| Bodhesatva said: Vista isn't a failure by economic standards. By image standards? Maybe, but that's all in the ether anyway. I personally have negative feelings about Vista but there is no real hard evidence to suggest it's a failure in business terms. Most of what he's saying isn't refutable because it's vague. Take this, for example. "Microsoft’s monopoly power is dissolving, and its ability to create anti-competitive partnerships and exclusive alliances is also falling apart." Geez, I guess that might be true, but what proof do we have? I can give some evidence to the contrary: Microsoft profits are up up up, and they're making more money now than ever before. He also had to correct himself about the Xbox/Xbox360 comparison, and used shipment data, not sold data, to compare the 360's second to its first year (the 360 actually seems to have sold more consoles to consumers, but shipped less because they stuffed the channel the Christmas prior). So when he does get specific, he's often explicitly wrong or at least misleading. But there is one, big, major error here that I can point to specifically and say this is wrong: "The reality is that Microsoft is forced to falsify reports and color numbers because reality doesn’t support the illusion of Microsoft’s unquestionable market power." Let me make this clear -- falsifying financial reports is a serious charge and has legal consequences for a publicly traded company. There is no indication that Microsoft has done any such thing, and he provides no evidence whatsoever. As for "coloring the numbers?" That's back to vagueries. Every company "colors their numbers." Every.single.one. It's like saying "Microsoft tries to beat out it's competition, even if they don't have a superior product."
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Thanks for the digest.
This and the fact that the author isn't even able to spell the name of the product he is writing about make me wonder if it's worth reading the article at all, even though I'm interested in this topic.
