OK, fair enough, my paragraph on patents can be read as containing a logical inconsistency. However, while there is not a necessary direct correlation between innovation and patents there is a definite link between the two. Over the thousands of patents Microsoft holds I cannot imagine there is not a single one that represents a genuine innovation. A patent is, pretty much by definition, an invention uniquely created by the patent assignee.
On the subject of the Microsoft Research site. In your post you say:
You dismiss all of Microsoft’s research on the basis that it “extends this” or “integrates that”. I simply argued against this point. Innovations can, and do, build on other innovations. You cannot dismiss MS’s research on the basis that it builds on something else. If you do then you clearly are arguing that an innovation is only something of absolute originality. I gave two examples (Linux and the WWW) that illustrate the fallacy of that position.
If you’re not arguing that absolute originality is necessary for something to be called an innovation, then what possible basis do you have for dismissing all of the projects at the MS Research site? Where do you think that anuual $5billion (up to $6.9billion in 2003, but $5bn seems to be about average) spent on R&D actually goes?
I never stated that MS copied from WordPerfect, Lotus 123 or Navigator. Chances are that they probably did copy some ideas from them though. Just like those other products certainly copied ideas from earlier and contemporary packages and. very likely, from Microsoft’s competing software once it began to eat into their market share.
Before you dismiss innovations like the SmartDisplay and OneNote I suggest you actually find out what they are. These are genuinely innovative products that, in the same way as everything else, build on pre-existing technology.
You’re right about computers displaying information on screens not being an innovation - that wasn’t what I said. It was an example of a pre-existing technology on which SmartDisplays build.
rjung, I noticed that you did not provide any citations to back up your assertion that I don’t know what I’m talking about. However, I produced one in my original posting. That cite was a book titled “How The Web Was Won.”
If you cannot produce a cite counter to mine, then I call bullshit on you.
It is a very informative book. It has Bill Gates’ picture on the front of it, and more than half of the book is about Microsoft. But it covers all aspects of the different computer companies’ fight to be the first to cash in on the Internet Revolution. It covers Netscape, Mosaic, etc.
It is true that Microsoft came dangerously close to making the same mistake that Xerox made by simply saying, “We are an Operating System company.” and ignoring the Internet. It would have been their downfall. It follows J. Allard and a small contingent of Microsoft engineers who fought to get Bill’s attention.
Buying intellectual property, hardware, and software. These are normal, standard, and legal business practices. Every company that has succeeded has participated in the same practices. This is the core of business. What is great about Microsoft is that they had full intentions to use the property that they bought, they used the property to its full extent, and they made it better. Microsoft took the computer out of the laboratory and brought it into the home. So did Apple, but Microsoft has just had more long term success with it.
If the parties who sold their intellectual property didn’t want Microsoft to have it, then why did they sell it? Without Microsoft, DOS would still be sitting on a 1.44 diskette, collecting dust in a box.
And, for all of you who say that Microsoft stole from other companies. I say, “Cite, please.”
Barbarians Led By Bill Gates documents a fair number of Microsoft’s “steal from other companies” tactics. Its key example is the death of “GO Windows,” GO Corp.'s early attempts at a pocket OS, but other examples are given as well.
The Microsoft File is the most comprehensive collection of Microsoftian dirty tricks I’ve seen. Whether it’s bugging hotel rooms where competing CEOs are staying, to implanting bogus error messages to derail your competitors’ products, to the infamous OS/2 “head fake,” if you read only one book about Microsoft’s sleaze machine, this is it.
Apple buying Xerox’s GUI properties with stock shares is documented in numerous places; Apple Confidential is as good a source as any.
And US vs. Microsoft is a good collection of daily reports from the Microsoft anti-trust suit, including original analysis from the reporters on the evidence presented in court – which includes examples of Microsoft stealing IP from other folks and threatening allies and competitors alike.
I see your one pro-Microsoft propaganda piece(*) and raise you four books.
(* = In the preface for How the Web Was Won, the author admits his book is presenting things from Microsoft’s POV. Or, as Salon reviews it, “‘How the Web Was Won’ is a blatantly obvious attempt to interpret every controversy involving Microsoft, the Internet and Netscape in the most favorable way possible for Microsoft.”)
I do not know about the patent situation in the UK, but if you look at that in the US, it is clearly a joke. Check out the patented perpetual machines, would you?
If perpetual machines can be granted patents, it seems to me that the status of patents has been greatly diminished, if not to be held in suspect.
I do not know about the patent situation in the UK, but if you look at that in the US, it is clearly a joke. Check out the patented perpetual machines, would you?
If perpetual machines can be granted patents, it seems to me that the status of patents has been greatly diminished, if not to be held in suspect.
Last legs? Apple’s market share is up, profits are up, over a million ipods have been sold, iTMS has sold 14 million songs, the VT supercomputer is making big headlines, and Apple is considered one of the best brand names in recent marketing surveys. This is their last legs?
