CRN: Microsoft, the new IBM

June 7 2004

Something interesting happened on the road to and from software dominance. Microsoft, which always delighted in displacing the old farts of technology, has become an old fart itself.
Yes, ladies and gents, meet Microsoft: the new IBM. What once seemed a hungry, always-working-the-angles product powerhouse now seems increasingly set in its ways and downright stodgy.
(Adopts Bevis & Butthead tone): "heh heh, heh heh, she said fart"
Link: CRN: Microsoft, the new IBM >

Ed Brill | Highland Park, IL USA Category:  Microsoft  Add/View Comments [5]

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  1. 1  Danny Lawrence  | 6/7/2004 11:23:09 AM

    The problem is that when IBM was "the old IBM" they realized that they had a (for the lack of a better term "Moral obligation" to their customers and the industry as a whole, and that was to provide quality products and services and at least try to raise the "state of the art" for the IT industry. Admittedly this led to slower product cycles and a certain amount of FUD to keep their margins high.

    MSFT on the other hand seems to think that they are "the way the truth and the light" and that becaue they do a thing it is defacto correct (to a certain extant they get away with it, but even when they can't thay still try to make it so), because of this they don't seem to care about the state of the industry, all they want to do is make sure that no one writes any software that they don't want them to. It's sad really, if they spent as much time and effort improving their products as they did sabotaging others the industry would be better and maybe even they might make more money (a smaller percentage of a larger pie, but more money on an absolute basis), but the concept of "growing the pie" is totally foreign to them, if they can't own it, they want to make sure it has no use to anyone else.

  1. 2  dave www.magecraft.net | 6/7/2004 11:48:26 AM

    ...the new black? :-)

  1. 3  Scott Kingery http://tinyurl.com/3fdsf | 6/7/2004 6:32:21 PM

    As long as it's not the new Coke. Blech! Oh, wait, commenting on the wrong thread. My bad. :)

  1. 4  Ed Fisher  | 6/7/2004 10:49:42 PM

    Deep and important stuff from the power desk of Barbara Darrow. Watch out Bill!

  1. 5  Ben Poole http://www.benpoole.com | 6/10/2004 4:10:57 PM