Microsoft, Creativity, and Innovation

[whooleytoo]

But at the same time they also learn the lesson of using their position to force upgrades. While they may have been keep backwards compatibility alive in their application environment, within their applications they have been making their formats less and less backwards compatible.

The Office case you mention is a good counter-point to what I mentioned above. In the office business software suite market, Microsoft are so utterly dominant, they can afford to forego backward compatibility; in this case to force previous versions of Office to upgrade.

Which, when you think about it, only becomes necessary if the new version isn't providing sufficient innovative features.

 

[zephead]

Let's not forget that Microsoft invented the infamous CTRL-ALT-DELETE.

 

[whooleytoo]

Have you ever read Jerry Kaplan's book "Start Up," about his efforts to capitalize Go, Inc. and get the product to market? (The first tablet computer, circa 1990, for those who've never heard of it.) The chapters of his book about his encounters with Microsoft are priceless. They came in as Go platform application developers, and turned into competitors, stealing Go's ideas left and right. Microsoft is one of the reason Go failed. Microsoft never released their pen-based OS, because by that time they'd spirited away most of Go's application developers. Go was dead, so they didn't need to release the product.

Their 'co-development' of OS/2 is another entertaining read.

Is FUD (Fear Uncertainty Doubt) another Microsoft innovation?

 

[RacerX]

... but here is the video of SJ demoing the NExt OS. I was blown away at how advanced it was.

Actually using it can be quite a rush too.




Well, I'm sure that it would be to someone new to it at any rate. Its just an (almost) everyday type of thing for me... but I do appreciate it still.

 

[dsnort]

Well, I hate to do it, but I'll throw in one thing I think M$ did that was good for the computer industry.

They licensed their GUI OS to any IBM compatible manufacturer. Running the same OS, they had to compete on other planes, features, specs, and price. Especially price. This has lowered the price of computers across the board.

I love my Mac, but I'm not sure I could have afforded it without M$.

Maybe not creative or innovative, but important.

This is just theory of mine, I throw it out so you more knowledgeable types can shoot it full of arrows.

 

[MisterMe]

You gave links to Wikipedia... before I trust anything there I generally need a lot more outside sources. ...

FWIW, most of the post was from my own memory. The Wikipedia link served as supplementary material.

Today's Dock grew out of the original NeXT Dock. ...

It goes back a little earlier than that. Ever heard of the LISA?

...

They licensed their GUI OS to any IBM compatible manufacturer. Running the same OS, they had to compete on other planes, features, specs, and price. Especially price. This has lowered the price of computers across the board.

...

This is pure, unadulterated, Microsoft, propaganda. The Redmond Monopoly did not create the IBM PC-compatible world. That was done by Compaq and others. Microsoft captured it. However, if it had not done so, other companies would have filled the void. Because the hardware was largely interchangeable, it was have still be commoditized. You would have had CP/M-86 with a GEM-based GUI or some such thing. To claim that Windows drove down the prices of computers when the retail price of Windows over the last 10 years has risen to $299 takes lot of chutzpah.

 

[IJ Reilly]

This is pure, unadulterated, Microsoft, propaganda. The Redmond Monopoly did not create the IBM PC-compatible world. That was done by Compaq and others. Microsoft captured it. However, if it had not done so, other companies would have filled the void. Because the hardware was largely interchangeable, it was have still be commoditized. You would have had CP/M-86 with a GEM-based GUI or some such thing. To claim that Windows drove down the prices of computers when the retail price of Windows over the last 10 years has risen to $299 takes lot of chutzpah.

Thanks. You beat me to it. Now, if we could talk about how Microsoft captured the PC hardware market... then we'd be right back on topic.

 

[dsnort]

This is pure, unadulterated, Microsoft, propaganda.

If you read the rest of this thread you might see that I am NOT a fan of the M$ Monolith. Please do not accuse me of propogandizing for M$.

To claim that Windows drove down the prices of computers when the retail price of Windows over the last 10 years has risen to $299 takes lot of chutzpah.

