Good morning Ibexx, the following article is interesting:
DBC StockWatch
Updated: Wed Jul 02 16:22:42
1997
Software companies must look beyond Redmond: Sybase
CEO
BURLINGAME, Calif. (DBC) -- The software industry continues to devote too much time and
energy looking at ways to beat Microsoft, said Sybase CEO Mitch Kertzman. The 30-year
software veteran told a luncheon at the Technology Partners conference on intranet computing
that only radical shake-up can take down industry leaders -- and that doesn't appear to be
happening in Microsoft's case. Here are excerpts from his remarks:
Having been around for a while, I have now experienced several true platform or paradign shifts
-- and, of course, several paradigm shift that were promoted as that but never turned out to be.
The nature of a true paradigm shift represents the movement of the underlying techtonic plates of an
industry. And just like a real earthquake, when real techtonic plates move, there is great destruction
when paradigms shift.
An example of this shift in the database software industry is Colonet, which was the largest
software company is the world in its day, with revenue -- believe it or not -- of just $200 million. It
was the leader in mainframe network databases. They were on top of the world and a little start up
company came along called Oracle. Colonet didn't take Oracle seriously, they said 'Why would
you bet your business on a little company like that. Our product is large, robust and mature; their
product is new, immature and it lacks all of the features of our product.' Oracle is now the largest
database software company in the world and Colonet is small, hardly noticeable part of Computer
Associates.
Paradigm shifts cause large companies to stumble and small companies to succeed. It seem the
only way to build a large software company is to be a leader in a product category during a
platform shift. A paradigm shift is the way you knock off a big company. And who's the biggest
company of them all? Who's the biggest, baddest, meanest, most dominant player in the
marketplace that we've ever seen? That's Microsoft.
So the theory goes that the best way to knock off Microsoft is to create a paradigm shift that
would disadvantage Microsoft. And ideally, paradigm shifts work when the large, entrenched
competitor is unable -- either because of attitude or technology -- to be able to make the shift ...
(But) Microsoft is an unusual company. They don't satisfy either of the two criteria of a company
that is likely to fall victim to a paradigm shift.
Regards, Sophia |
