Hacker News Reader

Comment by bkovitz | Hacker News Reader

"Innovation is all you have"? Microsoft has never innovated, not even at the beginning. Many big players in many industries have never been innovators.

These guys have something else: a strong bargaining position. "Innovation is a fleeting advantage." Cornering a market, setting up barriers to entry—those are time-tested and effective ways to make serious money.

View on HN

Thank you. I can't count the # of times I've heard Microsoft described as innovative. Yet, nearly every time they try to innovate they fail. MS Bob anyone? Or how about that home automation pitch they made in the late 90s? Or Cablesoft / MS Media Server. Nearly every single one of their successes came from copying the competition (XBox, Windows) or through acquisition (Frontpage, Hotmail). And a lot of their failures (Zune, Vista, Win7 TBD) came from un-successfully copying the competition. Office is home grown, makes a lot of money and seems to innovate on its own, but it seems like the exception to the rule.

It's part of the mythology of American capitalism: if they're a big winner, they must be a big innovator, because innovation drives the economy!

Don't get me wrong, I love American capitalism, and I don't think innovation trumps all other factors (like reliability). The myth of Microsoft innovation is just one of those peculiar cultural myths that, in this case, blocks out the reality for people who don't work in the field.

Reliability trumps innovation if people want to use the same stuff for a long time. In the consumer market it seems it's all about new stuff. People chuck out perfectly serviceable items because there's a new model they want. Which companies would bother to make a reliable mobile phone or computer for the mass market.

The facade of innovation works for larger items too. Why create a vehicle that lasts long after the 5 year bodywork warranty when you're just reducing your market. Entice people with the new model, make sure your goods don't last too long - that appears to be the capitalist way.

The counter-point to that is to recognize the fact that Google has had only three real innovations that worked over the course of its entire existence and it has been been almost five years since their last hit. All of the big players seem to be throwing darts at the innovation wall and taking long lingering looks around the room to see whose ideas they can copy. This is nothing new, but please don't suggest that Microsoft is the only company stuck in this position.

Here are some:

Gmail

AdSense/AdWords

Google Scholar

Google Maps / Google Earth

Google Books

Google Image Search

Google Apps

Google Code

Google News

Chrome

SketchUp

"Innovation" in the strong sense of something super-radically new is not that important, at least to me. Let's not get distracted by that.

The reason I like Google is that things they make are well done. They don't have jingly-bobs popping up all over the place and lots of new "features" that actually make things worse. Their stuff has generally started simple and good, and gotten better. I don't find myself resenting using Google's stuff, cursing at the stupid bugs all the time. Their products have lots of nice little touches, like the way Google search will evaluate a mathematical expression or look up the time in a given location, and it searches PDF and PPT files and renders them decently in HTML. Google Groups now searches bulletin boards and discussion lists as well as Usenet groups. Google Maps does a really nice job of finding bus routes in San Francisco. It often just does what you want it to, without your having to ask, and without getting in the way.

When using most Microsoft products, I usually have the feeling that some "manager" has decided that there's no money in making things work nicely, but there is money in "shipping it". For example, the auto-numbering bugs that have been in MS-Word more than 10 years now and annoy people every single day.

Really? AdSense: Applied Semantics acquisition; AdWords: GoTo/Overture innovated here; Google Earth: Keyhole acquisition; Google Apps: Writely/Zenter acquisitions; SketchUp: @Last Software acquisition.

Microsoft was innovative in one way: the cheap, permissive licencing model they adopted for DOS is the reason it became the de facto standard for PCs.

This is a good point. Microsoft has guts and even some creativity when it comes to marketing.

It's not just marketing though. It's legitimate business genius.

Say what you will about their software - but there is no argument that they know how to run a business.

applause

What the fuck is wrong with clapping?

Losers! Bring it On!

Please stop.

'Agreed' gets +1 and 'applause' gets -8. I don't want to get semantic on y'all, but WTF?

I downvoted both, if it helps. I also upvoted you for adding to the conversation.

Agreed.

Ordinarily, I wouldn't post the nearly contentless "Agreed," but since the opposing point was made in reply to my post, I thought I should say something to show that I read and was moved by roc's point.

Any recommendations for what I should have done instead?

You did the right thing. And at least you didn't commit the heinous sin of applauding. I spit on clappers, curse their mothers, and I make a strong point of never breathing their exhaled air.

Just an upvote.

You don't need to respond to every qualm or counterpoint if others do it for you.

That's just bullshit. They produced their products like everyone else, and as a result built thousands of little innovations into it. Windows is not a cheap OS X clone (and thank god for that, here's to choice). Yes, they also copied successful concepts. So does everybody else.

If Microsoft is so bad, why is everybody buying it? The "shady business practices" theory is just too easy. And even if that was the only reason: I guess then they innovated in the sector of "shady business practices". They certainly did not become so big through sheer luck.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com