"One Bullet is never enough" Paper

[Chris Barker]

Tim Daneliuk wrote:
> For me, the "sun rises and sets" on economic reality.  Every single good
> thing I possess materially is possible because some corporation, typically
> large, thought they could make money providing it to me. 

Every thing? scary!! I have the art my daughter makes for me, etc. I
suppose corporate influence is strong enough that one could argue that
my daughter needs crayons made be some corporation to make that art, but
it's a pretty sad way to think about the world! Besides, every BAD thing
you possess is the product of a corporation, too.

>  Microsoft's existence and products has
> been very good for me personally and my industry as a whole.  In my view, they
> are national treasure, warts and all...

I'm not so sure about that at all. We only have one path that was
followed. What would the computer industry look like if Bill Gates had
been hit by a bus 20 years ago? Who knows? I suspect it would look
better. What if MS had not dumped the OS/2 project with IBM ? we would
have been running a powerfull stable OS all over the place long before
winNT became useful. Where would office software be if MS had not
leveraged their market power to dominate the market? Maybe we'd have an
actual office software format standard, and a whole lot fewer systems
being contaminated by MSOffice macro viruses.

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.

"James J. Besemer" wrote:
> Like Intel, they're relentlessly competitive AND they take
> a balanced view of running a business (paying attention to finance,
> marketing, sales, strategic planning, HR and other functions in addition
> to technology), which is the main reason they have been successful. 

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.

> From a purely
> meritocratic standpoint, they deserve to be where they are today. 

Only on the merit of running a business, and the ability to maintain a
monopoly (Palm is an example of a company that couldn't figure out how
to do that), not on their merit as software deveolpers.

> There are other choices and you don't have to
> use Microsoft products, but like it or not MS IS a big part of our reality
> today and its likely to be around for the rest of our lives.

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

>  What about IBM, who spends more in marketing
> each year than MS grosses in revenue?  What about Big Oil, controlling
> about 10% of the GNP?  By last count, 100% of US oil companies today are
> direct descendants of Rockafeller's Standard Oil. 

I'm just as scared and unhappy about Big Oil (and Big Energy in general:
anyone heard of Enron?), but that would be even more Off Topic in this newsgroup!

> What about Big
> Government?  20-25% of the GNP. 

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

-Chris

-- 
Christopher Barker, Ph.D.
Oceanographer
                                    		
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Chris.Barker at noaa.gov