To say that the Mac is nothing more than a pretty case demonstrates you either know nothing about Macs or you’re just a MS fanboy. Deliberately crippled PC? Come on, I might consider your argument if you didn’t resort to such ridiculous wording.
Microsoft is like the Japanese: innovation isn’t their specialty, effective production and marketing is. That doesn’t mean they don’t do research and get patents and advance the field; it means that they’re rarely the first person into a market, but they’re often the last. What has Sony done that’s particularly innovative? Playstations were preceded by Atari; mini-discs flopped, and their memory stick format is flopping.
And against those who scream about Microsoft’s evil, monopolistic practices (of whom I am one), it has to be admitted that computers have gone further in the last two decades thanks to the enforced ubiquity of Microsoft products.
Also, it must be observed that consumer computers/software isn’t a particularly innovative market at all. The GUI desktop and the spreadsheet are about the only things I can think of that are unique to this market, and they’re both better than 20 years old. Everything else of value on my desktop PC–email, web browser, instant messaging, video games, database, word processing–all came from other markets.
Actually MS-SQL Server probably has very little code left over from the original Sybase SQL Server it is based on also. Both used to use the same version of a protocol called TDS (Tabular Data Stream) for network I/O, but they are incompatible now. The Microsoft version of Transact SQL has also changed substantially compared to Sybase’s. And the only reason MS-SQL Server is easier to use for some is because Microsoft added a whole bunch of neat GUI tools and bells and whistles. But any DBA worth his money does everything at the command line (isql anyone?) and with shell scripts, etc. anyway :D. And, can you run MS-SQL Server on Solaris, Linux, HP-UX, AIX, MacOSX and SCO Unixware (for older versions at least)? Sybase does.
Smiling Bandit, I couldn’t agree more. You can group all of the iMac users in with the Beetle driving fad. With the iPod now, their commercials are the same. You are buying a lifestyle.
Speaking of iPod. It was mentioned earlier in this thread (or maybe another thread) about the success the iPod has been experiencing. The iPod is compatible with both platforms. Undoubtedly, a lot of that success comes from the Microsoft side of the spectrum. Maybe Apple has actually learned from their past: going with the flow is very profittable.
As for the question on whether Microsoft as innovated anything, the answer is, “Yes. Lots.”
The foremost example in my head is networking. If on the same network segment you have only an Apple and a Netware computer, neither one has any idea that the other one is there. They are not communicating between each other.
When you put a Microsoft server on that very same network segment, all three computers can now fully communicate with each other. How? Microsoft succeeded where all the others failed.
Back in the day, the Microsoft engineers actually bought copies of the other two computer systems (when Netware actually mattered) that they wanted Microsoft to be able to communicate with, sat down with a network analyzer, and decoded the network protocols - packet by packet. Then they rebuilt it on Microsoft’s side. They took on the challenge, and figured it out.
That doesn’t sound so evil. Matter of fact, that is downright pulling people together for the greater benefit.
Oh come on, the only reason people buy imacs is because of the commercials? Perhaps the stability and ease of use found in OS X has something to do with it? Perhaps it’s the fact that you don’t have to worry about viruses any where near as much? Perhaps people just like the interface.
Further, Apple sold 1.3 million ipods long before they the commercials started showing (the only started very recently). How can you say ipods only sold because of the commercials when the commercials weren’t even running yet?
Bill Gates got lucky, very lucky. He caught on to the concept of bundling, and acquired the best programs for his bundles. Or he developed inferior programs to standalone products and successfully bundled them.
He also caught on the concept of power through universal compatability–all computers should run Microsoft products. Steve Jobs is stubbornly resisting, but even he could not withstand Microsoft’s might. Not only he let MS buy stock in Apple, but MS is in more Apples than all but the Apple OSes.
And just when you think Linus is the best hope for freedom from MS, there is Transmeta, a joint product by Paul ‘Monkey Man’ Allen, Torvalds, et al.
I think you misunderstood me. I was comparing the lifestyle that one buys into when they purchase an iMac versus a Beetle, and how those two lifestyles are so similar, that they are virtually the same. I was referring to a particular commercial, the one where you get a free iPod when you buy a Beetle. Maybe this is regional to me?
In my posting I attributed a great amount of the iPod success, without any sources IMHO, to the fact that it is compatible with Microsoft operating systems, not the commercials.
Technically true, since before Netscape there was Mosaic, from which both IE and Netscape was born. (the code was public domain, and IE used it as the base of their product).
It wouldn’t surprise me if someone at Microsoft has started fooling around writing a browser even before Netscape. But it wasn’t all that new at the time, Mosaic had been out for a while. You’ll find that at any large company, there are huge amounts of projects with more or less official attention.
