Innovation? Really? (A Microsoft reality check)
www.angelfire.com web2news.pl
"Hey, Steve, just because you broke into Xerox's store before I did and took the TV
doesn't mean I can't go in later and steal the stereo."
-- Bill Gates, Microsoft, 3/14/89--as quoted in MacWEEK, 1/9/90 p. 23
The claim
The Freedom to Innovate Network
TechMall:
[ http://www8.techmall.com/techdocs/TS980409-4.html ] Microsoft Advertisements Promote Freedom to Innovate in the Software Industry
The reality
95-May MacWorld:
[ http://macworld.zdnet.com/1995/05/news/705.html ] Apple, Microsoft Clash over Video (Quicktime code theft)
Apple has added Microsoft and Intel to a lawsuit it filed last December against San Francisco Canyon,
a company Apple had contracted to develop QuickTime for Windows.
Apple claims that thousands of lines of code developed for Apple's QuickTime turned up in a program Canyon
designed for Intel to accelerate Microsoft's QuickTime competitor, Video for Windows 1.1d
- code that Apple says Intel then provided to Microsoft for use in more than 20 Microsoft products.
BMS:
[ http://www.vcnet.com/bms/departments/notinvented.html ] Not Invented Here
One well known fact: Microsoft has invented essentially
none of the fundamental technologies underlying the
computing revolution -- quite a remarkable feat for
company of its size, wealth and influence. But it is also
notable how, as evidenced by the list below, many of
Microsoft's flagship products were originally produced by
outside sources, or are completely dependent on
technologies invented by others. Another salient feature of
this list is the number of times these acquisitions were
colored with hostile overtones.
BMS:
[ http://www.vcnet.com/bms/features/noinnovation.shtml ] How Microsoft Prevents Innovation
Really, then, the prevention of innovation actually involves controlling
either the demand for innovations, or the supply of innovations, or both.
Thus, Microsoft seeks to control what software consumers demand,
and what software programmers produce.
TMF:
[ http://boards.fool.com/Message.asp?id=1180128005153042 ] whitedo3 lists bogus innovation claims
Virtually all of their market leading techology (with the exception of
Windows NT and possibly PowerPoint) has been either purchased or licenced from other companies.
Microsoft is very good at taking someone else' ideas or core products and turning them into feature
rich comercial consumer grade products and then marketing them very well. But is that innovation?
00-Feb ZDNet:
[ http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0%2C4586%2C2449668%2C00.html ] Kerberos made to heel to Win2000
In a move that company detractors said is another sign of its infamous "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" strategy,
Microsoft has used an open Internet security standard in its Windows 2000 operating system
and made modifications without openly documenting its changes.
00-Mar
[ http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.microsoft.com/PressPass/features/2000/02-28w2k.asp ] Microsoft 'invents' Unix-style links (or something)
. [ http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2000/02-28w2k-b.asp ] A "clarification"
REDMOND, Wash., Feb. 28, 2000 -- Three years ago, Bill Bolosky and two Microsoft
colleagues were brainstorming technology advances when an idea occurred to them -- why not
save operating system disk space by storing duplicate files as links that point to a single file
housed in a central location?
00-Jun Washington Post:
[ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36177-2000Jun10.html ] When It Comes to Innovation, Microsoft Sure Can Copy It
Microsoft must really believe it created the software industry.
How else to account for the company's poor defense in the government's antitrust trial?
What else would make Bill Gates insist that the breakup of the company will not happen
--make him so certain that U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's decision will be overturned?
00-Jun CNet:
[ http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-2128454.html ] Microsoft brewing Java-like language (C#)
"C# is Java by another name," said Steve Mills, general manager of IBM's
software division. "Microsoft has its own unique programming model with
Visual Basic. But it's not designed to be a scaleable, multi-user system
like Java, and C# is the alternative to Java."
