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RealNames CEO Talks Back

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the ring-of-power dept.

jasoncart writes: "Keith Teare, former CEO of RealNames, has updated his homepage with his opinions regarding his the companies downfall. Obviously he's annoyed as he has lost his job, but he makes some good points about Microsoft's monopoly - 'Microsoft seems to be playing the role of the referee who decides whether any innovations succeed'"

3 of 205 comments (clear)

  1. Good Riddance by Andy_R · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Actually, from my experience with them, most of those 79 staff are employed to ring up people like me and repeatedly try to peddle their dumb idea, no matter how many times I told them where they could stick it.

    I have had exactly the same scripted cold-call telephone conversation with these idiots twice within an hour. Any company that behaves like that deserves to crash and burn imho.

    --
    A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
  2. Re:Sour Grapes... by Darby · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Sour grapes and lack of due diligence.
    What did he expect would happen?

    After reading his whining, I sent him an email:

    I just finished reading the comments posted on your web page detailing your
    feelings about your previous company's dealings with Microsoft and felt
    compelled to comment.

    It certainly seems likely that Microsoft is guilty of, if not illegal, then
    certainly less than ethical business practices. You seem surprised at this.
    As an officer of a company, it is your responsibility to your employees and
    your investors to investigate any company with which you plan on entering a
    contract. It is clear that you did not do this.

    Look at this quote from your page:
    "The browser is now back under Microsoft's control and it is possible that -
    having learned much from RealNames - it will develop its own version of our
    resolution service."

    Had you bothered to do the most cursory investigation of Microsoft you would
    have found that this is one of their common business practices.
    A few companies who Microsoft have been *convicted* of doing this to in the
    past are:
    Stacker
    Syn'x Relief
    There are several other cases where they have been convicted, and numerous
    others where the developers in question simply could not afford to pursue the
    cases. A simple internet search will reveal this to you, as it would have
    before entering negotiations

    While it is arguably wrong of Microsoft to have done what they did,
    the fault of the failure of your company lies squarely with your failure to
    follow the adminition of any grade school teacher:
    Do your homework.

  3. ok way to blame your problems on microsoft by Edmund+Blackadder · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The story is quite simple - the guy had a loan from MS. The loan came due and he couldnt pay it back.

    So he started offering delayed repayment plans. Microsoft accepted them for a while and then they stopped. Well nobody is required to accept delayed repayment plans. Its their money after all.

    So that guy tries to hide the fact that his bussiness failed by saying that Ms refused to accept his "innovations". Well the market refused to accept his "innovations" too. His bussiness did not succeed.

    And as far as the innovations go lets be realistic here. All he did was try to hijack domain names. I am actually glad he did not succeed. I dont want some private co connected to microsoft in control of the naming system. At least icann pretends to be community governed.