Microsoft´s at it again - you pay

[rubank]

Here´s
a little something for all of you who love to hate M$.


You know who´ll pay in the end, don´t you?


rubank

[Gurm]

A quarter apiece? The HUGE price increases I see in the future are shocking, indeed.

But yes, MS is a bunch of greedy SOB's.

However, my camera uses Smart Media. Smart Media only "sort of" uses FAT. It has its own proprietary system, and Smart Media readers emulate FAT.

- Gurm

[gt40]

now I know why it's called the FAT system - it allows one company to get fat - Microsoft.

[Wombat]

Originally posted by Gurm
A quarter apiece? The HUGE price increases I see in the future are shocking, indeed.

A quarter is a shitload of money in small device manufacturer. If an engineer managed to trim 3-5 cents off the price of manufacture, he'd be a hero. Adding .25 to the cost is no small deal.

[Jammrock]

I thought patents were only valid for 17 years? M$ patented FAT in 1976, which means the patent on FAT should have ended in 1993... Now if it is a copyright, and not a patent, that's a completely different beast.

EDIT: And now I see how:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/search-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=ptxt&s1=6,286,013.WKU.&OS=PN/6,286,013&RS=PN/6,286,013

They keep ammending and updating the patent, so as to 'refile' it with each small revision to the code. Good old fashion bait and hook business technique.

Jammrock

[Gurm]

Originally posted by Wombat
A quarter is a shitload of money in small device manufacturer. If an engineer managed to trim 3-5 cents off the price of manufacture, he'd be a hero. Adding .25 to the cost is no small deal.

A smartmedia card costs $30... now it costs $30.25, right?

(I _know_ it's not that simple, but it's not that BAD, either.)

- Gurm

[Wombat]

It IS that bad. A 64MB CF card costs $19.95. It has to stay 19.95 because of buyer psych. It cost the retailer $13. It cost the manufacturer $11.87 to manufacture package and ship. So his profit has gone from $1.13 to 88 cents. Yes, it's that BAD.

[KvHagedorn]

Score for Wombat.. he gets the point.

[Zao]

What happens to Linux's FAT support now? Does it have to go?

[Wombat]

No. I haven't read the license proposal, but others have, and it appears to only cover embedded devices, not full computers.

[Technoid]

it's a dirty trick to let it slide in the beginning and then after everyone is happily using it starting to enforce

[borat]

i cant see the manufacturers absorbing the cost of it though, more likely they will pass it on to the customer, if they could afford to knock any money off it they already would have, besides are you really going to be bothered by an extra 25 cents?

[GNEP]

I think that you'll just see the smaller sizes disappear from the shelves and so the entry-point is raised in terms of price...

[Kooldino]

Can't blame MS for trying to make more money. They have a valid point.

[Marshmallowman]

But if they tried licensing when people first started using fat , nobody would have bothered using. Now that it become defacto standard they start cashing, can't really blame them, but it does stink.

What if they are formatted in an slightly older version fat, eg older than the patent applies?