{"id":123,"date":"2011-08-05T01:30:00","date_gmt":"2011-08-05T01:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/?p=123"},"modified":"2020-08-07T03:24:58","modified_gmt":"2020-08-07T03:24:58","slug":"wadt2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/2011\/08\/05\/wadt2\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Apple Doesn\u2019t Talk, Vol. 2: Google CLO David Drummond"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Google SVP and Chief Legal Officer David Drummond\u00a0threw a\u00a0public tantrum<\/a>\u00a0Wednesday over the recent patent auctions Google lost to Microsoft, Apple, and a number of other companies. This led to a heated exchange between Microsoft and Google over Twitter and the web. MG Siegler at TechCrunch has\u00a0a nice recap<\/a>\u00a0if you\u2019ve missed any of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than enough holes have already been poked in Drummond\u2019s logic. What\u2019s truly astounding is that this was not a leaked memo or an investigative hit piece: it was a deliberate PR stunt that completely backfired. It is a textbook example of why you don\u2019t open your mouth before you\u2019re ready to talk. This was a chance to set the record straight and turn the tables in this debate, and Google blew it. Most of the mistakes made were simple, avoidable failures of communication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first failure was lack of clarity: specifically, letting the Chief Legal Officer write nearly 500 words of\u00a0unstructured whining<\/a>. How many ordinary people\u00a0understand<\/em>\u00a0lawyers, let alone sympathize with them? A piece of communication this important should have been painstakingly reviewed: its prose; its tone; its presentation; its source; and my goodness, its facts. It\u2019s quite clear that nobody examined the post with a level head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second failure was lack of disclosure. Microsoft\u2019s\u00a0General Counsel<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Head of Communications<\/a>\u00a0immediately countered Google\u2019s accusations with a conveniently missing piece of information:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Google says we bought Novell patents to keep them from Google. Really? We asked them to bid jointly with us. They said no.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This revelation forced Drummond to update his post with another two hundred frustrated words. In less than a day (and 140 characters), Google wound up against the same wall it tried to pin the opposition to. If Drummond had mentioned this little fact up front and quickly dismissed it, he\u2019d have remained in the driver\u2019s seat. Now he looks disorganized, disheartened, and dishonest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The third failure was lack of awareness. Drummond attempted to rally the troops without so much as mentioning a very real, very relevant dilemma: the patent troll organization known as Lodsys, which has\u00a0sued<\/a>\u00a0a growing number of Android (and iOS) app developers. The Droid Army is under siege, their livelihoods threatened, and the generals have finally stood up to\u2026 ask the troops to feel sorry for the generals. I\u2019m sure they\u00a0feel great<\/a>\u00a0today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nobody was waiting for Google to say something; Google stood up and demanded we all listen. If you walk up to the microphone like that, you need to have your story straight. It would not have been hard to spend a little more time preparing an impassioned and<\/em> credible statement that appealed to the reader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sad thing about all of this is that the patent system in our industry is in fact\u00a0horribly, cynically broken<\/a>. Google had a terrific opportunity to make that case and shift public opinion in its (and I believe in the long term, everyone\u2019s) favor. Instead, it cried like a rich kid who lost an auction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bad communication is bad business.\u00a0I\u2019ll call LG on it<\/a>,\u00a0I\u2019ll call Apple on it<\/a>, and I\u2019ll call Google on it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Google SVP and Chief Legal Officer David Drummond\u00a0threw a\u00a0public tantrum\u00a0Wednesday over the recent patent auctions Google lost to Microsoft, Apple, and a number of other companies. This led to a heated exchange between Microsoft and Google over Twitter and the web. MG Siegler at TechCrunch has\u00a0a nice recap\u00a0if you\u2019ve missed any of it. More than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleoutsider.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}