From Battle of the Titans, loc 113-127. This dynamic seems likely to intensify with time: A lot of what we buy via Apple’s iTunes store—apps, music, movies, TV shows, books, etc.—doesn’t work easily on Android devices or at all, and vice versa. And both companies know that the more money […]
There’s an interesting section of In The Plex which details quite how much Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer hated Google. From pg 282-283: Just how intensely Microsoft’s CEO, Steve Ballmer, despised his competitor to the south became clear in depositions that would be filed in the Lee lawsuit. The year before, in […]
From Gates, by Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews, loc 10748: At a February 1993 lecture at the University of Washington, Gates took the “Information at Your Fingertips” concept a step farther by describing a wallet PC that would include everything from a global positioning system to a wireless data transceiver […]
I just came across a reference to an old Microsoft initiative, Cinemania, in Gates, by Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews, loc 10184: Cinemania, demonstrated by Chairman Bill himself—a CD-ROM movie database containing information on 19,000 films and 3,000 stars. The movie-mad Gates called up The Maltese Falcon, clicked on the sound icon, […]
From Gates, by Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews, loc 9378: Developers trying to cut deals with Microsoft often divulged their technology and/or their business plans. According to the complainants, Microsoft then used the knowledge for its own gain. The case of Go was the most widely publicized. The Silicon Valley […]
From Gates, by Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews, loc 6989-7007: Microsoft was more like a northwestern Paul Bunyan. “It’s a culture of work,” Cole recalled. “Bill would hate it when the weather got good in Seattle. People would leave early. They weren’t going to put in their twelve hours that […]
Has the mentality actually changed? My suspicion is that these messages express the same underling disposition as can be found in the present day, now dressed up in carefully crafted ideological clothing. From Gates, by Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews, loc 6969: Late in 1985, Sheldon Richman of the Washington Times […]
I had no idea how long this notion had been around for. Blair Newman was a notoriously drug addled technologist (who once tried to claim cocaine as a business expense) into whose failed venture Microsoft ploughed $50,000 in the late 70s. At the same time, he was also kicking around […]
Since first encountering the notion of discretionary effort, I’ve been fascinated by it. This is a definition I found on page one of Google: Discretionary effort is the level of effort people could give if they wanted to, but above and beyond the minimum required. Many organizations manage performance in […]
