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To: Mike Buckley who wrote (27904)	7/14/2000 1:56:36 AM
From: DownSouth	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

Thanks to Ruffian for posting the following article: europeaninvestor.com HONG KONG (AFX-ASIA) - China Unicom Ltd has not suspended its development of a Code Division Multiple Access mobile phone system, the Hong Kong Economic Journal reported, citing Jiang Shaobing, the deputy head of planning of China's Ministry of Information Industry. Jiang said the CDMA development project has been approved by the State Council and China Unicom has been authorised to carry out the project. Jiang's remarks come in the wake of press reports that China Unicom has suspended CDMA development. fh/tr For more information and to contact AFX: www.afxnews.com and www.afxpress.com This could be very positive press from China, for a change.

To: Mike Buckley who wrote (27904)	7/14/2000 8:10:04 AM
From: alankeister	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

Mike, I disagree. Lotus makes proprietary spreadsheet software. It's theirs and theirs alone. They use their own architecture to add 2 + 2 and place the answer (4) in the cell. Microsft also makes proprietary spreadsheet software that accomplishes the same task. Each company has their own proprietary code and architecture for making it all happen. Perhaps I've misunderstood the use of proprietary architecture. The example you used above is proprietary software but not necessarily proprietary architecture. No? One can develop a web server with proprietary software but the architecture is not proprietary. To claim a proprietary architecture, Lotus needs to control more than the software; they need control of spreadsheets. If Lotus had patented the the general use of cells and formulas, they could control the spreadsheet architecture. In another example, NTAP isn't a gorilla because the architecture, NAS, is not proprietary. But they have a great product because they have a proprietary way of implementing their NAS products. - Alan

To: Mike Buckley who wrote (27904)	7/14/2000 11:35:19 AM
From: Thomas Mercer-Hursh	Respond to of 54805

Each company has their own proprietary code and architecture for making it all happen. Technically, you are right that each company's code is proprietary because it is their specific implementation and that code is covered by copyright. But, copyright, especially as applied to software, is not very good protection. Thus, I would not tend to use the term proprietary to apply to something which is merely a specific expression of current standard art. E.g., routines for addition involve no special art so the fact that there are detail differences between Lotus and Microsoft in this area is irrelevant or at least uninteresting. Such is the case with a lot of business software. E.g., in my own company's software, I never use the term proprietary to refer to the application software, even though it is all ours, because it basically does all of the same things that other ERP software does (better, of course!). There are a few functions which probably qualify for the term because they are unlike anything found in competing packages. But, I do use the term proprietary on a regular basis to apply to our tools since the use a technology developed in-house and provide a substantial competitive advantage.