In an interview with Bill Gates in today's Seattle Times, he appears unperturbed about Microsoft's competition from Google, Apple and others, and even heaps praise on them, but is unable to resist the odd sideswipe (e.g. Google is going through a "honeymoon period").
The mention of erstwhile competitors such as WordPerfect brought to mind an excellent 1992 article by James Gleick, entitled Chasing Bugs in the Electronic Village, about his eager wait for Microsoft Word for Windows 2.0 -- and subsequent frustration.
Gleick's article (which, incidentally, formed part of a compilation of his essays that I read on holidays last week -- my memory for essays doesn't stretch to decades!) the insights it gave into the tactics of the then young and nimble Seattle software company:
"But Microsoft's marketing strategists had more pressing problems. Winword was by far the dominant word processing program designed to be used with Microsoft's Windows operating environment, but a relatively small number of personal-computer users use Windows.
Overall, the market leader by a large margin was WordPerfect, which was known to be beta testing its long-awaited entry into the Windows market. Microsoft officials were worried. WordPerfect commands enormous loyalty, in part because -- unlike Microsoft -- the company makes a practice of releasing frequent free upgrades to repair even minor bugs, and in part because it maintains, at enormous expense, a toll-free telephone support line -- an investment Microsoft, which says it fields 14,000 calls a day, has been unwilling to make."
Update: Gates is clearly on a media offensive. He gives an interview in CNET today too, where he elaborates on his "honeymoon" comments, which I believe are a bit snide. Maybe he's rattled?
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