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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.
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
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).
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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.
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
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.
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.