USC's Athletic Director Pat Haden Opines on Removing Financial Burdens on College Athletes and Improving Scholarship System

Ted Miller at the College Football Nation Blog at ESPN in ADs: Cost of attendance, not pay-for-play writes that USC Athletic Director Pat Haden, who was hired a year ago, has posted about athletic scholarships at The Ripsit Blog on Southern Cal's website, stating that:

""In a year from now, our new TV contract is going to kick in with $20 million per year in revenue and it is not right to have a student-athlete tell me he or she is going hungry," said an impassioned Haden. "It is unconscionable.""

Absolutely correct.

Apple Court Victory Over HTC Has Chinese Quickly Adapting

Apple's patent infringement win over HTC may turn out to be a Pyrrhic victory, i.e. one that is devastating to the victor. As reported at AppleInsider.com: Apple's legal win over HTC pushes some Chinese vendors toward Windows Phone 7.

Apple's concept -- that patent infringement actions will prevail where its own corporate marketing and capitalist strategies have failed -- is doomed to defeat.

Whether it wants to or not, Apple is going to have to face the competition, one way or the other. Trying to get rid of competitors via the flawed US patent system may be successful here or there, but for each competitor so eliminated, multiple new ones will appear.

Apple as a company already once was on the verge of bankruptcy due to its monopolistic tendencies, and it did not rise like Phoenix from the ashes as a patent troll. See Alyson Shontell and The Amazing Story Of How Steve Jobs Took Apple From Near Bankruptcy To Billions In 13 Years.

As Steve Jobs is quoted there:

"If we want to move forward and see Apple healthy and prospering again, we have to let go of a few things here. We have to let go of this notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose."

Nothing has changed. For Apple to win, it is not necessary for companies like HTC or Samsung to lose. For the time being, and once again, Apple has chosen the wrong road.

Smartphones: Overbroad Patents Stifling US Economy: Patent Infringement Suits Against Android Follow Market Share Losses by Apple iOS

Mobile Phone World Stats from StatCounter Global Stats:
Top 8 Mobile Operating Systems: July 2010 -- June 2011

Above, Source: StatCounter Global Stats - Mobile OS Market Share


Below, Smartphone US Stats from NielsenWire, the blog of the Nielsen Company:







What do you do when you read headlines like this from Henry Blodget at BusinessIndiser.com:

Android Is Destroying Everyone, Especially RIM -- iPhone Dead In Water

If you are Apple, you retreat to the last resort in the modern US business world -- you go to a court of law and claim patent infringement by the competition.

Brad Reed at Network World reports that Apple could be next to ride on Android patent gravy train: Successful HTC suit paves way for licensing agreements with Android phone manufacturers.

See also:
Microsoft taking cash from at least 5 different Android vendors

Companies such as Apple and Microsoft may be happy to initially pocket freebie patent infringement money which goes into their pockets and the pockets of their shareholders, but the SUPERIOR products in terms of MARKET DEMAND are being designed and produced elsewhere, providing millions of jobs OUTSIDE OF THE USA, where outdated US patent law does not apply.

Rather than producing BETTER SENSIBLY PRICED PRODUCTS in the USA and entering the "real" capitalist world of competition, patent infringement claims permit established companies to slouch on their own creative efforts and to engage in a form of "patent socialism", concentrating instead on squeezing as much money as possible out of PAST DESIGNS and OLD INVENTIONS, rather than making new ones.

A good example of how a company resting on its past laurels can quickly go down the tubes is RIM and the Blackberry, an outdated Canada-based smartphone maker which has essentially lost touch with the market and will surely not be a major player in the future. Time has already passed it by, as Larry Dignan headlines at ZDnet Between the Lines blog: Vultures circle RIM management: BlackBerry 7 devices as savior?

Companies like Apple and RIM are not losing market shares because of patent infringement, they are losing market shares because of spoiled management and a monopolist Communist way of looking at the world, i.e. evading actual markets and ignoring the laws of supply and demand.

Companies outside of North America are in fact responding much better to the day-to-day economic demands of the smartphone market. Simply put, Apple and RIM are being beaten in the "real" competitive world of markets.

We read, for example, that only now is Apple set to launch a low-priced iPhone -- a move forced by the competition -- whereas for years, Apple -- always a monopolist at heart -- has been gouging the market with overpriced products and catering to overpaid executives (and their families) in an American economy where inflated executive salaries have kept pace with artificially inflated company market values while normal workers salaries have at the same time only kept pace with the actual GDP.

Apple and RIM are essentially providers of what can be categorized as overpriced "luxury" goods to an overpaid North American income elite. Apple is now trying to retain its markets and over-inflated prices via the broken American patent law system. Long-term -- for the economy as a whole -- it is not going to work.

Apple Seeking to Block Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the USA

Apple appears to have run out of ideas and is now taking the role of a patent troll, which, because of the stupidity of US patent laws, lawmaking and jurisprudence, is a very lucrative business.

You do not have to do anything for the sagging US economy -- just rake in the cash.

Luke Westaway at Crave, the gadget blog from CNET UK, reports at Apple tries to block sale of Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in US | Crave | CNET UK.

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