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Microsoft's Future
cyberkine writes: "The Economist has an interesting article on Microsoft's technology strategies that ends with a very astute comparison with IBM's downfall and resurrection in the wake of its own antitrust battles. 'Microsoft's biggest underlying fear is that it will become like IBM - --a company that still has a strong business but no longer sets computing standards.'"
There's a difference between the two, though. IBM knew when to give up trying to be the center of the universe. I don't think Gates and company are capable of suppressing their egos to the degree necessary.
Society is full of people who want to have their legacy, and want to be "men of destiny." These are people who want to be the kinds of cultural icons that live on forever. IBM thankfully didn't have too many of them at the helm. That meant that they didn't have individual egos looking for their places in the sun at the expense of the rest of the company and the world at large. In plain English, that meant that when the world changed and IBM ceased to be the alpha male, they made that transition.
Microsoft isn't in quite the same positon. They don't control any major hardware that the rest of the world needs. While they have a number of products of varying quality, they don't control anything completely indispensable. The reason for their control is their position.
Problem: The value of a position changes with time. Microsoft can learn when they've picked the wrong fight, maybe. That kind of perception means they can back away and stay alive.
Not with Gates, etc. at the helm. Even the most ardent MS/Gates-supporter would have to agree: whatever virtues Gates has, humility is not one of them. Gates really wants his legacy and his place in the history books, and Microsoft is a means to that end. Just like Bill Clinton spending his last year desperately seeking a legacy, just like RMS who wants the entire English language prefaced with GNU/, Gates wants to be a man of destiny.
That means that he sees Microsoft as being a vehicle, and not much more. I doubt that he even cares about the profits. And that means that he'll take the company into some really bad fights to support his own self-image. Even if the company's survival depended on his walking away.
(Yes, I bash MS and Gates a lot. That being said, if they released an open-source Word for KDE, I'd buy it. Possibly even at retail.)
(Customer walks into bank)
LOAN OFFICER: "So, Mr. Customer, what's your business plan?"
CUSTOMER: "Well, see, I'm going to compete with a multi-billion dollar Japanese company by building a product that will lose $2 billion over the next three years, then break even, hopefully."
LOAN OFFICER: "Sounds great! We'll finance whatever you need."
(Customer walks into bank in the real world)
LOAN OFFICER: "So, Mr. Customer, what's your business plan?"
CUSTOMER: "Well, see, we need a small loan to help expand our business. We saved our nickels and dimes, ate soup and drove 15-year old cars for three years and built this product and generated some sales, but now we want to make the product better with more features and perhaps get some part-time employees."
LOAN OFFICER: "Sounds great! Naturally, you'll need cash exceeding the value of the loan as collateral deposited here at our bank in our lowest-interest account, platinum-lined credit that rings softly in a light breeze, 12 references, a 50-page annotated business plan, three years of financials audited by a big-six accounting firm, an autobiography, two full-time sources of secondary income, oh, and real estate, LOTS of real estate... financial projections for five years showing sustainable 20% weekly growth with full supporting documentation, a large portfolio of blue-chip equity holdings and nice fat juicy municipal bonds, three co-signers and a silver partridge in a golden pear tree, and please fill out this 40 page application. Your loan will be reviewed by the committee at the next meeting in... four months."
CUSTOMER: "But we'll be out of business by then!"
LOAN OFFICER: "Have a nice day!"
I read many people saying that M$ did not establish any standard, well, I think it depends on what you mean by standard.
Just think a minute : What is the "standard" text document type you will get from any teacher / friend / etc. ?
PDF? No, because the guy doesn't have time to spend on making a PDF, and you might need to edit the document (and you don't have any PDF editor).
HTML ? Erk, no, especially if there are graphics or other special objects in it.
So what?
.DOC of course. I'm not talking about all the *nix geeks here, but of "mister everybody" who simply doesn't know that there exists other types of documents !
In people's mind, if you send a text (report, article) you send a Microsoft Office Word (whatever the version) document.
And of course, school teachers teach students how to use Word, in many enterprises this is the standard file type for procedures, reports, etc !
How do you want people to think that there is better standards than .doc when they keep using it all day long?
And of course, that's the same with Excel and Powerpoint. And your (windosian) friends (if you have some :) ) don't care if you can't read this macro-filled .xls file, because they think you are a strange user and they use the standard.
Maybe M$ doesn't make real standards, but they surely do "people's standards".
theefer