[DM-MUG] This was just too good not to pass along...

[Bailey Ford]

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I'm not one of those card carrying Microsoft bashers. In fact, I think 
their Mac Business Unit churns out some pretty good stuff. However, 
their monopolistic practices and the arrogance with which they put out 
substandard product year after year make them easy to hate. In a recent 
article over at CNET (http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-5197411.html) 
there's a memo to Bill Gates from 1997 that lays out the situation 
beautifully. Here's an exert:

>  	The report also includes a memo written for Microsoft Chairman Bill 
> Gates by C++ General Manager Aaron Contorer in 1997 that describes one 
> of the reasons why he felt Microsoft's Windows operating system was 
> becoming a must-have product for client PC vendors.
>  	Contorer wrote that end users stuck with Windows, despite the 
> operating system's shortcomings, based on the high costs of abandoning 
> heavy investments already made in APIs.
>  	"The Windows API is so broad, so deep and so functional that most 
> ISVs (independent software vendors) would be crazy not to use it. And 
> it is so deeply embedded in the source code of many Windows apps that 
> there is a huge switching cost to using a different operating system, 
> instead," the e-mail reads.
> 	"It is this switching cost that has given the customers the patience 
> to stick with Windows through all our mistakes, our buggy drivers, our 
> high TCO (total cost of ownership), our lack of a sexy vision, at 
> times, and many other difficulties," the e-mail said. "Customers 
> constantly evaluate other desktop platforms, (but) it would be so much 
> work to move over that they hope we just improve Windows rather than 
> force them to move."
> 	The Contorer e-mail continues: "In short, without this exclusive 
> franchise, called the Windows API, we would have been dead a long time 
> ago."
>



-bailey

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I'm not one of those card carrying Microsoft bashers. In fact, I think
their Mac Business Unit churns out some pretty good stuff. However,
their monopolistic practices and the arrogance with which they put out
substandard product year after year make them easy to hate. In a
recent article over at CNET
(http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-5197411.html) there's a memo to Bill
Gates from 1997 that lays out the situation beautifully. Here's an
exert:


<excerpt><fontfamily><param>Arial</param><x-tad-bigger> 	The report
also includes a memo written for Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates by C++
General Manager Aaron Contorer in 1997 that describes one of the
reasons why he felt Microsoft's Windows operating system was becoming
a must-have product for
</x-tad-bigger><color><param>B2B2,3E3E,3E3E</param><x-tad-bigger>client
PC vendors</x-tad-bigger></color><x-tad-bigger>.

 	Contorer wrote that end users stuck with Windows, despite the
operating system's shortcomings, based on the high costs of abandoning
heavy investments already made in APIs.

 	"The Windows API is so broad, so deep and so functional that most
ISVs (independent software vendors) would be crazy not to use it. And
it is so deeply embedded in the source code of many Windows apps that
there is a huge switching cost to using a different operating system,
instead," the e-mail reads.

	"It is this switching cost that has given the customers the patience
to stick with Windows through all our mistakes, our buggy drivers, our
high TCO (total cost of ownership), our lack of a sexy vision, at
times, and many other difficulties," the e-mail said. "Customers
constantly evaluate other desktop platforms, (but) it would be so much
work to move over that they hope we just improve Windows rather than
force them to move."

	The Contorer e-mail continues: "In short, without this exclusive
franchise, called the Windows API, we would have been dead a long time
ago."</x-tad-bigger></fontfamily>


</excerpt>



-bailey


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