Blaze Spinnaker <[email protected]> wrote: Yeah, well, obviously Tom Darden wants to get there first then so his > investment pays off. >
Why is that "obvious"? Because of the so-called "first mover advantage"? The benefits of that are exaggerated. Comaq was not the first PC compatible but it made lot more money than any other for several years. IBM was the first in the PC market, but it sold out years ago, leaving HP and others. Ford was the first into mass-produced automobiles but GM soon came along and grabbed a large share of the business. In many cases, there an advantage in waiting to see how well other people do before you jump into the market. Japanese corporations took advantage of being behind the West from 1868 until around 1980. When they finally caught up, they actually did not do as well in some ways. It isn't as if one company wins and all the others lose. It isn't as if there is only one patent awarded. AT&T got the first transistor patents, but many more have been issued since 1952, and they are still being issued. Heck, people spend hundreds of millions doing R&D on combustion technology -- that's fire, the oldest technology. > Why lie and say he doesn't care? It seems like such a blatantly > false statement. > It only seems blatantly false to someone who knows little about commerce and the history of business and technology. - Jed
