Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
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)
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.