Not surprised at all, given what I know of him and the company (and their history). But reading the latest trendy books on management for tips when you're in charge of a multi-billion dollar company is a bit worrisome. CEOs of large and successful companies are supposed to be in a position to write books about their own successful techniques, rather than try to pick them up from others.
Some do, some don't. A lot of trade rags aren't worth reading.
It's the stuff of legend. There were good reasons for it; it's just that IBM tried to apply the same philosophy to very different markets, unsuccessfully. It seems self-evident that what works for mainframes would not work for PCs, but apparently this never occurred to IBM, even though it certainly occurred to others.
But now others are making similar mistakes. One reason why Microsoft has such a terrible time trying to break into the server market is that it has absolutely no clue on how that market works. To Microsoft, everything is just like a desktop, just as IBM saw everything as a mainframe. A lot of people at Microsoft don't even know what a mainframe is, and yet they are trying to sell into a comparable market.
Alas, most companies don't hire on the basis of intelligence. And the larger they get, the more unintelligent deadwood they acquire.
Even if they are something new and different, most people using computers don't want to continually change to something new and different. They just want a tool that works; and once it works, they're content to leave it untouched forever (and in fact that's what they prefer).
Would you be willing to buy a new washing machine every year, each one with a completely different way of operating and a whole new set of instructions?
Yes. But remember that the market was microscopic in those days compared to today. The inertia is much greater now. Additionally, users today are much more likely to have all they need in current operating systems, and so are even less likely to change.
First we need a reason for these things. Most users have no reason to care about any of these developments. Many users can still get by with Windows 3.1 functionality; a far greater number are happy with Windows 95 (tons of people are still running it, and I don't ever expect them to change).
But increasingly similar management mistakes. DEC seemed very different from IBM, too, but it eventually succumbed to the same management errors.
If he's truly brilliant, he'll see the end of buggy whips coming and steer his company into other domains before it happens. But CEOs tend to fall in love with whatever brought them their first big successes, and then they don't want to think about anything else later on.
You can have a smart management team that serves the same purpose as a genius. It doesn't really matter how you do it, as long as you get the critical mass of intelligence together at the top.
Yes, I believe so. Bill Gates has never been gifted for domains outside of his own, though. Just as Microsoft has no clue when it comes to servers or mainframes, it has no clue when it comes to ISPs.
Yes.
Anyway, it will be interesting to see what develops. I don't have any stock in any of these companies, so I don't care for the most part, but I am concerned for the stability of my operating system and applications and hardware, as I don't like to break things that are working, and I don't like to spend money or time needlessly.
-- Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.
ROTFL!!! Still lying I see. Also you claim that Microsoft has a monopoly on the desktop market. Yet to pull this off, you have to ignore the *fact* there are millions of PCs not running Microsoft software at all.
You also somehow believe that Microsoft killed off Netscape. Yet Netscape is still in business today and is now owned by AOL. And the old Netscape management screwed up royally. As Steve Case of AOL really hated Microsoft and really wanted Netscape for its default browser.
But Netscape wouldn't give what Steve wanted. They wouldn't integrated it into AOL software. Plus they wanted AOL to pay for every copy of Netscape (I believe it was 10 bucks each). And there were millions of AOL users. That would add up to megabucks! Then Microsoft came along and said we'll integrate it into AOL for you. And you can have IE for free. Well Steve picked IE over Netscape. And this is when Netscape started losing market share. Because Netscape got greedy, they lost out. And that's the truth.
__________________________________________________ Bill (using a Toshiba 2595XDVD under Windows 2000)
They haven't done that. They've been able to make a lot of money doing what they know how to do, so they've never developed the habit of learning to do other things.
The aforementioned PhotoDraw 2000 was a classic example. It was clearly written by people who were expert in using standard Windows constructs and tools, people who knew the Windows interface inside and out and could produce semi-transparent, glistening, rose-scented context menus blindfolded ... but these people knew nothing whatsoever about image processing, and the piece of junk they produced was an absolute horror. It was quickly and quietly discontinued.
Someone might be willing to upgrade from an original PC to a brand-new one today, too. But a lot of the intermediate upgrades are unnecessary. And someone using an old PC to get things done doesn't need an upgrade, as long as the old PC does the job.
Some people still run DOS. Each newer version of a PC OS leaves more and more people still running with prior versions. It gets harder and harder to convince anyone to "upgrade," especially outside the geek community.
