“Just like Sun’s Java, QuickTime threatened Microsoft’s Windows monopoly by offering a way for developers to build code that was not dependent upon Microsoft,” Daniel Eran writes for RoughlyDrafted.
Eran writes, “However, the real interest in swallowing QuickTime wasn’t so Microsoft could provide its own set of media content tools. Microsoft didn’t even see ‘content authoring’ as a market worth entering; it had other plans in mind… At the time, it appeared that the real money in media was going to be made from Internet streaming and playback, not in content authoring, which still belonged to Apple.”
In 1997, “Microsoft hoped to use its Office monopoly leverage against Apple to not only smash the cross-platform threat of Netscape Navigator and Sun’s Java, but also to kill Apple’s QuickTime,” Eran writes. “Prior to the July 1997 agreement, Microsoft’s Christopher Phillips famously told QuickTime manager Peter Hoddie, ‘we want you to knife the baby.’ Apple refused, and QuickTime survived the Mac Office and patent licensing deal intact. That was not the end of Microsoft’s assault on QuickTime however, but rather only the beginning.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz,” “Formica,” and “LinuxGuy and Mac Prodigal Son” for the heads up.]
Don’t you just loathe Microsoft?
Supressors of innovation, quality and decency.
Promoters of greed, mediocrity and criminality.
Daniel Eran and his http://www.RoughlyDrafted.com is so good.
I read his stories everyday.
> ‘we want you to knife the baby.’ >
That baby is now an 800lb. gorilla in the room.
Oh, and Daniel Eran is a star. This is yet another great read.
That to preempt the Microsoft zealots who will be here shortly to ask why MDN reports his blog..
That story is very long but it is very very interesting.
Highly recomended!
I am anything but a M$ zealot. I am, however, a big fan of truth and accuracy in reporting. Roughlydrafted isn’t big on either. His morally-relative politics show something of the man — a feeling of invincibility and a heartfelt opinion that the truth can be bent to serve the cause. We don’t need any more folks like that. One Al Gore is enough.
The BIG difference between the writings of Daniel Eran and Paul Thurrott: Eran’s writing can be easily corroborated, since almost everything in his essays are based on public records; anyone can find the info his blogs are based on.
The same cannot be said about Thurrott. Everything he writes he pulls out of his ass, with little or no factual background. That is why I personally LOVE reading Roughly Drafted.
I sure wouldn’t Christopher Phillips babysitting my kids. I wonder if he has any Bill Shatner masks?
Never heard the “knife the baby” quote before, but at the time (late 90s) you could definitely sense MS’s desperation to try and squash Quicktime.
And what was their approach? To bundle Windows Media Player with every OS install. Yes Zunetack, I know, Apple does this too. But the kicker was that Windows Media Player by default placed DRM into every CD you ripped… Your OWN CD’s!!!!
Subtle…
Like a lead pipe.
“The same cannot be said about Thurrott. Everything he writes he pulls out of his ass, with little or no factual background. That is why I personally LOVE reading Roughly Drafted.”
And you’d think Paul would at least have the decency to rinse his writing off first.
“Just like Sun’s Java, QuickTime threatened Microsoft’s Windows monopoly”
No offense to the writer, but if these options exist, then Microsoft didn’t have a monopoly.
wow, how stupid MS is all the time.
They never see anything will be a hit, so they always enter market on the last train and then they bulldoze their way around…. wow, such an innovative company.
They didn’t see these coming either:
– internet (killed netscape, mozaic, killed spyglass)
– office (killed wordperfect and others)
– online search (tryng to kill google)
– online marketing
– crm (trying to kill salesforce)
– finance software (trying to kill intuit)
– itunes (already lost to apple)
– ipod (zune is dead at the gate)
– online apps like Google docs (will be too late soon)
– iphone (they really didn’t see this coming)
– javascript (made active-x instead)
– java (tried to kill sun)
– …. and… OSX
– optical moouse (took the idea from the inventor)
hmmm…. anymore MS innovations?
@ gzero
Right on!! I think the same, and I stated it before.
HUGE difference between Thurrot and Eran.
Easy “Busting”…
I don’t think anyone in politics can be accused of being 100% truthful. I usually agree with the “no BS” filter you exercise on MDN, but throwing out one politicians name as it applies to “truth” for a purpose should cover ALL offenders. After all, Al gore is not responsible for “known facts” that have lead to 3191 confirmed US casualties.
I enjoy your tech comments. Please leave politics out of it.
PROBLEM IS
Whenever I use a PC, I can’t view anything in Quicktime because Microsoft hasn’t been made to install QT during OS installation.
I can only weep at how many PC folks who come to Apple’s website only to see nothing of their great products because Windows doesn’t have QT and IT asswipes refuse to install anything non-M$.
It totally sucks a$$.
Microsoft should be made to install alternate substancial formats, like Real and QT.
“Apple became the first company to stare Microsoft down”
Damn fun read…kinda like a Robert Ludlum novel.
read the whole thing. I hate M$ even more now. Bastards!
TenaciousDNA;
I understand you. If you’re not whitebread, living in the USA or supporting your rather limited world-view, you’re somehow “evil”. Yep, them middle Easterners should just be let alone to kill themselves off, ‘cuz that’s what they’ve been a-doin’ for a thousand years, right?
I know, you can’t acept the facts at hand, that being that faulty data from half the western worlds intelligence agencies contributed to the invasion of Iraq, because that’ll somehow get in the way of your irrational hatred of one man, but the fact is, somehow, somewhere and in some way, intervention was required.
Hussein caused the deaths, through years of wars and invasions, of more than 6 million people.
Hussein caused the deaths, through years of persecution, including the gassing of entire villages, of thousands of his own citizens.
The fact is, that through our interventions in the Middle East, we’ve prevented a repeat of the murders of 2,752 civilians right here at home.
One last “fact”… our military is an all volunteer force, and many of US that volunteered, and served, find your intolerance to be utterly disgusting.
I remember the “knife the baby” comment from MS in the 90’s. That’s when I knew for sure that they were concentrated e-vile.
(as ever)
Sure Eran spins his own version over at RD, but one thing he does, is he extensively sites his sources. If you don’t want his spin (which I often find entertaining) then read the source directly.
May I suggest: Comes v. Microsoft at http://edge-op.org/iowa/ for starters.
It’ll take you a fair amount of time, and Iowa used to offer an indexed version, including documents of particular interest. However that site iowaconsumercase.org is now password protected. Interesting reading there, I won’t spin it, draw your own conclusions.
Why take Eran’s version, when you can get direct quotes from Gates et.al. themselves.
zac
The one annoying thing about the .MOV container is what some people like to put into it. Links that open in Safari, popups, basically all the stuff I hate about browsing in Internet Explorer, et al. Granted, this doesn’t happen with files on trusted websites that have a reputation to uphold. Sadly, others are not so eager to make a good name for themselves. As a general rule, if you use Limewire or Kazaa or some other P2P network, stay away from .MOV Anywhere else and you’re likely gonna be okay.
Hi,
It is just another arguement against abortion.
Paul
I remember Knife the Baby like it was yesterday.
No one should question the obvious facts only the interpretation of the facts. RoughlyDrafted makes a habit of spinning facts to boost the flagging morale of hopelessly biased and pathetically insecure Mac users. I find RoughlyDrafted extremely tiresome, uninformative, and worthless use of bandwidth. Both Eran and Zune Tang share the same philosophy of posting monotonous monologues of meager mentation.
Great, great read