Comment Re:Thin clients for models (Score 1) 252
I worked for a company that Microsoft wanted to have a "sit down" with, they were interested in our media player that was shipped on every HP and Compaq computer sold in the US. Within 6 months, we were out of business and were surprised to see the "Windows Media Player" released with features and functions that we had been selling to our OEM's and making a decent living at it.
Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.
10 years later, in hindsight, I blame the principals of our company having dollar signs in their eyes and not being responsible by making them sign NDA's up the wing-wang. Of course, we all believed (at the company) they wanted to buy our product and use that as the "Media Player", what we didn't realize then was that they were just interested in seeing where we were headed to ensure that they were going to stomp us out by delivering it "free" in windows.
It worked.
In my opinion, There is no reason for the OSS community to have a "sit down".
How about MS extending the olive branch and open sourcing VB 6? Showing the comminity that they are committed to ensuring their customers have a path or support outside of JUST MS.
Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.
10 years later, in hindsight, I blame the principals of our company having dollar signs in their eyes and not being responsible by making them sign NDA's up the wing-wang. Of course, we all believed (at the company) they wanted to buy our product and use that as the "Media Player", what we didn't realize then was that they were just interested in seeing where we were headed to ensure that they were going to stomp us out by delivering it "free" in windows.
It worked.
In my opinion, There is no reason for the OSS community to have a "sit down".
How about MS extending the olive branch and open sourcing VB 6? Showing the comminity that they are committed to ensuring their customers have a path or support outside of JUST MS.
