August 25, 2005 at 6:59 pm
It seems that maybe it's not Microsoft that's the bad guy these days in Silicon Valley. Or at least, not the only bad guy. These days there's lots of complaint about Google being the "Borg" in the Bay area.
The article (NY Times, registration required) talks about a 25-50% salary bump for "desirable programmers" who are being courted by Google. I'm not sure what makes a desirable programmer, but if you think you've got it and you can stand the Bay area, send your resume. They're talking US$150k a year for programmers at Google. That's not a bad living from where I sit, even with the real estate prices in the valley.
I used to remember reading about all these amazing professors and researchers that Microsoft was hiring in the mid and late 90s. Guys that had done amazing work in their particular fields being hired to work at Microsoft Research, or even Microsoft itself to try and incorporate some new technology into their products. Despite all the complaints about Microsoft not innovating, it hasn't been for lack of trying.
The things being said about Google and the issues they're having are an evolution of a highly successful company. Everyone remembers Netscape, but most articles and items I see are of small, independent, Netscape being crushed by big, bad Microsoft. I've heard Jim Clark, Jim Barksdale, and Mark Andreessen speak at different times and followed them in the mid nineties. If they had somehow been able to "beat" Microsoft in the browser and web server market, they would have done no differently. Almost every big company tries to do everything it can to compete and win. And crush rivals.
Not that it makes it right, and it's usually something that occurs when the company stops being a business and becomes an investment. When you are concerned about showing any weakness, when you can't have a bad quarter, then you start to compromise your morals and ethics, when you're willing to take risks and chances that arne't necessary to keep the business going.
It's one of those things that I see as a problem in corporate America. It seems many C-level managers have forgotten the idea is to run the business for the long term and turn a profit. Not be the biggest and baddest and grow every year.
Steve Jones
August 26, 2005 at 12:31 pm
"...Everyone remembers Netscape, but most articles and items I see are of small, independent, Netscape being crushed by big, bad Microsoft. ..."
The complete history of this is very interesting and well-documented, but not part of the public's collective memory.
Netscape was beating the pants off of Microsoft in the Browser Wars when Microsoft's offering was IE v1 or v2. Even though IE came with Windows 95, hardly anyone was using it, because Navigator was so much better.
In 1995, MS made the decision to develop a completely new browser from the ground up, one that was built from components and that would be completely customizable and programmable. That effort resulted in IE 3.0.
In early 1996 , into the picture comes the then-800-pound-gorilla of the ISP world, AOL. They were planning to launch a new version of their software, and they wanted to do a deal with Netscape for the browser portion in the worst way. The company that they did NOT want to deal with was Microsoft. But here is the thing - they needed a highly-customized browser that would reflect their "Brand" (e.g., you wouldn't know you were using Browser X, it would be an "AOL experience.") So they begged Netscape to make changes to Navigator to fit their needs. Netscape's response was, "here's our browser, it's $x per copy, call us when you're ready to buy."
On the other hand, Microsoft had already begun to design IE 3.0 for just such a situation. They dedicated a few key engineers and techs to sit with AOL and find out exactly what they needed. Microsoft bent over backwards to make AOL happy, and in the end, AOL went with MS for the guts of their new software. Basically, it was just IE heavily customized via the IEAK.
In other words, while Netscape acted towards AOL as if it were a monopoly, Microsoft acted like a hungry start-up and got the business.
At the time, AOL had more than 35% of the ISP business in the country. Once they deployed their new software, suddenly that entire 35% showed up on the Industry's scoreboard as using IE for the browser. In one stroke, IE went from a few measly percent of the market share to almost half.
Not only that, but people quickly found out that IE 3.0 was a pretty good browser, arguably at least as good as Navigator v3. By the version 4's of each product, the War was pretty much decided; Netscape's version 4 was slow and buggy, while IE 4.0 was pretty much solid. The Netscape browser market share continued to plummet as IE's climbed to close to 90%.
Netscape *could have* beaten Microsoft at this game if they had played their cards right - basically listen to your customers and make a better product. Others have done it, like Intuit. But Netscape, for all the hype (and all the credit it rightfully deserves from it's early days) in the end turned out to be a poorly-managed company that, as my old drill sergent used to say, "stepped on its d*ck" too many times.
best regards,
SteveR
Microsoft Poster Child for Central Maryland & District of Columbia
August 30, 2005 at 5:07 pm
I was a big fan of Netscape at the time. Still sort of like it. But the competitor to Netscape was actually NCSA Mosaic. I used it but didn't like it. Especially w/o the integrated e-mail of Ntescape.
But when M$ decided to get into the browser game they basically bought the Mosaic engine, which was already V3 or so, and stuck MS IE on top of that.
So I agree that MS listened to AOL, and Netscape didn't but they still absorbed something else.
Heck, this is still in the License in the About box of IE.
Based on NCSA Mosaic. NCSA Mosaic(TM); was developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
----------------
Jim P.
A little bit of this and a little byte of that can cause bloatware.
Viewing 3 posts - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply