RealNames CEO Talks Back 207
jasoncart writes: "Keith Teare, former CEO of RealNames, has updated his homepage with his opinions regarding his the companies downfall. Obviously he's annoyed as he has lost his job, but he makes some good points about Microsoft's monopoly - 'Microsoft seems to be playing the role of the referee who decides whether any innovations succeed'"
realnames (Score:0, Interesting)
Btw, do you know that most of the pages in microsoft.com domain disappear and reappear in a different url? Most of the links to pages in MSDN got lost. (Even the pages found by Google.)
Good Riddance (Score:3, Interesting)
I have had exactly the same scripted cold-call telephone conversation with these idiots twice within an hour. Any company that behaves like that deserves to crash and burn imho.
Re:Sour Grapes... (Score:2, Interesting)
What did he expect would happen?
After reading his whining, I sent him an email:
I just finished reading the comments posted on your web page detailing your
feelings about your previous company's dealings with Microsoft and felt
compelled to comment.
It certainly seems likely that Microsoft is guilty of, if not illegal, then
certainly less than ethical business practices. You seem surprised at this.
As an officer of a company, it is your responsibility to your employees and
your investors to investigate any company with which you plan on entering a
contract. It is clear that you did not do this.
Look at this quote from your page:
"The browser is now back under Microsoft's control and it is possible that -
having learned much from RealNames - it will develop its own version of our
resolution service."
Had you bothered to do the most cursory investigation of Microsoft you would
have found that this is one of their common business practices.
A few companies who Microsoft have been *convicted* of doing this to in the
past are:
Stacker
Syn'x Relief
There are several other cases where they have been convicted, and numerous
others where the developers in question simply could not afford to pursue the
cases. A simple internet search will reveal this to you, as it would have
before entering negotiations
While it is arguably wrong of Microsoft to have done what they did,
the fault of the failure of your company lies squarely with your failure to
follow the adminition of any grade school teacher:
Do your homework.
ok way to blame your problems on microsoft (Score:3, Interesting)
So he started offering delayed repayment plans. Microsoft accepted them for a while and then they stopped. Well nobody is required to accept delayed repayment plans. Its their money after all.
So that guy tries to hide the fact that his bussiness failed by saying that Ms refused to accept his "innovations". Well the market refused to accept his "innovations" too. His bussiness did not succeed.
And as far as the innovations go lets be realistic here. All he did was try to hijack domain names. I am actually glad he did not succeed. I dont want some private co connected to microsoft in control of the naming system. At least icann pretends to be community governed.
Re:Sour Grapes... (Score:1, Interesting)
I find it hard to believe that after investing or spending that amount of money RealNames could not put a business plan in place to hedge against the behavior of Microsoft and create some sort of sustainable competitive advantage. By relying on Microsoft for you business was a critical failure. Not controlling your own destiny is the first thing that they teach in business school.
It appears that you "pissed" your money away and failed to execute. As the CEO that is your fault.
It is sad that Microsoft killed an innovative concept but to piss and moan is not something that I admire - nor sharing notes from an obvious confidential meeting (although I found the notes very humerous).
Sorry but it seems that you deserved it.
Re:nscp another joke - you tool (Score:1, Interesting)
You my friend should stop giggling
you tool
btw: I agree with this guys take on DNS
Re:Sour Grapes... (Score:1, Interesting)