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The Monopolist's Cookbook |
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THE VERY MODEL OF A MAJOR MEDIOCRITY |
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t has become a matter of conventional wisdom to accept Bill Gates as a high-technology visionary -- the chief architect of the information revolution -- an image he immodestly cultivates in his book, The Road Ahead. But on what basis have Gates and his company earned the visionary label? Their franchise product, MS-DOS, was a troublesome, inflexible and fusty piece of work from the very start, but Microsoft might be excused for having delivered no better than their client IBM demanded. By the very act of subcontracting out its operating system software, IBM was candidly acknowledging its inability to author an operating system of its own within the time-frame dictated by the release of the first IBM-PC. Microsoft, having bought DOS from its original author, delivered just what IBM expected, and no better. Whatever its paternity, Microsoft's wide dissemination of this retrograde command-line interface technology throughout the 1980s was powered by a flood of inexpensive PC clones, whose manufacturers were compelled to pay Microsoft a royalty for each box they sold. For many years Microsoft could and did ignore the impressive interface advances made by their competitors, perhaps because they saw no reason to disturb a remarkable cash cow that was transforming the company almost effortlessly into a massive empire. Another possible explanation is that they lacked the technical ability, vision or affection for their customers required to be genuine innovators. Microsoft's answer to the increasingly apparent deficiencies of MS-DOS was Windows, which to date has evolved through five distinct versions and several sub-variations. With its release in August 1995, Microsoft proclaimed Windows 95 to be one of the great technological triumphs of the age -- a user-friendly operating system that finally consigned MS-DOS to history. But even the nearly one billion dollars in advertising lavished on the Windows 95 roll-out could not hide the truth: each successive incarnation of Windows, including Windows 95, were in fact merely progressively thicker drapes hung over MS-DOS. The disguise has never proved entirely convincing. According to James Gleick, the highly respected science author and technology correspondent for the New York Times,
The user-friendly claims were challenged by Fortune Magazine columnist and technology writer Stewart Alsop,
Jesse Berst, editor-at-large for ZDNet provides an additional dose of reality-therapy,
So while Windows 95 may be a seriously flawed product that fails to live up to Microsoft's exaggerated claims, it is also characteristically a "just good enough" product. Microsoft has reason to believe that it can continue to market mediocre products, and to paper over the gaps between the promise and reality with the marketing and advertising equivalents of carpet-bombing. This strategy succeeds mainly because a great many consumers are so completely committed to the Microsoft product line that they fail to even give credence to the notion that their computing needs might be better met elsewhere. A strategy is suggested by Nicholas Petreley, Senior Editor at Infoworld ,
Ever the myopic visionary, Gates also completely miscalculated the importance of the Internet boom. His tepid evaluation of its potential is memorialized in the first edition of The Road Ahead. When this basic error in judgment became too obvious to ignore, the book was revised to include the new, overhauled Gates vision for the Internet. True to form, Microsoft got it wrong the first time, and then charged its customers for the "upgrade." Gates deserves due credit for quickly plotting a new Internet course for his company. But what is important in this scenario is that, as always, Microsoft does not envision itself as a mere competitor in the Internet market, but rather as the dominant, if not sole, player. In an effort to compensate for a poor start, Microsoft hatched the cynical Internet Explorer giveaway program and other broadsides aimed squarely at the much smaller Netscape Communications. Also adopted as an element of the new strategy is the effort to squelch Java as an open, cross-platform Internet-based standard. Microsoft apparently cannot imagine an Internet not entirely dependent on Microsoft. Having missed the boat, Microsoft now calculates that they can instead buy the ocean. On what basis, then, have Bill Gates and Microsoft earned the right to single-handedly determine our technological future? Clearly not by showing much inclination towards innovation, nor any friendliness towards diversity. We owe it to ourselves to pose this question: are huge advertising budgets and aggressive marketing campaigns sufficient replacements for developing products that actually deliver? Microsoft evidently believes this approach provides all of the variety and quality we'll ever need. But many of us demand both excellence and meaningful variety, and know that this can only be accomplished in a free marketplace. We resent Microsoft's brazen efforts at replacing quality with blandness and meaningful consumer choice with a monoculture of mediocrity. |
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last revised: 15 December 1997 |