Saturday, May 09, 2009

Accidental wave or what? …

After Microsoft, Apple, Intel, Motorola, IBM, … is google going to be “the next great company”. Riding on the internet search, or to be specific the connected community band-wagon. Guys at Xerox PARC created computer network for an entirely different reason. It makes me wonder, is google yet another case of an “accidental empire”, or did the “Sergei & Larry” combo really though this is coming. Personally they come next only to “Jobs & Woznaik” combo, probably,…

Guys at the Palo Alto Research Center, PARC, created most of the innovations that “happened” in the computing arena, I would emphasize, the personal computing arena. For me it is difficult to understand, that Xerox, that created PARC, did not reap *any* benefit from innovation from PARC. The concept of Mouse, GUI, Networking, and much-much more came just out of a single lab. Companies like Apple, Microsoft, used the researches from PARC to the max.

For some reason, many geeks, hate Microsoft. They just think, Microsoft, is a selfish company that just wants to make money, and care a shit about any research. From the time IBM started using MS-DOS (which was not developed by Microsoft), many people think, and probably they are right, that MS, like some of its founder is crooked. I cannot think of anything big that came out of Microsoft. They just perfected some of the technologies that lay around. And suddenly, with the advent of internet, the open source revolution, it seems that, finally, its times for the giant to bow--->out.

As we all know, Google, that started as a search engine company, right, but now …, with a heavy purse they are into many things, slowly hurting Microsoft. In those early days, Microsoft, would simply over-power any software company that competed with them. The trump card was always their operating system, the monopoly. But now, it seems that the gold lies in the internet, and for some reason, Microsoft lost it, I mean, lost it to Google. Now, only trying hard to patch up by buying yet another ailing company yahoo. Google, it seems is trying to do everything to kill MS. Hitting its cash cow, MS-OFFICE with “GOOGLE-DOC”. I personally tried using “GOOGLE-DOC” and I can tell you, that it is no way near MS-Word, or Excel. As of now, GOOGLE-DOC lacks even some basic feature. But if Microsoft is afraid of this, I think there should be some reason. Now “googling” is a verb that means searching.

Will Google kill Microsoft, I don’t think so. Microsoft will probably die on its own, as they have ran out of ideas and started chasing the leader. This time, their chase, might well end in vain.

Apple, that got noticed by many non-geeks, only after the i-pods, was a company that was envisioned by a passionate guy. They created some nice looking computers, which were less visible to the main-stream world of cheap home computers, but only till apple released the legendary iPod. If a single product can change the fate of a company, it was iPod. It was yet another accidental moment, the rush of spark inside Rubinstein when he saw Toshiba’s tiny hardwire, has created a wave. Sometimes I wonder, if apple is just starting to forget its core business. Probably, they are also strengthening their PC business. Guys from apple think it is “Mac business”. They frown when they hear the word PC, as it a copyrighted thing that belongs to MS. Yeah, in a way, it belongs to guys in IBM. Who sold out their PC business to Lenovo. And riding on something else.

Recently I have been reading a lot about the history of computers and software. And I just think, it was all created accidentally.

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