes several Netscape ones. So is M$ going to put Gecko stuff into IE?
One guesses that they will use this to go after Google Chrome. The relationship with Mozilla is a strange one. You would think this would be a deathnell for Firefox but Redmond has been known to send over cakes when Firefox released new versions.
Plus Firefox is open source. Despite the blustering from Steve Ballmar & Bill Gates before him about open source, I don't expect Microsoft to use these patents to put Mozilla out of business. They are more likely to go after Google & use the newly acquired patents to go after Chrome. Interestingly, new info shows IE coming up a little in share while both Firefox & Chrome have lost a little. Again, not much. IE has gone from 47% to 49%, Firefox from 21% to 19%, & Chrome has sat around the high 17% to low 17%. Not a lot of change. Mind you, a year ago IE was at 57% & at one time (before Firefox) 90%.
So how will M$ actually use these patents? Who knows. What has Google done with those Motorola patents? Nothing, at least not so far.
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