[kkielhofner]

"Successful" businesses are ruthless at any size. Due to litigation, etc we have internal documents and records dating back to the 80s that demonstrate how ruthless Microsoft (as one example) was even at a time when they were relatively small.

I'm not saying this is always the case. I'm saying that unless you're completely desperate or absolutely know otherwise it's the safer assumption.

[denton-scratch]

Not sure why you were downvoted.

I nice worked for a Big 5 company. I'm not aware of Machiavellian efforts to destroy competitors; they just bought them.

I've worked for an international software company with ~1,500 staff. I do not think our management were inclined to collaborate with their competitors unneccessarily; they had a fiduciary duty to their shareholders.

I've worked for two small-town website developers, with say 10 staff. There's four or five competitors in this town. My management were happy to collaborate with competitors to stage conferences; but I know in both cases they wanted to crush them.

None of these jobs was in SV, or even in the US.

I note the story about IBM's threats (above); so my limited view is that aggressive behaviour between companies occurs across the range of scale.

Incidentally: it doesn't make you seem weak and defenceless that you seek a collaborator in fighting a patent troll. The trolls are backed by venture capital; you are a sole trader. That you are considering defying them is courageous.

[gamblor956]

It appears that you're both being downvoted for taking the exceptional case (Microsoft in the 1980s) and applying it to all businesses today.

Even taking into account the different business culture of the 1980s, Microsoft's early ruthlessness is well known precisely because it was not the norm then, and certainly not the norm now.