Matt Brian quoting a Samsung official:
“If Samsung truly believed that Google’s takeover of Motorola Mobility was going to be helpful to the entire Android eco-system at large, it would have waited until that deal was closed before concluding the license agreement with Microsoft. Samsung knows it can’t rely on Google. We’ve decided to address Android IP issues on our own.”
Ouch. This is in relation to yesterdays announcement that Microsoft and Samsung signed a cross-license patent deal. Google already fired back and called this, wait for it, extortion: “This is the same tactic we’ve seen time and again from Microsoft. Failing to succeed in the smartphone market, they are resorting to legal measures to extort profit from others’ achievements and hinder the pace of innovation. We remain focused on building new technology and supporting Android partners.”
Update 1 (concerning that first quote): I thought I read that part before somewhere but couldn’t find out where and searching for parts of that sentence didn’t match either. But now I found it, let’s have a look at that FOSS Patents blog post:
If Samsung truly believed that Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility was going to be helpful to the Android ecosystem at large, it would have waited until that deal is closed before concluding the license agreement with Microsoft. But Samsung probably knows it can’t rely on Google. It decided to address Android’s intellectual property issues on its own.
Sounds a lot like that part from the article that came from The Korea times, doesn’t it. Interesting part of this is, that Samsung didn’t yet come out screaming and telling everybody that it wasn’t exactly their quote. Seems to me that it’s what they think inside and just leave it at what it is right now.
Update 2: John Gruber over at Daring Fireball also has a post on that topic and quotes Florian Mueller:
I wouldn’t be too harsh on the Korea Times reporter. Language barriers between Asian and Western languages are a huge challenge. I speak several European languages, including that I learned Russian, but all of that is child’s play compared to the differences between Asian and European languages. That’s why I didn’t blog or tweet to criticize him. I had emailed him my post, which I often do when I believe a reporter is working on a topic at the given time, but my email obviously didn’t suggest that I’m a Samsung official…