00-Jul TechServer:
[ http://www.techserver.com/noframes/story/0,2294,500227837-500328476-501868048-0,00.html ] LARRY MAGID: Microsoft.NET nothing new
Although this might be a major strategy change for Microsoft, the concepts are hardly new. The idea of shifting computing tasks from the PC to the
Internet has been around for years and numerous rival companies are already implementing pieces of this strategy. There is a growing number of
"application service providers," or ASPs, that let you use the Internet to perform tasks that might otherwise have been performed on a personal
computer.
00-Aug TMF:
[ http://boards.fool.com/Message.asp?mid=13211990 ] Who had speech recognition
Full text at: http://www.angelfire.com/nj2/edcurry/innovate.html
Posted with: http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=596972256&fmt=text
http: www angelfire com nj2 edcurry innovate html web2news.pl
Peter Devman
With a company as big as Microsoft, they're bound to pick up big enemies.
Not one of these quotes are untainted; each is refutable or an outright bias
piece. If you knew what you were talking about, you'd come up with more
solid reasoning than recycling old gossip columns.
Let's examine whom you quoted (not including posts on a message board from
an anonymous ranter)...
MacWorld - Microsoft WON that lawsuit. Not to mention over 5 years old...
BMS (stands for Boycott Microsoft) - What a list of hogwash. If I do the
work on 90% of a product, and purchase the last 10% because I don't want to
reinvent the wheel, does that mean I didn't innovate?
Kerberos article on ZDNet - If you're saying that taking a technology like
Kerberos and making it into a more secure and robust implementation for the
increased reliability needed on the Windows 2000 platform is not innovation,
you're smoking dope. Everything everyone invents has dependency on prior
inventions. Even the wheel depended on a prior invention of tools to
construct it. The original Kerberos implementation was merely that: a tool.
Microsoft PressPass articles on SIS - Wow... you totally missed the boat on
this one. No, these are not UNIX-style symbolic links. Yes, on the surface
they sound like it. The difference here is a symlink is a pointer to
another file, whereas a SIS is an OS-driven duplicate file manager. For
example, if I have 2 copies of an identical file on my hard drive, SIS
realizes this and only stores 1 on the drive. If I edit only 1 of those
files, SIS senses the change, notes that the files are no longer in sync,
and "splits" them away from each other. If you edit through a symlink, all
instances are changed on the system. Symlinks are manual, SIS is automatic.
00-Jun Washington Post - Other than being a quote from a famously
anti-Microsoft newspaper, you've gone and quoted Ellen Ullman! LOL... well,
she's the definitive source for the Bisexual Communist community's opinion.
Her idea of "software engineering" is to "save the system, no matter how
ugly it ends up". Besides, the whole article is an editorial; where are the
facts?
C# vs. Java - First of all, C# is NOTHING like Java. Second of all, C# is
NOTHING like Java. I felt that important enough to say twice. C# is a
C++-based language, built from the ground up. The reason why it is compared
to Java is because, like Java, it can be compiled into non-machine-specific
bytecode. However, unlike Java, C# does not HAVE to be half-way compiled,
and can leverage the strengths of a particular platform. Do I smell a
little jealousy coming from the Sun corner? ;-)
Microsoft.NET - Yes, other companies are doing pieces of what MS is starting
to do. Yes, MS is not the first in many areas for this. All that aside,
nobody is integrating across product groups and functional areas anywhere
CLOSE to the scale MS is integrating. MS is engineering Internet
integration with every major product they make. We aren't talking a small
undertaking here... we're talking Microsoft Office (a huge codebase in and
of itself), Windows, Visual Studio (another huge codebase), and lots of
other stuff.
"www.angelfire.com web2news.pl" <Use-Author-Address-Header@[127.1]> wrote in
message news:2000081...@hotmail.com...
Chris Ahlstrom
>
> <sarcasm>I guess it's true if someone who doesn't like MS says it!</sarcasm>
> With a company as big as Microsoft, they're bound to pick up big enemies.
> Not one of these quotes are untainted; each is refutable or an outright bias
> piece. If you knew what you were talking about, you'd come up with more
> solid reasoning than recycling old gossip columns.
>
His reasoning is at least as solid as yours.
