Feb 29, 2008

Is Microsoft like a shaving mirror to rest of the businesses

This was a dump of my thought process and is not expected to be comprehensible. If you attain any success in parsing and gaining anything from this, please leave a comment ;-) .
Most of the times, I just hate the way Microsoft's business strategies are built. But try comparing them with complete frankness to all other software companies, and to all businesses in general. Microsoft, though has so many bad business practices, most of it are just what other companies do too.

But the hatred we feel is actually not hatred, but the fear that says this : " We are a small company, and if we do this mistake, it is not going to affect the world/humanity much. But If Microsoft does the same mistake, because of Microsoft's size it is going to affect the whole world/humanity in an irreversible way.".

What we need to realize is, though the above concern is right, Microsoft somehow ends up exaggerating and being supported by the malpractices of other companies, thus being a reflection to other companies. And hence, every mistake small companies do ends up being equally effective on the world. So if rest of the companies start an effort to be more benign, the effect will be that Microsoft and other big companies will have no choice but to be more benign.

This is true not only when it comes to big companies like Microsoft, but other big organizations like governments. What you feed them is what they will be and that is what you will get back. The size of the organization matters very much. Because, as the organization keeps recruiting people, and grows, the time and attitude at which they are recruited makes, will get added to the larger "organization" it is going to form, just like the rings you can see in a tree that can tell you a complete history about the tree. Thus the "attitude restoration" in larger companies will need more effort. And if the size of a company is huge, and it's business section is headed and filled by lot of people who are chameleons, it will be a huge effort to change it. What we are afraid is it may go out of control. What can help it, as I mentioned earlier that the small companies do affect the whole ecosystem, that the smaller companies and individual must be more aware and must make the right choices. Because the larger organization know that it will be a larger effort for it to change over, it will make it's efforts to influence the "rest of the world" to slow down as well, so that they can sustain the operations.

As a conclusion, I would like to request all the people. from big and small organizations alike, to give importance to "practice what you preach" and always have a "fair fight" by giving all the advantages, disadvantages, the current situation, the future, and all such things as equal and unbiased priorities as possible. At this point, It seems that I am discouraging the "finger pointing". No. What I am discouraging is baseless finger pointing,and finger pointing in others that is your own mistake.

This was an attempt to bring Microsoft, lock-in vendors and the Indian government, who usually become my favorite punching bags under a fair and unbiased analysis. Please do not take any expressions in this article literally.

Too much time on the computer

You know you are working too much on the computer when you attempt to switch off the monitor by trying to take the mouse cursor to the switch on your monitor.