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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.mira.net.au!vic.news.telstra.net!act.news.telstra.net!psgrain!news.uoregon.edu!symiserver2.symantec.com!usenet From: tedm@symantec.com Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.advocacy Subject: Re: Historic Opportunity facing Free Unix (was Re: The Lai/Baker paper, benchmarks, and the world of free UNIX) Date: 28 Apr 1996 01:58:52 GMT Organization: Symantec Corporation Lines: 104 Message-ID: <4lujcs$46t@symiserver2.symantec.com> References: <4ki055$60l@Radon.Stanford.EDU> <4lfm6m$d2c@rigel.tm.informatik.uni-frankfurt.de> <4lftn3$olb@solaria.cc.gatech.edu> <317C8F0F.307E@curtin.edu.au> <4lgo4c$6fa@solaria.cc.gatech.edu> <317E07F1.441D@curtin.edu.au> <317DAA16.42C86E59@lambert.org> <4lqpu1$j7q@news.missouri.edu> <31813BBE.467CAA89@lambert.org> Reply-To: tedm%toybox@agora.rdrop.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 198.6.34.4 X-Newsreader: IBM NewsReader/2 v1.2 Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.development.system:22382 comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc:848 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:3528 comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:3384 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:18193 comp.os.linux.advocacy:47174 In <31813BBE.467CAA89@lambert.org>, Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> writes: >Justin Rhys Thuryn McNutt wrote: >] Terry Lambert (terry@lambert.org) wrote: >] >] : ] Great warrior doesn't fight: he sits on his dorstep waiting >] : ] for the body of his enemy to be carried down the street. >] : ] Tao Te Ching [some deleted] > : >] : What is your estimate of the life expenctancy of Microsoft? >] >] Perhaps not entirely. Unix has been around longer than Microsoft, >] and really, with the way Microsoft is going, I think Unix will >] easily outlast it. In my opinion, Microsoft is going to get >] too big for its breeches in an awful hurry, and then implode >] when product quality goes to hell (more than usual), tech. >] support costs run them into the floor, and they spiral downward >] into zero. > >Entropic death of Microsoft predicted. > >8-). > > >Follows: a rough mathematical model predicting company growth >potentials at each stage based on management and organizational >models. Novell and Microsoft SEC filings used as examples. > > >========= >Companies deriving from an entrepeneurial process have growth >"management thresholds" which they need to cross; as a gross >oversimplification, we have: [big long reasoning stating that Microsoft won't die deleted] This looks fine on the surface, until you start looking at the history of large corporations. The problem is that any company, no matter how large or small, must have a "vision" or leader of some kind. In small companies the leader is usually the founder. In large companies, a sucession of leaders usually takes place. Microsoft is a young company yet, and I'd wager to say that as long as Bill Gates is taking a personal interest in the company, it will thrive. The big question is what happens afterward. History is littered with large companies that had founders and grew much larger than Microsoft is, then faded away due to lack of leadership. In fact, we are currently seeing this happen with IBM corp, and Apple Corp. With these businesses, the succession of leaders they have had have not been able to reverse the downward trend. While these companies may enjoy brief periods of profitability, and may probably last for many years, their positions of influence have been forever lost. Even if IBM, for example, is profitable for another 20 years straight, since "Camelot" has been destroyed it will never again weild the influence that it had. Eventually, Microsoft will lose Bill G, or he will make a fatal mistake, and the glass mirror will be shattered. If Microsoft ever declares a large loss then it will lose the aura of invincibility that it currently maintains and Bill will never be able again to dictate the computer industry the way he does now. Given that practically all major software companies currently in the market (and such a YOUNG market) have declared losses at one time or another, the statistical probability that Microsoft will do so is very high. The honest truth is that the success of Microsoft is currently so tied to the personal decisions of Bill Gates that it is scary. I would bet anyone here that if the man were to get into a car wreck and kill himself, that Microsoft's stock price would drop so fast it would spin heads. The poor fellow probably has a brace of people following him around to make sure he doesen't get injured, he probably cannot take a piss without someone going into the john first to lay down a non-slip surface. Consider, for a moment, some large companies like ITT, Standard Oil, Selznak Studios (producer of Gone With the Wind) Packard Automotive, Indian Motorcycles, Lincoln Automotive, Buick, etc etc etc. All of them once giant companies with influence, now dust in the wind. It wasn't less than 15 years ago that Chrysler Corp nearly declared bankruptcy and got it's butt saved by the government. At their zenith they were larger than Microsoft. There is no reason that just because a company is big that it will last forever. In fact, while a small company (such as Hays Modems, UltraStore, etc) may have a bad brush with bankruptcy and survive, a larger company is much worse off. By the time they declare bankruptcy they have so much in debts that no one will step in and bail them out. The same goes for if a business is rich. Hell, the US government had to form the RTC and force a bunch of large banks to buy smaller insolvent banks! Look at the Wells Fargo takeover of First Interstate Bank! The problem is simply one of perception. When a big company goes under, people forget about them. How many people can name the large tube manufacturers that died when the transistor came out, or the typewriter makers that disappeared, or that computer manufacturer that built supercomputers - wasn't it named after a fish of some kind? It just goes back to "the bigger they are the harder they fall" A huge company like Apple Computer, or IBM is no more immune to stupid leadership or simple mistakes by smart leadership than a small company. The only difference between those 2 and Microsoft is that Small&Limp hasn't made any mistakes ....... yet.