Microsoft Not Shy About Failures nytimes.com
Depending on context, of course. I like the URL title, an oxymoron if there ever was one.
Microsoft's Windows operating systems are used on roughly 90 percent of the world's desktop computers. But in an unusual strategy to prove it doesn't unfairly dominate every niche market it enters, Microsoft and supporters have gone out of their way at times -- in public statements and private meetings -- to remember some of the company's embarrassing failures.
Microsoft, for example, frequently notes that its Internet browser is still less popular than one from rival Netscape Communication Corp. Netscape claims roughly 60 percent of the market.
I'd say that one's highly context sensitive; in other contexts, the lead was being claimed a year ago.
And during a federal appeals court hearing last week, a Microsoft lawyer described how Intuit Inc.'s Quicken finance software -- used by 10 million people -- can automatically retrieve stock prices using the Internet. He didn't mention Microsoft's own personal finance software, Microsoft Money, which competes against Quicken but is far less popular.
Bill had a solution for that problem, of course. But those dastardly trust busters unfairly foiled his plans, in a nefarious conspiracy with evil bankers and other people who Just Don't Understand.
''In a truly competitive marketplace, Microsoft will win some and lose some,'' said Mike Pettit, executive director of a new anti-Microsoft industry trade group, the Project to Promote Competition and Innovation in the Digital Age. ''But they have gone to great lengths to ensure that they don't encounter a competitive marketplace when possible.''
As in the jealously guarded ironclad grip on OEM bundling. "They have to ship the machines the way we build them".
''If they (other companies) make a mistake with a bad release, they are history,'' said James Love, director of the Washington-based Consumer Project on Technology, which has urged the Justice Department to move forward with its antitrust investigation.
''But if Microsoft makes a mistake, it's no big deal,'' he said. ''Microsoft has a cushion the others don't have.''
Now, I know everybody will object to that one. That's ok, too. But who else could have gotten away delivering a 16 bit OS for 32bit computers for 8 years? Who else could bet the company on NT5, and then slip it indefinitely a month later? With no visible harm, of course, and a continuous, never ending PR litany about how great it's going to be, whenever. All very entertaining, I say.
Cheers, Dan. |
