3 ms·

A short read and should give enough examples and descriptions of the strategy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedi

A short read and should give enough examples and descriptions of the strategy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis... Once you've killed off the competition, a lot of other things don't really matter much any more. From the money perspective, it's a well known strategy to loose money to kill off the competition. It's just about who has the deeper pockets/better stomach for it. Microsoft has traditionally been able to do it and I have no doubts that they would still have the stomach for it. I don't know if their pockets are still as deep as they used to be. Windows (and Office etc.) used to be so dominant and such a cash cow that it enabled a lot of the other strategies, but then again they also had to get Windows to that point first. The landscape looks a bit different nowadays I'd wager, given Apple's and Google's footholds on mobile but then again, I wasn't really old enough back in the day, to really compare from my own experience, what the landscape looked like back then with Apple, Amiga, Atari, SGI, Sun etc. in the mix.

arcturus17 6y ago
> A short read and should give enough examples and descriptions of the strategy I know about it and don't need a Wikipedia link to enlighten me, thank you. In my comment I questioned your application of that theory to reality by raising concerns about the cost/benefit analysis from a Microsoft perspective. I don't think you're accurately scoping the undertaking of getting VSCode to feature-parity with Jetbrains products in Java, Python, etc., nor the potential benefit for Microsoft. My contention is that the gap between Jetbrains and VSCode outside of JavaScript/TypeScript is massive, and that while VSCode is strategically important to Microsoft, they don't have the incentives to even try to extinguish Jetbrains. But instead of addressing any of the concerns in my original comment, you've just pretty much gone on your own unrelated tirade. Also, Microsoft ultimately lost the browser wars and many of the similar crusades that they undertook in the 90s and early 2000s, so maybe they've learned a few things along the ways.
- tharkun__ 6y ago
  Wow, I seriously underestimated the way this written communication could be misunderstood. Especially how anyone could possibly read it as a 'tirade'. And not everyone knows about EEE, especially nowadays but fair enough as to how a link to explain some of it might upset someone that does. That said I really thought that you weren't aware of some of what they had done and how much it would have cost them. We have a difference in opinion it seems on how much money we think Microsoft might be willing to pay for it and other items as well. That's fair enough. How any of that is a tirade is honestly quite nebulous to me but I probably won't be able to change your mind, even if I tell you that it wasn't written by the furiously typing mad dog you probably imagined. Let's structure it, so you see how I thought I was addressing things: > truckload of code I.e. costs a lot of money: "it's a well known strategy to loose money to kill off the competition" > pull the plug altogether on such a cost sink Addressed in "Microsoft has traditionally been able to do it and I have no doubts that they would still have the stomach for it" > feature parity with Jetbrains on languages like Java or Python The rest that starts with "I don't know if their pockets are still as deep as they used to be." and which also includes "The landscape looks a bit different nowadays I'd wager" is basically me acknowledging that your opinion is different on this than mine and that I can see that potentially their cost/benefit analysis would lean towards your interpretation. They are trying to cover the Java side well enough with the Redhat maintained plugin. If Redhat does a good enough job to take customers away from Jetbrains that plays into Microsoft's strategy without spending a lot of cash on it. Brilliant. It's an evolving thing too and as you point out in your reply here, MS did loose the browser wars eventually. The market changes all the time through technology breakthroughs for example and people are actively working against EEE tactics too. I for one am glad that MS lost the browser wars and to address one thing that I did not comment on (on purpose because I was concerned with the EEE discussion and not whether or not one or both of us like JetBrains): > I'm actually delighted to pay for a product that I use every day for ~8 hours I absolutely agree that IntelliJ is awesome and I don't want to miss it or use anything else. I don't even use vscode for FE code, unlike most of our FE developers. I'm traditionally a BE guy but have no qualms about doing FE work as long as you don't make me do pixel perfect reproductions of designs in CSS :)
sidsidev 6y ago
You're missing that the product makes no money. Thinking in terms of killing off competition is pointless when you're not referring to the strategy.
- tharkun__ 6y ago
  Good point. I don't think that necessarily matters too much though. You obviously can't just give everything away and not have a strategy to make money at all. That said, giving something away can still make you money or ensure that your competition does not make money either. This comes down to being a large enough entity to support that strategy, which I personally think Microsoft still is. If I'm Microsoft, I can give away a "base IDE", enlist volunteers and other companies that can even make a buck themselves for quite some time (and spend some money myself) to kill two birds with one stone. 1) I can bind developers to my platform. From the 2019 annual shareholders report: "Beyond GitHub, we are investing to build the most complete toolchain for developers — independent of language, framework, or cloud. Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code are now the most popular code-editing tools in the world. And TypeScript is one of the fastest-growing programming languages." 2) Where I deem necessary use it to kill off competition by driving them out of business. For quite a few companies, the price point of the IDE that their developers use is important i.e. the choice that companies give their employee is: Use vscode or IntelliJ Community Edition (or something else that's free but we're not paying) and it's very hard to explain developer productivity increases to the bean counters.
  - sidsidev 6y ago
    I agree. Particularly with the first point. One of VSCode's big strengths is it runs on the web as well - it's easy to see it becoming a fully integrated cloud IDE (whether you run it in Electron or your browser), and then MS can sell VSCode Premium for $2/mo to integrate it with your corporate login etc.
    - dmitryminkovsky 6y ago
      It’s incredible how it runs on the web. CodeSandbox is an awesome tool because it’s the same thing you use on your desktop (if you use VSCode). Just the other day I saw some post here wondering why you can’t “code in the browser” and uh, you can! Just go to CodeSandbox. I suspect MS will be selling VSCode premium, as I mentioned elsewhere on this thread, they are already maintaining closed components.

