By: Dave Farquhar

Dave Farquhar — Wed, 18 May 2011 01:58:21 +0000

Fair enough. I went from the assumption of “worked for Microsoft,” and I’m not used to playing the part of Microsoft apologist. I was an anyone-but-Microsoft guy until about 1997 when it became obvious that my career was going nowhere if I didn’t learn how Windows worked and how to support it. If Quantum Leap were real, it would be so easy to make a couple of minor changes and really improve this industry…

Some people are predicting that Skype will just wither and die under Microsoft, and I don’t really see a lot of precedent for that. I also don’t see it as a guarantee that it will crush Apple and Google either. Microsoft didn’t plan for the day when the PC would no longer be the center of the universe, they were late to that game with half-hearted products, and now they’re having a hard time catching back up. And I’m loving every minute of it because technology is actually interesting again.

By: Bill James

Bill James — Wed, 18 May 2011 00:51:22 +0000

I suppose it depends on the meaning of ‘worked’ or ‘not failed’ and from which perspective it ‘worked’ or ‘not failed’. What has been good for Microsoft has not necessarily been good for everybody else. It is what it is, and we cannot know what might have been in some parallel universe where Microsoft didn’t do what they otherwise did.

At a purchase price of 8.5 Billion dollars, Microsoft may never see a nickels worth of profit from Skype before the entire ecosystem evolves out from under, but damage to the competition in the meanwhile will probably satisfy the company in making up the difference, leaving pundits to projections of wishful thinking from dystopian depths of remorse.

Comments on: Microsoft buyouts that worked

By: Dave Farquhar

By: Bill James