4 ms·

After getting behind, why should it be assumed automatic to "just catch up" in cloud? Microsoft fell behind mobile and never caught up despite pouring billions

by tabtab 7y ago

After getting behind, why should it be assumed automatic to "just catch up" in cloud? Microsoft fell behind mobile and never caught up despite pouring billions on it. Same with Google and social networks. Oracle also got behind in the cloud race and will probably also lose it all. The early bird gets the worm, stop blaming the CEO. Although "Watson" seems a PHB toy to trick investors or job seekers into thinking it had magic AI.

geodel 7y ago
> The early bird gets the worm, stop blaming the CEO. Indeed. But oversized financial rewards and credits to CEO is to compensate the blame.
DebtDeflation 7y ago
> Oracle Another perfect example, along with SAP. In the 1990s and 2000s, Oracle and SAP used to win on the basis of their "fully integrated suite of business applications" that they contrasted with the "best of breed" approach that (they claimed) would cost more to integrate than they delivered in additional value. However, over the last 10 years, Oracle and SAP went on a buying spree scooping up all those best of breed enterprise applications and then failed to integrate them with their core offerings, creating the same problem they claimed to be addressing. At the same time, R&D spend on organic product innovation slumped. Buying up the competition isn't the panacea many tech companies seem to think it is.
- tabtab 7y ago
  It sounds like it "worked" from their financial standpoint, at least for a while. You don't have to compete if you buy up competitors. Remember when MS bought FoxPro? Customer choice and prices may be a different story.
rossdavidh 7y ago
Microsoft was not "early" on cloud, and came back into relevance (perhaps more than Google, really, in this one case). The early bird (Friendster, Commodore Computing, VisiCalc) does not always get the worm.

4 ms·

After getting behind, why should it be assumed automatic to "just catch up" in cloud? Microsoft fell behind mobile and never caught up despite pouring billions

by tabtab 7y ago

geodel 7y ago
> The early bird gets the worm, stop blaming the CEO. Indeed. But oversized financial rewards and credits to CEO is to compensate the blame.
DebtDeflation 7y ago
> Oracle Another perfect example, along with SAP. In the 1990s and 2000s, Oracle and SAP used to win on the basis of their "fully integrated suite of business applications" that they contrasted with the "best of breed" approach that (they claimed) would cost more to integrate than they delivered in additional value. However, over the last 10 years, Oracle and SAP went on a buying spree scooping up all those best of breed enterprise applications and then failed to integrate them with their core offerings, creating the same problem they claimed to be addressing. At the same time, R&D spend on organic product innovation slumped. Buying up the competition isn't the panacea many tech companies seem to think it is.
- tabtab 7y ago
  It sounds like it "worked" from their financial standpoint, at least for a while. You don't have to compete if you buy up competitors. Remember when MS bought FoxPro? Customer choice and prices may be a different story.
rossdavidh 7y ago
Microsoft was not "early" on cloud, and came back into relevance (perhaps more than Google, really, in this one case). The early bird (Friendster, Commodore Computing, VisiCalc) does not always get the worm.