When a little company called Burst beat up giant Microsoft over its patents we purchased stock in the company. Not because I thought Burst would become a huge company but because I really expected someone like Apple to come along and buy them for their streaming technology.

Instead, Apple goes to court and tried to invalidate their patents. Bad move in my opinion. Microsoft got out of it for 60 million bucks. Apple could have probably come up with a similar settlement, but now Burst is forced to counter sue Apple to protect itself. Although I can only guess how this will turn out, there are really only 3 ways this can go:

1 – Apple loses and has to pay Burst a ton of money
2 – They settle and Apple has to pay Burst a ton of money
3 – Someone buys Burst and Apple has to pay a ton of money

See a pattern? I believe Apple will need to break out the checkbook here because I think they’ll end up the bad guy in this one. Burst is the underdog here. I usually cheer for the underdog, which ironically is usually Apple. Apple is an interesting company and they seem to be lead by ego. We tend to think of Microsoft as the “evil empire” in the IT field, but I have to wonder just how bad Apple would be if they had anywhere near the market share that Microsoft has. Could be brutal.