Misc. Ramblings

Actually, this is a trick question. Almost no large corporation innovates. Although, perhaps, to become a large corporation one must be innovative. But once having achieved such status (i.e., large corporation), and usually a monopoly over a segment of the market, what large corporations typically do is crave the status quo (sometimes spun with the word "stability" or "predictability"). For, by definition, as long as the status quo exists, the large corporation is in monopolistic control.

Note that I am not making a value judgment here. Most businesses are in business to make money. One common way of doing so is becoming so large that you control the market. To do so, honestly, you have to produce a product or service that people want and are willing to pay for. Note also, that I'm not saying this is necessarily illegal.

But once you've either driven your competition out of business (or bought and closed all of them), you can control the price of your product without fear that someone else will under cut you and therefore take away your control. Again, this is not a value judgment. It's just business.

That said, it is a value judgment to say this is not usually a GoodThing(tm) for the buying public. First, the price of the product increases without any market-based counter balance. Second, the product stagnates. That is, no useful/innovative features are offered and existing problems are not fixed. Both, in my judgment, are not GoodThings.

This is one reason why many people ask government to step in when a monopoly exists. Leaving aside the question of whether government intervention makes the situation better, the realization that something must be done usually takes place.

However, this post is not about what should take place. It is, rather, about whether Microsoft, as a large monopolistic software corporation innovates. And as I said at the beginning, the answer, at least as it appears to me is -- not any longer.

For example, look at the price of the Windows XP Home edition operating system. At retail, it costs $199. Add to that MS Office Pro 2003 at $499. Add the two and you are paying at least as much if not more than the hardware cost of a new PC. Is this software cost worth what you pay? The answer for a growing number of people is no. There is very little that is innovate in either product and what there is, in my opinion,is very costly for what you get. Ask yourself this question: does either product help you to do what you want done better (and I don't mean faster or more of, that is more a function of the speed of the PC, not the software)? For many people, the answer is no.

So, what to do? For now, start exploring the alternatives. There are other operating systems. There's the Mac OS, Linux/Unix, and a bunch of lesser known platforms out there. Running on these platforms are some applications that are full of innovations. I urge you to take a look at them and examine whether they meet your needs. If not yet, stay with what you have. But I think you will find that these applications are improving by the day and if you come back and take a look in a year or two, you may be pleased with what you find. Or not. YMMV.

Aloha!