Posts by Michael Overton 14 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Jun 2008
The only reason NASA is fronting this design is because the "geniuses" in congress ordered them to do it. Congress has killed funding for all research into new technology, and demanded they come up with this design, which congress will later cancel as well and blame NASA for the money that's been wasted.
If you look at the things people who were inside Microsoft during it's many failed phone/iPod/whatever mini-gadget is cool now debacles are saying it's clear that the biggest problems inside Microsoft is the corporate climate, rampant territorialism and crippling factionalism. It is true that the CEO sets the tone, but simply removing him won't change anything unless they shake up the leadership of all the departments and divisions, then re-organise them, too.
Perhaps the point of their game is not as simple as they admit? By encouraging players to operate their machines, they're also studying ways to counter those tactics. AI systems are still very complicated and known to do some very strange things sometimes. Is suspect they're trying to refine the AI and also prepare for the day Russia, China, India or somebody else starts developing machines like this.
There is no denying that Japan and other nuclear-industry folks have been steadily downplaying the severity of the problem, and then having to backpedal and admit that it's worse than they'd previously thought. After several rounds of this, there starts to develop a real "credibility gap" that makes it alot harder to have any kind of reasonable plan. Even The Reg's coverage has fallen victim to some of this: initially you trumpeted how the safety procedures mostly worked and most of the reactors were shut down and completely safe. Only to watch two of those gradually become problematic as well. I think both sides need to set aside their agendas and focus on solving this problem, and THEN we can argue about the pros and cons of nuclear energy, alright?
All of this points to what should have been recognized by pundits ages ago: Microsoft's OS dominance wasn't because of superior marketing or superior product. It was price. With all those competing computer makers pushing prices lower and lower, Apple's Macintosh languished at a premium price that consumer's just couldn't justify spending.
It all comes back to the same thing: Microsoft gained their browser dominance through leveraging their OS. They even admitted they couldn't win through features, etc. The growth of other browsers and the dominance of Google is certainly a threat to Microsoft, but as long as they have a stranglehold on the OS, they can potentially leverage that to push anything they want.
Let's face it, there are only a couple of really dominant Microsoft products, like Windows and Office, and they really lucked into those, at that. Whenever Microsoft has tried to expand into other product areas, they only succeed if they can shower it with money and cut off the oxygen supply for their competitors. They have an impressive history of mis-handling innovative companies they buy up, but then if you look at most other industries you'll see a similar pattern. Nope, nothing he says is really that much of a surprise.
I mean really. Apple has a less than 10% marketshare in the PC market, they're still a small player in the smartphone market, their income is less than Microsoft's typical PROFITS. I mean, what the hey? Maybe Microsoft should stop imitating everyone else and start making good products? Just a crazy idea I had...
Microsoft is using the same mentality that allowed them to win the "browser wars" to the "search wars". It worked before, so why would they doubt it the second time around? Personally, after watching the number of ways Microsoft continues to prove that they "don't get" the internet, I can safely say that I'll go out of my way to avoid anything they've produced. I simply don't trust them to do what they say they will, and I certainly don't trust them to even remotely respect my interests against their desire for profit. But then, I don't really trust Google or Amazon in that regard, either...
I'm surprised anybody would actually be surprised by this deal. Microsoft doesn't "get" the internet, and never has. Yahoo is loosing ground, steadily. Together Microsoft has a bigger market than their "bing" marketing could ever hope to reach. Merger and cash are the only weapons they have, and Yahoo is just plain desperate to stay relevant.
This shows the problem with corporate structure and the relationship with shareholders: Icahnn sees short-term profit from the sale of the company, and he's convinced a bunch of shareholders the same. They'll make money, but it won't be good for Yahoo, and it won't be good for Microsoft.
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