Submitted by “Microsoft and its critics agree that the future of innovation is at stake when the US software giant challenges a landmark 2004 antitrust ruling next week before the European Union’s second highest court. But they will take opposite tacks on what that means before a special 13-judge panel of the Court of First Instance, which starts five days of public hearings on Monday.”
Microsoft has already proven that it can’t innovate itself out of a paper bag without redefining the word, and MS’s market position will have little impact on the innovation occurring in markets outside its control, on the innovation occurring in open source projects (which don’t all copy existing products), and the innovation from third-party developers on Windows itself.
The ruling will probably have some sort of impact one way or the other in the short term, but in the long term it will prove to be little more than a minor blip on the computing timeline.
“it can’t innovate itself out of a paper bag without redefining the word”
You must be forgetting “Microsoft Bag” (Vista) – and yes, they innovate all the time! Not in the form of software or products, but in the form of marketing jargon! “New” features refer to features that are new to Microsoft, you can’t say that’s not innovative. Criminally misleading, perhaps – but it is innovative.
“a minor blip” – does this refer to Microsoft, or the ruling? If it is MS, I would use the term “blimp” – in homage to the Hindenburg.
I considered mailing the print-out ‘license agreement’ to Redmond packaged with some dead fish. A big stinky carp would be nice, but some anchovies would be more cost-effective on the postage. But that would have just been mean…. …and “innovative”!
Actually. Not to start a flamewar but: I’d say Apple is the marketing innovator in the tech field.
Up until now everyone seemed to do the “fill the box with text and jargon” method. Then in comes iPod with a largely blank box…
The grand discovery that non-techie/most people don’t care what technical terms their device does but what it can do for them…. The words “mp3, ogg, aac comatible” mean “I’m smarter than you, nee-ner-nee-ner-nee-ner.” The words “plays Apple, Microsoft, and many other music files” means a bit more.
And even better, a human can supplant the box and use the words which the customer needs to hear to understand. Say it’s a techie: “Yea, it does ogg, cool huh?” Or it’s Aunt Tillie “yes, it will play the files you have already.” I know, salesmen are expensive, but maybe they’re occasionally worth it
.
Personally I prefer the box with technical jargon. But that’s cause I know what it means. Salesmen have a nasty tendency to flat out lie to me.
Long story short: Microsoft sucks at marketing. They’ve only done it well once, Win95. I think they’re pretty good at PR though.
Future of innovation at stake in Microsoft case!
Microsoft and its critics agree that the future of innovation is at stake when the U.S. software giant challenges a landmark 2004 antitrust ruling next week before the European Union’s second highest court.
Microsoft States:
“At issue are whether companies can improve their products by developing new features and whether a successful company must hand over its valuable intellectual property to competitors,”
Opponents State:
“What Microsoft is talking about is freedom for them to innovate, not others,”
What I state:
What exactly has Microsoft innovated?
• Word Processors?
• Spreadsheets?
• Databases?
• Presentation Applications?
• Operating System?
• Media Players?
• Internet?
• TCP/IP?
• Firewalls?
As you can see the list goes on and on. Oh and by the way the answer to the above questions is “No”. Other companies with there marvelous employee’s created these technologies.
In the categories listed, an argument could be made that evolution -not innovation- has been the rule for the past 15+ years. In each competitive segment, companies involved have implemented/copied features from each other (some blatently), refined features (in many cases), and in rare instances innovated a new feature. Even the forthcoming MS Office interface, while strikingly different than anything of present is not so much innovation as it is evolution of GUI. Some might say, “I hate the new office” while others might say, “Wow, that new [innovative] interface is cool!” So, the term innovation is very subjective and can be used by some as a weapon to say “you cheat” (or I wish I thought of that) or by those who develop it to say “buy this” because “we innovate”.
Personally, I think it is hard to say that MS has not innovated in many areas. That said, Apple has been and continues to be the innovator of the computing industry. Apple, with its miniscule market share, forges the path that all of us follow. I don’t own a Mac, but I will soon.
