[Am-info] query about MS "Innovations"

[Joe Moore]

On Fri, Mar 29, 2002 at 10:11:52AM -0500, Geoffrey wrote:
> John Poltorak wrote:
> >On Fri, Mar 29, 2002 at 09:43:11AM -0500, Sujal Shah wrote:
> >
> >>
> >>Oh, that reminds me.  Another MSFT innovation is getting someone else to
> >>burden the cost of supporting your product.  I can't believe that the
> >>OEMs are happy being front line support for essentially a whole lot of
> >>MSFT software (since not much non-MSFT software actually makes it onto
> >>new PCs anymore).
> >>
> >
> >I think you have hit the nail on the head. This is Microsoft's greatest 
> >innovation, outsourcing testing of their software to unsuspecting third 
> >parties. It must cut down development costs to a small fraction of the 
> >true value.
> 
> Actually these are two different issues, but both are valid.  M$ does 
> outsource their support of their products (at no cost to themselves that 
> I know of) to the OEMs.  

And they also outsource thier documentation.  cf. Windows for Dummies, 
Undocumented Windows Secrets, Using Windows, and a multi-billion dollar
industry around telling people how to use Microsoft software.

--Joe