Has Microsoft ever come out with anything original on their own?

I'm surprised no one mentioned Clippy.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(n8kwx @ Oct 3 2007, 06:43 PM) [snapback]520952[/snapback]</div>

Although my response was serious, I have to second your nomination.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Oct 3 2007, 11:02 PM) [snapback]520828[/snapback]</div>

So you are convinced that 90% of the people have been using crappy, inferior products for two decades while a better alternative was available. You must have a very low esteem of humanity if that is your vision!

MS never has been a very innovative or creative company. But they often understood what the industry needed. A big part of their business model has been around commoditization of IT technology. In a sense, they played an important role in the democratization of technology. For many years, the Apple slogan "Power to the People" actually fitted MS very well. For example: they did not invent relational databases, but they helped bring it to the desktops of the masses. Visual Basic is another example. By itself, it is an ugly, uninteresting language. But it brought programming to a much larger community.
Is this wrong? No. And no insider would deny the important, positive role Microsoft has played in the developement of the IT industry.

One of the big merits of Microsoft is that they always have paid attention to software standardization, interoperability and integration. Sometimes they failed miserably, but in many cases this is where you see the company's biggest splashes of innovation. Almost during their entire history, there is a long chain of technologies that attribute to this (DDE, OLE, COM, DCOM, .NET). Several times, they introduced innovative concepts in this respect. They had an early vision of software integration and (network) cross-process communication. As a result, a modern product like MS Dynamics offers a tremendous level of integration, creating opportunities that are hard to beat by competing products (even though this product is again partially the result of an acquisition, but that's how it goes in business).

Therefore, if I would have to nominate the best recent innovation of Microsoft, I would bring .NET forward. It is the culmination of their long search for software integration. It works very well, allows developers to create a lot of added value, is an open standard(!), and contains several innovative aspects. Of course, like any new product, it draws heavily on previous innovations (e.g. JVM). But it does go further and adds important new innovations. As a side step, MS also developed a cool new programming language (C#), that is worth a nomination as well.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Stev0 @ Oct 3 2007, 03:56 PM) [snapback]520789[/snapback]</div>

And CP/M was a ripoff of DEC's TOPS 10. The cycle goes on and on.

Tom

 

Some people will always have nothing but bad things to say about any company or person that is sucessfull at what they do. They are always rooting for the underdog. I'm sure that if a company was to take Linux and market their version (in order to make a profit for their investors) along with other innovations (whether bought or created inhouse) and become as sucessfull as Microsoft is at doing what they do the same people would be complaining about the new company.

I would think that the same people who are complaining about Microsoft should not be driving a Prius since Toyota is the 2000lb gorilla when it comes to hybrids. Sure you can buy other cars that are greener but can you buy one that is more usefull for the majority of people.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(vtie @ Oct 4 2007, 01:37 AM) [snapback]521056[/snapback]</div>

No. Microsoft marketed its garbage OS so successfully that there was no acceptable alternative available until Apple brought Unix (in the form of OS X) to the home computer.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(wkramer @ Oct 4 2007, 06:34 AM) [snapback]521111[/snapback]</div>

It's not because they were commercially successful that I denigrate Microsoft. It is because their sloppy programming and careless design has created a security nightmare that has allowed cyber criminals to dominate the internet with spam and malware.

It's as if cars were built without door locks or ignition keys, and the only way to prevent your car from being stolen was to purchase and install aftermarket gadgets so complicated that most drivers did not understand how to use and maintain them correctly, and which required periodic subscription fees and updating.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(vtie @ Oct 4 2007, 03:37 AM) [snapback]521056[/snapback]</div>

The only real competition Microsoft's ever had (for the PC market, at least), is Apple. Way back in the day, Apple lost the battle for business sales, mostly due to the higher cost of their machines. Once that happened, Microsoft was smart enough to make people so dependent on their products (again, a marketing thing, not because of the quality of their products) that the cost of switching was too high. From the corporate market, PC's made their way into the home, because thats what people were familiar with, or because thats what they needed to be compatible with any files they bring home to work on.

