MSFT is d0000000m3d. 16,000 employees on a product rev and buzzphrases like "integrated innovation?" It's 1975 at IBM all over again. Also, they're messing with the soda. Hope you like process bells on conference tables, folks - they're coming!
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2001973671_microsoft07.html
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2001973671_microsoft07.html
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Date: 2004-07-07 09:13 pm (UTC)Oh, they've got so much money it's not even funny. They'll be around for quite a while. They just don't matter anymore. Not in good ways. Really, they haven't mattered that much for a while; this is the ossification setting in. Nickel-and-dime-ing will continue apace, and Balmer, et al, will continue to say everyone's happy and onboard with it until it's too late to staunch the bleeding and they have a crisis. They can afford a couple of crisises, too, so you've got nothing to worry about anytime soon.
But the next Netscape that comes around won't be nearly so easy to handle - assuming there's no artifical restraint of development, e.g., through the murderously abusive software patent system I've been screaming on and off about for the last several years. (Did you know Microsoft recently patented the double-click when applied to small screens? No, really, it's a granted patent. Neat, huh?)