Edited 2006-04-21 21:22
im left wondering if not apple is the best innovator in the user interface department. but who is the best innovator in the underlying tech department?
right now i think most of that is in the open source world. this basicly because they can horse around with all kind of stuff, and then see if they can realy make it work. they dont have to make a product that will give company X a profit. they can basicly go wild in the very internals of a OS, the one part that users rarely directly interact with, and see what new stuff they can introduce there.
basicly, when apple innovates in pure tech terms, its often because of some user interaction need. take that service discovery over tcp/ip stuff, rederouz or something (sorry for the bad spelling, or even lack of even trying). the real inovation there is not the idea itself, but how users interact, or more correctly dont have to interact, with it.
as in, out if sight out of mind, or “it just works”…
Edited 2006-04-22 01:56
My understanding is that the “future of innovation” angle in this case has been dreamed up by Microsoft. The argument is that the EU is killing off Microsoft’s freedom to innovate [insert outrage and wild exaggeration here, etc, etc]. For this reason, I don’t think we should buy the Microsoft line. This is a straightforward case about a putative breach of the EU’s competition laws. Those laws exist for a very good reason and there is nothing wrong with having them. Every trading block has some kind of regulation.
I’ve read articles elsewhere which suggest that Microsoft will probably settle with the EU this year anyway, for two reasons. First, because an ongoing case with the EU on their back could mess up the launch of Vista in Europe. Second, because Microsoft are getting a rep for being so culturally inept that they find it very hard to do proper business outside the USA. They need to show they can get on with the laws and customs of the rest of the world instead of scorning them, with it all ending in courts and almighty rows.
In any case, to say that the “future of innovation” is at stake here is to ignore the greater threat posed by software patents and DRM Extremo. To say nothing of underestimating our amazing human ability to innovate around almost anything, without which I wouldn’t be writing this using Firefox on Linux.
Once again, Microsoft proves that its primary function is to make serious industry-watchers laugh themselves silly. There should be a program on Linux to quote you lines like this. We could call it “yahml”, Yet Another Hilarious Microsoft Lie.
By tomorrow there’ll be 30 different versions of yahml with 6 provided in each distro all with varying compatibility.
It’s all about choice.
And with full source access, you could just write yet another yahml, and secure it’s compatible with the earlier versions
ROFLMAO!!!
Moderated down? Oh please. It’s funny because it’s so unfortunately true. And, yes, choice is good. I’m all for choice, but look at the key part of that comment:
“… all with varying compatibility.”
Choice is only good when standards are practiced and compatibility is assured.
Varying compatibility with what? Yes, proprietary software companies may only produce .rpms, but the (relatively) obscure Gentoo distribution has its own packages for e.g. VMWare.
Just that there tend to be too many forks and not enough collaboration. It’s the best and worst part about open-source.
Growth thru abusive practices and unregulated aquisition…now claiming to innovate. It now thinks it is brillant, above the law and cannot be touched (indeed like the MCP). How dare anyone question them and their motives.
Time to peel away the layers and reveal the truth.
This time around….the disc is laced with OSS.
Be brave young user and throw it smartly !!!
Nah. Burroughs mainframes (and now Unisys Clearpath NX mainframes) run MCP, and it looks nothing at all like anything from Microsoft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_Control_Program
Wanna play some WFL-ball? Want some CANDE? 🙂
If MS wants to make the case that their way is the way to innovation, then they’re dead in the water.
MS has embraced, extended, stolen, and even refined in some cases, other people’s/company’s innovations. But they have never, ever, innovated anything, in any way, shape or form.
No, they managed to innovate monopolistic take-overs and anti-competitive tactics like nobody’s ever seen (I.T. is a relatively new market).
On a more constructive note, the “innovation” claim does fall short from realistic. They may be under the delusion that the “innovation” was performed by end-users working with windows PCs in their daily tasks. Now by their sheer market size and the odds that they have some good lawyers (and can send cash to some corrupt judges), they may be able to pull this one off by the skin of their teeth. But considering almost every modern nation seems to be getting in on the anti-monopoly train, they have so many fronts to defend they may actually one day find themselves (gasp) low on cash!
