Microsoft goals

Posted Jan 11, 2008 15:26 UTC (Fri) by pr1268 (subscriber, #24648) [Link]

Yes, you (and NAR above) are correct; Microsoft does indeed have a portfolio of products. My earlier reply was influenced by how, for consumer PCs (excluding Apple) there's pretty much only one operating system, and Microsoft has exploited marketing schemes beyond normally-accepted business economic practices (and legal ones, also) in their quest for market domination. Their latest ploy involving hacking Windows to run on the OLPC XO (or vice versa), a special-purpose, custom-designed laptop computer built for charitable distribution seems unusually suspicious of an ulterior motive.

Oh, wait. This is the same company who brow-beat HP, Compaq, Gateway, eMachines, Toshiba, Dell, Sony, and others to only sell PCs running Windows, and then gave consumers worldwide the impression that there simply wasn't any other OS available for their computer. Since the OLPC XO represents a completely new class of computer (open design and hardware), of homogeneous architecture, with production expected to be in the millions, well Microsoft can't just let that market slip by.

But I could make an argument about how Microsoft's other products are extensions of their control movement - oddly enough, a lot of MS's products entered the game late, yet they somehow managed to emasculate or eliminate all competition. Netscape's Web Browser predates Internet Explorer by several years; MS Office was released just as WordPerfect's market share peaked; the X-Box was first released in 2001, six years after Sony's PlayStation and sixteen years after Nintendo NES; and, just last year, their Zune hit the market, six years after Apple's original iPod and other media players entered the market¹. Microsoft is trying to take control over every aspect of consumers' digital lifestyles, but at least in the game console and portable media player markets, most consumers realize that they still have a choice. However, in the PC market, it's pretty much Microsoft Windows (and that's it) for x86 (non-Apple) PCs. But, I digress...

Bruce's article resonates with me because I'm a staunch believer in consumer choice, and Microsoft has done nothing in the past 15 years but remove all vestiges of any consumer choices. His line "Microsoft's version of choice is better stated as we'll give you choice and then make you choose Microsoft." sums it up beautifully. Until consumers are provided with, and made aware of, viable alternatives², it'll just keep being Microsoft Windows for PC operating systems, because it's, well, "good enough".

I've rambled on long enough; thanks for reading.

¹ One could argue that the original portable personal media player was Sony's Walkman, introduced in 1979.

² The only commercial, proprietary OS I can recall that attempted to break into the x86 PC market during Microsoft's domination was BeOS, but they folded (er, were sold to Palm) in 2001. Linux stands a good chance of becoming a significant commercial competitor to MS Windows (thanks partly to Dell and Ubuntu) - any success Linux has in this regard will surely be due to its FOSS nature and GPL license - and MS can't embrace, extend, extinguish, acquire via buyout, or sue out of existence Linux.