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Michael Kay wrote: > Office and Windows are good products and are highly successful because they > meet user needs, but they are also outrageously profitable. The high profits > are derived essentially because (a) there's a natural tendency in the user > community to converge on a single product, thus creating an effective > monopoly I'm unsure about a 'natural tendency' to converge on a single software product, but individuals are often constrained by IT policies. Many organizations reduce support costs by restricting the software that can be installed on desktop computers. And people often prefer to use the same software at home that they use in the office. The reason Microsoft Office is where it is today can be traced to the philosophy of a famous Confederate general whose formula for victory was "Git thar firstest with the mostest". WordPerfect, WordStar, DisplayWrite, MultiMate and other word processors competed for supremacy on PCs. WordPerfect became dominant by 1990, when Lotus 1-2-3 was the dominant spreadsheet. But both were text-mode DOS software. Bill Gates bet the company on Windows and GUI. He insisted that Microsoft's developers write for Windows, even though adoption rates for Windows were very low from 1985-90. When Windows 3.0 arrived, it rapidly expanded the market for GUI-based desktop applications and heated up a price war for word processors. Microsoft's pricing was competitive. Lotus Ami Pro, for example, was more expensive than WinWord for several years until IBM bought Lotus. WordPerfect was late coming out with a Windows product. It was inferior and over-priced until it was too late - when Word for Windows had become entrenched. The price war saw Word for Windows drop from $250 to $59 between 1989-1997. Gates and Co. came out with an integrated office suite for Windows and settled down for a long war of attrition against competitors who were late to the Windows market, such as WordPerfect, Lotus and Borland. Lotus was committed to OS/2 and Excel was the only spreadsheet for Windows for several years. Borland had pushed products for OS/2, such as Sidekick, ObjectVision, C++ and Turbo Pascal. IBM started bundling Sidekick with OS/2 in 1988. It wasn't until 1991 that Borland hopped on the Windows bandwagon with Paradox for Windows and Quattro Pro for Windows. The Microsoft monopoly on the desktop was primarily the result of choices by competitors who were reluctant to adopt Windows until the market forced their hand. In some cases they'd committed to OS/2 to emerge as the dominant OS for PCs. Other companies simply opposed the concept of using PCs for office systems and client-server computing, pushing alternatives such as X-Windows / Open Look / Motif workstations. Those decisions were the eventual undoing of some executives and companies, such as Philippe Kahn (Borland) and Ken Olsen (DEC). Microsoft benefited from a substantial infusion of talent from Borland. Likewise, DEC's unraveling enabled Microsoft to pick up operating system developers and database talent. That enabled Microsoft to expand from games and desktop software to become a player in server software, enterprise computing and the Internet. ======== Ken North =========== www.KNComputing.com www.WebServicesSummit.com www.SQLSummit.com www.GridSummit.com
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