It's all about marketing and understanding how to get business sales. Apple simply wasn't successful at that. It's not a question of our esteem of humanity, but rather an appreciation of the strategic maneuvers that Microsoft made that allowed them to gain dominance with an inferior product.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Oct 4 2007, 10:42 AM) [snapback]521143[/snapback]</div>

I'd agree that Windows isn't great, but I'd not go so far as to say there have been no acceptable alternatives...

Anyone remember the Amiga? Multimedia, multitasking, thousands of colors, inexpensive, a full object oriented GUI... all yours for under 500. In 1986.

It took 15 years, but both Apple and MSFT caught up with the Amiga.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Oct 4 2007, 04:42 PM) [snapback]521143[/snapback]</div>

Now you got me completely confused. Why wasn't Apple acceptable alternative before OSX? How would Microsoft's marketing render the competition somehow unacceptable?
And, BTW, Apple wasn't the first to bring Unix to the home computer. Linux did that before. Or even SCO if you want.


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Oct 4 2007, 04:42 PM) [snapback]521143[/snapback]</div>

We have been through this before, and I have given you plenty of arguments that Microsofts's programming and security design wasn't that more sloppy at the time than other, similar alternatives. In fact, the so highly praised Unix for a long time has had security holes that were breathtakingly stupid. Passwords were sent as plain text over the network. And even a silly command as "finger" could be used to break into a system.
The major problem MS has had is that their OS was the choice by the uneducated masses, creating millions of poorly configured machines all over the world, attracting a lot of hackers that wrote specific attacks because there are so many of them.
And again, as I explained you in a previous thread, spam really doesn't have to do anything with Microsoft. The only reason for that is that the email protocol itself is a horribly outdated, simplistic design that isn't up to it's current task.


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(eagle33199 @ Oct 4 2007, 04:53 PM) [snapback]521152[/snapback]</div>

I largely agree with your analysis, but my question is: can you call a product inferior if it manages to have a larger appeal to the industry? There were several reasons why MS gained dominance. Openness over the closed Apple system was one of them. Integration and legacy support another. These were (and are) real issues that were recognised better by MS than by Apple. I keep stressing that MS commoditized personal computing. A smart strategy.

 

Deleted because of duplicate post. Apparently PriusChat has gone mad...

 

Deleted because of duplicate post. Apparently PriusChat has gone mad...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ Oct 3 2007, 10:45 AM) [snapback]520689[/snapback]</div>

Consider that Microsoft far outdoes Apple in patents, and you might get an idea that they can innovate. Here you can see that Microsoft obtained 499 patents in 2003 vs. Apple's 80. IBM was most prolific at 3,439 patents. This arguably is not the only measure of innovation, but it is certainly one measure and by this, Microsoft is ranked 34 of all companies worldwide. See link.

If you look here you can see Microsoft is in the top 10. Sorry - I don't see Apple.

Apple was a great company in the '80s to early '90s -- too bad they, unlike Microsoft, couldn't convert that into broad scale success in the marketplace. They are a relatively minor player in computers today - although their recent share gain has been impressive, but hardly convincing. Relative to total PC sales as they seem to be stabilizing around 6%, which is about 1/2 of their all time market share high. And interestly, even Windows Vista has more share in Operating Systems than does Mac OS-X.

They obviously have a hit on their hands with the ipod and are smart to attempt to move it into the wireless arena. However, coming from the wireless industry I can tell you that the handset business is brutally competitive and players who stake out a high end position in this market are unlikely to gain significant share in this market over the long term as the bulk of this market is price driven, due to pressure from the wireless providers. I am not convinced Apple can do it against the likes of LG, Samsung and Motorola who have been making low cost phones for years and who have long established relationships in the industry, strong technical capabilities, and extraordinarily short product life cycles.

I predict the stand-alone MP3 player will go the way of the stand-alone Palm Pilot. In the future these applications will most certainly be embedded within the cell phone for the majority of users. This is not a field that I think Apple is well positioned to either innovate in nor be successful in for the long haul. After all, their i-phone is hardly an innovation - just a copy of existing wireless phones with integrated capabilities, albeit a pretty nice one.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(vtie @ Oct 4 2007, 08:50 AM) [snapback]521190[/snapback]</div>

Speaking for myself, the earlier Mac OS was trash. OS X took a whole new direction by throwing out the previous OS, renouncing backward compatibility, and doing things right, from scratch.

