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Is Microsoft Money Crushing Microsoft?
JoshuaDFranklin writes "The latest Seattle Weekly has an article by a former Microsoft project manager titled Microsoft's Sacred Cash Cow. It argues that Microsoft, addicted to its Windows and Office revenue, is stifling innovation within the company: 'new, better ideas that would take business away from Windows or Office don't really have a chance at Microsoft.' Apple, in contrast, has embraced Open Source and is delivering a better consumer experience." Update: 06/06 21:24 GMT by T : Sorry, it's a dupe.
Microsoft never innovated BEFORE they had money. They don't innovate NOW. They just don't innovate. It's not part of their corporate culture. They wait for other people to (1) invent things and (2) prove them to be profitable, and then they move in and sell them. Sometimes they look for people who might potentially be a threat later (Netscape) and they throw money at putting them out of business. But this is all they have ever done. Talking about their Windows/Office revenue streams "stifling" innovation is silly; there's nothing there to stifle.
For example Microsoft money is not going to take away money from office or windows. I'm not sure what the author is suggesting here. Will xbox sales decrease windows revenue? It sounds like a non-problem. All I can see is that all the money goes to windows/office first and what's left over goes to other products. In which case that's just economics...why throw most of your money into a gamble?
:(){
If the shoe fits, wear it. If the software sells, sell it. But you can only fix up and re-sell the same shoe brand before the customers start wanting something different.
I know nothing
Posted by michael on 03/06/04 13:13
from the watch-out-for-cacodemon-bob dept.
Microsoft never innovates or popularizes a single idea!
Hang on while I go install KDE with a taskbar, start menu, integrated filesystem/net browser, Mono, etc....
"Sufferin' succotash."
Publically owned companies are often judged by their profits, as a percentage. Windows and Office have massive profit margins, thanks to their now-minimal upkeep costs. New ventures, on the other hand, would decrease profits because they would have a high investment cost. It's irrelevant that in the long run they will increase profits, because investors are a bunch of gullible sheep who lack the ability to think in the long-term.
Microsoft was not the first to either invent or implement the start menu, the integrated file system / net browser, or the safety-checked bytecode-based API. In fact with all of these they were literally years and years behind other commercially successful implementations.
Now that you mention it, Microsoft may well have been the first to use the task bar window switching concept. Well, bravo Microsoft! Too bad it isn't a terribly good concept. And come to think of it, it isn't one that many linux/unix GUIs actually use.
The fact that KDE was even later with some concepts than Microsoft does not make Microsoft creative. Last I checked KDE was a very small-scale project struggling just to stay alive. I don't see anyone promoting them as harbringers of innovation, making your attack on them really something of a straw man.
Recall in recent memory how IBM held on to the mainframe business (S/360 derived products) in the face of small systems products nearly sinking the company.
... From lightbulb to number 200 on the Fortune 500, to out of business in 30 years!
My own former employer, Amdahl, held on, right along with the IBM company to that same cash cow model. Amdahl was not as resilient as IBM and now is gone.
I got mine. You get yours.
The OSX core that's OSS'd isn't really that important, or had that much of an impact on the OSS world as a whole. There are a few decent Kernels out there that people are free to use, and work fine. I mean we're not seeing RedHat/Darwin or anything like that yet.
When Apple Opens Aqua, or iTunes/iMove/etc. Then you might be able to claim they've embraced it. Until then, they're just using OSS as a tool, same as many other companies. Microsoft on the other hand is trying as hard as they can, and coming off rather insane (just listen to their GPL == teh eval rants).
----
Anyway, the premise of this story is rather laughable. What sane company would "innovate" their way out of the products that actually make them the most money. It would be suicidal, and the stockholders would kick your ass to the curb (or sue you if they couldn't). Also, those products allow Microsoft to peruse innovation in other areas, which they wouldn't be able to if they didn't have the cash.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Then why are they so wildly, unprecedentedly successful both in terms of installed base and money?
Seems to me they certainly got something right.
Apple, in contrast, has embraced Open Source and is delivering a better consumer experience."
What is up with you people and Apple?!!
My God! Give it a rest.... Please. You're killing us here!
I can't get away from the Apple worship even if I block apple stories. It's everyway.
Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Apple. But Apple is just another Corporation who's goal, as with all other corporations is to, *gasp*, maximize profits for its shareholders.
Ironically Sun ( http://sunsource.net ) and IBM has done orders of magnitude more for Open source than Apple. And at least Sun gets beaten up everyday here. Apple though is worshipped to the point that it is frickin' nauseating to the rest of us.
Come on guys, fanboys just aint cool.
Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
> Microsoft never innovated BEFORE they had money.
You hit it right on the head.
Is Microsoft Money Crushing Microsoft?
No, it's crushing me and everyone else who wants innovation, artistry and quality.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Linux started off with a fairly conservative goal: implement the UNIX syscall interface. I'm not saying this is easy, I'm just saying that it is not particularly innovative from a technical perspective. (The open source model and development methodology were a bit more innovative, but not unique.) And Linux succeeded for the same reason that MS succeeds -- it let other companies take the risk of figuring out what should and shouldn't be in the kernel, and leveraged the GNU suite of apps to create a complete, usable system. The time was right and there was very little risk.
At present, Linux is a bit more innovative; people use it as a platform for research, and that research (when it works out) finds its way back into the kernel. But again there is little risk-taking because nobody really wants there to be -- nobody wants to break the world. As a result, you can still use your first edition of "The UNIX Programming Environment" (circa Seventh Edition) as a useful reference to programming on Linux. I don't expect that to ever change.
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
Everyone has a "right to profit".
However, a "perfect market" limits profits to near zero. With no barriers to entry in a business, which is a lot like "neglecting friction", competition will force prices down toward costs.
A 100% markup is only possible if the barriers to entry in the field are high, which they are in this case.
However, the barriers to entry are falling also. Once the OS or Office suite, or whatever are "good enough", the impetus for upgrades evaporate. At that point, competing products have a chance to catch up to the target of "good enough".
Microsoft is suffering from "good enough" now. As are hardware makers. Most people don't use much, if any, more capabiity than was available in computers/software in 2000. Microsoft is dependent on people buying a new computer (and, implied, a new OS and Office suite) every couple of years. This was a workable model until the computers got "good enough", and has been suffering since then.
100% agree with Kunte, the pro-Apple kowtowing is a pathetic joke. Apple deserves respect for their marketing and packaging, and for presenting a great alternative to the Microsoft hegemony/monopoly. But they do essentially NOTHING to support open source, have they released much of their proprietary code? They are using the 'steal-me-please' BSD stuff, just as Microsoft has, really they are not -that- much better. Being better than MS (yes, Apple actually DOES innovate on occasion!) does not make them gods. So cut out this religious shit already.
I don't see any Fortune 500 embracing Star Office or Open Office or even Word Perfect. Everyone's using Office and until there are other viably accepted alternatives it will be so.
You're not looking hard enough
Rhetoric without fact doesn't mean a thing. Look harder.
It's Bill Gates and his corporate culture of 24-year-old computer-history illiterates.
I saw a line recently that said, "The only thing of value passing through a politician's mind is a bullet."
Same applies to Bill.
Get rid of Gates and his toadies like Ballmer and Microsoft might use its 56 billion in cash to amount to something.
As it stands, Longhorn is going to be a disaster and Linux is going to destroy Windows within the next ten or fifteen years - even though Linux really only has one major advantage - it's being worked on by people who at least care a little - people with at least some personal motivation - and it's cheap.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
I'm no apple fan, but here's the brillance of their switch from the old legacy operating system (os9) to their new, quasi-open source system (osX):
1. They now have a super-computer ranked within the top 5 fastest systems in the world. Before osX, they weren't even on the list.
2. They have a true multi-user operating system that has 30 + years of R&D behind it. Unlike Windows which began as a game-playing, home-using OS and has been modified into something it was never designed to be. Talk about baggage and cruft... all for what???
3. Apple are leveraging the horde of BSD utils and devel skills out there. This saves them tons of money and gives them favor with the OSS crowds. One could argue that BSD isn't true open-source... RMS and other FSF/GNU proponents certainly would. In short, Apple isn't trying to be a big, altruistic company with true open-source (ie GNU/GPL) code, and they've never claimed to be trying to do that.
