

Microsoft Tag: Microsoft’s own 2D barcode - est
http://www.istartedsomething.com/20090108/microsoft-tag-microsofts-own-2d-barcode/

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cgranade
OK, I'll admit that color barcodes are cool, but there's several problems with
this:

* There's no compelling usecase that cannot be accomplished with existing technologies like QR-code.

* Routing all Tag traffic though MS systems is just asking for abuse. For instance, with this setup, MS could retroactively yank a Tag that they didn't like.

* As others have pointed out, there's still a lot of black-and-white only printers out there, so without support for a fallback scheme, you'd need both a Tag and a QR-code app on your phone.

* Is the color barcode technology patented (forgive me if I missed that in the article)? If so, then that shuts out alternate implementations. What if MS decides to pull an MSIE for Mac kind of stunt and pull non-WinMo versions of Tag once it gets popular?

I don't mean to be an ass; MS Research came up with yet another great idea.
No, my problems are with the productization of the color barcodes.