Microsoft did not "render the competition unacceptable." Microsoft drove the competition out of business. Except for Apple, whose OS was even worse than Windows, until OS X.

Linux is still not ready for the average home computer user. It's hard to install, proprietary codexes are unavailable, or have to be searched out and installed by arcane and confusing installation procedures, etc. For the computer geek, Linux may be the best thing available today. But for the rest of us, it's got a ways to go yet.

I actually had Microport Unix System V (genuine AT&T Unix) on my 80286 PC AT. But software for that system was so expensive that the only thing I could use it for was debugging programs I was unable to debug under DOS. And even then, the first thing I had to do was write my own editing program, because the included editing program was so counter-intuitive that I could not use it.

As a first-rate OS, I loved Unix. But as competition to Microsoft, it was not an option for the ordinary home computer user. I could not afford to buy ANY software for Unix. The ONLY programs I had for it were the ones that came with it, and those I wrote myself. A word processor would have cost $500, if I remember correctly.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Oct 4 2007, 09:22 PM) [snapback]521314[/snapback]</div>

So, how should I link all this with your earlier quote "The genius of Microsoft has always been their uncanny ability to convince the majority of (mostly ignorant) computer users to buy and use their crappy software"?
If I read your text, it seems that you are convinced yourself that, before OSX, MS was a logical choice. You considered Apple OS as worse, and unix was only for geeks and/or prohibitively expensive. How could it then be uncanny that they gained the majority of computer users?

As for software on Unix, I used to rely to a great extent on GNU or similar free software. For text processing, I have used free LaTeX for many years, and I still consider it the best typesetter around. The combination Emacs/LaTeX/GhostView proved to be very efficient. All of them were free

 

I much preferred Mac OS 6 over Windows 1.0 and 2.0.

I much preferred Mac OS 7 over Windows 3.0 and 3.1.

I much preferred Mac OS 8 over Windows 95 and 98.

I much preferred Mac OS 9 over Windows ME.

And I much prefer Mac OSX over Windows XP.

Windows Vista is a joke.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(DaveLeePrius @ Oct 4 2007, 10:08 PM) [snapback]521336[/snapback]</div>

Now that is a set of convincing arguments!
I guess Microsoft may as well shut down their business now.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(DaveLeePrius @ Oct 4 2007, 03:08 PM) [snapback]521336[/snapback]</div>

But what piece of fruit do you click on to configure the IP stack???

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(DaveLeePrius @ Oct 4 2007, 01:08 PM) [snapback]521336[/snapback]</div>

Vista is a joke - hmm - that may be but it is already outselling OS-X. So who is laughing, Microsoft or Apple? :lol:

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TimBikes @ Oct 4 2007, 04:53 PM) [snapback]521382[/snapback]</div>

No, OSX has far outsold Vista. OSX has been out since 2001, Vista was just released. And Microsoft has extended XP sales until next June due to demand over Vista.

Now who is laughing, Microsoft or Apple?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(DaveLeePrius @ Oct 4 2007, 03:19 PM) [snapback]521390[/snapback]</div>

According to this, Vista is outselling OS-X. So in total, Microsoft has 90%+ market share vs. Mac at less than 7%. Doesn't mean OS-X isn't a good OS, but I think MS is the one doing the laughing.

See: link.

Net Applications' Operating System "Market Share" for September 2007:
79.32% - Windows XP
7.38% - Windows Vista
6.61% - Mac OS X (combined PPC + Intel)
3.32% - Windows 2000
0.89% - Windows 98
0.81% - Linux
0.61% - Windows NT
0.49% - Windows ME
0.13% - Pike v7.6 release 92
0.12% - Nintendo Wii
0.10% - Unknown
0.07% - iPhone (0.04% in July, 0.05% in August)
0.06% - Windows CE
0.03% - Series60