[odf-discuss] standards schmandards

[Christian Einfeldt]

On 7/12/07, Inge Wallin <inge at lysator.liu.se> wrote:
>
> On Wednesday 11 July 2007 01:43, Christian Einfeldt wrote:
> > If you have never done business with Microsoft, this story will make
> your
> > blood run cold.  It is amazing how many hoops Microsoft makes its
> business
> > partners jump through.
>
> Anybody who has his/her blood run cold when reading this hasn't had much
> experience with business.


Well, I do have experience with business, both as an entrepeneur (I'm an
attorney), and as a film producer (the Digital Tipping
Point<http://archive.org/details/digitaltippingpoint>film project
strives to condense Clayton Christensen's disruption theory
into 1.5 minutes out of a 90 minute documentary), and I have been
Slashdotted, Dugg, and I have approx one million provable reads as a
journalist writing about FOSS business.  So that point lacks merit.

When a smaller partner meets a bigger one, it's
> always the smaller that have to "sell" to the bigger, at least until the
> smaller one has made it obvious that he's valuable to the bigger one. And
> since MS is bigger than almost anybody, they make the rules.


Oh, no, that is entirely incorrect.  First, there are plenty of corporations
that are "bigger" than Microsoft.  GE, to name just one, albeit GE is a
conglomerate, and a different type of company, but that is exactly my
point.  The issue is not MSFT's market capitalization, or the number of
employees, or the annual gross revenues, but the influence that it has on
our digital culture.  Microsoft is uniquely positioned to influence global
digital culture, and, in fact, tax global digital culture and thereby
impeded its development.  Microsoft is a convicted monopolist that has been
found by a trial court to have abused its monopoly to the detriment of
consumers, a finding that has been upheld on appeal.

I am not a Microsoft hater, and the Digital Tipping Point film will not be
hatin' on Microsoft, but it is important to understand the influence that
Microsoft has on digital culture, and to ask ourselves if such widespread
influence and monopolization of that industry is desireable.  IMHO, most
people probably agree that such influence is NOT desireable.  Even Robert
Bork, who as a jurist questioned whether anti-trust is a viable notion,
testified against Microsoft at its trial.

Most of these things are just "listening to your customer's needs", and
> since
> MS's needs include ego stroking, the rest just falls out naturally.


Oh no, this is a gross simplification of the role that Microsoft plays in
the desktop software economy.  The point of the story is that Microsoft is
still engaging in its anti-competitive behavior, and that it exerts highly
granular control over the business models of its business partners and even
the social lives of the execs and employees of its business partners.
Microsoft's insistence on obedience is much more pervasive than could be
said of GE, for example.  In fact, the contrast with GE is very apt,
indeed.  Jack Welch was known and renowned for his ability to delegate,
inspire, and motivate employees across that vast conglomerate.  Microsoft,
by contrast, creates a culture of fear among its employees and business
partners.

My thesis is that such a culture is the inevitable outgrowth of a monopolist
entrenched in a culturally-relevant industry such as PCs, and that
Microsoft's culture of fear could spread to the rest of society, and IS
spreading via the RIAA and the MPAA, among others.  A profound sea change (Bill
Gates words<http://news.com.com/Gates+memo+warns+of++disruptive+changes/2100-1014_3-5940792.html>,
not mine) is sweeping through the entire content industry, as the Internet
swallows privately held networks.  All content providers, which includes
software and movies and music, are facing economic pressures to change their
fundamental model for delivering their IP as services, not packaged
products.  They are losing control, and they are fighting back with socially
irresponsible means, rather than doing as Google, for example, is doing, and
anticipating the profound changes riding the growth of the free and open
Internet.

Microsoft deserves strident criticism because it is suppressing fundamental
social freedoms, not because it is "big".  Google is nearly as big, and is
rapidly growing bigger, and is continuing to act nearly as responsibly as it
did as a smaller company.  The difference between Google and Microsoft is
the difference between night and day.

Here is the article quoting Bill Gates' 2005-10-30 "sea change" memo:

http://news.com.com/Gates+memo+warns+of++disruptive+changes/2100-1014_3-5940792.html

        -Inge
>
> >
> http://digg.com/microsoft/Tips_on_how_to_drink_the_Microsoft_cool_aid_while
> >_on_biz_trips_to_Redmond
> >
> > Please consider digging this article, so that we can get it on the front
> > page of Digg!
> >
> > Despite what Microsoft says about "interoperability," it is obvious from
> > this article that the borg will accept nothing less than an
> all-Microsoft
> > world.
>
> --



-- 
Christian Einfeldt,
Producer, The Digital Tipping
Point<http://archive.org/details/digitaltippingpoint>
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