It was not my intention to "claim" that Windows was solely responsible for the price competition, but, I DO believe that the role they played in this cannot be ignored. If all of these "box" makers had had to use different OS's, it would have introduced a different variable into the cosumers decision process, and who knows where that would have lead, maybe several of the less innovative falling by the wayside? As for chutzpah, yeah, I got plenty. I got my share, plus yours, plus your mom's, your dad's, your sisters.......

 

[zephead]

Now, if we could talk about how Microsoft captured the PC hardware market...

Simple. The average consumer at the time didn't know enough about computers to notice how faulty Microsoft's products were. Who would you rather sell to, the small amount of computer-savvy techies who would be smart enough to notice an inferior product when they see one, or to the much, much larger market of average consumers who think it's just the greatest thing in the world? That move, although totally messed up, put ~$60 billion into Bill's pockets. Hence the name "M$"

 

[RacerX]

FWIW, most of the post was from my own memory. The Wikipedia link served as supplementary material.

I never said I doubted you... I doubted the links that you gave.

Ever heard of the LISA?

What do you think?

It goes back a little earlier than that.

Lisa didn't have a dock... plus those are development illustrations and not the final GUI of the Lisa. What you do see there is window shade with windows collapsing to folder tabs. Which shows that even though the windows shade feature in the original Mac OS came from a shareware product, the idea was at Apple long before it. It would have been cool if the tabs could be set to the bottom of the screen like tabbed windows in Mac OS 8 and later.



The reason for having a Dock was for multitasking and easy access to apps. Neither of which was a concern of the early GUI design team as neither the Lisa nor the Mac that followed had those abilities. NeXT, by contrast, was being geared for the workstation market and was expected to do things that weren't on the desktop yet.

That having been said, I still prefer the Apple Menu and Applications Menu from Rhapsody/Mac OS 8/9 to either the Dock in Mac OS X or OPENSTEP.

__________________​

They licensed their GUI OS to any IBM compatible manufacturer.

They didn't have a GUI OS until Windows NT 3.1 and they didn't have a consumer GUI OS until Windows 95. Before that they had DOS with a GUI shell.

Further, Microsoft forced OEMs to license DOS on every PC they made or face retaliation. This was one of the things that sparked the first antitrust case against Microsoft. Later they settled with the government promising not to do it again.

Did they stick to their agreement? Of course not! This is Microsoft we are talking about.

Be Inc. brought up charges against Microsoft for threatening OEMs that had agreed to ship systems running the BeOS.



Ya know, it'd be one thing if Microsoft had done a couple of these tactics... but when you sit back and look at the vast amount of illegal stuff they do it is truly amazing. And the fact that they just figure in the legal troubles as a "cost of doing business".

While the EU may think it is making headway with Microsoft... the truth is that they really aren't. The only thing that will stop Microsoft is ending Microsoft. Judge Jackson recognized that breaking them up was the only effective solution.

 

[Dane D.]

Well, I hate to do it, but I'll throw in one thing I think M$ did that was good for the computer industry.

They licensed their GUI OS to any IBM compatible manufacturer. Running the same OS, they had to compete on other planes, features, specs, and price. Especially price. This has lowered the price of computers across the board.

I love my Mac, but I'm not sure I could have afforded it without M$.

Maybe not creative or innovative, but important.

This is just theory of mine, I throw it out so you more knowledgeable types can shoot it full of arrows.

Big deal, price does not equate quality. I want a computer that actually works and is headache free. The Macintosh is the closest thing on the market to meeting this requirement. Apple keeps pushing the boundaries of many computer catagories. From the OS to the body that houses the hardware, MS just keeps rehashing a OS that should of been thrown away and replaced with something much more user friendly and safe. The adage "if you can't compete with them, buy them" is what MS relies on.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Simple. The average consumer at the time didn't know enough about computers to notice how faulty Microsoft's products were. Who would you rather sell to, the small amount of computer-savvy techies who would be smart enough to notice an inferior product when they see one, or to the much, much larger market of average consumers who think it's just the greatest thing in the world? That move, although totally messed up, put ~$60 billion into Bill's pockets. Hence the name "M$"

Not quite so simple. They quickly set about eliminating the OEM's opportunities to bundle other OSs with PC hardware by forcing them into exclusive "all Microsoft or no Microsoft" deals, and also by imposing the infamous "CPU tax." They also punished OEMs who strayed off the Microsoft reservation by charging them more for Microsoft products than the OEMs who toed the line. Many of these anticompetitive practices were ultimately found to be violations of antitrust laws, but Microsoft didn't have to give the market share back.