--
[X] Check here to always trust content from Chris
[ ] Check here to accept cookies from Microsoft
[ ] Check here to reboot now
Damien
Peter Devman <p_de...@usa.net> wrote:
[*snip*]
| Kerberos article on ZDNet - If you're saying that taking a technology like
| Kerberos and making it into a more secure and robust implementation for the
| increased reliability needed on the Windows 2000 platform is not innovation,
| you're smoking dope.
Or maybe you noticed that OpenBSD had already done this.
*snip*
| C# vs. Java - First of all, C# is NOTHING like Java. Second of all, C# is
| NOTHING like Java. I felt that important enough to say twice. C# is a
| C++-based language, built from the ground up. The reason why it is compared
| to Java is because, like Java, it can be compiled into non-machine-specific
| bytecode. However, unlike Java, C# does not HAVE to be half-way compiled,
| and can leverage the strengths of a particular platform. Do I smell a
| little jealousy coming from the Sun corner? ;-)
C# is "C++ based"
Java gets all it's syntax from C++
C# is built from the ground up
Java was built from the ground up
C++ can be compiled into non-machine-specific bytecode
Java can be compiled into non-machine-specific bytecode
C# does not have to be compiled into bytecode and can take advantage
of platform strengths
Java does not have to be executed as bytecode and with the JIT
compiler can take advantage of the strengths of the strengths of any
platform
So how are they nothing like again?
M. Simon
wrote:
><sarcasm>I guess it's true if someone who doesn't like MS says it!</sarcasm>
>With a company as big as Microsoft, they're bound to pick up big enemies.
I can tell you this:
Computers now consume 10% of the US electricity supply.
Properly designed hardware and software could do the same for 1/3 or
less power.
Innefficient software requires faster processors = more watts.
M. Simon Space-Time Productions http://www.spacetimepro.com
Free CNC Machine Control Software
Free Source Code
Control the World From a Parallel Port
M. Simon
>On Tue, 19 Sep 2000 04:13:29 GMT, msi...@xta.com (M. Simon) wrote:
>
>>On Sun, 17 Sep 2000 20:41:55 -0700, "Peter Devman" <p_de...@usa.net>
>>wrote:
>>
>>><sarcasm>I guess it's true if someone who doesn't like MS says it!</sarcasm>
>>>With a company as big as Microsoft, they're bound to pick up big enemies.
>>
>>I can tell you this:
>>
>>Computers now consume 10% of the US electricity supply.
>
>Utterly false unless you are defining 'computers' in some twisted way.
>
>>Properly designed hardware and software could do the same for 1/3 or
>>less power.
>
>There are cars that can get 75 mpg and yet people still choose to buy
>cars that barely get 20. Perhaps saving energy isnt the primary
>motivation in hw and sw development?
No kidding.
>What would it cost to retrofit all existing hw and sw to save that
>energy?
The computer would fit in a mouse. You still need a keyboard and
monitor. Probably under $200 for the whole works.
I would wait a bit until the low energy monitors come down in cost.
>I love how people pronounce such facts as if the current state is an
>obvious blunder and if only *they* were in charge things would be
>Right(tm) in the world without any regard to the history that led to
>how things are how they are.
>
>"Properly designed" indeed.
Gate's software is bloated so its hard to legally replicate without a
huge investment. A good business decision for him.
And it has got us to where we are today.
It is not the best we can do by a longshot.
T. Max Devlin
>>wrote:
>>
>>><sarcasm>I guess it's true if someone who doesn't like MS says it!</sarcasm>
>>>With a company as big as Microsoft, they're bound to pick up big enemies.
>>
>>I can tell you this:
>>
>>Computers now consume 10% of the US electricity supply.
>
Should we merely presume you have the real figures?
>>Properly designed hardware and software could do the same for 1/3 or
>>less power.
>
>There are cars that can get 75 mpg and yet people still choose to buy
>cars that barely get 20. Perhaps saving energy isnt the primary
>motivation in hw and sw development?
No, but efficiency is. The scale suggested by the figure, regardless of
its accuracy, is purely the inefficiency of bad design; computer's don't
have to use a whole lot of energy, as they don't move anything but
electrons, and they always transmit as many as they send, somehow.
