Microsoft Responds To Google’s Response To Microsoft’s Response

If you thought that Microsoft and Google, two massive public companies, would quickly and quietly retire behind the scenes to continue their fight after their very public back-and-forth over the past couple of days, you’d be wrong. Well, maybe they are fighting behind the scenes too, but the pissing match continues in public as well. Good for us!

In the interest of covering both sides of the story (and certainly not because this storyline is full of great fodder, generating massive interest — and pageviews), here’s the latest retort from Microsoft. Once again, Microsoft’s head of communications, Frank Shaw, is firing back at Google’s head legal guy, David Drummond, for his most recent update to his blog post from yesterday. And Shaw is doing it again on Twitter.

For those who have no idea what the hell I’m talking about, a refresher:

• Google Rips Into Microsoft, Apple, Oracle For “Bogus Patents” And Trying To “Strangle” Android
• Google Threw A Punch, Microsoft Fires Back With A Missile
• Why Did Google Blog About Patents Today? Because The Nortel Loss Was Just The Beginning.
• Google Responds To Microsoft’s “Gotcha”: They’re Diverting Attention With A Trick That Failed

Shaw’s most interesting Tweet in response reads as follows:

Why? BECAUSE they wanted to buy something that they could use to assert against someone else.

That’s Shaw asserting that Google held out of a Novell patent partnership bid so they could find other patents to assert against others. Google’s stance on the patent matter has always been that they only want them for defensive purposes, so you know this jab must really piss them off.

Hopefully that means another response!

Until then, here are Shaw’s Tweets:

https://twitter.com/#!/fxshaw/status/99217032838512640

https://twitter.com/#!/fxshaw/status/99217473701818369

https://twitter.com/#!/fxshaw/status/99217585115119616

https://twitter.com/#!/fxshaw/status/99217644988792834

And if you’re really interested, more on this topic:

• How Apple Led The High-Stakes Patent Poker Win Against Google, Sealing Ballmer’s Promise
• Microsoft’s Android Plan: Evil Genius Or Just Evil?
• Google On The Nortel Loss, Patents As Government-Granted Monopolies, And Plates Of Spaghetti