Microsoft

Techies constantly complain about Microsoft. It's clunky, it falls over, you can't configure it, it takes up too much space. Look at alternatives like Linux and Apple, they say. So much better, so much more refined, so much more reliable. The implication is that by permitting an obviously inferior product to dominate capitalism has somehow failed.

The problem with this argument is that it ignores a fundamental point: Microsoft doesn't sell software. Microsoft sells job security. No one ever got fired for buying Microsoft. And for most of us the ability to keep paying the mortgage is pretty high on our list of priorities.

So how did Microsoft get into this position? It is worth remembering what the PC world was like 20 years ago. The world was awash with various different PC standards: Sinclair, Acorn, Commodore, Apple, Research Machines, Sord, ICL. All of them requiring different hardware and none of the compatible with anything else. When IBM released its PC incorporating Microsoft's MS-DOS the world changed overnight. Suddenly, there was a standard. Suddenly, there was certainty. And people bought into it in huge numbers. Sure, there were all sorts of things you couldn't do with it but everyone else had it, especially the client.

There is reason to believe that Microsoft maybe coming to the end of its dominance. XP seems to be more of a dead end than a brave new world and every year Linux seems to be gaining a few more adherents.

But in the meantime there is no great mystery as to why Microsoft got into the position it did. It sold something that people wanted to buy. It is just that for techies and the rest of us the priorities are different.