Think outside of the box (Gawd, I hate that term)

[Ted Goodridge, Jr]

>> Borrowing ideas is essential to progress in the computer industry.
>> Technically; you measure progress not by market results, but by the
>> spread of ideas.  The value of ideas lies not in how much money the one
>> company that owns those ideas makes, but by how readily those ideas are
>> given away and used by everybody as a community good.
>
> It is nice to be an idealist, but the reality is that a lot of
> superior technology has gone by the wayside - its line snuffed out
> only because it was unable to gain sufficiently in the market place.
> Microsoft did not gain its position because of superior technology
> in the products they sold, but in "superior" abililty in the marketplace - 
>
>
> sometimes abilities that we question should be exercised - eg may not
> have been for the common good.
>
>> Even (or perhaps
>> I should say especially) IBM and MicroSoft are part of this ecology of
>> ideas; you need look no further than MS DOS or the 5150 (and their
>> competition) to see the importance of this.

The alpha microprocessor comes to mind:killed by DEC "stealth marketing". A 
vastly superior technology to peecees, yet beaten in the end by better 
marketing and price pressures.  There are many, many other examples of this 
axiom.

Ted