I'd rather not get involved in car analogies, but lets say you have a
bed, but the sheets only cover 20% of it?
>What would it cost to retrofit all existing hw and sw to save that
>energy?
Well, according to the government and free market theory, competition.
>I love how people pronounce such facts as if the current state is an
>obvious blunder and if only *they* were in charge things would be
>Right(tm) in the world without any regard to the history that led to
>how things are how they are.
>
>"Properly designed" indeed.
Yes, according to history, software today is not properly designed. It
used to be that 'properly designed' software was software that was worth
learning how to use. Now 'properly designed' means so simple you don't
have to learn, or so bad its not worth the effort. As long as you buy
the next version, hoping (futilely) for it to get better, because you're
locked in by your own requirement for convenience.
--
T. Max Devlin
-- Such is my recollection of my reconstruction
of events at the time, as I recall. Consider it.
Research assistance gladly accepted. --
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T. Max Devlin
[...]
>(2) Again you miss the point, its easy to say what a sad state of
>affairs we are in, with the x86 processor arch and code bloat but
>anybody (including MS and Intel) would do things differently if they
>had the opportunity to start over again from scratch - too bad they
>are budened with legacy requirements
No, you missed the point. Its not easy to get rid of a monopoly, or
monopoly crapware, and its costing us much more in many many ways than
you would care to admit or even recognize. Microsoft has made *me*
start over from scratch, overhauling their own bloated crap at least
enough times to discourage me, and anyone else with more than half a
brain, to not even bother trying to use any extensive capabilities it
might have in it. No use blame-shifting by discussing legacy
requirements; MS crapware itself has been a monopoly so long that it is
its own legacy requirement. The whole friggen' *industry* would rather
throw the whole thing out and start from scratch, at this point.
http://m2.aol.com/machcu/mspquotes.html
"Microsoft's biggest and most dangerous contribution to the software
industry may be the degree to which it has lowered user
expectations."
-ESTHER SCHINDLER, OS/2 Magazine
"... Microsoft has managed to make me feel like a computer neophyte
groping for answers that should be readily apparent.
Indeed, I feel as though I may have committed myself ... to what Novell
CEO Eric Schmidt once called the Microsoft Roach
Motel--software that's easy to get into and hard to get out of ... I
feel as if I am fighting Microsoft for the right to use my own
computer efficiently."
-STEWART ALSOP, Fortune Magazine
"Gates and company talk about total cost of ownership and never once
take responsibility for the fact that Microsoft has
created an operating system that encourages sloppy practices and
continuously degraded performance. This becomes obvious
only when you spend time on a new system that seems twice as fast as a
200-MHz Pentium but can't possibly be that fast."
-JOHN DVORAK, PC Magazine
"My personal [Windows 95] workstation is so buggy that ... [it] crashes
at least once or twice a day, usually in broad daylight
for no apparent reason ... The answer, I'm sure, is to get a new hard
drive, format it, install the latest version of Windows on it,
and reinstall everything important from the old drive."
-BRIAN LIVINGSTON, InfoWorld Magazine
In case you aren't familiar with the names (these are just the first
four quotes from the page above, which has dozens), these are the heavy
hitters, those who've proven they have enough brains and enough
technical expertise that their opinions are considered important. They
apparently have enough integrity to not buy into the kind of
'know-nothing' response that you're making here.
No, the issue is *not* whether 10% of current electricity is used to run
computers, nor whether a computer would easily fit into a mouse in 2000
if the monopoly had not been around since the early 80s. The issue is
whether you're ankle-biting on hyperbole, or trying to defend a criminal
organization.
Lucisferre
IF MICROSOFT DO NOT MONOPOLIZED, THEN APPLE WILL, IF THERE IS NO APPLE, THEN
MOST OF YOU NEVER TOUCH COMPUTER, ELSE YOU'LL BE PLAYING WITH SWITCH
rgd. lferre
T. Max Devlin <tm...@nbn.net> wrote in message
news:74nhssokhmcgkc1ge...@4ax.com...