[KLUG Advocacy] Interesting . . .

[randall perry]

I have read articles from this guy before.  He makes interesting points at 
times, but doesn't have a firm foundation in any field to really back up 
statements.

>"But at their hearts, each business is successful because it has managed
>to reduce its cost per transaction until it is lower than all its
>competitors"
No, they didn't.  They bought up and developed on technology that people 
were already buying.  (depending on whose history book you read.  Some 
credit Bill Gates as a great programmer-I personally don't think he has 
ever programmed anything.  Yeah, DOS is a hack of CPM, but because QDOS did 
it and was bought by M$).  Their inferior software was cheap enough to get 
others to use it.  They started out cheap to get everyone to have a piece 
of it.  Then the prices started going skyward to the point it has the most 
expensive software out there (and by no means is the BEST).

They reduce their cost by cooking the books (or at least getting them warm 
over the bunsen burner).  Questionable tactics like stock options 
unaccounted for until they are excercised misconstrued earnings statements.


>Is this the heart of Microsoft's success?  Do they really have a more
>efficient cost-per-unit operation than other huge software houses?
>They've grown and scratched more immensely expensive projects over the
>years (Bob, Cairo, etc...).  In my mind their success stemmed from there
>ability to provide a usable platform on cheap ubiquitous hardware,
>while all their "competition" stumbled about like so many dazed and
>confused trolls.

I think they just have better marketing and nothing more.  IBM did compete 
with them directly with OS/2 warp on the business desktop.  It was clearly 
superior but expensive to support (they wanted my credit card number to 
help resolve a CDRom driver issue).  OS/2 warp pepped along on little 
hardware that was later crippled to its knees when I migrated to WinNT4.0.


>"IBM might compete with Microsoft, for example, and its recent
>flirtation with Linux is aimed at exactly that by lowering transaction
>costs."
IBM wants to make money on the consultations and hardware.  Rather than 
give money to M$, they pass the savings to the customer.  It's not like IBM 
charges the exact same amount for X86 server and just pockets the difference.


>Erm.. no.   I am an IBM customer.  Sure IBM would be happy to shelve
>AIX.  But the "flirtation" (~4.x billion dollars at this point) is
>because customers said - "Wow!  Apache, Samba, Cyrus, etc... runs great
>on that dual x86 box, but not so great on my {AS/400 | S/390 | RS/6000,
>zSeries ??? | iSeries }  Hmmm...  What kind of server will I spend my
>money on?"  The minute IBM heard this enough times they spun their Linux
>attitude around so fast you could hear the corporate tires squeel.
IBM wants their customers to be able to run all of the software that has 
been developed for Linux.  That is why they have altered AIX so that it can 
more easily run Linux apps.  They had problems with OS/2 warp not having a 
large development community and there weren't any apps.  They are finding a 
way to open that up and not get bit again.  IBM is also finding that 
selling Linux as well as AIX gives their customer base choices, while not 
being so different that their integration and support teams won't be lost 
on differences between OSs.

>You can have immeasurable low cost-per-unit,  but piss off your
>customers and watch out.  IBM bends over back wards NOT to do just
>that,  the M$ guy practically moons you on the way out.
IBM might cost a bundle, but it just works.  Their solutions are very 
solid, and they do stand behind them.  Not waving their arms about like 
Microsoft, jibbering all kinds of marketing BS.


>"If IBM really intended to compete with Microsoft it would COMPETE WITH
>MICROSOFT, which would require exiting the hardware business
>completely."
>
>Why?
They do compete, but quitely.  Microsoft is not a software company.  They 
are a marketing company that markets game consoles, peripherals, ISP, 
email, TV news, software.  And all of it is consumer level.


>So they only "pretend compete" now? Hey, we are only talking about those
>"pretend" dollars you might spend on either an NT cluster or a main
>frame.
>
>This statement is a bit over-arching.
Yup


>"Both Wal-Mart and Microsoft will eventually founder, probably from
>inbreeding and corporate crankiness decades down the road. Until then,
>it is their game to lose, and the best way to compete is probably by not
>competing at all. Just be what they aren't and where they aren't. And,
>like mammals in the age of the dinosaurs, wait for that comet to
>strike."
>
>I don't know jack about Wal-mart.  But decades to develop corporate
>crankiness?   From someone who has tried negotiating reasonable
>licensing Microsoft has already hatched that egg.
Actually, action from the DOJ should occur first (but of course, it 
won't).  So we will wait until
Bill Gates will be called back to his post in hell to satisfy his deal with 
the devil. (oops, did I type that?)

>And "By dominating shelf space, concentrating on market share, and
>making product feints into segments it doesn't really care about,
>Microsoft keeps many potential competitors literally off the field" is
>illegal, after a certain point.  It certainly is unethical.
Same thing that made the Rockafellers and other tycoons rich.


>The idea that the internet, pda's, etc... came into being like a comet
>smashing the earth is baloney.  Smart people saw these things coming,
>and Microsoft probably sees things coming I/we don't even know about
>(after all, according to the article, they have all the smartest
Actually, Bill Gates has little vision.  His technological glaucoma was 
evident in his dim-witted comment that 512kb of RAM should be enough for 
anybody.  Or the fact that he didn't think the Internet was going anywhere 
(I have been avid user for over 10 years and even knew better back 
then).  Side note: The president of Leggett&Platt (a large, unheard of 
Fortune 500 company I used to work for) made a comment just like 4 years 
ago that NO ONE in the company (or subsidiaries) would ever use the 
Internet.  What a bafoon.  I already had a web and mail server setup 
there.  He was/is of course a moron.  His annual bonus that year (including 
stock options) was more than $130 million for that year.

>people).  The only way to compete is to compete;  to establish some
>elvish enclave and only play in arenas where you KNOW you can win while
>you wait for the world to change is a one way ticket to the ash heap of
>history.

When you see an agent you do what we do.  You run!  Same thing with 
business.  You can play in their court, but be careful. If you tick off the 
big players, you better be running ahead of them with your attorneys 
guarding your backside.
Randall Perry
RandallP at domain-logic.com