Microsoft's model of business: thing they are good at.

[alexan]

Many see Microsoft as the big bad monopolistic guy that have no business but force everyone to do what they say.
Surely this is not the fixed point of view in the linux/opensource/gnu community... but in different scale everyone think so.


So, my idea is: can you name few things Microsoft did right?


I am not refering to MS-Office, Windows or any other Microsoft products per se but their way of business on a broader scenario (when as result of their act we got direct and indirect benefits).



For me, for example, a good thing was the standardization the old IBM compatible (x86) through DOS and Windows 3.1+: upgrade your hardware without be fixed to OEM dictate (Apple computers)

[grahammechanical]

I would say that credit should be given not to Microsoft but to IBM for not patenting and copyrighting its development of the IBM PC and so allowing others to produce IBM Compatible PCs using off the shelf components at prices that ordinary people could afford.

In those days the OS and other programs were optional extras. If the machine was IBM compatible there was every reason to believe that software that ran on the IBM PC would also run on your IBM compatible PC.

When Microsoft started including certain utilities (such as disk compression) as standard parts of DOS or Windows it did so by buying technology that others had developed. This resulted in three things:

1) The original developer getting rich, very rich.

2) Competition eliminated.

3) Users not having to buy additional products when they came all-in with Windows.

If you were buying a PC with Windows as part of the price, then you got a good deal. In this sense they did things right.

Regards.

[KiwiNZ]

I would say that credit should be given not to Microsoft but to IBM for not patenting and copyrighting its development of the IBM PC and so allowing others to produce IBM Compatible PCs using off the shelf components

Regards.

tell that to the pioneers starting "white box" startups that were constantly dragged through the courts by IBM to stop their IBM compatible machines being sold.

[drdos2006]

No, I do not think that Microsoft had a good business plan. They beat the opposition down by unhanded business principles that they employed. Bill Gates admitted that the best way to get MSOffice into consumers hands was to force Lotus spreadsheet to its knees and they did. Best spreadsheet I have ever used. As well as Borlands Quattro Pro.

CP/M was the 8-bit operating system for small PCs before IBM brought out their 16-bit operating system. CP/M went on to develop Digital Research DOS. Microsoft forced D/R DOS out of business by forcing retailers to have Windows DOS installed or not be able to sell PCs under Windows licensing restrictions. MSDOS 4 was the worst. D/RDOS was very good at task switching. MSDOS could not even compete with D/RDOS at that stage.

The first lot of Windows Office programs were horrible to use at the same time Wordperfect was around. See if you can get a video of a movie called "Pirates of Silicon Valley". Sums up how MS pirated ideas and did not pay the developers properly, still happening today. And last is how MS wrote their Office programs to not cooperate with an operating system unless it was MS operating system, so put D/RDOS out of business. Oh, and don't forget MS motto, "Incorporate, Develop, Exterminate". IDE. Which why programs written in MS Java# would not work on machines that ran D/R DOS.
regards

regards

[grahammechanical]

I must be losing my memory in my old age. There was I thinking that in those days the PC was bog standard beige. Dragged through he courts by IBM? Why?


The only proprietary component of the original PC architecture was the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System


IBM PC compatible computers are those generally similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT. Such computers used to be referred to as PC clones, or IBM clones since they almost exactly duplicated all the significant features of the PC architecture, facilitated by various manufacturers' ability to legally reverse engineer the BIOS through clean room design.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PC_compatible


Where would we be today if the managers at IBM had had the business sense to make their PC as closed and proprietary as Apple products?

Regards.

[alexfish]

not including


I am not referring to MS-Office, Windows or any other Microsoft products per se but their way of business on a broader scenario (when as result of their act we got direct and indirect benefits).then ONE part of the broader aspect to look at is patent,s and patent trolling ,
http://www.opensource.org/node/465

does this give direct or indirect benefits , many will say not

but I believe this has led to both direct and indirect benefits

Direct Benefits , who wants them , certainly not I , for the me as in I, the me does what I wish with the tools available I.E. :the indirect benefit


If the I wants a button with a single click or a method of using a button to retrieve a phone number,HA HA, then I will do it, for my Direct BenefitIndirect benefits , read the above quote

PS: I hold the patent , Method of ' How to go for a widdle '. But will only implement when you need one , only one problem, have not work out,
how women do it.Can someone inform me of how it is done , so it can be implemented.
this info is urgently required since I do not wish to Impede such necessity.

[Khakilang]

One advantage of Microsoft product was affordability to the small and medium size business and home user as compare to Unix server in those days. Providing peer to peer computing, simple networking, sharing files and resources. But that all have change recently. Now with newer version of Windows, it couldn't work with older hardware and software.

[ikt]

Dragged through he courts by IBM? Why?


x86 is not a whole platform, it's a processor architecture. IBM put a lot of effort into all the parts around the CPU, including the ISA bus/interface, PS/2, the BIOS, and other components which began life extremely proprietary.

IBM tried to sue quite a few people who clean-room reverse engineered these systems, and failed. IBM's Personal Computer (the whole computer, not just the CPU they purchased from Intel) became an open platform not by design of IBM, but by the efforts of a bunch of early hackers (in the true definition of the word "hacker", not the ******** media definition).

http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showpost.php?p=13637244&postcount=47