Depends on your definition of “innovation”… If we use the broader sense (“introducing drastic changes in existing customs”), then Microsoft did brought many innovations in the PC landscape. Now, if we stick to “creating something completely new” and nothing else, then even Apple isn’t much of an innovator. Same for Linux and the GNU userland, which are basically copycats from existing implementations. Yet, they are both changing the way we use electronic devices…
That said, claiming the future of innovation is depending on them is completely ridiculous. They did brought innovations (using the first definition), they’ve got a lot of influence, but they are not relevant as they like to claim. The world will still tick without them.
While I agree that Microsoft is simply using the innovation argument to protect its monopoly, and that’s a rational thing to do from their point of view, I can’t quite agree that they don’t innovate.
They are the hunted so they have to innovate to stay on top. They also throw in some monopoly-tactics of course and maybe some folks at Microsoft think that lawyers are less expensive than software engineers. However saying that they do not innovate at all is not exactly right in my book.
First of all they keep on changing/improving their software. Is this innovation, maybe, maybe not.
Second, they sponsor student research programms and invest quite some money in R&D. Is .net innovation, maybe, maybe not. The list goes on.
Let’s see what wikipedia has to offer:
“Innovation is defined in the dictionary as the process of making changes to something established by introducing something new. The term Innovation refers to both radical or incremental changes to products, processes or services. Innovation is often confused with the term Invent which is defined in the dictionary as creating something new, something that has never existed before.”
So, by that definition I guess there’s quite a bunch of innovation ar Microsoft.
Nontheless I hape they will lose in court
“They are the hunted so they have to innovate to stay on top. They also throw in some monopoly-tactics of course”
I would say it like this:
They are hunted so they use monopoly-tactics, they also throw in some innovation sometimes.
Well, the reason why they are before a EU regulation panel IS, that they use monopoly-tactics.
MS also tells that panel, that they do not want to loose their IP to competitors.
Well, what IP? Patents? Don’t exist for Software. Trademarks? Nobody asked for using them. Copyright on source code? Nobody asked for source code. Trade secrets? Heck, MS is a monopoly, MS is not allowed to have certain trade secrets (especially ones which prohibit interoperability).
The only IP they would have to sell would be the documentation of their protocols and file formats. Again, nobody asked them to give it away, just to sell the specs for a reasonable price.
That is a great summary, thanks.
Also what Wrawrat said a few posts below covers what I wanted to add.
Lets face true innovation is very rare. Most cases of true innovation usually never makes any money until someone steals it and puts the capital it really needed to meet its potential. The innovator usually doesn’t make any money off of it. Even though I am of the Linux persuasion, I will defend MS. It has innovated several things. What about VB or .Net and lets not forget C#. If Microsoft didn’t innovate these bastardized proprietary programing languages programmers would be able to get certified in them so Microsoft can discontinue support of them eventually. Ok in all seriousness, did anybody remember when MS touted the cross platform ability of .Net? I had to laugh when I heard that a couple years ago in an interview at Linux World. I’ll have to laugh when MS scoffs at Mono when they managed to deliver on that promise. If they want to be taken seriously they need to start recognizing publicly that Windows isn’t the only viable OS. Just a thought.
RE: lostnerd, Microsoft’s cross platform support for .Net
I remember when Microsoft was touting .Nets cross platform finess on their website. If you read the small print, they defined cross platform as meaning that it worked across several different versions of Windows. For example, server versions and client versions of Windows.
You forgot that Windows systems are the only platforms that exist to Microsoft.. aside from Macintosh.
Let’s not forget Unix for Windows. They had to regonize Unix (BSD).
Ah yes, “_anything_ for Windows” seems like a clever way of stealing a concept and declaring victory and superiority over it.
Why port to another platform when you can emulate a shoddy skeleton of it on an incompatible system? Very good. Same could be said of Wine – but considering the software world’s demographics, Wine and Peace are/were written to promote compatablility versus defeat it.
The purposes of Wine and Unix Services for Windows are similar in that both are designed to help transitions. I’m sure USfW is a fine product. It came out a little after I started using cygwin. The way it sounded to me that it was going to be like most commercial Unixes and have the straight laced sh instead of bash. Having dealt with the afformentioned sh before, it didn’t sound too appealing so I stuck with cygwin. I still curse when I use our new AIX 5L box and hit tab to complete a command or path. Oh well.
You might check to see if ksh is available on your AIX box. It can do command and filename completion. It’s not a one keystroke process like bash has but command/file completion is available and I think it’s likely that it may exist on your system.
