Microsoft's secret

Post #67,314 by ben_tilly 12/7/02 5:28:06 PM Reply	Microsoft's secret [link\|http://news.com.com/2102-1069-976347.html\|http://news.com.com/...-1069-976347.html] I think that some of the "independent" reviews might not be so independent. And the cr*p is underestimated. But largely I think its premise is accurate - compete with Microsoft on its underlying platforms, and you are toast. Cheers, Ben "Career politicians are inherently untrustworthy; if it spends its life buzzing around the outhouse, it\ufffds probably a fly." - [link\|http://www.nationalinterest.org/issues/58/Mead.html\|Walter Mead]
Post #67,335 by a6l6e6x 12/7/02 9:10:07 PM Reply	For one thing, these Harvard turkeys never mentioned how Microsoft suppressed, out-marketed, out-meneuvered, or outright stole superior technologies from others. Few remember Digital Research with a superior OS, or "partner" IBM and OS/2 with superior OS, or Apple with the GUI (in turn mostly stolen from Xerox PARC) or Stac Electronics with disk compression. Alex "Let others praise ancient times; I am glad I was born in these."\t-- Ovid (43 B.C.-A.D. 18)
Post #67,340 by Andrew Grygus 12/7/02 10:41:56 PM Reply	These gentlemen describe one factor . . . . in Microsoft's success, and it's a very important factor, but hardly the only one. Many of the other factors are not nearly so admirable. The combination of this intellectual resources management system and Microsoft's other business practices makes it a most formidable opponent. Their vast army of "partners" is driving Microsoft's hooks deeper and more inextricably into the fabric of business by the minute. Microsoft's competitors and opponents have always uniformly underestimated the company, and especilly the overwhelming power of its "partner" structure. The Linux community is following in the footsteps of many defunct companies with its incessant chant of "Microsoft has already lost!" Microsoft hasn't already lost, the battle has barely begun, and it isn't going to be one bit pleasant. Get used to it. [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #67,344 by ben_tilly 12/7/02 11:27:32 PM Reply	Right Microsoft will keep on asking for a replay until they get the result they want, or run out of money. $40 Billion pays for a lot of replays. :-( Cheers, Ben "Career politicians are inherently untrustworthy; if it spends its life buzzing around the outhouse, it\ufffds probably a fly." - [link\|http://www.nationalinterest.org/issues/58/Mead.html\|Walter Mead]
Post #67,442 by dmarker 12/9/02 3:35:40 AM Reply	Re: Harvard myopia "Our analysis focused on Microsoft's first two internal browser development projects, comparing their performance to a sample of Internet software projects completed at the same time. We discovered that Microsoft's projects exhibited significantly higher productivity than the sample average. Furthermore, we found that the resulting products were rated as equal to or higher in quality than competitive offerings. These results often surprise people, given the perceived wisdom that incumbents have difficulty responding to major technological changes. " WTF Unless I am missing the point, MS developed a browser for blackbird that never came to market & thus nobody ever saw it apart from demos of MSN as they envisgaed it, back in 1995. MS 2nd Browser was stolen by decietful marketing from Spyglass - "Give us an exclusive license & we will pay you x% of all sales from now & forever" - poor idiots spyglass never dreamed that MS of all companies, would give their product away & thus never pay royalties. (Yet another famous example of fools thinking they could do serious & honest business with the thief's in chief). During the early days Netscape was always ahead of MSIE until they started giving it away & both products had reached Ver 3.x levels & Netscape realised they couldn't compete with an MS freebie - also MS made bloody sure by defying Judge Jackson & integrating MSIE & claiming Windows would break if the intergration was reversed. That was the coup-de-grace bullet in the head to Netscape & anyone like them. I don't dispute the professors praise of early MS developments & their ActiveX component approach (ideal for use in LANs). VB was a winner & MS OLE & ActiveX controls did help MS & MS developers to create a windows app industry but from about 1998 on - a lot of MS innovation was directed at 'cutting off the air supply' of other innovators by using every dirty trick & deed in the book (plus a few new innovations at bastardry and aggression). Overall the article is true up until MS stopped innovating & switched to murder as a means of protecting their now sluggish & bloated technologies especially in relation to light weight controls & widgets that were needed for good web app dev. Doug Marker
Post #67,460 by drewk 12/9/02 9:23:54 AM Reply	Didn't need to read past this: Our aim was to come up with an objective measure of performance--one that was unrelated to arguments about market power, monopoly position or predatory tactics. This meant we excluded any consideration of measures like market share or profitability, and focused instead on the ratings given to Microsoft products by independent reviewers. Translated: We chose to ignore the reason that they were able to achieve the thing we chose to focus on. === Microsoft offers them the one thing most business people will pay any price for - the ability to say "we had no choice - everyone's doing it that way." -- [link\|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=38978\|Andrew Grygus]
Post #67,507 by ben_tilly 12/9/02 11:07:05 AM Reply	So they then miss some obvious factors That doesn't contradict the importance of the factors that they then found. Market power etc allows them to leverage an initial advantage. It doesn't eliminate the need to establish and maintain that initial advantage. Cheers, Ben "Career politicians are inherently untrustworthy; if it spends its life buzzing around the outhouse, it\ufffds probably a fly." - [link\|http://www.nationalinterest.org/issues/58/Mead.html\|Walter Mead]

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