Is Microsoft Actually Innovating?

Post by tybris » Wed, Jun 03, 2009, 10:04 PM UTC

jameskpolk wrote: post #6

tybris wrote: post #5

There are many innovative companies like Philips, Amazon.com, Yahoo!, Sun, formerly AT&T, but Apple and Microsoft are not among them. Their core competencies are quality and marketing. There's way more money in that. Apple did not invent the phone, mp3 player, video player, application store, etc. They just perfected and skillfully crafted hypes around them. Microsoft did not invent the Office suite, IDE's or the har…

>Apple did not invent the phone, mp3 player, video player, application store, etc. They just perfected and skillfully crafted hypes around them. Microsoft did not invent the Office suite, IDE's or the hardware acceleration layer, but they did perfect and deploy them through aggressive business strategies. Is your claim that a company must invent something from whole cloth to be "innovative"?

Post by aswanson » Wed, Jun 03, 2009, 10:32 PM UTC

icey wrote: post #2

I do feel like Microsoft has been listening to what its consumers are asking for more than it used to. I think they got humbled by Vista more than they'd like to admit.

Post by 10ren » Wed, Jun 03, 2009, 10:55 PM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #14

tybris wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but that's not how they run their business. You shouldn't expect Microsoft or Apple to be innovative, you should expect them to make a better product than everyone else and/or market it better than everyone else. Amazon.com did invent Cloud Computing, Philips did invent the CD, Sun did invent Java, Toyota did invent the hybrid, AT&T did invent the cell phone, Xerox did invent the GUI. Those are the companies that…

"Philips did invent the CD" A refinement on the laserdisc. "Sun did invent Java" A refinement on C, C++, and Smalltalk. "Xerox did invent the GUI" A refinement on Doug Engelbart's work at SRI. (Edit: Though many of the researchers working for him later went to PARC, I find no evidence that Engelbart himself ever did.) Now here's the real question. If inventing a new type of laserdisc that's five inches wide is innova…

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jun 03, 2009, 11:04 PM UTC

10ren wrote: post #15

philwelch wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Philips did invent the CD" A refinement on the laserdisc. "Sun did invent Java" A refinement on C, C++, and Smalltalk. "Xerox did invent the GUI" A refinement on Doug Engelbart's work at SRI. (Edit: Though many of the researchers working for him later went to PARC, I find no evidence that Engelbart himself ever did.) Now here's the real question. If inventing a new type of laserdisc that's five inches wide is innova…

Doug Engelbart was working at PARC (Xerox PARC).

Post by netsp » Wed, Jun 03, 2009, 11:57 PM UTC

calambrac wrote: post #10

For example, no one wants an iPod. They never have. What people want is to hear the right song at any given moment in time anywhere they are at without any device whatsoever. That's an adorable bit of engineer-brain reductionism, but I don't think it's right. Having some kind of device in the loop is useful as a symbol. It tells other people that you're listening to music, that you spent a certain amount of money to…