“What does the world get for the 10% Microsoft tax on every [Windows] PC,” asks Lee Gomes for The Wall Street Journal? “Is the innovation from Microsoft commensurate with the awesome resources it has been given? The average Microsoft customer probably wouldn’t say so. Indeed, the advances the company lists for its new products all too often involve fixing shortcomings of earlier products, such as security and reliability in the case of its operating systems, and ease of use with its Office suite.”
Gomes writes, “In fact, you can argue that genuine innovation is the last thing monopolists want, since it threatens to upset the very applecart that made them rich in the first place. When asked which research from its labs has made its way into Microsoft products, the list from Microsoft officials doesn’t exactly bowl over a listener: better software-verification techniques, digital media-player technologies, additions to the SQL database language… Of course, Microsoft’s research group is still young, and its best years may still be ahead. They had better be. PC taxpayers might start rebelling.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: This from The Wall Street Journal? If this keeps up, you’d start to think the world was waking up or something.