Is Microsoft An Innovator? - The Winer-Scoble Debate

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Bloggers Robert Scoble (a former Microsoft 'technical evangelist') and Dave Winer (longtime Microsoft critic) debate whether Microsoft is driving innovation or playing catch-up, in an email conversation published on WSJ.com. Winer writes, 'Microsoft isn't an innovator, and never was. They are always playing catch-up, by design. That's their M.O. They describe their development approach as "chasing tail lights." They aren't interested in markets until they're worth billions, so they let others develop the markets, and have been content to catch-up.' Scoble responds that Microsoft's innovation can be found in the little things: 'I remember when they improved the error messages you get in Internet Explorer, or when they improved fonts in Windows with ClearType technology. That improved our lives in a very tiny way. Not one that you usually read about, or probably even notice. Is Microsoft done innovating in those small ways? Absolutely not. Office 2007 lets me do some things (like cool looking charts) in seconds that used to take many minutes, maybe even hours for some people to do.'"

Don't forget Clippy!

[Anonymous Coward]

See, M$ is innovative!

Chasing tail lights?

[Anonymous Coward]

If Microsoft are "chasing tail lights" could someone please brake suddenly.

Micorsoft does try to innovate

[clickety6]

... but they make such a mess of it!

ActiveX - why not let others use your computer resources too
MicrosoftBOB - bwahahahahahahaha
Clippy - bwahahahahahahaha x 200
MP3 player with WiFi (crippled beyond belief)
Brown Mp3 players (my god - who told them brown was the in colour?)
PlaysForSure - but not on our player

yawn

[iadude1010]

yawn

Re:definitely an innovator

[Ithika]

The reason that Microsoft is so successful is in no small part to their innovations. Regardless of whether or not they created the ideas, by far the most difficult part is putting them into practice.

Wow, that's incredible. Microsoft is "successful [due to their] innovations [...] whether or not they created the ideas". Just think how much less work innovation takes if you don't need to think up your own ideas! Why, I might innovate the wheel this afternoon, if I can be bothered.

Truly it is an exciting new realm of discovery that awaits us.

Re:Out of proportion

[risk one]

Yeah, Microsoft! They talk about innovation, but they haven't even cured diabetes yet. Lazy bastards.

Re:Innovator, maybe not

[MikeFM]

Here it is, faces of people as they find out they don't have to use Windows [beautifulagony.com]. The pain they obviously feel over their years of suffering is only bearable as you'll see their sudden relief to finally be rid of Windows.

Re:Chasing tail lights?

[gmuslera]

Other analogies could fit better, like the ligth at the end of the tunnel, as for Microsoft one would like to be an incoming train.