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On Sat, 16 Feb 2008 13:32:15 -0800,
Tim Smith <reply_in_group@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> In article <DyDtj.74657$Mu4.22801@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
> Linonut <linonut@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> The odd thing to me is why can't Microsoft just concentrate on its core
>> product lines, with only one or two speculative projects? The OS and
>> Office feed everything else, and it isn't like they're going away any
>> time soon, even with the pressure from Free software and Google.
>
> I read somewhere that Gates' worry is that some completely new industry
> will come out of nowhere, like the PC industry did, and quickly rise to
> the top. Those who get in on that early will do very well. And like
> the PC industry, it will devastate some prior industries.
>
> So his worry is not that, say, OpenOffice will kill or even
> significantly hurt Office (it won't). His worry is that something new
> will come along (much like the PC did) and make it so that people don't
> need programs like Office or OpenOffice at all. When that new something
> comes along, he wants MS to be one of the key players.
>
Which of course is why he dismissed the internet as a fad...
> Keep in mind that many significant open source projects, including
> OpenOffice and MySQL are *not* developed by a large open group of
> developers from all over the world, and don't have the "many eyes" that
> we hear about that are supposed to find bugs quickly in open source.
> Rather, almost all significant OO development comes from people employed
> by Sun and paid to work full-time on OO. Same for MySQL (and soon even
> the Sun part will apply to MySQL, once that deal is complete :-)). So,
> to Microsoft, OpenOffice is just another competitor in an existing
> industry--a competitor that probably has *less* people seriously working
> on it than Office does.
>
Contrast that with say, Apache, and Linux...
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--
Jim Richardson http://www.eskimo.com/~warlock
People who say that money can't buy happiness just don't know where to
shop.
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