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Communications Wireless Networking Technology Hardware

Blackberry Future Uncertain 218

Posted by CowboyNeal from the up-in-the-air dept.
Dave White writes "Research In Motion and NTP have failed to reach a settlement in the Blackberry case. It looks like the door has been opened for NTP to be granted an injunction blocking the sales of Blackberry wireless messaging devices in the US. The New York Times (free registration yadda yadda) has the scoop on this interesting development."
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Blackberry Future Uncertain More

Blackberry Future Uncertain

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  • Bug Me Not (Score:5, Informative)

    by VxJasonxV ( 792809 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @07:10AM (#12778683)
    http://bugmenot.com/view.php?url=nytimes.com [bugmenot.com]

    Who needs logins now?

  • Text from a diff source (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 10, 2005 @07:11AM (#12778685)
    RIM and NTP Reach An Impasse

    Research In Motion said it has reached an impasse with NTP Inc. in finalizing a patent dispute settlement and would take court action.

    The two sides had reached a settlement in March with RIM agreeing to pay $450 million to NTP to settle the patent litigation. In return, RIM was granted an unfettered right to continue its BlackBerry-related business without further interference from NTP or its patents. "We are extremely disappointed and I am personally extremely disappointed that this matter which we believed was resolved has been reopened by NTP," Jim Balsillie, RIM chairman and chief executive, said in a conference call.

    He also emphasized the terms agreed to in March "were clear and unambiguous. "For nearly three months now, RIM has been working in good faith to complete the process and obtain the final license and settlement documents," Balsillie said. According to RIM, NTP refuses to honor its obligations under the term sheet and finalize the definitive documents. Calls to NTP went unanswered. RIM said while it is unsure of the outcome of the court's decision, it is reviewing any potential accounting implications and has already set aside and will continue holding on to the funds to make the settlement payment.
    • I couldn't find a NTP website, but the article said they were a small company.

      Why don't the just take the damn $450 million and run? Are they holding out for $500M? $1 Billion? Are they actually going to make RIM take their product out of US market? That would seem to hurt them as well.

  • BugMeNot (Score:2, Informative)

    by brickballs ( 839527 )
    bugmenot.com login info:
    onzinad
    ONZINAD

  • This is actually a Good Thing(tm) (Score:5, Insightful)

    by shatfield ( 199969 ) * on Friday June 10, 2005 @07:14AM (#12778701)
    We need a hundred of these types of losses -- where patents directly affect the public. Let the public get comfortable using a very necessary and nice technology, and then let some crappy company come out of nowhere and extort their way into an injunction and removal of the widget from the marketplace. The company (RIM in this case) should then perform a recall on all devices that infringe on that patent - notifying the users of their equipment exactly WHY they are being forced to give up their Blackberries.

    Then we'll see how long it takes to reform the patent system!

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @07:23AM (#12778745)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • All those senators and representatives have Blackberries, and perhaps something that affects them personally will get them to realize there might be a problem with the patent system.

        To bad your statement assumes those politicians are capable of logical thinking.

        Cause: bad patent system.
        Effect: RIM has to recall BlackBerries.

        Do you really think Congress(wo)men will be able to tell the difference between cause and effect? They will get pissed of with RIM, and continue their daily habits without chan

      • While I won't agree/disagree with the patent case (if they have the right to sue then fine, if they don't well damn)...it should note that depending on the request of the injunction (and the judge's approval) they could force a shutdown of existing services. What this means for the users:

        You can return your crackberry and get a full refund (including enterprise server licenses cost) or you can keep your crackberry and it just looks pretty, not doing anything that requires the service.
      • This has the potential to affect CONGRESS! All those senators and representatives have Blackberries

        No problem. I'm sure they'll still be legal to buy in Cuba.

      • FYI- From a 2003 story on www.brighthand.com:

        The chief lawyer for NTP responded (to Congress's concerns) by saying that, if he and RIM's lawyers couldn't come to a settlement on licensing fees, he won't ask the court to shut down RIM's service until a replacement is ready.

