January 30, 2003
From the desk of Jane Galt:Once you pay the Danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane. . .
Couldn't resist this item from Reason Express, partly because I enjoy all the email I get when I defend Microsoft, and partly because the SCO servers I've worked with are, hands down, the worst pieces of equipment I've ever seen:
Posted by Jane Galt at January 30, 2003 1:24 PM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound linksIt was inevitable that that the raucous glee with which anti-Microsoft techies cheered on the Justice Department's antitrust pursuit of the software giant would come back to haunt them. But who knew the karmic payback would be so literal?
Former anti-Microsoft bulldog David Boies has now been retained to put the screws to the Linux/Unix community. One branch of the Unix world -- SCO Group -- has Boies tracking down supposed violations of its proprietary versions of the business operation system.
It hasn't taken very long for professionals in the field to note that SCO's products haven't been very successful and that the legal route is a poor substitute for actually building something people want.
This, of course, is exactly the kind of thing which could be said -- and was, by some -- of Netscape, Sun, IBM, and the whole crew running to the feds over Microsoft's supposed violations. The point, then as now, is that bigfoot law is a tremendously clumsy thing to use to address the fluid market dynamics
of the software industry.
For those who invited Boies into the techie boutique while he was at Justice, the sound you hear now is a large, masculine bovine trampling all your fine porcelain.
Jane, I have to agree with you about Microsoft, we can't even start to comprehend how much this company has done for our country.
I deal with them on a semi-regular basis in terms of the video content I produce for my web site. Every time I do I am more impressed by the way they do things. I just get the feeling that they are never looking for short run profits, always looking to create something new and meaningful, which will eventually bring them larger revenues down the line.
I would be happy to provide them with my videos on their Windows Media site, just to get the exposure, but that is not good enough for them, they send me checks for the ads they run before the videos. I did not ask. No one else has ever offered to share those kinds of revenues. But Microsoft does not hesitate.
We are running a test with them for pocketpcs and video downloads, they go and send us a couple of the pocketpcs to test out.
This is how I would want to run my business and it is a company I will continue to deal with. There should be no Netscape/Explorer issue. Netscape 4 sucked for years, that is why no one used it, don't blame Microsoft for making a better product and because its competitor did not improve their own product. How many people have ever programmed a page that looks great on explorer and then in Netscape 4 it would look like a war zone? How come Microsoft can make it easy and their competitor that had a head start can not?
Reminds me of a scene from _Rustlers' Rhapsody_:
Rex O'Herlihan: You're not a good guy at all!
Bob Barber: I'm a lawyer, you idiot!
"SCO sucks" does not disprove "Microsoft abused its market power."
Couldn't care less about the legal ramifications, but I love the journalistic faux pas: "business operation system".
Makes me think of Jack Welch with a big red light-up nose...
So what's wrong with the SCO servers? Or perhaps I should say, what's the executive summary on what is wrong with them? I have no dog in this fight, I'm just curious.
Bill Gates has done far more good than harm. His efforts have enormously benefitted the people of the world. Alas, Microsoft is still guilty of employing anticompetitive policies. But it seems to make little pragmatic sense to challenge the company in a court of law. The process simply takes too long in this era of rapid technological advances. Are we therefore impotent in dealing with Mr. Gates’ shenanigans? Nope, we still possess the option of condemning his behavior in the court of public opinion. Public shaming can often be extremely effective.
Regarding: "The legal route is a poor substitute for actually building something people want."
Poor from the consumer's point of view. But much more effective than having to compete head-to-head. MS rarely wins on the basis of functionality, in most (but not all) contests, some other factor tips the balance.
That assumes that functionality is the sole metric upon which a product should be evaluated. In the non-tech universe, it's one of many consideratiosn.
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