You may want to look at the man page for it before starting it up, presuming it’s present, as there are some interesting caveats but I suspect that having it will be better than not having it. And of course, as with all shells, some folks wouldn’t use anything else. I use bash or tcsh but did use ksh years ago.
I remember pretty specifically this MS rep flat out saying that it would run on Unix. I think they even had a little demo running in the background. I’m not talking some stupid rep talking to a convention goer but flat out telling the press that it would be a true cross platform language. He did mention it running on Unix.
I think I remember someone telling me about their website and their definition of a true cross-platform language. I have to admit that would be like saying X language is cross platform because it can be compiled on Debian Potato, Woody and Sarge, but not on any of the BSDs.
Yes, people do innovate. The rate of innovation has gone down dramatically, but it sometimes does happen.
In 30 years of following Microsoft, I can recall two innovations of theirs: tooltips and the wheelmouse. There may be a third, but I haven’t run across it.
That’s approximately two more innovations than the Linux community has come up with, but Linux is young yet. (I’m not talking about applications that run on top of Linux, just the Linux kernel.)
Of course, the only other successful real innovations in the last twenty years have been html and bittorrent. Everything else has pretty much been refinement of concepts dating to the early ’80s or earlier.
Tooltips? The concept of words that appear when you move the mouse over certain UI elements is quite a bit older than any of Microsoft’s specific implementation, I’m fairly sure. Or I’d be willing to bet, anyway.
The Linux kernel is what? Almost 14 years old now?
Remember that HTML is derived from SGML, which is itself derived from IBM’s DCF product’s GML, and I’m sure it (GML) also came from something else. And bittorrent… Well, load balanced multi-peer file transfers just might be innovative. 🙂
The concept of words that appear when you move the mouse over certain UI elements is quite a bit older than any of Microsoft’s specific implementation, I’m fairly sure.
Maybe you are thinking of ballon help from the MacOS?
Linux was released in 1991… That’s 15 years now… It’s based on an OS older than Microsoft itself.
Windows NT (the current technology behind Windows XP/Vista) was released in 1993. That’s right, it’s older (by release) than Linux.
In all fairness, NT was started before Linux.
I’m not sure what would be considered innovation in either Linux or ntkernel, but I’m sure both have had their fair share; especially given things in linux that never made it mainline (or haven’t yet made it mainline).
The trouble here is that innovation is starting something new. And the definition of new is hard to make universally objective. Is it new if that combination of old things has not been before done? How complex must the combination be? Would two old things together be new, or must it be more?
Erm, I wouldn’t call the Linux kernel innovative, its an opensource implementation of UNIX with some extensions; what is new is the business model of companies using opensource components to create products for end users with support – you could say the provide the bridge between the programmers and the end users.
In all it’s glory:
http://www.vcnet.com/bms/departments/innovation.shtml
I knew this site and all i can say is it’s useless. It could be about any other software company.
And that webpage was “Last updated 27 June 1999″… lol
Edited 2006-04-21 17:31
Some companies actually *do* innovate. Look at what came out of Xerox PARC, for example.
All the old date means is that there are probably seven more years of examples that the site is missing. 🙂
Microsoft is just evil. They deserve to get their pants sued off. Apple still cant use a two button mouse cause of MS and IBM
With you right up until they start taking off their pants then you’re on your own.
Hey, I used a three-button mouse with my Mac at my former workplace. Very useful when running X apps via MacX.
Just ‘cuz most Mac folks don’t really need a two-button mouse doesn’t mean it can’t be used…
“Apple still cant use a two button mouse cause of MS and IBM”
Eh? What you say? True, Macs used to come with a one button mouse, but (on any Mac running OS X) you can just unplug that one button mouse and plug in a two (or more) button mouse WITH scroll wheel, and it will recognize it and allow you to use all of the features on said mouse. Best part: no reboot required. 🙂
Newer Macs even come with Apple’s “mighty mouse” or whatever it is they are calling it. I personally don’t like it, but other folks do.
“MS ability to stifle future innovation at stake”, may be what they meant to say.
What is at stake is EU commission pride vs. Microsoft pride, the market is not about who is the best innovator, it’s about who is the best innovation packager and reseller.
