May The Best Mode Win
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From: hancock4 on 23 Oct 2009 11:09 On Oct 22, 10:16 pm, RonB <ronb02NOS...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > It's all relative. People did not _solely_ stop buying GM because of > > GM's products. They stopped because there was a superior alternative.. > > Actually they *didn't* stop buying GM products -- it was still the > number one selling brand in the United States. The main reason people > stopped buying cars (all brands) is because they can't get credit (the > big banks are too busy using their bailout money to prop up the price of > oil) and they had lost their jobs. The GM of the past could've easily rode out the current recession, as it rode out the Great Depression and other serious recessions. I was referring to GM's severe shrinkage of market share since the 1970s, which was due to customers abandoning US automakers for foreign cars. GM's market share today is far smaller than it was.
From: hancock4 on 23 Oct 2009 11:13 On Oct 22, 11:54 pm, "Daniel W. Rouse Jr." <dwrous...(a)nethere.comNOSPAM> wrote: > Indeed. But Microsoft Office is usually the popular choice, given that a > large userbase often shared word documents, excel spreadsheets, etc. Question: Word Perfect and Lotus used to have a large user base and were almost the 'standard' in industry. What happened that motivated companies to spend the money to switch from those to MS-Word and Excel? Many people had to convert their doucments or spreadsheets and be retrained.
From: hancock4 on 23 Oct 2009 11:22 On Oct 23, 12:24 am, RonB <ronb02NOS...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > And what people tend to forget when they laud Microsoft's business > acumen, is that Microsoft's monopoly was built on the back of IBM's > original PC monopoly. It was a matter of pure, dumb luck. While it is true that M/S flourished because of IBM's original blessing, there is more to the story than that. M/S had the foresight or luck to offer DOS to IBM at a good price, then go out and get someone to develop it for them. I believe another operating system developer wanted more money and wasn't that interested, so IBM returned to M/S. Further, M/S had the foresight or luck to keep the ownership so they could resell their DOS to competing PC makers. Probably most importantly, M/S, had the foresight to know when to break its connection with IBM and go out on its own. At the time that would be seen as a very risky decision but it worked out wonderfully for M/S. I don't know the early history of MS-Word or Excel, but M/S marketing of these applications was successful enough to displace WordPerfect and Lotus which were entrenched in the market. Note that these were applications, not an operating system. Marketing acumen is critical. (Note that marketing includes much more than mere advertising). Historically IBM was technologically behind other computer makers but its superior marketing and customer support pushed it ahead. (Having worked with IBM, Burroughs, NCR, Wang, and Univac, IBM support and marketing won hands down. Why its competitors never learned what was very obvious is a mystery.)
From: hancock4 on 23 Oct 2009 11:26 On Oct 23, 1:13 am, Alan Baker <alangba...(a)telus.net> wrote: > MS got the contract because there was no competition. They literally > passed on the chance when it was first offered to them, because they > weren't an OS company. I thought another OS company either wanted a high price or wasn't interested when IBM came along, so IBM went back to M/S. > Then they told IBM that they had an OS, when in fact they didn't. Then > they bought another man's copy of the only other OS that would have been > appropriate and IBM made one of the biggest blunders in the history > of... ...history. A great many small businesses, when asked if they have a product or service, say "yes" when in fact they have nothing. The business then rushes out to get the customer what was requested. The business is obviously taking a big gamble, if it works the gamble usually pays off handsomely and the small business grows quite a bit as a result.
From: chrisv on 23 Oct 2009 11:31
hancock4(a)bbs.cpcn.com wrote: >On Oct 22, 11:54�pm, "Daniel W. Rouse Jr." >> >> Indeed. But Microsoft Office is usually the popular choice, given that a >> large userbase often shared word documents, excel spreadsheets, etc. > >Question: Word Perfect and Lotus used to have a large user base and >were almost the 'standard' in industry. What happened that motivated >companies to spend the money to switch from those to MS-Word and >Excel? Many people had to convert their doucments or spreadsheets and >be retrained. How about going to OEM's, who had no choice but to buy Microsoft's operating system, and pressuring them (or "incentifying" them) to recommend and bundle their office products? How did they kill Netscape so quickly? Not only did they give IE away for free, but they placed its icon front and center on the desktop, and *disallowed* any alternative product being there. It's that whole "leveraging your market power" thing. |