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What has Microsoft done that is innovative?

What has Microsoft done that is innovative?

Posted Apr 25, 2003 14:10 UTC (Fri) by sphealey (guest, #1028)
Parent article: Ballmer: No sleep lost over Linux (News.com)

Perhaps Mr. Ballmer could provide some examples of innovative technology successfully brought to market by Microsoft. As far as I can see the majority of Microsoft's bread and butter products are re-implementations of work done on by DEC in the 1970s and by Xerox/Apple in the 1980s. Some done better, some done worse than the originals, but all derivative. Am I missing something?

sPh


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What has Microsoft done that is innovative?

Posted Apr 25, 2003 16:03 UTC (Fri) by Xanadu (guest, #1215) [Link]

This is exactly what I was going to type (I would've put in a few 4 letter words in, but...).

I don't see what they consider "inovative". "Linux is based on a 20 year old Operating System". First of all, it's over 30 years old (not 20 - assuming they mean UNIX in general)... Secondly, Where did they get their Bread and Butter code for their TCP/IP stack? Where did they get their NetBEUI (crap) stuff? Hmmm... It wasn't theirs in any sense.

My thought is that they are "afraid" of "Linux" because they can't take it. It's GPL'ed, not BSD'ed.

That's my personal feeling. I could be wrong. They've/We've (*NIX world - I'm just a user/supporter, I'm not a Codist) done a LOT over even just the past few years. Things MS never even thought to implement are done and almost "Old-Hat" at this point". They are STILL trying to even do something like catch up (Server 2003 proves that...). They can't use GPL'ed code because it'll bite them hard.

Again, It's just my thoughts.

What has Microsoft done that is innovative?

Posted Apr 25, 2003 16:27 UTC (Fri) by tjc (guest, #137) [Link]

"Linux is based on a 20 year old Operating System". First of all, it's over 30 years old (not 20 - assuming they mean UNIX in general)... Secondly, Where did they get their Bread and Butter code for their TCP/IP stack? Where did they get their NetBEUI (crap) stuff? Hmmm... It wasn't theirs in any sense.

I think what Steve is really trying to do here (and for the most part succeeding at, unfortunately) is exploit the ignorance of most IT "professionals." I don't mean to belittle anyone, I'm just trying to point out the problem: there are tens of thousands of people (maybe more) who consider themselves to be computer experts who can't even partition their own hard drive. They buy the "Linux is based on a 20 year old operating system" line hook, line, and sinker, simply because they don't know any better, and they don't have the motivation to find out otherwise. There's a certain security in shared ignorance. I could go on all day... :-)

Following Steve's line of reasoning, I guess we could say that Windows XP is based on CP/M. After all, DOS 1.0 was based on CP/M, so everything that MSFT has done since must be too, right? I think the fact that Linux has always been just "Linux", and not "Linux 386", "Linux for Workgroups", "Linux 95", "Linux NT", "Linux 2000", or "Linux XP" leads many people to think that it hasn't changed much, not realizing that parts of it have been rewritten so many times that it bears little resemblance to what we called Linux 7 or 8 years ago.

What has Microsoft done that is innovative?

Posted Apr 26, 2003 9:24 UTC (Sat) by mrchaotica (guest, #10899) [Link]

I don't claim to be an expert, but I've never heard about any precursors to "Microsoft Bob" or the "Office Assistant." Maybe they "innovated" those!

What has Microsoft done that is innovative?

Posted Apr 29, 2003 5:27 UTC (Tue) by guybar (guest, #798) [Link]

Actually, I regard these annoying traits as inovative indeed;
MS tried to solve a very hard problem (teaching the computer
illiterates efficiently) in an automated way.

They may be failed innovations (not completely, IMHO), they are
definately very aggravating innovations (though less so than, say,
TV commercials ... ), but credit should be given to a "can-do"
approach.


Not every innovation must be on the scale of controlled fusion ...

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