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Simon Phipps's personal commentary

Plains vs Canyon

Robert Scoble thinks I want to put him out of business. That's not actually true - either personally or corporately. I respect Microsoft as a competitor and (heresy!) have long admired a great deal of the software engineering that's done there. I also do want them to change their behaviour so it stops putting people out of business (and I know it happens because it happened to me a long time ago, but we'll save that for another day) and respects the right of competitors to exist.

I recognise the "they're out to get us" paranoia that Robert expresses and which I've noted before seems characteristic of Microsoft's poker-game approach to business (which I first read about in 'Hard Drive' and seems intact even today). The way I've taken to thinking about this involves imagining how ecosystems might develop in canyons and on open plains (caveat: IANABiologist).

In a canyon, there's not much room for similar species. Once an animal takes up residence, similar species are unwelcome and may become prey or be chased away - it's live-or-die becuase (apparently) the habitat has limited resources. On the plains, there's room for everyone and animals learn to live together (albeit uncomfortably for prey animals) or ignore each other. Canyon-dwellers want to win - plains-dwellers want to flourish. Plains- and canyon-dwelling creatures have a hard time understanding each other - they are starting from such different places that the basic mindset of the other seems ridiculous. Sun is a plains-dwelling creature and as such is used to co-existing. Microsoft is a canyon-dwelling creature and only total victory counts as success.

So while there are both competitive living to be done and past wrongs to right, I'm not trying to put you out of business, Robert. But I fear the reverse may not be true.

Update:Barry conflates the two articles today and takes me to task saying Sun's "co-existence" is just copying Microsoft. But I'm taking a broader view here, describing what I think is a long-term corporate character trait. Sun 1, NFS, Java were all genuinely innovative business moves. That's what I'm referring to as a 'plains dweller' - Sun took each of those things and used them to create an ecosystem, not a monopoly.

posted at 3:02 PM (UK) | |