If Mono innovates then I’m the King of Canada

What major market-disrupting invention has Microsoft brought out in the past 10 years?

Contrast that to how many times in the past 10 years Microsoft has scrambled to catch up to someone else's first-to-market Big Thing™. Heck, even Apple hasn't been first to market on several of their gadgets, but they have a fairly solid market base. It's the brand that sells Apple.

OTOH, Microsoft's brand has been squandered from the beginning, first with brain-dead DOS (which they didn't invent), then incompatible DOS upgrades (v4), then a crappy, unstable GUI environment (Windows 3.x--not the first to market), followed by real multitasking (same)...

And then the Internet opened up, and suddenly people started comparing notes and realizing, it wasn't them, it wasn't the hardware's fault most of the time, Microsoft's systems really were crap with a bow on top. Their reputation sank precipitously, to the point that the only way they can sustain cash flow on their OS sales is to tie it to hardware sales.

The Zune was just to challenge the iPod (which wasn't the first to market).

C# was just to challenge Java (which wasn't the first software-defined VM).

If the Xbox challenged anything, it did so with a BB gun.

Windows Vista challenged our notion of how bad a Microsoft OS could be.

Now the Kin, the "social" mobile phone which challenges the old definition of "anti-social".

Microsoft has not only not had a true original idea in ten years or more, its attempts to copy others' ideas have been shoddy at best, but more often bumbling incompetence. Their marketing department has been the cornerstone of the screw-ups. When they (the marketing dept.) tried to be "original," we got Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld wiggling their arses, and we wanted to gouge out our eyes.

If the answer is "Microsoft," it's a really dumb question.

It's obvious by now, I think the article didn't go far enough.

Nearly everyone here:

You just don't get it, since you uniformly fail to grasp the genius of Microsoft's marketing efforts. One of the keys is targeting the critical audience and suppressing the dissonant factions by sheer numeric superiority. From your skewed view, techical competence rules. NOT so.

Now lets review one instance where MS won and tenaciously hangs onto a market segment where by more objective criteria it should have suffered near banishment. That is, the Business or the Enterprise market. Had they focused on just advertising they would not be in the position they hold today, i.e. where some losses are due to slippage against better server options. Nonetheless, still a very healthy cash flow situation.

Had MS attempted to win this market on its technical merits and focused upon the technical class they may have lost or simply gained a marginal share. Instead they ignored the technically informed and focused on the more impressionable upper reaches of management. That is, those In Charge that were unafraid of making ghastly errors, because they knew they were the chosen seers with unmatched business acumen. Thus, using those that viewed themselves as beyond reproach. so any error no matter how grievous was not theirs. That's how MS gained and held that organization within its palm. You must admit, that is breath taking marketing genius* at work.

For the regular consumer market a similar program was followed. Ignore technical talent and in-depth knowledge, for those technical journalists that were more malleable by flattery and/or insignificant, trivial gifts to join the choir praising their products while spurning all others. What criteria did the public have to discern the difference between the spurious and quality. Nearly none, because in comparison the competition was heavy handed and did not see the long term value of petty bribery. Plus many of the competitors charged outrageous amounts for their products and were in turn arrogant. In the beginning, MS has the beguiling face, though Borland could have unseated them with their standard lower pricing and mostly superior products*****.

With the numbers being on their side, those with technical abilities were soon drowned out by the presumption they were too full of themselves and blind to the needs of the mass of contemporary users. "Everyone uses MS products, so how could they be so bad?", was a difficult argument to counter without seeming elitist. In addition, business used it almost exclusively and demanded MS formats. Unix? Out of reach in pricing and open only to those studying at an academic institution. Those few times it was offered [$1,000 USD] it still would not work on the machine supposedly that was to be its platform******.

I could say more, but if you fail to see how innovative these techniques were and the near total obliteration of any real commercial competition mere words will not sway an obdurate mind.

As always,

YBT

* Add adroitly selected hand maidens willing to support the cause. I ran across a consultant file on an empty floor** touting the merits of MS networking**** over Novell on the campus of a very large firm where I was a consultant.

** This floor was devoid of people***, but at one time from the materials left behind was an active area.

*** Someone had to pay.

**** At that point no yet completely functioning tool.

***** Borland error was growing too large and then losing its way failing to recognize the value of its purchases, albeit, short term.

****** Gateway unit, early nineties. It was too costly for me to consider and I am not certain it ever exited the vapor phase.