The ‘market’ is hardly a measure of legality and morality. Laws are written to protect justice, but words can never define justice. There’s human organs for trade on the black market, but that hardly means anyone should ever buy them.
…but rather the attack is targeting the business value which can be extracted by a party who controls a non-commoditized protocol or file format. Innovation, at least as the term has come to be used by IT execs, is an utterly vacuous term which, insofar as it has any meaning whatsoever, is simply code speak for that which the rest of us know by the term of vendor lock-in.
Of all the proprietary protocols and file formats used by MS not a single one offers any real substantial technological advantages over it’s commoditized and standardized equivalents. Or at least that is the case when looked at from an engineering perspective. Of course, things stand rather differently when viewed from a business perspective.
Personally, I wish the EU’s orginal decision had been much broader and had addressed more than just MS’s CIFS protocol. The truely anti-competitive behavior from MS has, at least since the mid 90’s, always accompanied their attempts to parlay their desktop monopoly into an unfair advantage in the server market. MS should be forced not just to simply document, but also to then demonstrate their own products compliance with the specifications they provided. This should be done not just for CIFS but for every single last over the wire protocol which they use for communications between their clients and servers. Further, the specifications should be made available with absolutely no restrictions on use and implementation whatsoever. Period! This isn’t stealing MS’s precious property. There’s really no “special sauce” which confers any great technological advantages contained in any of MS’s proprietary protocols. Some of their protocols have some small advantages over their commoditized equivalents (eg., MAPI + TNEF vs IMAP), while others are a terrific mess (eg., CIFS vs NFS). But, it should be noted, that even where MS’s protocols do have some advantages there exist completely open and well documented alternatives which are tencially superior in every way.
It isn’t all a Microsoft creation, you know. Both NetBIOS and NetBEUI came from IBM.
Yeah, I know. In addition to NetBIOS and NetBEUI, SMB–of of which CIFS is a superset–is originally an IBM protocol. I wasn’t really blaming MS for the state of CIFS, just pointing out that value of CIFS for MS has nothing to do with the superiority of the protocol, but the fact that they can leverage it’s closed nature to the disadvantage of their competitors.
Yeah, that’s true enough. Rat bastards. 🙂
With more than 90 percent of the world’s personal computers running Windows, every piece of software — from word processors to virus checkers — must be compatible with the operating system created by Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
I thought Linux was suppose to reduce this what happen?
your statement is so wrong in so many places, where do I start…
With more than 90 percent of the world’s personal computers running Windows
Show the figures for that one, I am pretty sure you meant DESKTOPS and still it is not 90% anymore.
every piece of software — from word processors to virus checkers — must be compatible
although virus checkers under Linux are largely redundant and are usually used to check Windows networks, are you saying that ALL software needs to be compatible with Windows ? therefore there actually is no software for Linux/BSD’s/Mac OS/Solaris ? get a clue man.
operating system created by Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
Bill Gates never created ANY operating system. He once programmed BASIC.
Wouldn’t that mean that Microsoft no longer has a monopoly on the desktop and is again free to put they want into their OS?
The court cases about Microsoft bundling software has more to do with excluding 3rd parties from including their wares in Windows.
Microsoft may have 97%, 80%, 55% or even 2% of the desktop…. that does not matter.
What matters is making Windows default, (and work better), with Microsoft products and exluding other.
Linux distros bundle EVERYTHING imaginable with their product, however, they allow you to REMOVE/UNINSTALL/REPLACE any or all of the software.
Lets see you Windows users remove IE then call up a help file !
Linux distros bundle EVERYTHING imaginable with their product, however, they allow you to REMOVE/UNINSTALL/REPLACE any or all of the software.
Not only that, but they allos OEM’s to customise these distributions in anyway they wish; want to replace Firefox with Opera? Red Hat, Ubuntu or Novell aren’t going to stop Dell (if they shipped a Linux machine) from doing so.
It isn’t the bundling per-say that is the problem, but the strong arming of OEM’s of disallowing them to customise and modify the default installation of Windows for the systems that they sell – the net result, there is less choice.
Why should Dell be forced to carry Windows Media Player if they choose to, for example, create a strategic partnership with Apple, and ship iTunes as teh default media player? these are questions which Microsoft fanboys never ask.
