Ballmer: IBM in the crosshairs

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Choices

Psycho Steve Balmer has an attitude: take no prisoners. He's demonstrated this over and over again and it's well documented. This attitude fosters an "anything goes" ethic in terms of competition. In numerous lawsuits, witnesses testified to how MS lied about competing products, changed APIs without documentation, bought off competing companies to prevent adoption of alternative standards, and have made significant attempts to insert their RAND licensed techonology into standards on the web. From XML, to extensions on SMB, MS is doing everything it can to eliminate competition without regard to the ethical considerations of their actions.

It's this single-minded pursuit of the complete elimination of competition that troubles me about MS. MS is also known as Muscular Sclerosis. But I digress. Look, when you're dealing with a very powerful company like MS, that is bent on eliminating the competition, they are doing more damage than people are willing to acknowledge.

They are eliminating choices. And every company that went bankrupt because of some MS initiative to take control of the standards has resulted in the loss of choice for all of us. EVERYONE.

And every time we lose a choice, it will cost us more. MS has an ambition to be the toll master on the web, in the office, and in our entertainment centers.

IS THIS WHAT WE WANT?

If you are an Microsoft apologist, then I can only say that very likely you want a MS only world. How else can you justify your position?

If you are opposed to MS encroachment and dominance in all areas of computing, then you know that open standards are the only way to slay this dragon. MS can never refute the value of open, un-encumbered standards. All the basic internet protocols prove this. PDF from Adobe has proven it. And the state of Massachutsetts will prove it again starting in 2007.

IBM is not the biggest competitor to MS. It's open standards because open standards require customer service instead of vendor lock-in. MS knows that if they have lock-in, they don't have to smile when they take your money. And they can take their time answering your request for help.

The open source, open standard companies have based their business on customer service because they know their software can be duplicated. But their service cannot. They smile when they do business with you. They answer your requests promptly because they know you can go elsewhere.

Give it about 5-10 years and you'll see.

Scott

Posted by: Scottman_z   Posted on: 03/18/06 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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