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A comment on Microsoft’s Downfall: Inside the Cannibalistic Culture That Felled a Tech Giant. Parent comment

Re:Microsoft’s Downfall: Inside the Cannibalistic Culture Th... by epistasis on Tuesday July 03, 2012 @05:08PM (#4196203)
What made Microsoft so predatory is that they wanted to dominate the market and squash any competitors, and drive everything into a Microsoft monoculture. Apple doesn't act in the same way, and only seems to care about profits and products rather than marketshare. So even if Apple does something that seems incredibly controlling, you don't have to worry, because you can always buy somebody else's product. Microsoft was trying to make it so you couldn't buy anybody else's product.
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Re:Microsoft’s Downfall: Inside the Cannibalistic Culture Th... by tedsuo on Tuesday July 03, 2012 @05:33PM (#4196295)
Well, while they might seem that way because they are a hardware company, they are incredibly aggressive in that arena. Take the bannings and attempted bannings of Motorola, HTC, and Samsung devices for example. They are definitely trying everything they can to prevent you from buying someone else's product.
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Re:Microsoft’s Downfall: Inside the Cannibalistic Culture Th... by keithnoizu on Tuesday July 03, 2012 @05:58PM (#4196421)
Exactly. Apple as great as their products are, have started to resurrect the look/feel lawsuits of the 90s with their patents on trivial things such as how to unlock a phone, having a jump bar, etc.
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Re:Microsoft’s Downfall: Inside the Cannibalistic Culture Th... by jasomill on Tuesday July 03, 2012 @06:55PM (#4196652)
Sure, but only because they apparently don't have enough non-bullshit, non-FRAND patents with which to play the "IP litigation counter-counter-...-counter strike" game. Apple sucks, but so does every other major player in the "mobile" industry. I could be wrong here, but no counterexamples come to mind.
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Re:Microsoft’s Downfall: Inside the Cannibalistic Culture Th... by taligent on Tuesday July 03, 2012 @08:21PM (#4196968)
Can we stop this ridiculous revisionist history.

Slide to unlock was not a common place feature before it came out on the iPhone despite the prevalence of touch screen devices. It is hard to argue against the fact that the implementation was indeed unique at the time.

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Re:Microsoft’s Downfall: Inside the Cannibalistic Culture Th... by fpgeek on Tuesday July 03, 2012 @11:48PM (#4197493)
If you're going to defend Apple, may I suggest that you at least pick ground that is less shaky than slide-to-unlock?

I can say just one thing and clearly demonstrate that it is your history that is revisionist: Neonode N1m

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Re:Microsoft’s Downfall: Inside the Cannibalistic Culture Th... by kimmel on Wednesday July 04, 2012 @09:13AM (#4199270)
Star Trek had slide to unlock before Apple even made a phone. Star Trek PAD versus the iPad... hmmm
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Re:Microsoft’s Downfall: Inside the Cannibalistic Culture Th... by flyinRyan on Wednesday July 04, 2012 @11:02AM (#4199648)
No, they're trying to stop devices they see as copies from entering the market place. They have no way of stopping competing but different things from entering the market. MS did and used it.
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Re:Microsoft’s Downfall: Inside the Cannibalistic Culture Th... by ghshephard on Wednesday July 04, 2012 @12:22AM (#4197587)
You nailed it - I lived under Microsoft's "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" philosophy for more years than I care to remember. Microsoft wasn't just happy being profitable, it only recognized success when it both destroyed the competition and locked alternatives from arising. It was core to their culture.

Apple has always made it very clear that they are quite content having a small slice of the overall market, just as long as they occupied the _best_ part of that market. They tend to be elite snobs, who seem to be fine with 90% of the market running linux netbooks as long as 10% are running Mac Laptops.

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Re:Microsoft’s Downfall: Inside the Cannibalistic Culture Th... by finnw on Tuesday July 03, 2012 @05:26PM (#4196266)
Really? Apple are trying very hard to stop you buying an HTC phone.
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Re:Microsoft’s Downfall: Inside the Cannibalistic Culture Th... by flyinRyan on Wednesday July 04, 2012 @11:03AM (#4199650)
They're trying to stop copycats. Do you see any lawsuits over the Windows phones?
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Re:Microsoft’s Downfall: Inside the Cannibalistic Culture Th... by prairiedock on Tuesday July 03, 2012 @05:29PM (#4196277)
You haven't been following Apple's lawsuits against Samsung much, have you?
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Re:Microsoft’s Downfall: Inside the Cannibalistic Culture Th... by Steko on Tuesday July 03, 2012 @06:55PM (#4196654)
There's a bit of a difference between trying to kill the entire phone industry and suing obvious copycats who don't differentiate their products.

If Netscape has sued MS and won an injunction a lot of people would have cheered. Which brings up the old 'who's most like MS in mobile today?' question...

Microsoft made a netscape clone and gave away the product for free. Google made an iOS clone and gave away the product free.

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Re:Microsoft’s Downfall: Inside the Cannibalistic Culture Th... by jasomill on Tuesday July 03, 2012 @07:10PM (#4196741)
Sure, but there's an important difference between "giving away one product to sell others" and "using a monopoly position in one market to eliminate competition in another", namely, that the latter is illegal but the former is not. Grey areas? Sure, lots, whence so may lawyers. But IE and IIS were clearly (to regulators, not me) not mere loss-leaders, but prongs of a coordinated response to a perceived threat to Microsoft's PC hegemony.

Besides, Android device manufacturers effectively "pay" Google for Android in search traffic (or reduced revenue share from search traffic).

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Re:Microsoft’s Downfall: Inside the Cannibalistic Culture Th... by rmah on Tuesday July 03, 2012 @07:55PM (#4196883)
Besides, Android device manufacturers effectively "pay" Google for Android in search traffic (or reduced revenue share from search traffic).

Actually google pays the android device manufacturers, not the other way around.

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Re:Microsoft’s Downfall: Inside the Cannibalistic Culture Th... by ori_b on Tuesday July 03, 2012 @09:00PM (#4197070)
And google still manages to make money off of it. They aren't crowding out competitors at a loss in order to twist the screws later.
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Re:Microsoft’s Downfall: Inside the Cannibalistic Culture Th... by thm76 on Tuesday July 03, 2012 @09:25PM (#4197148)
Are they making money off Android?

From what I've read on some blogs they never give numbers showing their profit or loss from Android, and looking at the situation from the outside I'd think it's more likely they're losing money on it at the moment.

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Re:Microsoft’s Downfall: Inside the Cannibalistic Culture Th... by ori_b on Wednesday July 04, 2012 @08:52AM (#4199178)
Apparently it became profitable 2 years ago. http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/05/googles-eric-schmidt-says...
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Re:Microsoft’s Downfall: Inside the Cannibalistic Culture Th... by flyinRyan on Wednesday July 04, 2012 @11:05AM (#4199659)
>Sure, but there's an important difference between "giving away one product to sell others" and "using a monopoly position in one market to eliminate competition in another"

.... you mean like using a near monopoly in search to finance paying manufacturers to use Android?

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