Imagine you're a VP over at Microsoft right now watching everyone rave about Samsung's profit figures and their utter dominance and you just want to scream "hello?! we also made $21 billion in profit last year, except we did it on 1/3 of Samsung's revenue! does anyone care?!" No, no one cares. Microsoft has already been relegated to the dust bin of history even though it's still alive and kicking, still one of the most profitable companies in all of human civilization, etc. Sure, they've ceded much of the initiative in tech to other movers, but they're very much far from dead and far from irrelevant.
Stepping into the world of tech punditry is a bit like stepping into a Target department store, except instead of seeing advertising and merchandise for holidays 2 seasons away you see companies declared winners, losers, or dead years ahead of their time.
What really annoys me is that people are talking about dumb stuff, horse race stuff. It's like sitting at the lunch table and overhearing how Johnny dumped Erika and is now dating Michelle or some such other riveting high-school gossip.
What's that quote? Small minds discuss people (companies). Average minds discuss events. Great minds discuss ideas.
Can we talk more about the ideas relevant to this massive second revolution in personal computing going on under our noses and less about which multi-billion dollar mega-corp is the most popular kid in school at the moment?
I'm sympathetic to that viewpoint but I wouldn't say it's true, yet. I think it would be more accurate to say that they are becoming bureaucracy/management heavy and out of touch. However, some of their recent initiatives have shown that they "get it", but maybe not enough to make them relevant again as they once were.
Steve Ballmer's Microsoft has made more money than Steve Jobs's Apple. John Gruber thinks that money is the final arbiter of success, and that Steve Ballmer is a complete idiot.
Imagine you're a VP over at Microsoft right now watching everyone rave about Samsung's profit figures and their utter dominance and you just want to scream "hello?! we also made $21 billion in profit last year, except we did it on 1/3 of Samsung's revenue! does anyone care?!" No, no one cares. Microsoft has already been relegated to the dust bin of history even though it's still alive and kicking, still one of the most profitable companies in all of human civilization, etc. Sure, they've ceded much of the initiative in tech to other movers, but they're very much far from dead and far from irrelevant.
Stepping into the world of tech punditry is a bit like stepping into a Target department store, except instead of seeing advertising and merchandise for holidays 2 seasons away you see companies declared winners, losers, or dead years ahead of their time.
What really annoys me is that people are talking about dumb stuff, horse race stuff. It's like sitting at the lunch table and overhearing how Johnny dumped Erika and is now dating Michelle or some such other riveting high-school gossip.
What's that quote? Small minds discuss people (companies). Average minds discuss events. Great minds discuss ideas.
Can we talk more about the ideas relevant to this massive second revolution in personal computing going on under our noses and less about which multi-billion dollar mega-corp is the most popular kid in school at the moment?