After speaking of the very first time Microsoft and their problems with piracy, we will take a leap in time and we will talk about Microsoft's tactics once laid the foundation for what would be his later empire. Such tactics are well explained in the book Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure , written by Jerry Kaplan in which feature the adventures of Go Corp., a company created in the second half of the 80's and intended to create the first PDA ever. But, again, and go to parties. As Kaplan rightly explains in his book, the idea of \u200b\u200bcreating a device to a secretary came up in conversation between him and Mitchell Kapor, the founder of Lotus Development Corporation . Since that time, Kaplan went to work in the design of a revolutionary concept, a computer "pocket" more or less what we know today as PDA but at the time with laptops more than 10 kilos was pure science fiction.
Kaplan (which you can see in the picture) formed a small initial group that started working on the project. In that group was Steve also Sakom , an Apple engineer who in principle would be in charge of the hardware but when he went to leave the company, was the reason and after hearing the same John Sculley, Apple's CEO at the time, persuaded him to to stay and create their own project Apple PDA, what would become the Newton. That did not stop, of course, to Kaplan, who continued with the project and ended up founding the company GO, Corp to work on your device. After forming an initial group of engineers, both hardware and software and negotiate some contracts with suppliers, in GO had the same dilemma that had Steve Jobs at Apple in the early of 80, ie, what makes a computer, regardless of size, are sold not so much its hardware and its software, so they needed that major software manufacturers create their future device applications.
course, Lotus would be "in the garlic, then GO, Inc. was founded with some people from this and with the blessing of Mitchell Kapor. But it was not enough, we had to try to contact everyone possible so that when the PDA was ready to come wrapped with a lot of software. That meant, necessarily, contact Microsoft.
We're talking about 1988. Already knew the play of Bill Gates with Apple and Macintosh, where they promised to build applications and if, once, but since they were taken advantage of the project and copied all they could to create Windows. Kaplan was therefore aware of all this, but still took a chance and contacted Microsoft. After all, GO, Inc. was a newly formed company with a product that is currently only half were good ideas to implement and did not even have a working prototype. Although they were not going to make the terminals but would license its technology for others to do so, first you had to have the hardware ready. Microsoft could not sell MS-DOS to Compaq before Compaq exist, and indeed at that time or even IBM (ie, they) exist, so I thought Kaplan had no sense that Microsoft tried to make, at least for the moment, the same play to them.
So Kaplan's surprise when Bill Gates himself was part of the Microsoft group of engineers who came to see the project was huge. Bill, she says Kaplan, was excited about what was being done in GO (in the picture you can see the paint that had one of these devices since the early 90). I saw that was revolutionary, as it had been before the Macintosh in 1984. Of course, committed to developing and supporting software platform. And from enter here what is the crux of this post on my blog: how Microsoft competes. few months after the visit of Bill Gates to GO, Inc., appeared in the press that Microsoft was working on a version of Windows for a new type of mobile device, a kind of handheld computers as an agenda staff, with exactly the same things that kids Kaplan taught the people of Microsoft during his visit (and not one more or one less).
Microsoft Early prototypes were neither as elegant nor as fast or as stable as those of GO. In all tests where consumers had to try both people normally GO chose the device, but Microsoft had two great strengths. On the one hand, his name. Why are you going to risk buying something at a small company when Microsoft, the same manufacturer of your computer's operating system and applications likely use gives you the same thing? Do they have a touch device? Us too. Do they have a backlit screen? Us too. Do they have cascading menus? Us too. And, as everything is from Microsoft, everything is compatible with your applications you already have Microsoft and your computer with Microsoft systems. Can you say the same thing that GO?
On the other hand, the first devices GO worked with Intel processors. GO did not have the ability to make themselves the handheld, but who drew the specifications and design of it and then manufacturers like Toshiba or Epson would remove their devices based on the design of GO and its operating system. However, although several manufacturers are very interested in making the handheld GO, soon began to turn back by the marketing policy of Microsoft. If you were a large manufacturer of computers (and if you were small too, but now we are interested in large), Microsoft will not sell you a box with MS-DOS for each PC with this system that stick out, but you were selling all computers want Preloaded with MS-DOS and then you gave Microsoft a sum of money as the number of computers that had sold. That and not a problem, right?