    • Re:This is actually a Good Thing(tm) (Score:5, Interesting)

      by saitoh ( 589746 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @07:30AM (#12778783) Homepage
      "The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly." -- Abraham Lincoln

      always wondered how well that would work...
    • I don't think that it would be in anybody's interest to block the sales of the devices: NTP could put RIM out of business, yes, but then they would loose out too! They may just want to screw RIM out of as much money as they can ... and maybe try to take control of pricing policy or somesuch. This is all probably just part of an ongoing negotiation process. At the end of the day I do not think that it will affect availability of the devices, and the price the public pay for it is the price that they are

  • Treo is killing it anyway (Score:5, Insightful)

    by greenmars ( 685118 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @07:17AM (#12778714)
    Doesn't matter -- the Treo 650 is killing the Blackberry anyway. Once I found I could manage my servers with PalmVNC on the Treo, that was it for me.
    • "PalmVNC"
      Sounds like someone is managing Windows servers!
    • Taking a quick look at the Washington DC Area subway population, and you'll realize how faulty your premise is. The technology in a Treo may be far more advanced, but the user base of blackberries is astoundingly deep in some organizations...organizations that are loathe to transition 300+ users to anything different.
      • Plus the Treos don't work well on the Subway. Verizon is considered to be a weak Treo vendor and they provide the signal on the Metro exclusively until 2017.
      • While I agree with your end assessment of the loyalty to crack berry (i.e. crackberry service STILL worked during 9/11 when cell phone lines were down due to high system usage), what organization has 300+ crackberry users that does not see such a transition cost as negligent? Though I would assume if blackberry had to refund all of their clients they would go bankrupt in a major way...
    • Doesn't matter -- the Treo 650 is killing the Blackberry anyway.

      Over here in the UK, only one operator sells the Treo (Orange) and the others aren't remotely interested in them. As such, Blackberry's heavily outnumber Treo's.

      Once I found I could manage my servers with PalmVNC on the Treo, that was it for me.

      To be fair, I don't think that really is a killer reason for the majority of people.

      Don't forget that Microsoft are also hot on the heels with their SP2 for Exchange 2003 (linky [forbes.com]) so this isn'

    • You do realize that this patent could affect the Treo keyboard also, right? RIM and Handspring fought their own bitter legal fight over the exact same patent.

    • Re:Treo is killing it anyway (Score:4, Informative)

      by davemabe ( 105354 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @09:31AM (#12779678) Homepage
      There *is* a BlackBerry port [ethell.com] of the J2ME VNC client software [sourceforge.net]. You'll have to think of another reason to justify the money you spent on the Treo 650. There are a couple reasons - like perhaps you prefer to have to retrieve mail rather than have it pushed to you immediately.
    • you manage your servers using vnc? that's a pity. i manage all of mine using pssh on my treo 650 :)
  • This is because when I read the headline, I thought the Blackberry's future was uncertain because of a massive sales/advertising/marketing assault from Microsoft. I understand M$ is also selling it's own version of a Blackberry....How wrong I was!

  • Upper middle managers weep with despair (Score:5, Funny)

    by gelfling ( 6534 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @07:20AM (#12778729) Homepage Journal
    Because clearly, Blackberries only exist so that your bosses boss can send you an email with a sig at the bottom that says "sent from Mr. Big's Blackberry (while rolling down the hgwy in his Z4).
    • Couldn't agree more. Why the fsck do I need to know that Mr New Toy sent me an e-mail from his Blackberry.

      And the BES server is a pain in the ass to administer.

      Sent from my Dell OptiPlex GX1 - I'm not proud.
      • I haven't had any problems or complications administering the BES server. Pretty straightforward, after you get it set up (when making it talk to Exchange, you have to copy a DLL from your Exchange server, then register it by hand).

        As for the sig at the end, there is a way to globally turn that off (if you're using BES), and I have, precisely for the reason that you outline -- why do I care that you sent it from your Blackberry? Does it make it more important?
    • I sent my friends email from my Blackberry from the top of Pike's Peak (14,100 feet above sea level).

    • It is quite easy to change that sig. I have done it so you don't know whether I'm sending from my BB or my laptop. The only way you'll know I'm sending from my laptop is if you get an RTF or HTML email from me (which would happen in a reply) because I've changed my sending to be plain text. Stealth mode is what I call it.

