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Re: Suggestion for Breaking Microsoft's Monopoly
de Brian (Groups) 05/29/2006 09:41
badgolferman wrote:
> Several good points were made of which the above are probably key in my
> mind. They did not become a large company by osmosis. They developed
> a sound business model and encouraged others to follow along.
Absolutely. Case in point - when Wordperfect held a firm grasp on the
word processor software market and MS began trying to promote its much
maligned "Word" application.
Wordperfect's response - no opening or saving of documents in Word
format, no facility to deal with the MS .WMF graphic format, all
despite a rich range of filters available for other file formats.
Generally excluding Word users from the WP "set".
MS response - full capability to open/ save as WP .DOC format, full
support for .WPG graphics (in fact did a better job displaying them
than WP!), special help menus for WP users, even the ability to use the
WP keyboard layout and keyboard shortcuts. Generally welcoming WP
users, with an unprecedented level of easy interoperability or
migration.
Result - WP progressively loses users and eventually goes bust. MS Word
becomes the world's most popular word processing software.
Nothing magic or illegal there - just, as you say, a sound, smart
business model. WP took the easy "banishment and punishment" approach.
MS took the harder "welcoming and encouragement" approach. Each company
got their just deserts.
> The animosity and jealousy displayed toward Microsoft has become a
> disease upon itself and it amazes me how many people just keep feeding
> into it.
It's just the ugly tall poppy syndrome beginning to fester at a
corporation level. It has existed against the successful countries and
societies, and those within such societies, since time began. In the
"age of the corporation", it's not surprising to see the cancer
spreading to a new target of opportunity. It's still based on
<violins>"Why should you be able to have it and not me? Just because
you're good at achieving it, and I'm too lazy to even try, you
shouldn't be more successful than me. I expect to be served up
everything you have, otherwise you shouldn't have it either."</violins>
Brian