8 ms·
So Microsoft just copies any successful small product that shows up? Trying to prevent another competitor the size of Slack/Zoom? To the people at large compan
by DevKoala 6y ago
So Microsoft just copies any successful small product that shows up? Trying to prevent another competitor the size of Slack/Zoom?
To the people at large companies working on replicating small company products. How do you motivate yourself?
- stronglikedan 6y ago> So Microsoft just copies any successful small product that shows up? Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook, or any other company that has the resources to do so. They're all the same in that regard.
- wpietri 6y agoAlthough I will give Apple credit for being the best at that. They are so successful that predecessor products go right in the memory hole, and Apple gets credit not just for their product, but for the whole category. E.g., the MP3 players before the iPod, the smartphones before the iPhone, and the smartwatches before the iWatch. (RIP respectively my Archos player, my Palm Treo, and my Pebble.)
- wmeredith 6y ago> predecessor products go right in the memory hole I think this phenomena is an artifact of how well they enter a market. Pre-iPhone smartphones were really bad. They all instantly felt 10 years old the day the iPhone released. That's probably the most extreme example, though.
- amitport 6y agoPeople from Microsoft or from the startups?
- throwawaysea 6y agoI don't know why you're getting downvoted; you are definitely correct. Companies like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are simply copying others and applying their large capital/labor pool to product categories or markets created by more-deserving smaller players. Apart from this playbook feeling unfair and resulting in undeserved success for these companies, I think it is also a danger for innovation. It signals to would-be investors that backing a startup may result in them having thrown away capital just to have a big behemoth brute force their way into that startup's niche later on. It tells founders that they might throw away years of their life for a return that isn't what they would otherwise expect. And it undermines society by continuing massive aggregation and control of the digital world under a few big players. To me, all of this is a sign that we need renewed antitrust laws to split up Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, and other players that have too much control.
- jimbokun 6y ago> So Microsoft just copies any successful small product that shows up? I'm assuming you weren't around for the 90s?
- Ididntdothis 6y agoThat’s the problem with these large companies. They can take out any small competitor easily just by outspending and using their big name. And often they kill a small competitor this way and then let the product die slowly so the end it’s a negative.
- qppo 6y agocan you give recent examples?
- Ididntdothis 6y agoOne that comes to mind is google reader. There were quite a few decent RSS readers out there but then Google Reader came in and took over. Then google dropped it and RSS almost died.
- thingification 6y agoSummary of the history on that here: https://www.zdnet.com/article/embrace-extend-extinguish-how-google-crushed-and-abandoned-the-rss-industry/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/embrace-extend-extinguish-how-... They use the "Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish" line that apparently came out of internal MS emails, but as they say, not quite the same in the Google Reader case: no intent to extinguish presumably -- but the same effect.
- Ididntdothis 6y ago“no intent to extinguish presumably -- but the same effect.“ Agree. No intent but the same result.
- PascLeRasc 6y agoAtom, for one. I know everyone here loves VSCode, but the UI in my opinion is terrible. I also don't know how it's faster than Atom for everyone else, I haven't had that experience on any machine yet. I loved Atom, but it's not getting as much support/updates now and the remote-edit package I use every day will occasionally not work at all.
- Qworg 6y ago> How do you motivate yourself? Competitiveness doesn't only belong to the small company, sadly. Also, they pay very well.
- amitport 6y agoBtw, don't forget that there are worse strategies taken by giants: 1 Threaten the shared clients (when one of the giants tried to push out mellanox, it specifically sent a message to all enterprise customers to stop using the small competition, or else they'll loss benefits) 2 (Almost ?) Every startup is violating some IBM/broadcomm/Google/etc patents, those are playing cards that can be used to shut them down or buy at a fraction of the value.