Re: Microsoft's future

["Marvin C. Slayton" <mcs@mail.scsinfo.com>]

  Unfortunately for all us, Bill Gates reads history religiously and is doing
  everything he can to "beat the odds" and not let history repeat itself.
  Witness the phenomenal turnaround he orchestrated for his "troops" to adopt
  and extend the Internet into his organization. There is NO passing this
  company by with technology as long as Bill is not the ball.
  ===================================================
  Marvin C. Slayton, mailto:mcs@mail.scsinfo.com
  President
  Structured Computer Systems, Inc., http://www.scsinfo.com
  30 Tower Lane, Avon, CT 06001
  phone: 860.677.0222,  fax: 860.677.7157
  ==================================================
  -----Original Message-----
  From: Luc-Etienne Brachotte <Luc-Etienne.Brachotte@art.alcatel.fr>
  To: Multiple recipients of list <am-info@essential.org>
  Date: Thursday, November 13, 1997 7:55 AM
  Subject: Microsoft's future
  
  
  >In "Microsoft Secrets", p434, the authors about Microsoft's future :
  >
  >    First, history is against Microsoft. Companies with 70-80 per-
  >    cent market shares (which Microsoft has for PC operating systems
  >    and the Office applications suite) usually have only one way to go,
  >    and that is down. For a variety of reasons, few firms that dominate
  >    one generation of a product continue to dominate the next genera-
  >    tion, depending on how radical the change is. Dominant compa-
  >    nies often become so complacent, arrogant, or attached to their
  >    existing investments that they become vulnerable to major shifts in
  >    customer needs or technologies, or to threats from more nimble
  >    competitors. In particular, market positions based on de facto
  >    technical standards seem unlikely to endure in a fast-moving in-
  >    dustry for more than a few years.
  >
  >Then they explain it has been the case for IBM, DEC, Wang, Ford, General
  >Motors, Xerox, Kodak, ...
  >
  >NB : through the book, the authors seem to like Microsoft very much.
  >--
  >            .~~~.  ))
  >  (\__/)  .'     )  ))              Luc-Etienne BRACHOTTE
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  >  _(    (   )_.'        E-mail: Luc-Etienne.Brachotte@art.alcatel.fr
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  >