arcturus17 6y ago

> A short read and should give enough examples and descriptions of the strategy I know about it and don't need a Wikipedia link to enlighten me, thank you. In my comment I questioned your application of that theory to reality by raising concerns about the cost/benefit analysis from a Microsoft perspective. I don't think you're accurately scoping the undertaking of getting VSCode to feature-parity with Jetbrains products in Java, Python, etc., nor the potential benefit for Microsoft. My contention is that the gap between Jetbrains and VSCode outside of JavaScript/TypeScript is massive, and that while VSCode is strategically important to Microsoft, they don't have the incentives to even try to extinguish Jetbrains. But instead of addressing any of the concerns in my original comment, you've just pretty much gone on your own unrelated tirade. Also, Microsoft ultimately lost the browser wars and many of the similar crusades that they undertook in the 90s and early 2000s, so maybe they've learned a few things along the ways.

tharkun__ 6y ago
Wow, I seriously underestimated the way this written communication could be misunderstood. Especially how anyone could possibly read it as a 'tirade'. And not everyone knows about EEE, especially nowadays but fair enough as to how a link to explain some of it might upset someone that does. That said I really thought that you weren't aware of some of what they had done and how much it would have cost them. We have a difference in opinion it seems on how much money we think Microsoft might be willing to pay for it and other items as well. That's fair enough. How any of that is a tirade is honestly quite nebulous to me but I probably won't be able to change your mind, even if I tell you that it wasn't written by the furiously typing mad dog you probably imagined. Let's structure it, so you see how I thought I was addressing things: > truckload of code I.e. costs a lot of money: "it's a well known strategy to loose money to kill off the competition" > pull the plug altogether on such a cost sink Addressed in "Microsoft has traditionally been able to do it and I have no doubts that they would still have the stomach for it" > feature parity with Jetbrains on languages like Java or Python The rest that starts with "I don't know if their pockets are still as deep as they used to be." and which also includes "The landscape looks a bit different nowadays I'd wager" is basically me acknowledging that your opinion is different on this than mine and that I can see that potentially their cost/benefit analysis would lean towards your interpretation. They are trying to cover the Java side well enough with the Redhat maintained plugin. If Redhat does a good enough job to take customers away from Jetbrains that plays into Microsoft's strategy without spending a lot of cash on it. Brilliant. It's an evolving thing too and as you point out in your reply here, MS did loose the browser wars eventually. The market changes all the time through technology breakthroughs for example and people are actively working against EEE tactics too. I for one am glad that MS lost the browser wars and to address one thing that I did not comment on (on purpose because I was concerned with the EEE discussion and not whether or not one or both of us like JetBrains): > I'm actually delighted to pay for a product that I use every day for ~8 hours I absolutely agree that IntelliJ is awesome and I don't want to miss it or use anything else. I don't even use vscode for FE code, unlike most of our FE developers. I'm traditionally a BE guy but have no qualms about doing FE work as long as you don't make me do pixel perfect reproductions of designs in CSS :)

sidsidev 6y ago

You're missing that the product makes no money. Thinking in terms of killing off competition is pointless when you're not referring to the strategy.

tharkun__ 6y ago
Good point. I don't think that necessarily matters too much though. You obviously can't just give everything away and not have a strategy to make money at all. That said, giving something away can still make you money or ensure that your competition does not make money either. This comes down to being a large enough entity to support that strategy, which I personally think Microsoft still is. If I'm Microsoft, I can give away a "base IDE", enlist volunteers and other companies that can even make a buck themselves for quite some time (and spend some money myself) to kill two birds with one stone. 1) I can bind developers to my platform. From the 2019 annual shareholders report: "Beyond GitHub, we are investing to build the most complete toolchain for developers — independent of language, framework, or cloud. Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code are now the most popular code-editing tools in the world. And TypeScript is one of the fastest-growing programming languages." 2) Where I deem necessary use it to kill off competition by driving them out of business. For quite a few companies, the price point of the IDE that their developers use is important i.e. the choice that companies give their employee is: Use vscode or IntelliJ Community Edition (or something else that's free but we're not paying) and it's very hard to explain developer productivity increases to the bean counters.
- sidsidev 6y ago
  I agree. Particularly with the first point. One of VSCode's big strengths is it runs on the web as well - it's easy to see it becoming a fully integrated cloud IDE (whether you run it in Electron or your browser), and then MS can sell VSCode Premium for $2/mo to integrate it with your corporate login etc.
  - dmitryminkovsky 6y ago
    It’s incredible how it runs on the web. CodeSandbox is an awesome tool because it’s the same thing you use on your desktop (if you use VSCode). Just the other day I saw some post here wondering why you can’t “code in the browser” and uh, you can! Just go to CodeSandbox. I suspect MS will be selling VSCode premium, as I mentioned elsewhere on this thread, they are already maintaining closed components.