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Technology Stocks : MSFT Internet Explorer vs. NSCP Navigator -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Alan Buckley who wrote (15919)	1/8/1998 8:07:00 PM
From: nommedeguerre	Respond to of 24154

Alan, I will choose to be explicit and define better, build, innovate and new as I see it to clarify our misunderstanding. Build just means to assemble, create, or generate something. No quality of the end-product is implied. One can build better or worse mouse-traps. This is why I do not see it as the key word. Innovate means to introduce something new or different. Usually people couple this with better or improved qualities and functionality. Better is not necessarily a qualifier of innovation. The Wankel Rotary Engine is not necessarily better than the Diesel but was definitely an innovative approach to combustion-engine design. Better relates to the state of being or quality of something. Plating things with gold makes them better at resisting corrosion, but I would not call that innovative since it is not a novel concept. However, innovation would result in a different method of plating things with gold. New could be construed as the original occurence of something in a particular situation. Anything innovative should be new in concept or application but something new may not necessarily be innovative. Anyone reading "Visual C++ User's guide" will notice that amongst the new features listed was "full-screen editting". Although apparently new to Microsoft VC++, this is hardly innovative. Microsoft BOB on the other hand, was both new and demeaning in an innovative way. In the case of building a better mouse-trap; it is my interpretation that if one designs a mouse-trap which exhibits some superior element of quality not currently offered by other mouse-traps then the consumer will buy that mouse-trap under the condition that the superior element adds real or perceived value desired by the consumer. Bundling mouse-traps with free cheese to help bait customers may be new but not particularly innovative since the use of cheese (as a separate and distinct product) with the mouse-trap was part of the original concept of use. Since mice prefer different types of cheese, the choice of Redmond Swiss to Monterrey Jack should be left to the user so that maximum satisfaction is obtained by all consumers. Take it easy, Norm

To: Alan Buckley who wrote (15919)	1/8/1998 10:48:00 PM
From: Keith Hankin	Respond to of 24154

Sigh...well, in your previous post you said "I believe the key word is better not build" and presumably you agree with Keith that "better" != "new" and is not "innovation". Right? So, better is key but not innovation. I'll agree, except what do you mean by saying "better is key"? Key to what? Since this is an investment thread, I assume that you mean key to better financial success and thus a better stock evaluation. But even in this sense of "key", better is not everything. There are other considerations such as price, how it fits into a "total solution", how stable the company offering the product is, strategic relationships, how "well" it is marketed, etc. How "well-marketed" a product is includes many issues, including effectiveness of brand and product identity, and probably the most "key" part of the most effective marketing is how much money is spent. As it turns out, almost all of the indicators I have mentioned above favor MSFT. Even if NSCP had clearly "better" products in every category, they would still be facing an uphill battle.

To: Alan Buckley who wrote (15919)	1/9/1998 5:06:00 PM
From: Charles Hughes	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24154

>>>Sigh...well, in your previous post you said "I believe the key word is better not build" and presumably you agree with Keith that "better" != "new" and is not "innovation". Right? So, better is key but not innovation.<<< Make you guys should buy a Websters. Look up innovation. Notice the connection of the root word nova to the word new. Then read the rest of the definition. This is not a debatable subject. There is no way in which a samo-samo product being aggressively marketed amounts to innovation, not in the dictionary, not in reality, not in the commonly understood context of the term of use. That the Microsoft huggers are reduced to defending MSFT with this kind of lamo diversionary argument just shows how much trouble innovation must be in at One Microsoft Way. I bet you hear a lot of platitudes about pioneers back being full of arrows, etc. Cheers, Chaz