Hack This, Please

Andy Kessler, the author of Wall Street Meat had a recent piece in the WSJ, and now reprinted on his own site. It's a piece about how companies are shifting much more to "hacker" friendly models. It's a particular area of interest for me, as it's something that I've talked about with the folks at BCG for a while.

Comments

Still not that friendly

[Avumede]

I dunno where you are getting this. These models still don't give me the time of day! Even after I tell them I'm a hacker! They just stand there looking all aloof and beautiful. Maybe I just haven't run into the new kind yet.

M$ ?

[bmiller949]

Is this how M$ develops their product?

Re:M$ ?

[DrDebug]

You left out several pieces:

-- Don't get it completely right until the third version; but let the customer pay for your development alpha and beta releases.

-- Wrap the code in an air- and watertight EULA that is enforced by half the lawyers in the state of Washington (all under retainer to MicroSoft).

-- Undermine, buy, or crush any other company that has a product that slightly smells of your precious product (even it it IS better).

Yep. That looks like their recipe for success.

A little behind the times

[signe]

"Every business can and should hire a hack and set him loose on their stuff..."

It seems to me, most companies already have one. The usual title is CEO.

-Todd

My toaster

[kir]

I hacked my toaster to only burn the toast. It's not *exactly* what I wanted, but I did it ALLLL by myself.

Re:Not smart to sue your customers

[moresheth]

Not to mention the Cue Cat looked like a penis-on-a-string. Might be a market for that in certain portions of the population, but not really for us geeks.

I hacked my underwear

[Anonymous Coward]

For some reason there was no hole at the front, so a cut a hole... just now I relized that they must be girls underwear!

Re:Sheesh indeed!

[sploxx]

I think this paragraph proves this. Would anyone except /.ers really read it to the end?! :)