5 ms·

Yes, but most companies can't rely on the revenue from two gigantic monopolies to keep the zombie alive. It will take a lot more than the failure of the Kin (w

Yes, but most companies can't rely on the revenue from two gigantic monopolies to keep the zombie alive. It will take a lot more than the failure of the Kin (which it appears was set up to fail all along) to change the corporate and engineering culture at MS.

rbanffy 16y ago
Which means it will bleed more and longer than any previous tech giant. I'll grab my popcorn and enjoy it thoroughly.
- nostrademons 16y ago
  IBM has been bleeding for a long time and they still haven't died yet.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    Sadly, IBM is far less entertaining to watch.
    - rbanffy 16y ago
      And, I would like to point out, is almost as entertaining as watching Sun bleed dry. Not at all.
  - wallflower 16y ago
    I've always been amazed looking back at how IBM embraced open source back in the early 90s with a vengeance. I wonder if this saved the company.
    - nostrademons 16y ago
      I think it both saved and killed the company. It saved the company in that it stopped the hemorrhaging of cash and gave them an actually profitable business model. Without this, they would've gone out of business entirely sometime in the early-mid 90s. It killed them as a center of innovation. IBM hasn't invented anything worthwhile since the IBM PC in 1981. (No, I don't count Eclipse: IntelliJ idea came out first and better, and yet was eclipsed because IBM could afford to offer their product for free.) Maybe that's the dilemma that Microsoft now faces. They can embrace their mediocrity, cater to their existing customer base, and continue to milk billions a year from their Winoffice monopoly. Or they can try to innovate. But most of their recent projects seem like they're trying to innovate and the coming out thoroughly mediocre, which isn't really a good combination.
      - spamizbad 16y ago
        > It killed them as a center of innovation I'm not so sure. Thinkpad laptops are legendary. They've been spun off to Lenovo but they pretty much set the standard for quality business-grade notebooks. Steve Jobs even used them as inspiration for the updated Powerbook line upon his return to Apple. They pioneered SOI manufacturing, BlueGene TeraFLOP super-computing, and several other major advances. Also, their consulting business sort of set the standard for other big players in that market. IME it's not that great, but none of them are great, so kudos for getting there first and not becoming significantly worse! On second thought, lets forget about this one....
        tomjen3 16y ago
        That is true (and I am very happily typing on one right now. Yeah IBM) but lets face it - they were sold to Lenevo because IBM couldn't make a profit on them.
      - btilly 16y ago
        Without this, they would've gone out of business entirely sometime in the early-mid 90s. There is a problem with your timeline. My memory says that IBM only openly embraced open source in 1998, which means that it saved them later than you indicate. Lemme look. (Searches, finds http://www.salon.com/technology/fsp/2000/09/12/chapter_7_part_one http://www.salon.com/technology/fsp/2000/09/12/chapter_7_par..., reads.) I was right. They joined the Apache Project in June. They released Jikes (a Java compiler for Linux) in July. In September it was open sourced. At the same time they ported DB2 to Linux. And, what I hadn't known, all of this happened at a skunkworks level. It was not until Dec. 14, 1998 that open source as an issue landed on Lou Gerstner's desk, and the decision was made that the whole company adopted an official policy on open source. IBM hasn't invented anything worthwhile since the IBM PC in 1981. Really? They introduced the AS 400 in 1987. I consider an operating system whose _average_ uptime in the field is better than 99.9% to be pretty worthwhile. They commercialized gigantic magneto-resistance in 1997. That's in your hard drive right now, and gives it at least an order of magnitude improvement over what previous technology could do. I consider that pretty darned worthwhile as well. IBM is a big company that does a lot of things. I'm sure they have some other cool stuff. Other than those points, I agree with what you say.

rbanffy 16y ago

Which means it will bleed more and longer than any previous tech giant. I'll grab my popcorn and enjoy it thoroughly.

nostrademons 16y ago
IBM has been bleeding for a long time and they still haven't died yet.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- rbanffy 16y ago
  Sadly, IBM is far less entertaining to watch.
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    And, I would like to point out, is almost as entertaining as watching Sun bleed dry. Not at all.
- wallflower 16y ago
  I've always been amazed looking back at how IBM embraced open source back in the early 90s with a vengeance. I wonder if this saved the company.
  - nostrademons 16y ago
    I think it both saved and killed the company. It saved the company in that it stopped the hemorrhaging of cash and gave them an actually profitable business model. Without this, they would've gone out of business entirely sometime in the early-mid 90s. It killed them as a center of innovation. IBM hasn't invented anything worthwhile since the IBM PC in 1981. (No, I don't count Eclipse: IntelliJ idea came out first and better, and yet was eclipsed because IBM could afford to offer their product for free.) Maybe that's the dilemma that Microsoft now faces. They can embrace their mediocrity, cater to their existing customer base, and continue to milk billions a year from their Winoffice monopoly. Or they can try to innovate. But most of their recent projects seem like they're trying to innovate and the coming out thoroughly mediocre, which isn't really a good combination.
    - spamizbad 16y ago
      > It killed them as a center of innovation I'm not so sure. Thinkpad laptops are legendary. They've been spun off to Lenovo but they pretty much set the standard for quality business-grade notebooks. Steve Jobs even used them as inspiration for the updated Powerbook line upon his return to Apple. They pioneered SOI manufacturing, BlueGene TeraFLOP super-computing, and several other major advances. Also, their consulting business sort of set the standard for other big players in that market. IME it's not that great, but none of them are great, so kudos for getting there first and not becoming significantly worse! On second thought, lets forget about this one....
      - tomjen3 16y ago
        That is true (and I am very happily typing on one right now. Yeah IBM) but lets face it - they were sold to Lenevo because IBM couldn't make a profit on them.
    - btilly 16y ago
      Without this, they would've gone out of business entirely sometime in the early-mid 90s. There is a problem with your timeline. My memory says that IBM only openly embraced open source in 1998, which means that it saved them later than you indicate. Lemme look. (Searches, finds http://www.salon.com/technology/fsp/2000/09/12/chapter_7_part_one http://www.salon.com/technology/fsp/2000/09/12/chapter_7_par..., reads.) I was right. They joined the Apache Project in June. They released Jikes (a Java compiler for Linux) in July. In September it was open sourced. At the same time they ported DB2 to Linux. And, what I hadn't known, all of this happened at a skunkworks level. It was not until Dec. 14, 1998 that open source as an issue landed on Lou Gerstner's desk, and the decision was made that the whole company adopted an official policy on open source. IBM hasn't invented anything worthwhile since the IBM PC in 1981. Really? They introduced the AS 400 in 1987. I consider an operating system whose _average_ uptime in the field is better than 99.9% to be pretty worthwhile. They commercialized gigantic magneto-resistance in 1997. That's in your hard drive right now, and gives it at least an order of magnitude improvement over what previous technology could do. I consider that pretty darned worthwhile as well. IBM is a big company that does a lot of things. I'm sure they have some other cool stuff. Other than those points, I agree with what you say.