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Microsoft's Unique Innovation
Anonymous Coward writes "The way John Carroll sees it, Microsoft doesn't get enough credit for all the technology it invents. The company's understanding of the marketplace, argues Carroll, has proved fertile ground for many of the inventions, however incremental, that Microsoft produces on a regular basis. That awareness is that all software markets, however "unrelated" they may seem, have linkages to each other. And it's an awareness that open source will have a hard time matching. Another reason many fail to appreciate Microsoft inventiveness, continues Carroll, is because most inventions are pieces of larger puzzles."
Both very fine pieces of technology innovation.
Everything else -- I mean *everything* else -- was a copy of the successful work of a more deserving 1-in-a-thousand startup that suffered through all their hard times only to get stomped by the monopoly in the end.
Sam
But when compared to the rest of the industry, they stagnate. Certainly, they've made some valuable contributions, but when you consider their next closest competitor is less than half the size, they should be responsible for an overwhelming majority of invention and innovation in the market. But - they're not. Part of my problem with Microsoft is that it seems like since Windows 95, they've been constantly playing a game of catch up, rather than bringing unique products to the market. They certainly have a way of solving integration, and seemless interface design with other Microsoft products, which has made them successful. Microsoft might be the master of integration, but innovation leader? Most certainly not.
I can think of preceding examples for a couple of is examples of innovation, so all he's really convinced me of so far is that he didn't do his research before writing this article.
Apparently, innovation isn't developing new technology. It's noticing new technology coming out of obscure companies and the academic community and then re-implementing it for Windows and backing it with 8,000 metric tons of advertising hype.
It ends when "I wonder if Open Source can do what Microsoft did."
:) Google seems to be doin a great job so far.
There alone, explains the author's lack of grasp on the subject. The Open Source movement is riddled with people that once upon a time, made Microsoft a great company. And I will give credit, even as taboo as it may be on Slashdot with the large followers of Microsoft *cough cough*.
Microsoft's ability to innovate does not lie at the OS level, or the application level. It lies at a fundamentally different area, one that's not related to software in and of itself. Microsoft's brilliance is simple -- they made it possible for a business to conduct complete workflow thru their software, from beginning to end. Businesses will always mandate what the future of consumers will buy, and their decisions. If you work for a finance firm and they tell you "Okay Johnson, we are switching to Linux to save $2523432!".. do you think that Johnson is going to go home and buy another Windows PC for his home? He will need a Linux PC to mirror his work environment. Then he will have a friend who comes over and says "wow, what's that?", where Johnson will explain the benefits (as explained to him by his company) of Linux on his desktop, and will thus propogate the use of Linux on the desktop.
Microsoft made Windows -- arguably a crap OS, arguably not. But with the combination of Exchange, Biztalk, Sharepoint, the Office Suite and Windows working in (relative) harmony under Active Directory well.. I'll argue it takes some vision to bring a company that far, and innovation to boot.
But I wouldn't count out Linux as the author did... the people who made MS what it is are who are working in Open Source, working at Google, working at Yahoo, working at IBM. And they will tell us how innovative open source can be, or hell, not even Open Source... but MS alternatives
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
I wish I could find a link somewhere, but back in the Windows 3.x days, the days where serial mice were common, the days when _Mouse Systems_ actually meant something, the days when mice were ugly bricks, the days before the MS dove bar mouse, I remember seeing a mouse by Genius that had a front-center-mount scroll wheel.
The wheel wasn't clickable as a third button, but the spiel on the box was all about how it would make scrolling that much easier.
So Microsoft didn't invent the wheel mouse, but they did refine it considerably and make it universally usable, thanks to their ability to integrate tightly into the OS. It's so much easier to do that when you control the APIs.
-- I ain't broke, but I'm badly bent.
Given the fact a *fucking lot* of Open Source applications are copying ideas from Windows, there must be some clever heads at Microsoft. But I still hate Equation Editor from the Office Suite ;-)
"Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead." (John Maynard Keynes)
Standards? Works everwhere? Hey dude -- you're working for M-i-c-r-o-s-o-f-t... you know, the people who don't like standards, who won't use open standards (OpenDocument), tweak standards so they are not compliant (Kerberos), invent their own "standards" and not share them (MS-Word format), and then finally try to patent everything (FAT filesystem) so that other people (that would be us, the open source community) can't use it.
Maybe you should read your own article and think about those things, eh? Maybe a lot of people at Microsoft should think about those things...
coding is life
This guy works for Microsoft, and had released an article with a rather defensive tone to it. I laughed the same way when I heard Mrs. Bush chastising the American public for picking on her husband.