|
PureBytes Links
Trading Reference Links
|
Jen... I agree with your synopsis for the most part. Where I differ is the
degree of impact MSFT's ownership of the OS market played in their eventual
domination of the App market. I believe it was HUGE -- you own/sell the
razor, you get to manufacture sell the razor blades. Even if there are lots
of good, generic razor blades out there, the brand tie-in will eventually
win you a large hunk of the market-share ...even if your blades are just
okay, and especially if you practically give the razors away to your
distributors as long as they agree to sell/bundle your razor blades with the
product. And to your question "why couldn't a Megalon like IBM grab at
least some marketshare for Lotus?" ....well, the quick answer is -- because
the bozos at IBM, in their infinite, arrogant wisdom, handed the PC OS
market to Billy. By the time they realized how badly they tripped over their
own shoes and tried to push into the market with OS2, the fat lady had
already sung.
BTW, I liked Lotus, but I was running it on a NeXT ;-)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Calandra Sikes" <jen450us@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <omega-list@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, November 25, 2002 11:00 PM
Subject: Re: Cost of in-house trading software development
> Ray,
>
> I presume you're talking about MS-DOS as the app that
> had the end user "by the Gonads" in the 80's (ie 83,
> 84, 85). And if I'm, reading you're message
> correctly, it's esentailly the OS that allowed them to
> leverage their other products such as Word and Excel
> an steal marketshare from estblished giants like
> Visicalc back in the 80's. Remember, we aren't
> talking aobut now. We're talking about different case
> histories in time, when realtively mid to small
> comapnies release products into overcrowded markets.
> Thats what MSFT did with WORD and EXCEL, Access, and
> even SQL.
>
> So your premise doesn't ring that true with me. When
> I think back, I see a different common thread. What I
> see is that growing market share had little to do with
> merely marketing and cash and bullying and all those
> other things and everything to do with product
> excellence. Like it not, MSFT builds good software,
> realtively speaking. There's no question that to some
> degree leverage and presence they already had helped
> but that wasn't IMO the main reason. If that was true
> then why couldn't a Megalon like IBM grab at least
> some marketshare for Lotus? They had just as much
> cash and clout. Could it be that Lotus sucks compared
> to Excel. I thought it did. Same for other
> wordprocessors. MSFT has always had a huge long term
> commitmment to their core software such as Excel and
> Word. They have continued to innovate to a degree (or
> steal ideas from the world around them) and build on
> previous gains. When they took it Windows it made a
> huge difference. The others couldn't quite keep up.
> Once again, they pusheed the state of the art further
> and that's something the others weren't doing.
> Another example is Eudora. They have a good product
> and they have a sizeable number of users even in the
> face corporate domination by MSFT. NO $$$ or market
> clout, just a great product.
>
>
> But this story has played out before. Look at
> Eletronic Arts. I think they're the biggest PC game
> manufacturer in the world now. They started around
> 1984 with a few simple games and a few coders. They
> were however very good at writing games and that was
> their advantage. LIke Microsoft, they built products
> that did more and extended state of the art. It
> wasn't cash, or bullying or anything else that allowed
> them to grow marketshare in an already crowded market.
> And at the Broderbund, Sierra Online, Serius, (and
> who wrote castle wolfenstien?), Sir Tech and several
> others were all bigger players writing great games for
> the PC.
> The same thing happened again, about 5 years later
> with a company called Interplay. My friend Kathy was
> dating one of the founders of the company at the time
> so we would talk about what they were doing. EA had
> become a big player, Broderbund was still big, Sierra
> Online had the Kings Quest fame as well as others and
> there were more games from more companies than ever.
> But this little start up succeeded and has become one
> of the biggest game companies with such titles as
> Bard's Tale and Chess 2000 and so on (as of a couple
> years ago when I checked last -- they may have been
> bought out by EA or someone). I know for a fact this
> company had nothing but a couple great coders, some
> talented charismatic leaders and some cash for pizza
> every night. And they worked like dogs to deliver
> great sofware.
>
> I mean I could go on and on with examples. But the
> common thread I see among all those case studies is
> that these are people who were
>
> 1. Good at what they do and built state of the art
> software that people wanted and responded to
> 2. Attracted enough venture captial to have a
> reasonable marketing presence.
> 3. Committed themselves to building on past success.
>
> The common theme isn't market clout, 18Billion in the
> bank or bullying software manfc or whatever. It was
> standing out from the crowd with a great product in an
> active market that had growing demand -- which was
> easy to gauge by all the companies that were actively
> writing for that market.
>
> Now the PC game industry does more business in revenue
> than Hollywood and the market is even more
> overcrowded.
>
> Markets definitely get saturated but I think that
> point is reached when the state of the art is raised
> to such a point that it requires a huge investment
> just to meet it. Adventure gaming is getting to that
> point now. You should see the graphics and animation.
>
> But even still if someone talented group of small frys
> comes out with an original idea that captures people
> imagination, you can bet they will become players in a
> market that by any measure is very crowded and has
> been for some time.
>
> So I could say we're both touching on the truth here.
> The key is a great idea in a market that has
> demonstrated demand.
>
> When last I checked, all those charting packages (and
> there are scads more out there than just those
> mentioned) are all still in business and have been for
> some time.
>
> Point is, you have to go with a good innovative idea
> where there are already players.
>
> Jen.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Umm... There's another factor to MS's success in
> application software,
> add-ons and integration tools that you have
> overlooked.... They already had
> a LARGE market share of the computer industry, and
> hence end-user, by the
> GONADS (and still do) before developing app #1. It was
> just a matter of
> time. Hang in there; continue to build market-share in
> the OS market;
> integrate, and distribute in some cases, the apps with
> the OS; bully the
> hardware manufactures and retailers into
> "recommending" your products --
> otherwise, you won't get those favorable OEM deals.
> So... the success of
> "managing to grow and sell software in overcrowded
> markets" has something to
> do with the amount of Clout you have in the market,
> whether that be cash,
> market-share or a great product. If MS would have been
> just another software
> developer, without the OS stranglehold and
> market-share behind them, Bill
> Gates might be working for Steve Jobbs today...
>
>
|