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by __rkaup__
5413 days ago
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'the Microsoft boss later grumbling that after 10 hours of browsing the Internet, he "had not seen a single Word .DOC, AVI file, Windows .EXE (other than content viewers), or other Microsoft file format," then adding, "I did see a great number of Quicktime files"; and his determination to "match or beat" the services offered by Netscape, a "competitor 'born' on the Internet" who then boasted "70% usage share" in the browser market.' This seems to confirm my biggest problem with Microsoft. Why do they need to have their own version of everything? What do they get from this? How come they don't try to innovate as much as open source does, instead? |
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Microsoft is a business hooked on vendor lock in. Once they've got an organization using Windows, boom, they've got a money pipe that could feed them for over a decade. Which then means they can sell them Office, and boom, another stream of cash. As time goes on, network effects bloom in the form of users locked into file formats and encourage further growth.
It's almost a viral strategy, aimed at corporate IT. It's what they know how to do. It also illuminates why every product must be "Windows This," "Windows That." They want to increase the surface area of their flagship so it can continue to own large volumes of users.