Microsoft ordered to pay $1.52 billion

[Captain Crunch]

The case is long from settled, and there will likely be a littany of appeals and countersuits, but Alcatel-Lucent won the first round in their legal battle against Microsoft and has been awarded a $1.52B (that's Billion) settlement.

"A U.S. federal jury found that Microsoft Corp. infringed audio patents held by Alcatel-Lucent and should pay $1.52 billion in damages, the No. 1 software maker said Thursday. Microsoft said it plans to first ask the trial judge to knock down the ruling and will appeal if necessary. It said the verdict is unsupported by the law and that it had already licensed the technology in question from Germany's Fraunhofer."

This quote from the piece will likely make your jaw drop, "For Microsoft, $1.52 billion represents about six weeks of cash flow or about 15 cents per share - a charge that most analysts would likely take in stride." Would be nice to have that kind of money to through around, huh?

Now that's a lot of money!

[screwballl]

wow, I hope this continues from other companies... MS is just too big.

[Lead Head]

Lucent are a bunch of @%#holes. They sued other companies too over things like a Stylus for PDAs, wtf is up with that! Seriously.

[pc_guy]

Originally Posted by screwballl

wow, I hope this continues from other companies... MS is just too big.

Yes, M$ is big, but would you rather have a bigger company from India or China instead of M$?

[[Dr. V]]

im imagining me going out and spending $200 on my next awesome computer purchase.

thats the equivalent to what Mr. Bill Gates is feeling of this. its absolutely NOTHING to microsoft.

[Quakindude]

Don't hate the player, hate the game.

If enough people voted with their wallets in the form of alternate OS's, MS wouldn't be so big. However, as much as people love to hate MS, MS puts out a product that matches the needs of the large majority of computer users. There simply isn't another OS with MS's simplicity of use and wide support both hardware and software wise.

Yes, I know about Apple. But let's face it, Mac's OS just isn't as widely popular as Windows and it won't be until Steve Jobs comes off the policies now in place that prevent that OS from gaining widespread use.

I'm fairly disgusted that such a large sum was handed down. I've read nothing to indicate that Lucent lost any where near this amount of revenue due to a perceived infringement of copyrights. Lucent, like Lead Head intimated, seems to be making money in two ways. Products and legal battles.