TheBigFatJ said:
Fei-Hung said:
Not long ago (about 13 years), I was a student and we heard of this new product called Windows that was going to revolutionise the way we use PC's. A few years later it became the biggest thing since slice bread. It was almost a blasphemy to own a PC which did not run with Windows. Year after year, every kept looking forward to the next Windows software package whether it was required or not. The world was given a blessing- Microsoft!
Fast forward 13 years into the future as I look back at Microsoft; where they stand now compared to where they stood then, it is not the same picture nor is it the same company. It seems the giant is being attacked by several smaller species and at every turn there is someone taking a chunk off.
My Opinion on why Microsoft became successful
To me, it is all very straight forward. Whilst PC's were a great machine to own, until Microsoft came along, they were not user friendly to the majority of the users. Microsoft allowed people to easily access PC's to do regular work as well as more complex. It allowed people who were new to the PC to find a friendly start whilst those who were professionals, it allowed them to build on their skills. Microsoft was fresh, it was creative and innovative! It was so good in fact; that the money which came pouring in, made Bill Gates, founder of MS the richest man on earth at the time and made the company so powerful, the government had to step in and split the company into three.
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You don't know the first thing about MS history, do you? First of all, Windows is closer to 30 years old than 13 years old. Secondly, Microsoft stole all of the ideas from Apple. Apple stole the ideas from Xerox. Microsoft even swindled their first big product (DoS) from some poor family man who wrote it. MS sold DoS for millions through a licensing deal with IBM and bought DoS from some poor sap for $50K.
The difference between Apple and Microsoft back then is approximately the same as it is today: Quality. Microsoft had a shitty product (Windows) and Apple had a high quality product.
Since MS released office and Windows originally, they've tried and failed for almost 30 years straight to come up with a single damn profitable idea or product. And they haven't found one yet. The Xbox division has been arguably their biggest failure thus far from a monetary standpoint.
Microsoft just isn't good at competing. They said they'd crush google. After giving up on the idea that they were capable of competing with Google, they tried to buy Yahoo.
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Microsoft and Apple were looking at the PARC (Xerox) interface at roughly the same time. Xerox invented the "window" based GUI that we're all used to today. Apple used the idea, MS used the idea, Apple got pissed and filed lawsuit after lawsuit over an idea that wasn't theirs to begin with and was in fact offered to both companies.
