Microsoft and Yahoo are starting to get the idea that cooperation is more powerful than competition. They are planning to create partial interoperability with each other's messaging networks. In an ideal world (my ideal world), there is one instant messaging protocol - just one network - and many different clients to connect to it. Obviously I'm not blindly and naively advocating that Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL and ICQ all join hands and start skipping around in a circle in peace and harmony - I'm suggesting that we get ourselves a standard.
Proprietary technologies and vendor lock-in are the enemies of progress, and they have no place in your world if you are looking towards a brighter future. Unfortunately, they are also terms that make management and marketing drones salivate with anticipation. If you make a good product, however, you do not need to grab your customers by the throat and hold on to make sure they stay with you. If your product is good, your customers stay of their own free will.
Mokalus of Borg
PS - If your product is really good, they voluntarily tell their friends about it.
PPS - If your customers are not doing this, you're not producing Quality yet.
1 comment:
I just had the best image of ICQ, AOL, Yahoo and Messenger skipping around, holding hands together on a hill top singing 'The Hills Are Alive', in slow motion, with huge happy smiles on their faces.
Yes, I'm strange.
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