[citation][nom]applegetsmelaid[/nom]I'd be willing to bet that this article was written on a Microsoft based workstation.Definition of INSIGNIFICANT: not significant: asa : lacking meaning or importb : not worth considering : unimportantc : lacking weight, position, or influence : contemptibled : small in size, quantity, or numberNone of these are a description of Microsoft. I doubt that in our lifetime and our children's lifetime will MS fit this definition. Just because MS does not make products in a new category or fit niche markets does not mean that they are insignificant. Major food companies don't become insignificant because they don't create some new exotic food no one has heard of. Consistency is more important to significance than innovation.[/citation]
Considering the article talks about "main stream innovation", makes the IBM analogy correct IMO. If we talk about enterprise... Uhm... I don't know, IBM + Linux is a hard rock to swallow there (though WebSphere sucks ass xD). Even more when Oracle now has Solaris with them and can deliver embedded solutions. MS has a tough spot in the enterprise in years to come if they don't deliver something solid that IBM and Oracle can't. Back into the consumers world, its simpler to have a good product and milk it for years with a good marketing campaign (you can do "lobby" in enterprises, but they dingle in the thin red line of corruption IMO), and that's what the article points out I think.
Now, on the food companies analogy... They do need innovation. How the hell do you think they can produce more and with better quality? They need to improve quality of products, quality of production lines, schemes and machinery; hell, they even have to improve the FOOD itself. Basically, nope, I don't agree with you there. Staying like a mammoth in the long run, means you'll get eaten sooner or later. Innovation is the way to survive for ALL companies, ALL of them. IBM knows this, MS knows this, Oracle knows this, Apple knows this, the company I work for knows this, my local milk producing "factory" (farm plus? XD) knows it. Maybe we have to agree on "size of innovation": step by step or revolutionary. We can agree there about "keep the wheel spinning"; MS has to answer to share holders, sure, but that doesn't mean they can't do R&D.
On the other hand, if you take one comment from a MS employee it might not mean the whole company's opinion at all, granted, but it might give you an idea of what SOME of them might think about FOSS and Open technologies per sé: "a waste of time cause no money is involved for me". That's just being short sighted.
Anyway, this ain't a bad opinion article at all; gives you a good brain massage, lol.
Thanks, Mr. Gruener.
Cheers!