Jay, You're right about the Gates' "pigging out" part, but here's my take in the Office suite (turn back your clock 6 or 7 years):
1. WordPerfect (Company A) makes the leading DOS word processor, but is slow to recognize and develop for Windows. Cost $300.
2. Lotus (Company B) makes the leading DOS spreadsheet, but is slow to recognize and develop for Windows. 1-2-3v1 for Windows becomes a joke. Cost $300.
3. Somebody else entirely, Borland?, (Company C) makes the leading DOS database, dBase3, and is slow to develop for Windows. Cost $300.
Gates sees an opening and runs for daylight! He figures that three different companies will have a impossible time getting together to coordinate a seamless, integrated package (though Lotus's DOS based Symphony was really great). And no one of them have the resources to do triple-development.
He releases Office at $300 with all the icons looking the same, and somehow it's all so perfectly integrated with the Windows API's. He feeds the channel with competitive upgrade pricing (his finest talent is pricing, he cut his teeth on DOS-per-machine-you-make-whether-you-ship-MSDOS- with-them-or-not pricing), and preaches the simplicity of Corporations' teaching employees a "standard" desktop environment.
Bingo! WordPerfect's share drops 90%, Lotus's drops 80%, Borland almost goes out of business, and later Harvard Graphics becomes product history.
Now Gates doesn't worry about value meals. He could buy Idaho if Simplot would sell. |
