Is Microsoft the New Old IBM: a Ponderous Innot-vator?

“There was an interesting pair of articles published on
Computerworld Tuesday (February 23), significant in part for their
content but much more for the comparison between them. The first
article, by Patrick Thibodeau, announced a collaboration between
IBM and Johnson Controls to expand the use of advanced sensor
technologies to monitor conditions in a greater range of buildings
than the data centers the two now service. What they propose for
the future is to research and develop still more advanced products,
such as nano-scale sensors which could be embedded in everything
from bridge structures to wall paints.

“The second article, by James Niccolai, is a report that
Amazon.com has agreed to pay Microsoft to enter a patent
cross-licensing deal between the companies. Under the agreement,
Amazon will have access to some of Microsoft’s patent portfolio.
Specifically, the article claims that “the agreement will shield
Amazon from patent litigation against its Kindle e-reader, which
includes some open-source software components, and against its use
of Linux-based servers, Microsoft said.”

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