From: linstee@dutecaj.et.tudelft.nl (Erik van Linstee)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Is Microsoft the next Standard Oil?
Date: 31 Dec 92 08:52:53 GMT
Organization: Delft University of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering

philipla@microsoft.com (Phil Lafornara) writes:

>In article <1992Dec29.124550.10847@donau.et.tudelft.nl> linstee@dutecaj.et.tudelft.nl (Erik van Linstee) writes:
>>helz@ecn.purdue.edu (Randall A Helzerman) writes:
>>
>>>A companies _customers_ calls the shots no matter how big the company is.
>>>Its the customers who give it the market share that it has.
>>
>>Hmm, so if I contact such a company, tell them what I want of them
>>and tell them I am a customer, they'll tell me, Yes sir, it'll
>>be there first thing? Nah, doesn't even look worth trying. To
>>simple a view maybe.

>     Read it again - it's customers, not customer.  If you and
>a couple hundred thousand of your friends all called and told that
>company what you wanted, you can bet they'd get right on it.

The point is, THE customers do not exist. They do not get together
in such amounts that they can change the world. It appears that the
vast majority is influenced by marketting, and thos that aren't
do not have the leverage to convince the others.
You can't change the world, but you can change the facts. And when
you change the facts, you change points of view. If you change
points of view, you may change a vote. And when you change a vote,
you may change the world. But this might take to long for many of
us, if it works at all in the consumer industry.

>>>Look at it this way.  The only way a "big company" can put a "little company"
>>>out of business is for the customers of the little company to _voluntarily_
>>>of their _own_free_will_ to _choose_ to buy from the big company instead.
>>>In other words, it is the freewill choice of the customers which puts _any_
>>>company, big or little out of business.
>>
>>And not the potential of a big company to produce at lower costs and
>>the consumers wish to get the cheapest product still valuable. Right
>>you are.

>     The lower costs and hence lower prices are a motivating factor
>towards those customers moving away.  So is superior quality.
>But the ultimate loss in sales comes from the choices of consumers.

True in many cases. But I also see situation where this doesn't go.
In companies or institutes I see people choose more expensive,
even less productive stuff over cheaper, faster, maybe better stuff.
I did some research for an institute once, where they had an AS/400
and several PS/2. At the time Compaq was building a distribution
center here, so I suggested they got together with them to make
a deal for cheaper pc's. It appeared logical to me, since the PS/2's
were troublesome, IBM has never been a contender in the PC world
(not in my opinion anyway) and service was still very bureaucr[ai]tical.
Compaq might have been able to offer lower prices, faster service
(they are only down the block, so to speak) and better compatibility.
Yet they seem to be as established (read reliable) as IBM.
Still it was a no go, because they had been with IBM (for a S/36
and now the AS/400) and it was to cumbersome to change that.

Since companies and institutes are of much greater influence than
single consumers, logical and sensible reasoning is not necessarily
enough to change things.

Erik

>				-Phil

>-- 
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Phil Lafornara         				1 Microsoft Way         
>philipla@microsoft.com				Redmond, WA 98052-6399 
>Note:  Microsoft doesn't even _know_ that these are my opinions. So there.
-- 
Erik van Linstee   |   Delft University of Technology   |   I'll be back ... 
----
   We are god, 'cause only we can create the idea of his existence
   in our holy brains...  (Yello)