"One Bullet is never enough" Paper

[James J. Besemer]

Chris Barker wrote:

> but it's a pretty sad way to think about the world!

It's actually really a neutral and objective way to view the world (if not optimistic
and positive).

Fact of the matter, the simple secret of success in business is to figure out what
your customers want and to give it to them for a better price than your competition
can.  I've been to executive management training courses, and they don't teach you
how to cook your books and how to cheat customers.  They teach you to get in close
with your customers, figure out how to best help them and then simply to provide that
help packaged according to the problem domain in question.

Sure there are some bad companies that give all the others a bad name.  But most
companies are just trying to make an honest buck fulfilling bona fide customer needs.

> Besides, every BAD thing
> you possess is the product of a corporation, too.

Do you possess mostly good things or mostly bad things?  By what ratio?

> My point is that the the computer industry as a whole has done a lot of
> wonderful things, and MS has played a major role in it, but we have NO
> WAY of knowing what the industry would look like without MS. I suspect
> better, apparently you suspect worse, but neither of us have any idea.

You show a lot of objectivity and sincerity in this statement.  It is true we may
never know what if.

In wondering 'what if' I think it's instructive to look at the Unix industry.
Depending on how you count, they had a 10-20 year head start on Microsoft.  And an
even longer period to get their act together before MS achieved any kind of dominance
with Windows.  The Unix platform vendors had plenty of opportunities to unite and
forge inter operability and other standards.  But IIRC each and every time a group
rose up to form an industry standard for GUI or whatever, it wasn't long before a
second competing group rose up in direct opposition.  Motif vs. Open look, PowerOpen,
POE, COSE, X/Open, POSIX, etc.  I don't recall all the names and battles but for
someone like myself who was rooting since the 70's for Unix to take over the world,
this SNAFU was a tragedy of unspeakable proportions.  And MS had nothing to do with
it.  Just a bunch of geeks didn't know their ass from a hole in the ground w/r/t
business.  Why ISN'T there a killer office product on any Unix platform?  MS never
competed there, so they certainly weren't using their vastly overrated "power" to
prevent it.

Or look at the Mac.  If Apple had blown the thing out the door for 20% above their
manufacturing cost instead of demanding 250% or whatever the market would bear for as
long as they could keep it up, maybe the industry standard "PC" would not have an
Intel part inside and MS may never have realized the gains it did.  Now THERE'S a
decision that could have changed the world.

We'll never know but I bet $1 that in the absence of a WinTel alliance, we'd have
little more than the same old pointless squabbling among the remaining competitors.
And STILL no killer apps to speak of.  Really, Microsoft was handed their market
dominance position on a platter; they didn't have to cheat to get it.  And the reason
their APPs dominate is because they've worked on continually refining and improving
them for almost 20 years.

> Absolutely true. Unfortuantely, what this means is they are more in the
> business of making money than the business of making software, which
> results in not-so-good, but very saleable, software.

The point is their practical approach should be viewed as a perfectly valid business
model in a practical world, rather than evil being propagated on the world unjustly.

If someone else finds the time or finds a sponsor where they can afford to carry
their own work to a higher technical standard, then so be it.  The proper view is
both are equally valid choices in a free society, not that one is intrinsically good
and the other evil.  The more costly solution usually is better quality but it's not
always affordable.

I'm often disappointed and frustrated that my own clients don't want to pay extra for
quality code.  Usually they are pressed for time and want the quickest possible code
for right now.  Never mind that it'll cost more in the long run, as often if the
short term objectives are not met then there won't be any long run.

> Only on the merit of running a business, and the ability to maintain a
> monopoly

Certainly the former, as we both agreed.  RE the monopoly I think time will tell.
Historically monopolies always fall by the wayside and we've seen erosion in MS's
position in recent years.  Linux seems a credible threat to their position on the PC,
particularly as it is being actively promoted by IBM.

Too, despite all their financial and other "power" and despite an express top level
strategy and tons of development dollars to be multi-platform, MS has consistently
failed to achieve a significant foot-hold on any non-PC platform.

> (Palm is an example of a company that couldn't figure out how
> to do that), not on their merit as software deveolpers.

Examples of people who know technology far better than business are tragically way
more common than people who have a balance.  Too, it's generally the difference
between failure and success.  But the bottom line is the only way to be truly
successful is to balance all aspects of business, not technology alone.  A lot of
geek types have difficulty understanding and accepting this simple fact.

> Well, sure, but if I don't like it, I can do what I can to limit their influence.

You're certainly welcome to try your best.  I don't fault people for trying.  I wish
you the best of luck.  I'm happy to use free software when it fits my needs.

It's going the next step beyond that and unnecessarily demonizing the opposition
which I find tiresome.

> The only thing that scares me about Big Government is that is is being
> controlled more and more by Big Corporations.

That's why everyone should fear big government.  Whatever good it might be able to do
in your favor, imagine the much greater damage when your political enemies are in
control.  Better if government is small so that neither can hurt the other.

Regards

--jb


--
James J. Besemer  503-280-0838 voice
http://cascade-sys.com  503-280-0375 fax
mailto:jb at cascade-sys.com