 

[dsnort]

Big deal, price does not equate quality. I want a computer that actually works and is headache free. The Macintosh is the closest thing on the market to meeting this requirement. Apple keeps pushing the boundaries of many computer catagories. From the OS to the body that houses the hardware, MS just keeps rehashing a OS that should of been thrown away and replaced with something much more user friendly and safe. The adage "if you can't compete with them, buy them" is what MS relies on.

Oh, I agree wholeheartedly with you, that's why I HAVE a Mac, I hav two in fact. (Ooo, poetry!) But I still think there is some correlation between the price of the various systems. A premium price is a premium price, but there are limits to everything.

 

[dsnort]

Wow, this thread died a lot faster than I thought it would. I guess I asked a question even the M$ trolls were afraid of.

 

[jhu]

Wow, this thread died a lot faster than I thought it would. I guess I asked a question even the M$ trolls were afraid of.

i think your post itself was nothing more than a trolling post since you were already begging the question.

 

[dsnort]

i think your post itself was nothing more than a trolling post since you were already begging the question.

*Sigh*
First of all, "begging the question" is a fallacy of logic as relates to making an argument; not, oddly enough, to asking a question.

From the Wikipedia:
"In logic, begging the question is the term for a type of fallacy occurring in deductive reasoning in which the proposition to be proved is assumed implicitly or explicitly in one of the premises. For an example of this, consider the following argument: "Only an untrustworthy person would run for office. The fact that politicians are untrustworthy is proof of this." Such an argument is fallacious, because it relies upon its own proposition—in this case, "politicians are untrustworthy"—in order to support its central premise. Essentially, the argument assumes that its central point is already proven, and uses this in support of itself."

If I had written, "M$ is not an innovative company. I know this because they have never innovated anything!". That would be "begging the question".

The question I asked was:

...has MS ever came out with something that was completely new and innovative on their own?

That's an open question, fairly asked. While provocative, it seeks an answer, and does NOT answer itself.

And if you can think of something to refute the proposition, post it!
(You'll get a lot further with that than you will by coming up with some weak a**ed argument you don't even understand.)

 

[jhu]

*Sigh*
First of all, "begging the question" is a fallacy of logic as relates to making an argument; not, oddly enough, to asking a question.

From the Wikipedia:
"In logic, begging the question is the term for a type of fallacy occurring in deductive reasoning in which the proposition to be proved is assumed implicitly or explicitly in one of the premises. For an example of this, consider the following argument: "Only an untrustworthy person would run for office. The fact that politicians are untrustworthy is proof of this." Such an argument is fallacious, because it relies upon its own proposition—in this case, "politicians are untrustworthy"—in order to support its central premise. Essentially, the argument assumes that its central point is already proven, and uses this in support of itself."

If I had written, "M$ is not an innovative company. I know this because they have never innovated anything!". That would be "begging the question".

The question I asked was:

That's an open question, fairly asked. While provocative, it seeks an answer, and does NOT answer itself.

And if you can think of something to refute the proposition, post it!
(You'll get a lot further with that than you will by coming up with some weak a**ed argument you don't even understand.)

you're right about the "begging the question" part. i had meant to suggest that there was an a priori answer of "no" when you did ask the question. if you look further back in this thread, you'll have my rebuttal to your question.

 

[dsnort]

you're right about the "begging the question" part. i had meant to suggest that there was an a priori answer of "no" when you did ask the question. if you look further back in this thread, you'll have my rebuttal to your question.

Well, I freely admit it was a loaded question. Both because I believe it, and to provoke some spirited debate. And while I may have an ax to grind, I also posted a couple of item in M$"s favor that , while not innovative, I believe contributed to the accessability of computers to the mass market.

As to your rebuttal, I saw that the other day, but did not connect it to your last post. I would have hoped for something more specific though.

For the intemperance of my earlier response, I apologise