03.10.09
Quote of the Day: Microsoft on Commercial Death Without Windows API Franchise
From the European antitrust authorities [PDF] (with local copy [PDF] just in case):
In fact, Microsoft can behave independently of its end-customers. Microsoft is fully aware of this, as is shown by the following excerpts from Microsoft’s internal communication:
The Windows API is so broad, so deep, and so functional that most ISVs would be crazy not to use it. And it is so deeply embedded in the source code of many Windows apps that there is a huge switching cost to using a different operating system instead.
[...]
It is this switching cost that has given customers the patience to stick with Windows through all our mistakes, our buggy drivers, our high TCO, our lack of a sexy vision at times, and many other difficulties. [...] Customers constantly evaluate other desktop platforms, [but] it would be so much work to move over that they hope we just improve Windows rather than force them to move.
In short, without this exclusive franchise called the Windows API, we would have been dead a long time ago.
This paragraph, Paragraph 463, may also serve as a precursor to the OOXML corruptions (the ‘document API’). Many more posts on this subject will come.
Content is available under CC-BY-SA
David Gerard said,
March 10, 2009 at 9:28 am
Dan Kegel suggests a way around this in his CeBIT talk. His estimate: 10 million Euros.
Mike Brown said,
March 10, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Roy,
You’ve not identified the author of your quote, but from the footnote on the PDF it was “drafted for Bill Gates by C++ General Manger Aaron Contorer dated 21/02/97″.
Cheers,
- Mike