Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 12th Dec 2006 18:59 UTC, submitted by Francis Kuntz
Longtime Windows development chief James Allchin wrote in a January 2004 e-mail to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and company co-founder Bill Gates that the software vendor had "lost sight" of customers' needs and said he would buy a Mac if he wasn't working for Microsoft. "In my view, we lost our way," Allchin, the co-president of Microsoft's platform and services division, wrote in an e-mail Jan. 7, 2004. The e-mail was presented as evidence late last week in the Iowa antitrust trial, Comes v. Microsoft. Update: Today, he wouldn't though.
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Member since:
2005-07-06
What problems with OEMs? the fact that these OEM's CHOOSE to enter an exclusive contract with Microsoft in return for lower per-unit Windows pricing? shock bloody horror!
I'm sorry, but the OEM whining is nothing more than negotiating via the media; paint Microsoft as the big bad bully of the IT world, and hope that the outcry will force Microsoft to lower their prices even more!
I'll say it once and I'll say it again; I owned my own computer assembly company, and I *too* was offered such an exclusive contract; it offered a significant reduction in the cost of Windows licencing in favour of me going exclusive with Microsoft.
I *CHOSE* not to go exclusive because it would not only hamstrung by business into only offering Microsoft solutions, but I would have been put into a position where by potential customers who wanted another solution, I could not serve, and thus make a buck.
The 'big boys' chose to pay the exclusive contract game, and they only have themselves to blame; they *could* have chosen my avenue and although it would have given them lower profit margins, it would have given them the freedom to differentiate their product line up by also offering other operating systems and competiting products.
All Microsoft did was offer enticements; install this and we'll give you this amount of money, go exclusive, and we'll cut the cost of your licence; if the OEM's don't have the back bone to say no, then they only have themselves to blame for their inaction.