I somewhat agree with you. When it comes to marketing, Microsoft is mostly evil. When it comes to development, they are somewhat evil. When it comes to finances, they almost behave like any other Fortune 100 company. Now that they're no longer growing by 30% a year, it makes sense to start giving out dividends, especially with the Bush tax cut. And Gates probably doesn't lack for ideas for how to spend the money - he might branch into biotech, or put together a portfolio of tech companies outside of Microsoft. He wouldn't have to worry so much about antitrust issues or the MS corporate bureaucracy.
obligatory Spinal Tap reference
on
dB Drag Racing
·
· Score: 2, Funny
The breakthrough came when they found a way to crank the volume dial up to 11...
Andreessen's funny assertion that innovation is dead reminds me of a story I once heard (and whose truth I question, but I digress) about some European country that, towards the end of the 19th century, had a government that voted on closing down its patent offices. Why? Because everything that would ever be invented had already been invented. Of course, we would look back on that and think it is absurd.
That's funny, I had him pegged as one of the few optimists in the IT world, in contrast with doomsayers like Ellison, Grove, Negroponte, etc. Maybe he's mulling a return to the browser wars, taking over or forking Mozilla for instance. For one thing, there should be lots of interesting stuff you can do if XML replaces HTML/XHTML as the data format - maybe the client can be made more intelligent, made more than just a presentation layer.
This reminds me of Jack Welch's directive in the 1980's that every division at GE had to be #1 or #2 in its market, or risk being shutdown or sold off. What happened was predictable: GE's managers redefined their markets, so that instead of being in "home appliances" they were in a collection of smaller markets including "space-efficient microwave ovens", etc.
So Nielson has the #1 usability site by his reckoning. But what advertisers are targeting that niche? Maybe Addison-Wesley and certain trade shows. The size of the market should be something that makes sense to advertisers, customers, and suppliers.
Maybe the pioneering American system can be dubbed NTSC, or "Nuisance Tolls for Straightforward Concepts". The improved European model would be PAL ("Patents Are Lame").
In retrospect it seems IBM took the right approach by muzzling their executives and PR folks about the case, though it has disappointed some who hoped to see SCO put in its place. Had they seized on Novell's challenge, for example, IBM would have looked bad after SCO "found" an amendment to the original contract. And the press would've loved to cover a "he said, she said" mud wrestling match between the two companies. Instead, I can picture IBM calmly and carefully setting up its artillery pieces, lying in wait for the approach of the SCO army.
Meanwhile McBride has been hyping the lawsuit, trying to pump up SCO's stock price to maximize the payoff in the buyout scenario. But he forgot that sending out those 1500 letters and threatening Torvalds made him look ridiculous to the people who will make decisions about what actions to take as the litigation proceeds.
Aberdeen, and "open source expert" Bill Claybrook in particular, have issued nothing but nasty reports about Linux and its supposedly inferior security, high TCO, and low market penetration for the past several years. They've been doing a similar bag job on Sun. This article explains why.
Slashdot Mirror
Granted it's possible their caps could someday be reversed, but what would eBay do with Oracle? That's like AOL buying Netscape.
I somewhat agree with you. When it comes to marketing, Microsoft is mostly evil. When it comes to development, they are somewhat evil. When it comes to finances, they almost behave like any other Fortune 100 company. Now that they're no longer growing by 30% a year, it makes sense to start giving out dividends, especially with the Bush tax cut. And Gates probably doesn't lack for ideas for how to spend the money - he might branch into biotech, or put together a portfolio of tech companies outside of Microsoft. He wouldn't have to worry so much about antitrust issues or the MS corporate bureaucracy.
The breakthrough came when they found a way to crank the volume dial up to 11...
If I buy this book, I better be getting a Dilbert cartoon on every page.
Actually, that sounds like a pretty good idea.
Maybe 50 years from now Bill Gates will only be remembered as the guy who supposedly said, "640K ought to be enough for everybody."
That's funny, I had him pegged as one of the few optimists in the IT world, in contrast with doomsayers like Ellison, Grove, Negroponte, etc. Maybe he's mulling a return to the browser wars, taking over or forking Mozilla for instance. For one thing, there should be lots of interesting stuff you can do if XML replaces HTML/XHTML as the data format - maybe the client can be made more intelligent, made more than just a presentation layer.
It's not every day that you can read in the New York Times, a pitch being made to acquisitions editors of major trade book publishers.
I didn't know Mrs. Euclid was quite a looker. But what good did it do either one of them if he spent all of his time writing up those old math books?
So Nielson has the #1 usability site by his reckoning. But what advertisers are targeting that niche? Maybe Addison-Wesley and certain trade shows. The size of the market should be something that makes sense to advertisers, customers, and suppliers.
Maybe the pioneering American system can be dubbed NTSC, or "Nuisance Tolls for Straightforward Concepts". The improved European model would be PAL ("Patents Are Lame").
In retrospect it seems IBM took the right approach by muzzling their executives and PR folks about the case, though it has disappointed some who hoped to see SCO put in its place. Had they seized on Novell's challenge, for example, IBM would have looked bad after SCO "found" an amendment to the original contract. And the press would've loved to cover a "he said, she said" mud wrestling match between the two companies. Instead, I can picture IBM calmly and carefully setting up its artillery pieces, lying in wait for the approach of the SCO army.
Meanwhile McBride has been hyping the lawsuit, trying to pump up SCO's stock price to maximize the payoff in the buyout scenario. But he forgot that sending out those 1500 letters and threatening Torvalds made him look ridiculous to the people who will make decisions about what actions to take as the litigation proceeds.
Aberdeen, and "open source expert" Bill Claybrook in particular, have issued nothing but nasty reports about Linux and its supposedly inferior security, high TCO, and low market penetration for the past several years. They've been doing a similar bag job on Sun. This article explains why.
With friends like Mr. Claybrook, who needs SCO?