  • snuh (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 10, 2005 @07:22AM (#12778737)
    part of the problem is, RIM got the patent office to reexamine 8 of NTP's patents regarding the technology, and so far the PTO has come out with rejections on each proceeding they've done.

    this adds a layer of complication to the infringement case, as no doubt some part of the deal rested on the outcome of those proceedings.

  • No suprise there. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @07:24AM (#12778747) Homepage
    The company I work at recently yanked all blackberry devices and replaced them with Treo 600 and treo 650's.

    the fact that you dont need any "special" software to access email and has the capability of viewing doc and excel attachments was the death spike for the blackberry here at this company.

    and honestly, the treo's have much better sounding audio for phone calls than even the latest blackberry's did.
    • Does a treo integrate seemlessly into an Exchange mail server though? The beauty of the Blackberry and blackberry server software is that you didn't have to use any forwarding rules and secondary email servers or addresses. Emails sent to and from my BB are infact right out of my exchange server profile.

      Perhaps the Treo's work this way as well but I don't see how that can be without some other form of server side software designed to work with the devices and the Service provider.

      This little beauty tell
      • Perhaps the Treo's work this way as well but I don't see how that can be without some other form of server side software designed to work with the devices and the Service provider.

        It's called IMAP, and yes exchange supports it.

        This little beauty tells me it probably doesn't work that way "3 Email, messaging and web browsing require wireless data services from a mobile service provider at an additional cost. ISP may also be required. Pricing varies by service provider. Wireless service coverage may not b
      • It should be noted that you have to pay for that data channel with either device. In fact, with tmobile for example - you pay a flat fee of $40 USD for your Blackberry, with no calling time. If you have a Treo - you pay $30 for a data plan with no calling time.

        With the Treo, you can use their standard voice plans (and then the data plan is only $20 a month) - with the Blackberry, you have a $70 and a $90 1000 and 1500 minute plan. The Blackberry *does* include 300 text messages a month in the base pl
        • I neglected to mention, and it should be noted, that the Blackberrys do have one important feature going for them, and that's push mail. The Treo has to be explicitly told to check for mail at intervals - so you do lose out there.

          Also, since they are more closed and limited - you probably would run into fewer support costs if implemented at a business or the likes - since people wouldn't be installing 3rd party software on them like they would with a Palm PDA like the Treo.
      • Treos are licensed to use MS's Exchange server ActiveSync, the same thing the Windows-based phones use, and the same thing that is being upgraded to Direct Push.

        And there's always IMAP.

        "Synchronize your corporate Microsoft Exchange email and calendar with built-in Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync®"

        quote is from this page:
        http://www.palmone.com/us/products/smartphones/tr e o650/ [palmone.com]
      • Perhaps the Treo's work this way as well but I don't see how that can be without some other form of server side software designed to work with the devices and the Service provider.

        The Treo can access mail servers directly--no need for any server-side software installation. And you don't need "push", the Treo supports polling. Mobile Internet rates have come down to the point where that works pretty much as well as "push" for power users.

        The Treo also gives you an excellent web browser and lots of other
        • And you don't need "push", the Treo supports polling.

          Or, even better, you can use Chatter [chatteremail.com], which supports the IMAP Idle command, so it's more-or-less instant, like push, but without constantly polling the server.

    • Re:No suprise there. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by daviddennis ( 10926 ) <david@amazing.com> on Friday June 10, 2005 @09:21AM (#12779584) Homepage
      I helped my boss(*) purchase a handheld about a week ago. It was between the Blackberry and Treo 650. The sales guy was heavily pushing the Treo, but I thought the Blackberry was much better for his needs. It worked with his university calendar web site, which the Treo didn't, and the Treo has a nearly unusable keyboard compared to the Blackberry's nice one.

      He bought the Blackberry and has been very happy with it so far. It accesses his email just fine even though we don't have the Blackberry server package. He just uses IMAP, which is no problem at all.

      I think my T-Mobile Sidekick is still the better device for reading web pages and emails but that's because of the flip out design with the bigger screen. T-Mobile's service is erratic and so I think he made the right choice to go with the inferior device but much more reliable Verizon network.

