> When Pepsi-pusher John Sculley was developing the Apple Newton, he didn’t know something that every computer science major in the country knows: handwriting recognition is not possible. This was at the same time that Bill Gates was hauling programmers into meetings begging them to create a single rich text edit control that could be reused in all their products. Put Jim Manzi (the suit who let the MBAs take over Lotus) in that meeting and he would be staring blankly. “What’s a rich text edit control?” It never would have occurred to him to take technological leadership because he didn’t grok the technology; in fact, the very use of the word grok in that sentence would probably throw him off.
My point: Microsoft has identified and satisfied this need 20 years ago. Although I'm a big supporter of the Open Web and open systems in general, sometimes I do long for a bit of dictatorship to get things done. But then I come to my senses :p
> When Pepsi-pusher John Sculley was developing the Apple Newton, he didn’t know something that every computer science major in the country knows: handwriting recognition is not possible. This was at the same time that Bill Gates was hauling programmers into meetings begging them to create a single rich text edit control that could be reused in all their products. Put Jim Manzi (the suit who let the MBAs take over Lotus) in that meeting and he would be staring blankly. “What’s a rich text edit control?” It never would have occurred to him to take technological leadership because he didn’t grok the technology; in fact, the very use of the word grok in that sentence would probably throw him off.
My point: Microsoft has identified and satisfied this need 20 years ago. Although I'm a big supporter of the Open Web and open systems in general, sometimes I do long for a bit of dictatorship to get things done. But then I come to my senses :p