However, the agreement signed as maker Microsoft MS-DOS was cheating. There really was signed by every copy of MS-DOS pre-installed was given an amount to Microsoft, but what was signed was that for every computer that was sold to carry an Intel processor you had to give a sum of money Microsoft. So if Toshiba, for example, produced 100,000 units of the handheld from GO, Corp. would have to pay 100,000 licenses of Microsoft MS-DOS computer for carrying tab Intel processor (a 286, to be exact). Why the hell the big manufacturers accept this? Very simple. MS-DOS was over 60% market share at the time (counting Amigas, Macintosh, Atari, PC ..). It would be suicide not to sign this agreement because otherwise you could not legally sell MS-DOS. was for this reason that in GO, Inc. had to redesign their computer to carry out other non-Intel processor. That, of course, means more and more delays, and engineers who are working there have to keep feeding them.
addition, every new thing that drew GO, Inc. for your operating system, Microsoft answered that they, too, had or would be included shortly. Thus, Microsoft innovation is not so much his own but of others. His system was moving at a pace that marked the other for the simple reason that they do not need to venture. Others investigate how to do things, when we see them and see what is interesting inclusion, we will also announce that, although we are never the first does not matter because the competitive advantage that our competition is canceled shows.
At this time we disclaim GO, Inc. to further discuss the innovation strategy of Microsoft. For those who are intrigued about what happened with this company, have your book or entry referenced in the Wikipedia , but as a summary say that they were not very good, were purchased by AT & T and finally canceled the project. In the picture you can see in any case the EO in 1994, slightly before the final settlement, AT & T GO. But, as I said, on with Microsoft. This strategy, Kaplan suggests in his book, to not really get new things but copy what others do to be successful, was it something specific or have been doing forever? In addition, Kaplan explains very well in the book that the way Microsoft does not compete in quality or stability, is only in replicating what others offer and have it ready as soon as possible, so that you have no reason to switch to the competition. No matter if competition works better or more satisfaction, it comes down to "we have the same as them because we already know. Are you going to risk everything and venture out to the mob that does not give you anything you no longer have or shortly going to have if you follow us? ".
And not only that there is no real innovation in Microsoft products, but whenever there is a new product announcement (based on market needs), if you look almost all (or all) of what it promises are often things that the competition already offers or will offer very soon. Also, although this is an evil of the whole industry in general and not a problem for Microsoft in particular, always promises that everything will be ready long before it finally is.
Then it also happens that many times promised by Microsoft then it is not offered. Examples? Do you remember what was going to be Windows 95? A multitasking operating system 32-bit compatible with Windows 3.0 and earlier. Basically, a Windows NT but for the domestic market. And what was it really? A pastiche operating system 32 and 16 bits, with more bugs than the first program of a student over C, where only pre-emptive multitasking if fulfilled if the applications that were running were all 32 bits. Of course, with paper, plug & play technology (although it works like ass) ... And what would be Windows 2000? Was supposed to be the union of the Windows 9X and NT branch in one product, so that the domestic market would get all the reliability of Windows NT and support the professional market with the widest range of hardware and software available for Windows 9X and greater multimedia capabilities. What happened? Well, Microsoft released Windows 2000 which was the evolution of Windows NT 4.0 (yes, from my point of view without proving Windows 7 has been the best operating system Microsoft) and then the maligned (and why) Windows Me. This combination of products was achieved in September 2001 with the release of Windows XP (two years after Windows 2000 and just under Windows Me).
Or what would be Longhorn? If in 2007 all that it promised Microsoft would have flooded the market with the name of Windows Vista, could have been an operating system advanced enough to compete face to face (and beat in many ways) with the sophisticated MacOS X. But as it was slowing down with age Longhorn was losing something new on the road. And after the failure of Windows Vista, two years after Microsoft once again has set a version that is all that promised and failed to comply. And not only that, but to prevent the abandonment of its users to the competition, Microsoft offered to have the free beta. When MS has done those things? Of course, when everyone has found that Windows 7 is just as pretty as Microsoft promised, get ready because you have to drop a paste to buy it.
Finally, do not want this to become a post antimicrosoft therefore is certainly not the intention or this story or this blog. Just wanted to illustrate Microsoft's business tactics with a concrete example.
PD: Well, be fair to Microsoft. While their strategy is to offer everything that competition is taking advantage of its large client base also includes its own new house and even completely new product that has no competition, such as Microsoft Bob , Clipper or do not appear in the options menu you normally never use. In fact, these last two features Bill Gates talked about in his book The Road Ahead before they were actually in Microsoft products. Of which, indeed, there are two versions, the first not forget if it is 95 or early 96, when Microsoft wanted power for its Microsoft Network over Internet, which Gates still thought it was a bigger network and not the future, then I think version is 97, when Microsoft has realized the error and is focused entirely to the Internet, changing The book, therefore, the texts dedicated to his vision of the future of networking ...
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