I'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 market

I'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.