Sure, Microsoft can dictate how their own product should look when they bundle their retail versions, but Microsoft need to realise that when they OEM, they’ve giving the vendor the right to customise; if they’re not going to allow the vendor to customise, where is the advantage (besides discounts) is there to spending money getting software bundles together with their OEM version of Windows?
Actually, the court cases were also about bundling their own software. That’s what I was talking about.
obviously you need not read the article.those statements are in the article.
are you serious ?
the article is from CNN, they always dumb down things.
CNN audiences are lay-people, the article is not for people who hang around here.
this is lame my score goes down just for questioning this statement that the author wrote in the article.
With more than 90 percent of the world’s personal computers running Windows, every piece of software — from word processors to virus checkers — must be compatible with the operating system created by Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
Here ya go! You are now at plus 2 for this comment. Feel better? {(o;)[>~
happycamper – you sir, are an idiot.
Future of Innovation at Stake in Microsoft Case
Right. Let’s not forget:
Future of Competition at Stake in Microsoft Case
Edited 2006-04-21 20:02
I get a laugh out of the constant talk about innovation, or lack therin by Microsoft when you take a look at the rest of the industry.
Apple – What has apple been ‘innovative’ on? Their hardware has until recently always lagged a generation behind RoW (rest of world), they stole the GUI concept from Xerox, even the iPod – there were portable MP3 players before the iPod. The only ‘innovative’ and original thing I can think of out of Apple in two decades would be expose – and that’s goofy crap I’d much rather have a simple LIST of all programs that are running. (which seems to be blasphemy to the apple zealots) Half the damned stuff people think of today as using the Mac for was developed on the PC first, including things like Photoshop and Pagemaker… and most of the reason Photoshop was developed on the PC first was the PC had 256 color five years before apple even SOLD color Macs. Whenever someone quotes Bill’s “Nobody should ever need more than 640k” I love to respond with Steve’s “Nobody really needs a color display.”
Linux – Name me a single linux ‘innovation’ – most of it is ports from real unix and/or direct ripoffs of windows equivalents. EVERYTHING in linux feels like a cheap copy of something else, and if it’s not server related it usually falls way short on capabilities of it’s windows/real unix equivalent.
Unix – REAL unix (like SCO) still seems to be stuck in the 80’s, or simply playing catchup to Linux by porting over everything and anything they can (Nexenta/Solaris). The last major innovation from the unix realm was OpenGL…
Windows – MDI (multiple document interface, which by way of Opera’s legacy is WHY we have tabbed browsing today), taskbar/start menu (so good an idea both KDE and Gnome mirror it), multimedia playback/support at the OS level, plug and play, and let’s face it, when new innovative hardware comes out where is it usually supported first?
So when the rabid anti-microsoft fanboys run their mouths about a lack of innovation, I really do have to scoff at the ignorance.
Again I have to ask why apple ISN’T up before the EU as well, since their practices in this department are tenfold any of MS alleged wrongdoings.
“The only ‘innovative’ and original thing I can think of out of Apple in two decades would be expose”
Have you heard about TaskGallery?
Um, Photoshop and Pagemaker were made for the Mac first.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagemaker
You had to wait for Windows 3.0 for WYSIWYG fonts to be widespread on PCs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoshop
PS wasn’t available for Windows until version 4.0.
The Mac II had 256-color output in 1987:
http://www.lowendmac.com/ii/ii.shtml
Pretty sure PCs didn’t have that 5 years earlier.
amiga had 4000+ colours in 1985, HAM (hold &Modify)mode.
so called MS plug&play, again amiga had ‘AutoConfig’ , and as it happens, even today it seems far better than anything so far.
PageStream, from 1986 originally on the Atari ST and later the amiga has some inovations that later got
copyed by several windows apps.
just thought i’d mention error codes and reporting.
even the ‘guru meditation’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guru_meditation
from amiga Kickstart 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3 days predates
the MS ‘Blue Screen of Death’ or even the ‘black screen of death (BSoD)’ before that.
They did innovated the BSOD; didn’t they?
Microsoft is to innovation, what Britney Spears, Nsync and Backstreet boys are to music. Hardly good examples of those respective words.