Is the Microsoft monopoly all that bad?
These days I have been seeing lots of articles on how Google is upstaging MS and how the latter's monopoly is in danger and the crown might soon roll. This set me thinking...Is the MS monopoly, exercised through its Windows OS, all bad?
Think of it this way...It is because Windows is the all-pervading OS and platform used the world-over, that you dont need to learn any other system, except this. For the general lay man, who uses a PC, he doenst really need to have a choice of systems to learn. The easy adoption of computing systems in all spheres of industry and economic activity owes a lot to the equation of PC => Windows !
Today you take it for granted that when you write a Word doc or forward that ubiquitous romantic pps file for the umpteenth time, the recepients wont have to go searching for an application that can open it. The de-facto standards that underline our computing experience are a positive offshoot of the Windows and Microsoft monopoly. Almost every competing application that runs on a competing platform is designed to mirror the features (and then maybe build on them) that the microsoft experience offers. Nobody sticks his neck out to go and promote an alternative. This forced adherence to imposed de-facto standards is the reality that we enjoy and have come to take for granted.
In fact, if one thinks about it, it is the omnipresent Windows system and the resultant lack of incoherence in the slew of technologies that were designed and road piggyback on it, that have played a significant part in the Internet Juggernaut that has rolled on and poses a threat to Microsoft today. How ironic ! In my opinion, whether Microsoft maintains its domination (monopoly is a bad word, much profaned) in the long run, would depend on how soon it realises that its future world lies beyond Windows and enlarges its vision to think "Domination in computing, rather than domination in operating systems ". But knowing MS, they are surely one step ahead and have already figured it out.
Not surprisingly, Google gets to enjoy so much good press. Afterall, every David enjoys the good will of the janata, in the duel with Goliath. It is a rule of human psychology that the underdog enjoys the support of the ppl, but when it comes to backing this up with their money, you would find the same ppl putting their money on Goliath, with all due regrets expressed to David. :-)
posted by sp @ 8:48 pm
2 Comments:
very true... but have you realized Google is a company full of talented people but no product ? their revenues are from advertising and they dont have a single product to enjoy mass acceptance like microsoft.. agreed the business strategies are different.. but hey if they are different then they ought not to be compared in the first place !!
oh well, it all depends on how you define a "product". we have come a long way from the days of the brick and mortar companies when every product was a tangible. So if MS produces Windows, Office suites, its .Net platform and other products, then my dear, so does Google. It has its allpervading search engine and now its even diversifying. These are also products, only diff being the users dont pay for it directly.
And the reason, why they are being compared often is that these days slowly the entire computing experience has started to revolve around the information superhighway - the internet. And everyone wants to corner the biggest pie here. Google is no small player here. It has big stakes and so does MS and Yahoo etc. Their interests are all expanding, converging and now competing.
Btw, would have been nice if you could have left your id. Anonymity is the refuge of the scoundrels and cowards. ;-)
Post a Comment
<< Home