Microsoft could learn a lesson or two from Apple on this... Hell, MS used BSD code in their tcp/ip stack. But, look how long it's taking MS to bring out Longhorn (their next gen OS). They'll be years behind when they finally come to market with it... we as consumers will see plenty of their old, historic OS in the mean time... XP reloaded anyone???
"If you can measure what you speak of and express it by a number, you know something about your subject; but if you cannot measure it, your knowledge is meager and unsatisfactory."
You actually had valid points eventhough I disagreed with them up until:
"...yes, Apple actually DOES innovate on occasion!"
Occasion? Are you kidding? Try every couple of 4-8 weeks. If not hardware, then software, if not software then delivery or distribution, if not delivery or distribution, then something completely off the wall comes out.
You took the context of the article wrong too. It said Apple has embraced open source - and it was referring to the fact that Microsoft is fighting it. That has no connotations that Apple is open source itself.
The article I believe means that Apple continues to produce award winning applications like iLife: iTunes, iPhoto, GarageBand, iDVD, iMovie - while Microsoft just puts mediocre apps like Movie Creator and claims it's a value.
The article is essentially saying that Microsoft is so focused on apps that AREN'T selling computers and Apple IS!!
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
We can't judge a company by only one of the things it does. MacOS X is not licensed under a license approved by the Open Source Initiative. Parts of that operating system are proprietary. Darwin may entirely be licensed under an open source license, but the convenience and features people associate with MacOS X are not found in Darwin.
Furthermore, it's no accident that Apple has "embraced open source" because the open source movement's philosophy and criteria for license acceptance was crafted to cater to business.
Digital Citizen
What's the point in releasing innovative products when you've got the entire market stitched up? I bet they've got a whole raft of secret uber projects just waiting to soak up any unsuspected change in status. They're a company in it to make money, so of course they play their cards close to their chest.
I think it's safe to say that as far as Windows goes, XP is my favorite. Sure I hate the integrated firewall and I am the first to turn of MDM and about 10 other worthless services. The first thing I do when I install Office, after the updating, is disable the assistant and turn off the damn startup pane.
This is because I know better though. When you dumb yourself down to the 60 year old computer illiterates of the world, or the people who know just enough to get email, type a letter, and check the weather and sports scores. I think Microsoft does what it needs to do to own 95% of the market share.
Apple has the developer and the super user innovation that keeps it fun and interesting and cool.
Think of it like this, we have shoe repairmen in this world not because shoes are overly expensive or hard to get. We get our shoes repaired because they are comfortable and because we as humans do not like change. We fight it, and stay with what we are used to. This is the same reason why MS had to continue support of 98. Because many people still USE it!
My point (it's in here somewhere I promise) is that MS isn't an innovator because it doesn't have to be. As long as people are running 98 in 2008 that is reason enough not too.
http://jayceecorder.blogspot.com
The ability to log in to all our favorite Web sites with one password.
.NET interface. Personally, I'm not to keen on regular backups to a storage site on the Internet. I'll backup to a spare hard drive sitting in front of me, thank you.
It's called Passport.
Spam blocking for our e-mail accounts.
Hotmail does this (and does it well). Outlook 2003 does this.
Calendar sharing with colleagues and friends to schedule meetings.
Uh, how many years has scheduling been a part of Outlook?
Automatic address book updates for all our contacts.
See previous.
A virtual hard drive on the Internet for sharing files, photos, and music with our friends and access to these files via the Internet while traveling anywhere in the world.
Isn't that what a website is? I'm certain MSN provides this.
Synchronization of our Internet bookmarks across all our computers.
The Files and Settings Transfer Wizard lets you transfer whatever you want.
Online profiles of personal information that we could choose to share with Web sites and social networks.
Again, Passport. When Longhorn is released, this will be an even more prominent feature.
Regular backup of files to a storage site on the Internet.
Just wait and see how everything will be net-enabled when Longhorn hits with its entirely
Regular application and system- security updates.
For a while there it was quite often, but it's been a couple of months now since Windows Update alerted me to anything critical. I consider that a good thing.
One-step migration of files and programs to a new computer.
