Microsoft was ordered by a US judge last week to produce thousands of emails as part of an investigation into whether the software giant stole intellectual property from a small company called Burst.com and used it in Media Player 9.
Richard Lang, chief executive of Burst.com, explained to ZDNet UK that his company had spent more than ten years developing and patenting a media transmission technology designed to send video and audio files electronically. From 1999, Burst.com and Microsoft worked together for two years, but while the IT sector was going through economic meltdown, their relationship went cold and Microsoft offered Burst.com $1m (£0.64m) for global rights to its software -- an offer that Burst.com turned down.
At the end of 2001, Microsoft announced a "third generation video streaming technology", which appeared to be the Burst.com product, said Lang. "In early 2002, Bill Gates made the official introduction -- they called the product Windows Media Player 9 -- which in our view incorporated our patents without a licence."
Lang immediately hired some lawyers on a contingency basis and filed a suit against Microsoft.
As part of the investigation phase of the case, Microsoft produced email communications relating to its dealings with Burst.com, but it admitted that a large number of emails were missing because they had been deleted, along with backup copies.
Spencer Hosie, attorney for Burst.com told ZDNet UK: "Microsoft is a company that lives and dies by email -- that is how they communicate. Emails that should be there were not; for instance, there were a whole series of meetings between my client and Microsoft, and there are no emails discussing those meetings."
Hosie said he asked the judge to order Microsoft to go through its backup tapes and produce the missing documents: "The court has said yes and Microsoft is starting that process now."
The next step will be in around a month when Microsoft will tell the court what it has retrieved from the backup tapes.
Microsoft was unavailable to comment on this story.
Talkback
What hasn't Microsoft stolen is a better question. Seriously! History keeps showing a pattern of MS using other people's hardwork; claiming they invited it, then settling out of court ten years later for pennies on the dollar. Why people believe anything this company says is amazing. Sure I use thier products. But people believe this company almost like the zealost for the macs. In fact, MS supporters defend MS just as intensely. MS steals, lies, cheats and everybody defends them. They ruin peoples lives, drag them through court and then pay them off years later while admitting nothing. Their software is rippled with security issues and thier renewal/upgrade prices are outragious. IT and tech support people promote their crappy product for job security. What a crazy world this is.
That's not a new thing to me, and that's the reason I use a mac.
Many people know this fact (even makers of Star Trek Voyager dropped a few clues in one of the episodes)
The only MS program I use is MS Office, which is required because the whole world (at least, most of them) use it as standard for word processing documents.
I really want to switch over to another office suit...
Ah more revelations, more problems, more hidden agenda's... What a suprise that they have deleted email messages, that is always a good one, especially in this paperless office firm. It is not a suprise that this is coming to light now. The problem I find with Microsoft software is the unreliability, and unfortuantly Microsoft is only where it is today because Corporations brought software early on, and have forced smaller companys to use microsoft to communicate with them (office/outlook etc ). Me personally, I think that Perfect office (Corell/Novell) is the better WP, and Groupwise is a Hugely better email system. But hey, I am but a small fish in a very large pond.
YES.
Stac Electronics.
Nuff said.
Also...
http://www.mackido.com/History/Where_is_stack.html
Is Microsoft an Innovator or an Innovation Thief? Time and lawsuits will tell.
Does anybody really believe that anything will be found in the email archives of the backup?They will be altered more times than a cheap suit.
What is the intent of the allegation? Who made the allegation? How can it be substantiated?
Of course Microsoft stole it...they have a long history fo stealing I.P. and settling with the companies they stole from later... thats just their way!