5 ms·

What conspiracy theory? The vendor lock-in behavior of MS is practically advertised as a platform feature. To up and reverse their product lock-in policy woul

What conspiracy theory? The vendor lock-in behavior of MS is practically advertised as a platform feature. To up and reverse their product lock-in policy would cast doubt on many (most?) of their other claims.

kenjackson 16y ago
The conspiracy theory is that they want to lock you in for no other reason but to give you no other viable option. That's absurd. They want to sell you as much software as possible, of course, they're a company. But the reason they will stay in the mobile space isn't to keep you from getting any other mobile device. But because there's money to be made in it and it fits into their core competency.
- evilduck 16y ago
  I don't think it's absurd. They've demonstrated several times over that they're willing to accept short term losses for the sole purpose of damaging or killing off competition. Hell, they even invented the slogan "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish".
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    Everyone is willing to take short=term losses to kill off "competition". I'd expect they'd do that in the mobile space too. It's called "competition". But why are they competing in the space? Microsoft could get into the soy bean industry, but the margins there really suck. They are in the mobile space because there's money to be made. Lets put it this way, if you could prove that this mobile industry is at its peak now and there effectively no profits ever to be made in it, do you think MS would stay in it just so people would have no viable choices? Of course not. They're in it for the money. It's absurd to think otherwise.
    - rbanffy 16y ago
      > They are in the mobile space because there's money to be made. For all we can see, not by them ;-) To be fair, WinMo sells a lot of phones. Must at least make a profit for the division.
- evilduck 16y ago
  I don't think it's absurd. They've demonstrated several times over that they're willing to accept short term losses for the sole purpose of damaging or killing off competition. Hell, they even invented the slogan "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish".
- philwelch 16y ago
  I see no evidence mobile phones are in any way even close to Microsoft's core competency. It would be a lot more dignified and profitable if Microsoft acted like a mature business rather than unsuccessfully chasing the latest trends.
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    You see no evidence that an operating system for a mobile device is not their core competency? Clearly, determining core competencies is not one of yours. :-)
    - philwelch 16y ago
      I think you snuck in an extra negation that I didn't and turned my sentence around, so now I don't know if either of us knows what the other meant! Me: "I see no evidence mobile phones are in any way even close to Microsoft's core competency" "in any way" and "even close to" are non-negating modifiers we can remove, so: Me: "I see no evidence mobile phones are Microsoft's core competency" You: "You see no evidence that an operating system for a mobile device is not their core competency?" (pronoun and noun substitution) Me: "phil sees no evidence that an operating system for a mobile device is Microsoft's core competency" You: "phil sees no evidence that an operating system for a mobile device is not Microsoft's core competency?"
      - kenjackson 16y ago
        My bad. Trying to be cute. Let me actually attempt to give a little evidence, since you claim to have none. First, if you think MS has no core competency or that software is not one of them, then we could end the discussion right here. But otherwise, it seems clear to me that mobile OS software is among their core competencies. I start with the premise that operating systems are one of their core competencies. They have sold more units of OSes than any other company (or among the top 3). They employ probably the most renowned set of OS experts (David Cutler, of Vax VMS and NT fame. Rick Rashid, who did mach, the kernel that OS X is built on, Butler Lampson and Chuck Thacker, Turing Award winner for their work in operating system. Leslie Lamport, etc...). Now you may say, "but they have no experience with mobile OSes". Except they were one of the first companies to do a mobile phone operating system. They also do operating systems for kiosks, embedded systems, and of course desktops and servers. And while Windows Mobile is not a popular OS, the reason is not the OS itself. It's the shell that is problematic. The underlying OS is solid, and is being used in Windows Phone 7. They need a new shell and app deployment model, but they aren't going in and ripping out the kernel. And from people who have used it, they say the OS in WP7 is snappy. IMO the company has 3 core competencies: OSes, Dev Tools, and Business Productivity sw. They have some secondary ones: Online Services and Video Gaming. In summary, I think for them to give up in a space where they've actually produced a solid code base over the past decade, just when the space is now showing it can generate profit seems absurd.
- nitrogen 16y ago
  I suggest reading the e-mails of the executive-level management (including Gates) that were disclosed in the antitrust case and in Comes v. Microsoft. Aggressive lock-in was a conscious and deliberate part of their business strategy. A mountain of evidence and testimony is available from http://groklaw.net/ http://groklaw.net/.

