Gates Fears Curb on Innovation washingtonpost.com
This is the Washington Post interview referred to elsewhere. There's not exactly anything "innovative" here, I'd say, but read it and judge for yourself.
Far from the usual cautious demeanor of business leaders visiting Washington, he was roaring with indignation and disdain for those who question his business practices. He dismissed one question as unfair," another as "dishonest." "Come on!" he said impatiently to one questioner. "Give me a break!" he said a few moments later to another.
I.e. the well travelled "beyond the comprehension of mere mortals" defense, with requisite implied middle finger salute. Everybody but the MSFT true believers are just so. . . random.
But Gates maintains that he's only doing what consumers want. "We've gone out and asked software developers, and it's overwhelming . . . that they want the Internet to be in the operating system," said Gates, his hands fluttering to emphasize his point. "And so this is serving customers, both the developers and the end users. It's like saying, you know, should air conditioning be in a car, should a radio be in a car? When you buy a car, why does it have tires on?"
There's that well-traveled Chrysler car radio. Erstwhile FOB Fred Moody had a few words to say on the automotive analogy front, I guess Bill didn't notice that one. Plus, the old "what the customers want" line, like good old retail Win95 flying off the shelves, demonstrating that Microsoft is correct in its contempt for the OEMs, who insist on shipping this OSR2 junk instead of what the "market" has chosen. Developers are really wild for the latest "embraced and demolished" Microsoft Java, too. There's a lot more rehashing of old company lines in the interview, I didn't notice any new ones. I could have missed something though.
Cheers, Dan. |
