[KLUG Advocacy] Interesting . . .

[Adam Williams]

>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.  

If buying is cheaper than developing (and it very possibly is), then
this supports his point.  He defines success as low c-p-u,  and if they
achieved that by sacrificing babies to Baal it doesn't matter.  I think
the problem with the article is that this definition of success is very
shallow.

>(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$).  

He (or what) holds the rights is what matters, not who actually wrote
the code.   For every this-is-just-a-copy-of-that statement it is
usually possible to go back and show how the copied was a copy itself. 
Mac invented the GUI which M$ copied is a common one (albeit impossible,
look at the dates).  But Apple didn't have the first GUI by at least ten
years,  that was Xerox.

>Their inferior software was cheap enough to get  others to use it.  

For a period of time there software was hardly inferior.  Sure WingZ on
the $57,000 RS/6000 I had access to was one awesome (and GUI)
spreadsheet for its day.  But on a $1,200 IBM AT?  Not a chance.  M$ won
the PC market straight up by releasing software that made those machines
usable by minimum wage workers.  That was "success".

>They started out cheap to get everyone to have a piece  of it.  

A legitimate arguement to use Linux today. :)  There is nothing new
under the sun.

>Then the prices started going skyward to the point it has the most 
>expensive software out there (and by no means is the BEST).

Well, they are capitalists, so one honestly can't get worked up over
that.  They charge what the market will bear.  If the market finds in
unbearable (is that a pun?) it will go elsewhere.  Or at least that is
the theory, assuming the market is free.

>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.

I'm not an accountant and know nothing about their books.

>>s 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. 

But marketing is real, and something companies, candidates, job seekers,
religions, etc... all need to do.  Doing it well is something to be
commended, so long as what is said is honest.  And the definition of
honestly in the marketing realm is squishy. "one degree of separation" 
What does that mean? "9 out of 10 dentists..." Ok, sure.

>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.

Yes, but IBM failed to promote OS/2, and they paid the price for that
failure.  NT4 was an architectural disaster,  but apps ran on it.

>>"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.  

Of course.

>Rather than give money to M$, 

Exactly.

>they pass the savings to the customer.  

Eh?  Not likely.

>It's not like IBM 
>charges the exact same amount for X86 server and just pockets the difference.

Not certain what you mean.  "same amount" as what?

>>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.  

No! Customers want to be able to run on AIX (or whatever) all the apps
they run on Linux.  IBM wants to sell stuff, be it hardware, software,
services, etc...

>>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.

Bobs point is right:  when it doesn't work it isn't M$ standing about
waving there arms.  It is a pack of MCSEs.

>>"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?)

I'd much rather that he experience something that causes some form of
humility/enlightenment, and he realize the error of his pro-corporate
republican ideology and the terrible price is exacts on people and the
future.  He has the money and influence to cause a great deal of
change.  But I'm not an optimist.