11.16.07
Quick Mention: Acacia Shares Sink, Company Moves on to Apple
Acacia, having just lost a lawsuit against Microsoft, also had its shares nosedive.
In the suit, Acacia was seeking $2.50 per Windows XP license sold in the U.S. for a total sum of between $600 million to $900 million.
Shares of Acacia fell 25 percent to $12.90 in extended trade from its Thursday Nasdaq close of $17.15.
According to Groklaw, Acacia has already filed another lawsuit against Microsoft, so the total of Acacia lawsuits against Microsoft now stands at 4. Acacia shows no signs of trolling abatement. It has just sued Apple as well.
Let’s see, Acacia just finished litigating with (losing to!) Microsoft in Beaumont, Texas, just settled one of its cases against AT&T pending in Madison, Wisconsin (details confidential, but sending its stock up 10% yesterday, followed by down 25% in after hours trading due to the MSFT verdict), and has now sued Apple.
Is this the future?
Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy.