Re: Pirates of Silicon Valley

[news_joe@NOSPAM.com (Burnam)]

In article <7lriul$9uv$1@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net>
"Jim Coffey" <jlc@bocus.uchicago.org> writes:

> >years, Gates is little more than a crook, and at least Jobs has a streak of
> >genius in him.
> >
> Wait a minute - Gates took a chance on SCW's product, sold it to IBM (and
> later bought SCW), and profitted when his bet paid off, yet he is little
> more tah a crook?
> 
> Jobs took a chance on Xerox's product, sold it to the world, and profitted
> when his bet paid off, and he has a streak of genius?
> 

The two scenarios are quite different. Just as these two analagous
scenarious are different from each other:

- buy a used car, then sell it for more money, having only added
lamb-skin seat covers
- look at a car (however closely), and then go build a new, similar,
car and sell that

Apple (like many companies) routinely outsources projects, including
development stuff. And, also just buys stuff up. For example, Apple's
old SNA*ps product (later sold to WallData and marketed at MacRumba,
then sold again to someone I can't remember the name of..there's a
mention in the most recent MacWorld) was originally developed by Orion
something. Orion also did the 3270 API which a product I worked on
relied heavily on, and so when this was sold to WallData (a
competitor), it really hurt. Our management, having more money than
WallData decided not to buy it themselves but shut down Mac
development. Anyways, that's not the tangent I intended. This one is:
some company (another I don't remember the name of) worked a bunch on
early QuickTime code for Apple. Soon after Microsoft hired the exact
same company to do a bunch of stuff for them. Lo-n-behold, the
Microsoft code was shown, in court, to include large chunks of the
exact same source as some of QuickTime. Coincidence? Maybe, maybe not,
but Microsoft certainly can't be held for something one of it's agents
did, right? Well, then, maybe the question should have come earlier.
Coincidence that Microsoft hired the same company for the same kind of
work as Apple?

So, does Microsoft do crook-like things? Prolly every company does to
some degree. It's kinda like asking "is Clinton a liar?". Yes, but no
one cares. Just as people don't care about Microsoft as long as you can
buy fine products like "Microsoft Dogs" (truly my favorite MS product).

-j


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