kenjackson 16y ago

The conspiracy theory is that they want to lock you in for no other reason but to give you no other viable option. That's absurd. They want to sell you as much software as possible, of course, they're a company. But the reason they will stay in the mobile space isn't to keep you from getting any other mobile device. But because there's money to be made in it and it fits into their core competency.

evilduck 16y ago
I don't think it's absurd. They've demonstrated several times over that they're willing to accept short term losses for the sole purpose of damaging or killing off competition. Hell, they even invented the slogan "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish".
- kenjackson 16y ago
  Everyone is willing to take short=term losses to kill off "competition". I'd expect they'd do that in the mobile space too. It's called "competition". But why are they competing in the space? Microsoft could get into the soy bean industry, but the margins there really suck. They are in the mobile space because there's money to be made. Lets put it this way, if you could prove that this mobile industry is at its peak now and there effectively no profits ever to be made in it, do you think MS would stay in it just so people would have no viable choices? Of course not. They're in it for the money. It's absurd to think otherwise.
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    > They are in the mobile space because there's money to be made. For all we can see, not by them ;-) To be fair, WinMo sells a lot of phones. Must at least make a profit for the division.
evilduck 16y ago
I don't think it's absurd. They've demonstrated several times over that they're willing to accept short term losses for the sole purpose of damaging or killing off competition. Hell, they even invented the slogan "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish".
philwelch 16y ago
I see no evidence mobile phones are in any way even close to Microsoft's core competency. It would be a lot more dignified and profitable if Microsoft acted like a mature business rather than unsuccessfully chasing the latest trends.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  You see no evidence that an operating system for a mobile device is not their core competency? Clearly, determining core competencies is not one of yours. :-)
  - philwelch 16y ago
    I think you snuck in an extra negation that I didn't and turned my sentence around, so now I don't know if either of us knows what the other meant! Me: "I see no evidence mobile phones are in any way even close to Microsoft's core competency" "in any way" and "even close to" are non-negating modifiers we can remove, so: Me: "I see no evidence mobile phones are Microsoft's core competency" You: "You see no evidence that an operating system for a mobile device is not their core competency?" (pronoun and noun substitution) Me: "phil sees no evidence that an operating system for a mobile device is Microsoft's core competency" You: "phil sees no evidence that an operating system for a mobile device is not Microsoft's core competency?"
    - kenjackson 16y ago
      My bad. Trying to be cute. Let me actually attempt to give a little evidence, since you claim to have none. First, if you think MS has no core competency or that software is not one of them, then we could end the discussion right here. But otherwise, it seems clear to me that mobile OS software is among their core competencies. I start with the premise that operating systems are one of their core competencies. They have sold more units of OSes than any other company (or among the top 3). They employ probably the most renowned set of OS experts (David Cutler, of Vax VMS and NT fame. Rick Rashid, who did mach, the kernel that OS X is built on, Butler Lampson and Chuck Thacker, Turing Award winner for their work in operating system. Leslie Lamport, etc...). Now you may say, "but they have no experience with mobile OSes". Except they were one of the first companies to do a mobile phone operating system. They also do operating systems for kiosks, embedded systems, and of course desktops and servers. And while Windows Mobile is not a popular OS, the reason is not the OS itself. It's the shell that is problematic. The underlying OS is solid, and is being used in Windows Phone 7. They need a new shell and app deployment model, but they aren't going in and ripping out the kernel. And from people who have used it, they say the OS in WP7 is snappy. IMO the company has 3 core competencies: OSes, Dev Tools, and Business Productivity sw. They have some secondary ones: Online Services and Video Gaming. In summary, I think for them to give up in a space where they've actually produced a solid code base over the past decade, just when the space is now showing it can generate profit seems absurd.
nitrogen 16y ago
I suggest reading the e-mails of the executive-level management (including Gates) that were disclosed in the antitrust case and in Comes v. Microsoft. Aggressive lock-in was a conscious and deliberate part of their business strategy. A mountain of evidence and testimony is available from http://groklaw.net/ http://groklaw.net/.