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Subject:Re: Know the New Economy From:SteveFJong -at- aol -dot- com To:TECHWR-L -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com Date:Sun, 30 Apr 2000 10:00:58 EDT
Quickly, before Eric shuts down this off-topic-veering thread, I must get my
shot in 8^)
I commented that being first to market is good, but no excuse for remaining
sloppy; customers won't stick with poor products. Dan Emory
<danemory -at- primenet -dot- com> correctly pointed out the obvious contradiction of
Microsoft Word, which maintains a 95% market share across two computer
platforms despite being--well, Word. Andrew Plato <intrepid_es -at- yahoo -dot- com>
responded that this is another facet of the "New Economy."
In my original posting I said you can't keep market share with a lousy
product unless you leverage your monopoly. And that's Microsoft--even more
crushingly so in the WP market than in the OS market. In this profession, I'd
say we hate it (Dan surely does ^); but I don't think there's any user
segment that swears by Word, only at it. Even for memos it's the wrong tool:
it's huge and cumbersome. (As discussed to death on a CNN board, I claim 99%
of the Word files e-mailed across the Internet are 30% overlarge simply
because they're all fast-saved and have journaled edits appended.) Why, then,
is it so damn successful? Judge Jackson has shown us.
Has Microsoft cross-leveraged its Windows monopoly to the benefit of Word?
Absolutely! First is the effective bundling, which makes pointy-haired
managers think Word comes "free" on all machines. (Nothing is free, bonehead,
not even IE 8^) Next is the way MS jerks competitors around with periodic,
undocumented changes to the oxymoronic proprietary "standard" RTF file
format, breaking conversion filters (even Word's--apparently a price worth
paying).
Then there are the programmatic hooks between Word and the other Office
products, and between Word and Windows (ever notice how fast Word opens the
second time you start it? Do non-Office products behave that way? Ever wonder
why?).
Finally, there are the steps Microsoft was willing to take to crush
competitors. In particular, Judge Jackson found their attempt to squash Lotus
SmartSuite punishable. Going the other way, they were willing to pull the
plug on Office for the Macintosh (according to Gil Amelio) unless Apple
agreed to make IE the preferred browser. Under Steve Jobs, they eventually
got what they wanted.
There is light at the end of the tunnel. First, I'm almost done ranting 8^)
Second, in a broken-up Microsoft, the Office company won't be able to cozy up
to Windows. And they will find it more profitable to coexist and be
compatible. I think the competition would be good for Word, and it would be
good for us.
-- Steve
Steven Jong, Documentation Team Manager ("Typo? What tpyo?")
Lightbridge, Inc., 67 South Bedford St., Burlington, MA 01803 USA mailto:jong -at- lightbridge -dot- com -dot- nospam 781.359.4902 [voice]
Home Sweet Homepage: http://members.aol.com/SteveFJong