      One interesting point is that the Blackberry appears to have some form of JavaScript support, although it slows everything to a crawl. Whenever I saw a massive delay in loading a web site, the "Running JavaScript" appeared on the bottom. My Sidekick, which doesn't support JavaScript, loaded things much better, but of course many features were not available. I think the Blackberry needs a faster CPU to deal with JS issues. Hopefully one will be forthcoming.

      D

      (*) Far from a PHB. So we now have proof that not all Blackberry users are PHBs, despite what some of you might think.
    • My co-worker is a staunch defender of crack berry (she hates it when i say that) - but she admits she has a hard time hearing people when on the phone (while she is using the crack berry). I personally think their service is highway robbery. Let us see what you have to pay for:

      Crack berry (expensive, but average cost for such device)
      Corporate black berry software (expensive add-on that is a rip imho)
      Corporate black berry license for each black berry user who wants to access their email (TOTAL 100% ri

      • Re:No suprise there. (Score:4, Informative)

        by djrogers ( 153854 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @09:59AM (#12779887)
        does the blackberry do anything the treo cannot (anything of note that is)
        Seemless real time integration of your Outlook calendar, task list, and memo pad, all push and without sync'ing....
      • does the blackberry do anything the treo cannot (anything of note that is)
        What about being secure? 3DES wireless encryption , S/MIME support, and AES encryption.
        Complete integration with your mail server....send/receive/delete/moves/etc.

        Neither of these products are the be all and end all...why do people think that there can be only one?

        So, since everyone is focusing on the cost of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server solution, I think this would also be a good time to mention that each individual carrier w
  • I for one am interested to see what kind of patent it is to have the power to demand 450 millions. Is it called "Device that send out e-mail wirelessly" or is it just the thumb keyboard? After reading the story it doesn't seem to give me the full picture.

  • Why not give us a choice (Score:4, Informative)

    by tcoady ( 22541 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @07:31AM (#12778784)
    instead of "yadda yadda" each time you link to NYT. Like this:
    http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&ie=UTF-8& q=ntp+rim [google.com]
    • That's a lovely idea, but it's completely useless for drawing notice to a particular article, only to a particular story. That isn't always what you want, and entails further effort than simply noting an interesting story and firing off a quick /. submission (which is 99% likely to get rejected anyway, so the time you spend on it is 99% likely to be wasted).

      If the NYT login bothers you that much, do what everyone else does and download the BugMeNot Firefox plugin [roachfiend.com].

      This way the poster doesn't waste time un
      • Don't have a special problem with NYT and already use bugmenot but thanks for that heads up. It's not just balance but stuff like aesthetics; I can't stand the look of any yahoo! site for example. As for getting submissions accepted, perhaps the way to get in is to link to NYT with the mandatory warnings? But I accept your other points.

  • What I Don't Get (Score:4, Insightful)

    by value_added ( 719364 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @07:33AM (#12778794)
    From the article:

    Final talks in a patent infringement lawsuit involving the popular BlackBerry e-mail messaging device have reached an impasse, the two companies involved said Thursday, raising the possibility that the BlackBerry service could be banned from the United States market.

    What I don't get is how the Blackberry, being so popular with members of our legislature, wound up on the wrong side of a patent lawsuit. To wit: Legislative Branch Subcommittee Hearing on the FY05 Budget [2004] [senate.gov]:

    In the past two years, the Senate provided BlackBerry devices and updated electronic pagers to Senators and key staff. The number of BlackBerry devices in use at the Senate continues to expand. Every office has a Senate "Group Alert" telephone system and approximately 1,000 telephones throughout the Senate are connected to the System.

    Can't imagine someone informing members of the Senate they have to turn in their favourite devices because they're no longer legal.

    • Re:What I Don't Get (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Perhaps the American congress hasn't joined in the fight because RIM is a Canadian company. Just saying.
  • but a Blackberry is the only mobile device that actually adds-value to wireless communications. Really... who needs a cameraphone to communicate? Do we need MP3phones?

    It is time for the US Gov't to use the power of Imminent Domain to put this rights case in the hands of the common good.

  • The Article (Score:4, Informative)

    by Southpaw018 ( 793465 ) * on Friday June 10, 2005 @07:43AM (#12778835) Journal
    Bah to BugMeNot.

