Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on September 23, 2005 10:06 AM
It's appropriate to have some intensity of feeling when we see clear attempts to undermine decisions made in the public interest. Congratulations to all for speaking out about this, and to Sam Hiser for presenting a great synopsis and excellent links as well.
Despite all the corporate doublespeak to the contrary, this decision on the part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is based purely on clear and simple principles. No need to review them here; the article does that very well.
It's certainly not the fault of the Commonwealth that Microsoft has decided to withdraw from an eminently fair competition. We're simply reminded that fair competition has never been consistent with the way Microsoft reasons about its relationship with the world. But on that note, I'd like to review an aspect of that reasoning that especially warrants our attention.
Microsoft likes to point to studies which raise concerns about the high cost of migration away from its products. It presents a variation of just this argument to the Commonwealth. Hiser and others respond with comments that it's a question of paying now or paying later. But an even stronger argument can be made.
Indeed, the cost of conversion seems very reasonable, given the lasting freedom that it buys from one single conversion investment. But we should also pause to consider why the cost of conversion should ever be so high in the first place. And the answer is because Microsoft made it so, through deliberate strategies such as "embrace and extend" and "integrated innovation," respectively designed to defeat both interoperability and modularity that make conversion possible to competing products.
Now look, it's one thing if I go and buy a pair of jeans that are simply too small for me once they've been through the washer. My mistake not to have thought about that beforehand. But if a store knowingly sells me jeans that are too small, in order to also sell me special drycleaning services that won't shrink the jeans, then we've got a problem. Especially if the store then warns me about the perils of shopping elsewhere and losing access to the special cleaning service. That's not being helpful. That's being extortionate.
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Great synopsis
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on September 23, 2005 10:06 AMDespite all the corporate doublespeak to the contrary, this decision on the part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is based purely on clear and simple principles. No need to review them here; the article does that very well.
It's certainly not the fault of the Commonwealth that Microsoft has decided to withdraw from an eminently fair competition. We're simply reminded that fair competition has never been consistent with the way Microsoft reasons about its relationship with the world. But on that note, I'd like to review an aspect of that reasoning that especially warrants our attention.
Microsoft likes to point to studies which raise concerns about the high cost of migration away from its products. It presents a variation of just this argument to the Commonwealth. Hiser and others respond with comments that it's a question of paying now or paying later. But an even stronger argument can be made.
Indeed, the cost of conversion seems very reasonable, given the lasting freedom that it buys from one single conversion investment. But we should also pause to consider why the cost of conversion should ever be so high in the first place. And the answer is because Microsoft made it so, through deliberate strategies such as "embrace and extend" and "integrated innovation," respectively designed to defeat both interoperability and modularity that make conversion possible to competing products.
Now look, it's one thing if I go and buy a pair of jeans that are simply too small for me once they've been through the washer. My mistake not to have thought about that beforehand. But if a store knowingly sells me jeans that are too small, in order to also sell me special drycleaning services that won't shrink the jeans, then we've got a problem. Especially if the store then warns me about the perils of shopping elsewhere and losing access to the special cleaning service. That's not being helpful. That's being extortionate.
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