But there are also things for which you don't need 32-bit architecture.
And they still don't have computers.
No. And I know that hardly anyone is using those extra features.
Ray Kroc came into his own in his fifties.
-- Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.
The point is it depends on whether the 'upgrade' offers significant enough functional improvement.
Well, pencil and paper 'does the job' too but a text processor does it better, and a WYSIWYG word processor does it even better, depending on how one defines 'better'.
"Does the job" is an insufficient description because everyone is managing to 'do the job' with what they have till something better comes along and, interestingly enough, it isn't always clear just how much 'better' something is till it's used.
Well, some people still have no computer at all and I'm building a tube amplifier. Neither says much about the state of the broader market, or people in general, as they're fringe/niche situations.
That's true of any technological progression.
You're assuming there just isn't anything 'left to do' that can matter and I'm not willing to make that assumption.
So? There are things for which you don't 'need' a computer at all but that doesn't mean no one needs computers.
You're losing track of the issue here, which was whether an O.S. 'upgrade' can offer a significant enough improvement to warrant the 'upgrade', not whether every last soul on the planet uses it. And I was pointing out that the O.S. changes needed to take advantage of 32 bit technology, vs 16 bit technology, was a significant enough performance increase.
I presume the 'they' you speak of is the last group because the others discovered they 'needed' it after it was available.
You need to be careful about the word 'monopoly' because the court's ruli= ng=20 is routinely misstated. The court did not find that Microsoft was "a=20 monopoly" but that they "held monopoly power." They're not the same thing= =20 and neither, in and of themselves alone, mean anything devious or illegal= =20 took place.
Most people have a decent enough grasp of what a "monopoly" is but "holds= =20 monopoly power" is a legal term of art that, in colloquial terms, is akin= =20 to your comment that Microsoft has a dominate market position.
Technically, 'monopoly power' is the ability to control price and/or=20 exclude competition but you need not even do it, simply being 'able' to i= s=20 enough, and the courts often interpret 'control' to an easier=20 'significantly influence' and 'exclude' to 'significantly inhibit'.
"Monopoly Power" is not tied to market share although the courts often us= e=20 it as an 'indicator' anyway.
To make matters even more confusing, 'harsh' business practices, even by =
someone holding monopoly power, is not necessarily an anti-trust violatio= n=20 as the appeals court ruling in Intergraph Corporation v. Intel Corp., 195= =20 F.3d 1346 (Fed. Cir. 1999) stated: "the Sherman Act does not convert all =
harsh commercial actions into antitrust violations. Unilateral conduct th= at=20 may adversely affect another=92s business situation, but is not intended = to=20 monopolize that business, does not violate the Sherman Act."
The Netscape matter is interesting because they began by giving their=20 browser away then, when they had 84% market share, began charging for it,= =20 which would seem to be an exercise in monopolistic power... but maybe no =
one sued. Then, when Microsoft gives away their browser, Netscape brings =
suit against Microsoft for doing the same thing they had done to get an 8=
Well, they did, in fact, eventually tout that OS/2 would 'run Windows software' which, in market terms, is tantamount to declaring Windows 'the standard'. And then one asks, why not just get 'the real thing'?
IBM completely misjudged the market and what 'the competition' was. It wasn't 'windows', it was MS Office. People didn't give a rat's behind what the O.S. was, they wanted Office to work and it ran on Windows so, you get Windows.
Which is why OS/2 fans can scream all they want about how OS/2 was 'technically superior' because the only 'technical' thing that really mattered to the market was how well MS Office ran.
Now, if IBM had teamed up with Wordperfect, back when Wordperfect was still the defacto PC word processing standard, and developed a GUI version along with OS/2 they might have been able to successfully compete in that arena.
Given your persistent single level quoting only, the context of your argument is anybody's guess, but if you're talking about the time Microsoft Windows succeeded over IBM's OS/2, Microsoft won the battle by virtue of having all of the APIs from Windows 3.1 to use with Windows 95, and the huge base of applications to go with it.
But seriously. Microsoft was known to hold monopoly power over the personal computer operating system market long before our courts finalized the issue. Given our current state of justice, it might be a moot point, but it's crystal clear to the vast majority of techies who don't work for Microsoft.
From the federal district court of the United States.
"Microsoft possesses monopoly power in the market for Intel-compatible PC operating systems."
From the federal appeals court of the United States.
"... we uphold the District Court's finding of monopoly power in its entirety."
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