One of the best technology-driven "exposes". As a Novell NetWare CNE (naturally belonging to the anti-Softie bunch), I found out more about Eric Schmidt than I knew before. Here's hoping that his network operating system, in competition with Microsoft, will be challanged for the better. Personality-wise, according to the author, he is already there.
Ellision marketed NC as the window operating system killer. The battle became a marketing and Public Relations battle more than a technology feasiblity battle. NC technology over credited the consumer burden of a supposedly costly operating system. In reality the windows operating system cost only a very small portion of the PC cost. PC technology invested billions to research and development. Such that, Intel and AMD research and development increased computational power, decreased cost, and PC components were more integratable. IBM technology reduce cost for harddrives and increased storage capacity. The PC component assembly standardized allowing various components to work together. Different manufacturers produced the mother boards, memory chips, and CPUs. Shifts in technology manufacturing to Asia reduced operating costs. Bill Gates did not believe the NC would replace the windows operating system. Gates more correctly access the pulse of the customer which was richer sets of business functionality. Consumers had become accustomed to powerful desktop applications.
At the same time desktop PCs were becoming a common and expected business expense, PC technology was proving to be an acceptable server technology running business great plains financials, sql server, exchange server, merchant server, and .net middleware applications.
Windows weakeness in massive parallel processing has been gaining in strength with each new generation of operating system. Unix had a twenty year head start in the area of symetrically parallel processing, however, Microsoft will become the leader in this field.
Software price barriers for small too medium size businesses were removed giving them affordable software and hardware infrastructures, offer by PC technology and Microsoft. Microsoft respond back too NC threat by a few of their own PR tactics. However, in the end the PC itself attracted consumers to continue buying.
On tactic was the acquistion of WebTV. Microsoft spent $420 million to buy WebTV. The first time, I saw WebTV, it didn't seem that impressive. However, consider this, as fiber optic technology investment increases and provides infrastructure for massive data bandwidth increases equal to 100,000 times modem bandwidth than Web application support becomes the bottle neck. Which company will build the software to control the information? Will the java based companies control the information or will the dot net companies? My bet is dot net technology will be the developers choice.
The WinTel PC technology is gaining more strength and effectiveness and considered as reliable servers. The benchmark must be value returned and cost per user. Why doesn't Microsoft build a dot net framework for Unix? I believe because it is unnecessary. Microsoft next generation of Operating system will scalable and powerful enough to run enterprise scale applications. Many ERP companies are realizing this shift. The investment in software development will converge on this fact and dot will experience rapid acceleration of momentum. The NC paradim was doomed because - it didn't match reality. I like the mainframe concept of change it once and effect all the users. The dot net framework provides the equivalent concept, fantasic!
Development training and marketing has always been a strong trait of Microsoft. Technology is Microsoft's religion. 100 hour weeks, with sleeping back hanging on the door, break rooms without tables, fat content food distributed as incentives to continue working, and the desire to dominate every techology sector. Gates established a culture of paronia, where every competitor was a real threat. Developers worked late into the evening and start early in the morning. Gates slept better if they worked late. The end result was a trememous amount of business functionality translating into wealth. The plot to get Bill Gates is much more about a plot to develop a capalistic culture producing jobs, wealth, and empowering the worker into a knowledge worker instead of a corporate cog.
Visual Studio.net and particularly Internet technologies have shifted strength to Microsoft development technology. C# will takeover java technology. The technology infrastructure is richer and eventually more large companies will abandon java for c#. The microsoft technology is far superior. The PC technology is more powerful. Microsoft is moving fast. The media underestimates their force.
Fiber optics will only increase the demand for more software development. Standardized APIs will empower developers to create more areas of business functionality reducing the cost of business. Voice, video, and data information will be transport over very fast network communication lines. You can bet on the fact that Microsoft technology will run the middleware guaranteeing integrated systems maintain their integrity. The dot net framework simplified component management and allow leveraging of object across multiple network computers. In the past DLL hell made Microsoft windows too complex. The dot net framework greatly simplifies the problems of managing components.