5 ms·
My read of that was not that Microsoft wasn't a brilliant company, they just did not have any brilliant product ideas. Instead, they took ideas from others and
by TJensen 17y ago
My read of that was not that Microsoft wasn't a brilliant company, they just did not have any brilliant product ideas. Instead, they took ideas from others and did brilliant marketing.
The point being that a really amazing idea is a very small percentage of what it takes to make a really successful business.
- madair 17y agoAll I did was quote what he said. The paragraph is about ideas. If he meant product ideas I would hope he would say so, but no, he includes "Page rank, text-only ads, massive parallel implementation on cheap hardware" in the brief bit of Google worship. Only one of those is a product in the simplistic sense. Hate on Microsoft all you want, but failing to recognize their ideas is gonna be a little limiting is what I gotta say.
- 10ren 17y agoHere's a simple way to disprove him: name one brilliant idea that Microsoft has had.
- DanHulton 17y agoLicensing DOS to IBM instead of selling it.
- jimbokun 17y agoThat is indeed brilliant, but I think it is pretty clear from context that Rondam was referring to brilliant technology and product ideas. The Google ideas he cites fall into those categories. Microsoft's most brilliant ideas were always about how to sell their products and maximize profits. A fascinating example of this is Gates' memo to Apple about licensing the Mac. http://www.scripting.com/specials/gatesLetter/text.html http://www.scripting.com/specials/gatesLetter/text.html Common wisdom is that Windows became the standard because Apple did not license Mac technology. Very early on, Gates explained the rationale for this to Apple and even suggested potential partners for licensing agreements. So it seems the "ideas" behind Mac OS were not as valuable as Gates' and Microsoft's business sense. (If you want to cite Apple's resurgence as a refutation, I would argue that the maturation of Jobs' business sense is behind that. He has been brilliant in negotiating deals that favor Apple since his return, has done a better job competing on price than people realize, and has undeniably manufactured customer demand for Apple products.)
- 10ren 17y ago"text-only ads" are not really a technology or product idea. It's really closer to clever marketing, in terms of delivering what people want. I think the most brilliant non-technical idea of Google is its PR. They seriously spend on it - not on telling people that Google is good, but in doing things that people will think are good and cool. Like free GMail. I think they genuinely like to do it; but you can't run a billion dollar company without having a business justification for it - which is that people can switch search engines so easily, you better make them like you (it works on me). It's not just a nice to be - it's crucial for the very existence of the company, and it's justifiable to spend actual money on it. Other companies provide cool free stuff - but not to the extent that Google does. They are exceptional in this. Microsoft could make billions even when hated by many; Google can't.
- whacked_new 17y agoThere is some brilliance going on here: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/groups/cue/bci/ http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/groups/cue/bc... research.microsoft.com/otherplaces as well. Corporate-backed R&D, plain and simple. The only unfortunate thing is they are mostly hidden from the public eye, and the consumer market.
- TJensen 17y agoI'm not MS-hating. I tend to agree with the article that very few companies do something completely new, including MS and Google. MS did a brilliant job marketing. Regardless of whether you agree with their tactics, they executed on them in an amazing way. Google had a really good technology that by itself would have amounted to nothing. However, they executed very well on the business side. Now people say "Alta-who? Isn't Vista from Microsoft?" The point is that, as technologists, we get really wrapped up in the cool technology we are building, but that is a minuscule part of making a successful business. I've even been involved in a startup where it was actually detrimental, because everybody patted themselves on the back so often, they forgot they needed customers.
- whacked_new 17y agoOne need look no further than recent history to find evidence of this better than anyone can hypothesize about: VHS vs. Betamax. Tesla vs. Edison. Vision is important. A good example of someone who deftly handles both tech and business is like Wolfram, but he's out of our league; most of us, anyway. Fascinating read about Wolfram's embarkation into business: http://www.stephenwolfram.com/interviews/88-fortune/ http://www.stephenwolfram.com/interviews/88-fortune/
- madair 17y agoBesides, that's just changing the argument, it's pretty dumb to think they don't have great product ideas too, lol, e.g. Microsoft Research? But then we get into that happy place where there is no new idea under the sun. After all, we can take apart just about any 'new' idea and find a rich lineage. It is in only the most rare of cases that anything is truly new. It's the fruition of an idea that's usually the thing that is recognized at large, and that is often not at the origin anyway. Hacker News articles cast an eye on the fruition of business ideas often enough to say it's predominant here. And that's what this post wants to be about. No matter which way you put it, FAIL ;-)