    OTTAWA, June 9 - Final talks in a patent infringement lawsuit involving the popular BlackBerry [nytimes.com] e-mail messaging device have reached an impasse, the two companies involved said Thursday, raising the possibility that the BlackBerry service could be banned from the United States market.

    The two companies, Research in Motion [slashdot.org] of Waterloo, Ontario, which makes the BlackBerry, and NTP, a small patent-holding company in Arlington, Va., reached a settlement in March to end an infringement suit that is three and a half years old. R.I.M. agreed at the time to pay NTP the unusually large sum of $450 million to end the suit.

    On Thursday, however, it was apparent that negotiations to reach a final settlement had failed.

    Late Wednesday night, R.I.M. asked a United States federal court to enforce the settlement reached in March. Meanwhile, in court papers filed Thursday, NTP denied that the settlement was ever clear-cut, and urged the court to reject R.I.M.'s request.

    In a conference call Thursday with analysts, James L. Balsillie, the chairman and co-chief executive of R.I.M., said he could not comment on the specifics of why the talks had foundered, citing a confidentiality agreement between the companies. He emphasized, though, that R.I.M. had not tried to alter the settlement's terms, and blamed NTP for the impasse.

    "This is an enormous amount of money, one of the largest settlements in the history of any patent system," Mr. Balsillie said. "I'm at a loss to understand what in the world one would want beyond that."

    In its filing, however, NTP said that it had pressed R.I.M. for a complete set of documents detailing the terms of the agreement during three days of negotiations in March.

    "Nevertheless, because of R.I.M.'s pressing need to leave town, the signed agreement was limited to a vague, ambiguously worded term sheet," the court papers said.

    NTP had won the right to ban Blackberry e-mail in the United States in an earlier court decision, but that ruling was suspended when R.I.M. appealed. In its filing Thursday, though, NTP said that if no settlement was reached, it would again ask for an injunction on the sale of BlackBerry pagers and e-mail service in the United States. Research in Motion is dependent on Blackberry sales in the United States for about 75 percent of its revenues.

    Gregory E. Upchurch, an intellectual property lawyer in St. Louis, said that about 80 percent of the time, courts enforced previously announced settlements. "Courts are in the business of resolving disputes," he said.

  • pretty frickin ironic... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by potus98 ( 741836 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @07:45AM (#12778846) Journal
    ...That this is the first site/article I've opened on my blacberry in a week. Sure wish /. Had a more mobile-friendly format. Actually, I'll take /. Working in my firefox first!
  • This week Microsoft announced they will begin doing push email for all Windows Mobile devices from Exchange. This was the last key differentiator for RIM. Without that, they are simply just another Cell Phone / PIM / Email device. Oh and Microsoft is giving this away for free, so no need to buy RIM's enterprise software.

  • Patent Details (Score:4, Informative)

    by lazarus ( 2879 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @07:54AM (#12778887) Journal
    I found a copy of the original August 5, 2003 ruling here (pdf) [findlaw.com].

    According to this court document, the infrigments concern:

    • Claims 15, 32, 34 of #5,436,960
    • Claim 8 of #5,625,670
    • Claim 199 of #5,819,172
    • Claims 28, 248, 309, 313, 317 of #6,067,451
    • Claims 40, 150, 278, 653, 654 of #6,317,592
    These patents can be found here:

    5,436,960 [uspto.gov]
    5,625,670 [uspto.gov]
    5,819,172 [uspto.gov]
    6,067,451 [uspto.gov]
    6,317,592 [uspto.gov]

    These patents look to me like they would cover just about every PDA and cell phone on the planet today. Is RIM a target because of their popularity?

    • the patent claims don't stand on their own.

      if you slog through all the court transcripts, you'll find hearings where claim terminology was heavily narrowed for the purposes of the infringement. that means, according to the court, the claims were hella more specific than they let on at first glance.
    • Is RIM a target because of their popularity?

      I suspect they became more of a target as their "ability to pay" increased.

  • Patent reform idea (Score:4, Insightful)

    by chiph ( 523845 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @08:03AM (#12778937)
    I'd like to see a law passed that says that while you may be granted a patent on an invention or idea, if you fail to produce a viable product based on it, the patent only lasts half as long.

