Protection shield
or racket. "It'd be really bad if something bad happened to you so consider joining our platform" says MS.
Microsoft’s extended its “Azure IP Advantage” litigation protection shield to on-premises technology, by applying it to the Azure Stack hybrid-cloud-in-a-box systems. Microsoft launched Azure IP Advantage in February 2017. The service sees Microsoft indemnify Azure users who spend more than US$1,000 a month against IP …
"...or racket. "It'd be really bad if something bad happened to you so consider joining our platform" says MS..."
Unfortunately though, in a world where you can get sued for putting rounded corners on something or where patent trolls abound it's possibly not such a bad racket to have.
'Microsoft’s extended its “Azure IP Advantage” litigation protection shield to on-premises technology'
After buying up masses of patents, Microsoft threatens companies with IP litigation and then offers to sell them 'litigation protection', there's a name for that, it's called extortion. And without mentioning what Open Source software that powers Azure that could potentially violate such patents. And this at the same time as extracting revenue out of Android phone makers. Have these people no shame.
MS offer "protection" to its' service customers (for a pretty price of course) in case the users get sued for using the service they bought from MS, because MS may at some point may or may not be found to use some patented tech in their service stack? How can the user get sued when they don't know what technology lies behind it all? Surely that would be like my company being sued by the holders of the megawhixwidget patent because we hire a cleaning company that uses vacuum cleaners that contain megawhizwidget knockoffs?
The screaming irony of this is breathtaking. Especially considering the origins of Azure - including its name. And the whole elastic compute/*AAS concept - ideas that were boosted and run with; with no regard for any concept of fair dealing. Suffice it to say that if someone is smart enough to incept these ideas in the first place, than they may be also able to come up with a few things to, ahem, Trump them...