Again, it's called Files and Settings Transfer Wizard. This guy is supposed to have worked at Microsoft? It was one of Windows XP's new major features, specifically intended to do just what he described.
"Sufferin' succotash."
I'm a .NET developer. 3 1/2 years ago I made the move from VC++/MFC to .NET (got one of the early betas), mainly C# and VB.NET. Since today, I've never been a "fan" of Microsoft, I just used their product since there was no alternative.
.NET - MS really supports their developers (as you can imagine ;). But now I see, how fast everything goes, how IT changes. Of course I've got a parallel Linux installation on my Windows box since several years and I think I'm using it 50/50 of the time I'm using my home PC. I've been using Linux since Kernel 0.98, I received it on some 5 1/4 floppies some 10 years ago. So I'm no one who just jumps on the train because its "hip".
.NET. Ok - I love the technical implementation of .NET, the strength of VS.NET and #develop - I think Java still needs some things that .NET has today.
...
Up to now.
When I was moving from VC++/MFC, there was no Eclipse plattform, it just begun. The only Java IDE that would have been appropriate for the project I'm now working on was JBuilder - but we didn't have got enough money to equip a whole team of developers with JBuilder Pro 'cause JBuilder is *really* expensive.
And 3 years ago, there also wasn't OpenOffice, Samba 3.0 or Ximian Evolution. All the really good productivity-tools have reached a usable state right now - and also our customers still fully rely on MS products. So what would you have done ?
So we decided to got the MS way with
If I read articles like *this one*, I don't think I will have a future as developer when staying only at
But I'm not convinced that MS can keep going like this - especially if Sun open-sources Java
I think I will make the move over to Linux/OSS - I'm tired to be named a "Microsoft idiot", "closed-source-asshole" or something like that. I'm not responsible for what their doing. All I want to do is write *good*, *user-friendly* and *stable* software.
I've trained myself really hard the last couple of years, eating up as much books on OOP-in-depth-theory, database optimization etc. and so on.
But what I'm REALLY EXTREMELY FRUSTRATED ABOUT IS THE FOLLOWING : When people who just have started learning Java after they own a computer since 2 years treat ME LIKE AN IDIOT - especially me who has a really critical relationship to MS.
This arrogance, this absolute male-specific boastful talk - that's hurting me really, because I know that I'm doing my best in database & OOP-design and I think I'm writing good code.
This headline is improper: it should be "Microsoft's money" not "Microsoft Money."
The article never mentions the financial software anywhere. They do talk about Microsoft's cash on hand.
KDE/Gnome are no more inovative than Microsoft. They try to clone Microsofts feel in all their apps to make switching easier, instead of creating a new way of doing things. On a few things, KDE/Gnome make it much more difficult, such as interface iconsistencies, and confusing, highly nested system settings, most all of which are text based, with no icons. The problem with KDE/Gnome, is they try to stick as close to a CLI interface as possible within the GUI, useing text instead of icons.
So your running a basically unpached XP box..... and your calling the guy who wrote this less than inteligent?
I am that much more enlightened and proportionally disillusioned
Opensource lends itself to services based products and hardware tie-ins. Look at IBM and Apple. They are good examples.
I know you are psychotic, but please make an effort.
If you don't know what you're talking about.
Apple has been consistently feeding improvements back upstream to the two open source projects they've heavily borrowed from, FreeBSD and KHTML, in the form of no-strings-attached patches. As a result both products have been at least to some degree improved. I don't exactly call that "no compensation".
Microsoft has Kajiya and Blinn, two of the biggest names in computer graphics. At times I've seen some good stuff at SIGGRAPH from them. However, that's been dropping off over the past few years. The only marginally significant contribution from Microsoft last year was a fairly obvious way of laying out Wang tiles for large textures.
Also, I've noticed that Blinn and Kajiya lack an entourage at SIGGRAPH. There was a time when if they projected an image of Blinn at SIGGRAPH, everybody cheered. Not any more.
I think, what the guy above you meant is that Open Source makes sense to companies that are looking to commoditize products popularized by OSS.
For instance, it is in IBM's interest to commoditize functions such as Operating systems and web servers because they sell a lot of middleware on top of these products. Note that they are not participating in any OSS application server projects.