    Too many companies seem to be using their patents as blocking mechanisms to keep competitors out, or as a way to extort money from other, larger, firms.

    Chip H.

  • NTP patents are DOA (Score:2, Interesting)

    by WoodieR ( 860635 )
    it's more like NTP's patents are DOA, and RIM doesn't owe them a plug nickel ...

  • Some blackberry owners become slaves (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jeanluc.bonnafoux ( 611600 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @08:12AM (#12778991)
    Yesterday evening, I have attended to a play in Paris. My neighbor could not wait for the end of the play or for the interval: he had to check his blackberry often... Some blackberry users become slaves. I hope for them that 'blackberry' will disappear...

  • The New Business Model (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DrWho520 ( 655973 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @08:17AM (#12779017) Journal
    1. Dream up and outlandish idea you have no clue how to implement and patent in obscure wording
    2. Go into coporate hybernation and wait until someone much smarter implements idea.
    3. Sue smarter company for all their hardwork and ingenuity.
    4. Profit!!!


    I hate parasites.

  • Sad Sad Sad (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Rac3r5 ( 804639 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @08:29AM (#12779118)
    This is a very very sad case.

    Why in the world is a company like NTP even allowed to exist. Why are ppl given patents before even coming up with a product.

    I think what NTP has done/is currently doing is very wrong. Why should a company like NTP that just dreams up ideas and does nothing to actually develop them being given patents? They do very little to foster innovation. They do very little to employ people. They pretty much do jack diddly squat.

    This is wrong in so many ways.
    There are 3 other parties that are also responsible for the BS. The patent office that actually gave them the patent (flawed patent system), the corrupt law firm representing the case, and the Judge who ruled on this case and cannot see right from wrong.

    • Re:Sad Sad Sad (Score:2, Informative)

      by nilptr46 ( 807950 )
      Why should a company like NTP that just dreams up ideas and does nothing to actually develop them being given patents?

      For the record, the company was formed to defend the patents. Several posts seems to suggest that NTP is a company that patents vague ideas and waits for a successful company to pounce on.

      From http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,116441,0 0.asp/ [pcworld.com]
      Tom Campana developed a wireless communications system for his pager company that he later patented, and the BlackBerry infringes upon

  • Do no evil... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by luchaugh ( 860384 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @08:42AM (#12779250)
    I'm originally from Waterloo, Ontario, where RIM is located. They've grown at an incredible rate in recent years, but not in an "we'll eat your soul" kind of way. They've reinvested strongly in the community, and have donated a TON of cash to charity and other ventures. For example, the founder of RIM donated $100M to found The Perimeter Institute, a theoretical physics center where researchers and eggheads can basically sit around and think about cool stuff without worrying about budgetary or governmental pressures. A lot of what I see from RIM reminds me very much of Google. Become an industry leader, and STAY an industry leader for the right reasons. This story makes me somewhat sad, as the company suing them appears to have been "created" specifically for this reason, and they don't actually create anything that benefits anyone, except lawsuits that benefit themselves.
    Perimeter Institute can be found here:
    http://www.perimeterinstitute.com/index.php?lang=e n/ [perimeterinstitute.com]
    If you're ever in Waterloo, I suggest you check it out. One of the coolest buildings I've ever seen.
  • "This is an enormous amount of money, one of the largest settlements in the history of any patent system," Mr. Balsillie said. "I'm at a loss to understand what in the world one would want beyond that."

    Umm, more money? And if you're the tinfoil hat type how about the fact that MS want to get their hands in the Blackberry cookie jar so bad, would they entice NTP, like SCO, to do something like this?

    I personally think it's just for more money. I mean this is coming from a company that doesn't manufacture

  • I know what the problem is (Score:3, Funny)

    by Locke2005 ( 849178 ) on Friday June 10, 2005 @12:06PM (#12781186)
    They have a hard time attracting new employees. Most potential employees are too embarrassed to ask "How can I get a RIM job?"
  • getting dumped on them. NTP is just a small patent-holding company in Arlington, Va.

    RIM has the hardware and the network.

    Let RIM put out an email and a static page on all their devices out there saying that they are being forced out by NTP.

    We'll see how long NTP can stand being in the palmtop communication device marketplace with nothing to show for it but their dick in their hand.

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