Comment Re:Sun made a strategic mistake not tactical one. (Score 1) 408
> OS vs OS. Server vs Server.
> But Microsoft had an unending money supply through its monopoly in the MS-Office franchise.
> Microsoft could simply wait it out in a slugfest.
Wrong. MicroShaft won the API wars.
They embarked on a propaganda war and ran seminars convincing CEO's and other non-tehco's that "the API was are over" - Win 3.1 has won over OS/2; the perfomance race is over, "NT 3.1 is as fast as Netware". The application was is over, "WinWord is better than Wordperfect and Excel smashes Lotus". Then they stole OS/2 (win 3.1) and gave away packaged as Win 3.11W, 3-Com's Lan-Manager became the giveaway known as WfW 3.11 and they did similar things with NT 3.51, WinWord 2.11, and a plethora of neat programs for anyone who wanted then under the guide of "helping" the developers. Cripes, they were doing this before the Mac was even a stolten glint it Steve Job's eyes. They hosed som any companies and effectively stole their packages that it wasn't funny. If you had a decent package in the early 80's and entered into a sales and marketing agreement with M$, you deserved everyting you got it you didn't cash in your shares the next day. Do you really thing M$ wore their now only C compiler - No, they stole it "legally", the same way that Borland did except theirs cost them less. They didn''t develop PC based networking, they entered into "strategic marketng exercises and joint partnerships" with companies who were the best in field and re-packaged their software under the Micro$haft brand for a few years. To ensure success, they sent some Mickey$oft programmers to "help" the company develop and evolve the package that M$ were flogging. Strange how as ever agreement reached it's termination period M$ no longer needed the other company and had developed thier own in-house alternative, which saw the origionator vanish within 6-12 months.
The really sad thing is that the droids who conducted thiscampaign were were really nice people who I like to think did not realise what they were doing at the time or where it was headed. The few I had contact with were really proud of what htey were doing for society and of their small contribution in fixing a bug here and there. The ones I was the closest to are not sadly no longer with us, but I like to think they would not really be all that happy about how things turned out, then again, a few made some very seroius money and like the vast majority of other M$ employees at the time, probably do'nt give a rats arse.
Sun and many/most other technical organisations were fighting a loosing battle. Whlle Microsoft were advertising in Airline magazines and Accounting Journals etc, they were trying to sell to the "techs" and like the techs themselves, didn't realise that the "tech's" were ultimately told what to do by the finance guys. Sun had the tech guys who were super-smart like Bill. Their sales and marketing guys like Scott were just not at the same level, yet still tried to run the show. Sometimes I wonder how or if things would have turned out different if the real techs ran the companies instead of the pseodo puppets like Scott. Would the real techs like Bill J (Steve W, and the plethora of others) have got through, and if so, where would have be now?
