[opendtv] Re: I'm starting to feel sorry for, and worry about, Apple

  • From: "Allen Le Roy Limberg" <allimberg@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2010 18:48:30 -0400

Usually the best business strategy is not only securing patent protection
for a mass manufactured product, but then licensing the technology to
others.  This increases the number of products that can be manufactured and
creates a royalty base greater than your profit on the number of products
your own company can manufacture.  This strategy shifts much of the business
risk to your competitors and away from your own company.  Same principal as
diversifying a stock portfolio.  Your competitors' advantages such as lower
labor costs or more favorable taxation work to your advantage by incresing
royalty base.   Also, the more rapid development of your technology tends to
make competing technology less likely to capture a large a percentage of the
complete market for such products.  Apple did not license others to use
their technology and stunted growth.

Apple probably would have done better following the RCA strategy concerning
color television.  After a government consent decree that took away RCA's
100 best patents around 1958 or so, RCA's patent licensing program rapidly
re-established the company's strong financial position.  It is a pity RCA
did not capitalize on its No. 2 position in the computer industry as well.
IBM patent attorneys viewed that as a colossal business mistake.  Robert
Sarnoff was not the businessman his father was.

Al
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, August 06, 2010 5:24 PM
Subject: [opendtv] Re: I'm starting to feel sorry for, and worry about,
Apple


> Tom Barry wrote:
>
> > The supposed openness came more from IBM not giving a whole
> > lot of thought to legal protections to cloning at first so
> > things like the Phoenix bios and the Compaq clones could be
> > developed without being sued out of existence.  IBM
> > immediately tried to rectify this but it was too late.
>
> > For the most part nobody bought [the PS/2, which IBM tried
> > to protect with many patents] either, greatly for the same
> > reason. And IBM is long out of the PC business now.
> >
> > It is a general rule that if you spend more sweat and dollars
> > protecting your technology instead of making it better then
> > you will eventually lose your market and have nothing to
> > protect.  (see TV ;-) )
>
> Wait, Tom, I'm struggling to follow your logic.
>
> IBM failed to close its shop in time, when they first designed the
original ISA PC, and they are now out of the PC business altogether.
>
> Apple instead created a walled garden, and they continue to sell their
overpriced products with their limited-use applications.
>
> Tell me again why it's a bad idea to protect your technology? I mean, from
a company's viewpoint?
>
> Bert
>
>
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