[Gllug] Re: Gates to get Knighthood!!!

[Jack Bertram]

* John Winters <john at sinodun.org.uk> [050302 16:52]:
> > Yes maybe someone else would have got there BUT they didn't
> 
> But without Bill Gates getting there, someone else undoubtedly would have.

Someone would have broken the solo round the world sailing record if
Ellen McArthur hadn't.  Bill Gates was one of the people responsible for
shaping today's technological world, and he's being rewarded for it.

> Whether they'd have been quite as into iffy business practices as he is
> is open to debate, but the fact remains we would still have had commodity
> PCs and users would probably have had a lot less pain if we'd had a
> technology company (instead of a marketing company) making the most money.

There's no way that could have happened.  You misunderstand what
marketing is.  For example, Apple is a marketing company, and always has
been, yet I don't see the yowls of distress when it is successful.

Every company needs to be competent on a range of dimensions and
distinctive in other dimensions to succeed.  Apple is distinctive at
marketing and technology, and competent elsewhere.  Microsoft is
distinctive at marketing, distribution, and acquisition/integration of
technology.  It doesn't _have_ to be innovative to succeed, and why
should it have to be?  IBM was a great technology company, went
downhill in the late 80s/90s when this wasn't enough, and has reinvented
itself on the back of its service offering - which is driven by customer
understanding (marketing) not technology.

I'm no Microsoft zealot, but I do find Microsoft-bashing tedious.  And
yes, they've broken the law - but remember, so did IBM.

jack
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