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Strategies & Market Trends : MDA - Market Direction Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Monty Lenard who wrote (32562)	11/6/1999 8:41:00 AM
From: theRedDog	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 99985

Monty, I cannot argue with most of your post as you are comparing bad (Microsoft) to worse. (IBM, and Lotus --now a part of IBM) There are many lousy programs that have become popular for different reasons, and actually make MS look good. (Corel is one of them, Novell ia another, although they get the job done) I don't mind if MS designs a better, friendlier program. I do mind if they invite me to show (and explain) them my wares, supposedly to license them, and 6 months later I see them cloned into Windows 95. (It happened to many of my friends, then they got wiser) I do mind if they change a couple of instructions in the kernel of Windows so WorldPerfect (or Corel Draw, or...) would crash five or six times a day. I do mind if they license your browser (in a non-exclusive way) for 10% of the revenue, and then give it away for free. You get no royalties, and you cannot keep on selling the same thing that MS is giving away for free. (It happened to Spyglass. The browser is now called Explorer) I can go on for a long while, but this has little to do with Market Direction Analysis. (sorry guys) :> There is a fine line between smart and devious. I believe that many of MS practices are simply unfair. (But Gates is the richest man alive, and I'm not; so maybe he's right, and I'm wrong <G>) Their main effect was to kill many budding software companies before they were able to reach the critical mass needed for survival. And the net result was slower innovation, (regardless of what Gates might proclaim) and less choice for the users. (In fact, almost any innovation MS did was forced by the competition: they went from DOS to Windows forced by Macintosh. They did Publisher forced by PageMaker. They developed MS Money forced by Intuit. They did Windows NT forced by Unix. They embraced Internet forced by Netscape. And I can go on forever...) I don't think that any of this is going to have any long lasting effect on MS, (the rich get richer, etc) but I'll be happy if some of their past practices get some exposure. Take care, theRedDog. PS: >>>>>>>> There are products that are probably more friendly and powerful for people with your background but not so for the public as a whole and there is more of us'es than you's. :-) <<<<<<<< Agreed. My job is to create interfaces that are easy to use by *anyone.* Even for my personal use I'd take simplicity over power any time. MS products are not particularly friendly. i.e in Word: they have added 1000 features that are seldom used, (just to look good in the comparison charts) and hidden several every day chores under two layers of menus.