It makes no difference whether Bill Gates was a rich or a poor kid.
Like most successful businessmen, he is a social predator who considers
the general public to be essentially faceless prey. His real competiton
is from other businessmen (competing predators). The game to him is to
beat them. Providing quality products is a secondary consideration.
Unfortunately that means bottom-line and market share, and the rules are
simple: whatever works! Microsoft has been very successful, however it
may be centered too much on Bill Gates himself. His support staff may
be too loyal to have enough edge on their own for Microsoft to continue
to dominate as Bill Gates turns over more and more of his corporation to
his underlings. I don't see Microsoft maintaining its edge, if Bill
Gates is not in active control.
As to the quality of Microsoft products, it seems to me that one of
Microsoft's business stategies is to have built in bugs to feed upgrade
cycles and to have a measure of backwards incompatability leading to
upselling; so that the consumer upgrades suites and platforms not just
a single program. This may be so ingrained that Microsoft staff are no
longer aware of it.
In short, Microsoft is a driven by the personality of Bill Gates who is
essentially an egocentric gamer. Its products have only as little
quality as it can get away with to maintain its preeminent market
position. That is a fine line between meeting the basic needs of the
public and maintaining a repurchase cycle.
Those of us who on the wrong side of the line are considered to be an
acceptable statistic, but one that is watched very closely and
downplayed to appear insignificant as part of the business stategy.
Consumers are treated like this in general, and are becoming more and
more competitant in protecting themselves as in every predator/prey
relationship. Eventually Microsoft's time will pass. My guess is that
will happen about 10 minutes after Bill Gates retires or dies.
End
Peace
Dale Hoogeveen Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Home site: http://www.net-info.com/~dutch
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