ParedoJR:
>Why do you think that MSFT is a monkey
>and not a chimp... If MSFT is not the "major" chimp then who is?
First of all, I assume we can both agree on who the gorilla is in internet server and client software: Netscape.
I think Microsoft is the "monkey" of the internet client and server markets and not a chimp because:
Microsoft's offerings to date are essentially imitations of Netscape products. Microsoft sells these products at a discount (actually, gives them away), not to gain market leadership, but to take sales away from Netscape and keep people from migrating to a non-Microsoft software architecture as long as possible. Their purpose is opportunistic and defensive, not an effort to obtain true market leadership.
If Microsoft really wanted to be a chimp, according to how I read the book, they would use the "bowling alley" strategy to try to gain market dominace over a particular segment, like Adobe has with desktop publishing in a different context, for example, and then try to move into and dominate other contiguous segments. Again, Adobe provides the example, as they parry their brand name and reputation for excellence in desktop publishing into internet publishing. This is what a true chimp would do, if I understand the concept right. I see no evidence at all that Microsoft is trying to do this. Instead, they are doing a frontal assault that, if the book is right, they can't win. The book says a monkey can evolve into a chimp and a chimp into a gorilla, but a monkey cannot evolve into a gorilla. Microsoft is trying to evolve into a gorilla from a monkey. It won't work.
>Also maybe MSFT frontal assault is a strategy to make NSCP think
>this is where the major force is at ... and in reality, MSFT
>has a diffrent strategy all together.
Maybe . . .
If so, I'd sure like to see some evidence of it. Right now, I don't.
Where are the new paradigm-shattering products that are moving from the technologist and visionary stages into the chasm or from chasm to bowling alley?
Which specific, presently underserved portion of the internet market is Microsoft focusing its resources on in order to dominate and show customers that its new product meets specific, compelling customer needs in a qualitatively superior way?
I just don't see it. Maybe someone can point it out to me.
>Isn't NSCP also going to hurt by having to support MSFT legacy
>software??? "WINDOWS 3.x"
NO.
Netscape will be helped, not hurt, by people staying with windows 3X. When people buy software, it represents a long-temr commitment to that vendor. If people move up to Windows 95 or, more importantly, NT, along with all the new software needed to make a Windows (NT, especially) machine work the way they want it to, they are not going to want to throw away their huge financial commitment and switch to NSCP. They'll be the ones who download IE and IIS and just hang onto their NT software, with the rationalization that Microsoft's internet products are "just as good" as Netscape's.
The people who stay with Widows 3X will not have made the financial commitment needed to move up to NT, and will be facing a world in which the utility of their OS software (defined as the ability to run new applications) will steadily decline as 16 bit software gets phased out. These people will eventually have to move to something. The question for them will be: to what? A discontinuitous upgrade to expensive NT which renders their existing software obsolete AND forces them to replace it with all new and even more expensive software which will also be rendered obsolete? Or, will they go to the new paradigm of network computing represented by Netscape, where the costs will be dramatically lower, and the long term utility of the (Java-based) operating system they will be installing will be enhanced by a growing stream of java applications?
I think that, in the beginning, large corporations will switch to the new paradigm, and small businesses, who will have less to gain from expensive networking and want to have their critical functions running on their own systems anyway, will stick with the old by moving up to NT. As the cost of networking drops and/or the public network becomes more secure and reliable, even smaller businesses (which, btw, also tend to be dominated by people the book would characterize characterize as conservatives) will switch over, but not for a number of years, during which Microsoft will own their business. Microsoft also has a growing consumer franchise, which I hope they develop.
I could be wrong, but I think Microsoft has already lost the war for control of the inter/intranet, and I think they know it. As the book says, once you can identify the gorilla, it is probably already too late to change whop it is.
Don't get me wrong. I think Microsoft is, as even Marc Andreessen was quoted as saying somewhere, "a fine company." I respect Chairman Bill's business acumen. If anyone can deal with the situation, I know he can. I would not own stock in Microsoft if I did not believe this.
But I don't see evidence that Microsoft is taking the steps the book tells me it needs to in order to insure its long-term survival as a force in internet computing.
Anyone who wants to is welcome to prove me wrong. |
