Brilliant comment from “Chucky” on a post from from Michael Tsai:
Microsoft in 1997 had a very specific corporate strategy. They had a temporary situation of great market leverage. And rather than concentrating on making better products for their users, they began to concentrate on two objectives:
1 Using their leverage to avoid the rise of middle-wear.
2 Using their leverage to grab a rent-seeking slice of the commerce their users did out on the internet.
Microsoft in 1997 was willing to be incredibly evasive and disingenuous in its pursuit of those goals.
Does any of this remind you of Apple in 2011 in any way?
Apple has steadfastly avoided the creation of middleware on iOS – stuff like Flash, which acts as a layer between the OS and the application. And it is now using its leverage over the platform to grab a slice of all the commerce people do through apps.
Who’d have thought that Steve Jobs would have stuck so closely to the playbook written by Bill Gates?