Author: KarinsDad
Date: 21:13:53 01/06/99
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On January 06, 1999 at 03:33:25, Bruce Moreland wrote: [snip] > >This issue is getting confused. There are two questions here: > >1) What *would* Microsoft produce. > >2) What *could* Microsoft produce. Bruce, A quote from the original post: "He suggested that if Microsoft (or other large software maker), decided to get involved in creating these things, the results would (or at least could), blow away the currently existing things in the marketplace." I admit, I have been answering the question "What could Microsoft produce?". That answer is a panacea compared to "What would Microsoft produce?". The answer to "What would Microsoft produce?" is probably easier and not as much fun to discuss. IMHO, Microsoft would produce a second rate chess program (engine wise) whose GUI would be easier to use than Fritz 4's (man, I hate that GUI, no tooltips or nothing!). They wouldn't market for the serious chess player, but rather for the casual player and they would also market for Internet play (i.e. they would create their own version of fics). Since that portion of the market is basically saturated already (anybody can play on fics and download xboard or winboard for free), they won't be playing in that ballpark. No real money there. KarinsDad > >People are viewing Microsoft as, effectively, infinite resources. And in fact, >if Bill set his mind to it, that's what he'd have. But he's not going to do >that. He would implement something on a smaller scale, because he'd have to put >people on it in proportion to how much money it would make. > >You can talk about other issues like this, as well. For instance, we can >discuss how far we'd get if we put all of our resources into colonizing other >stars. I'm sure that the entire planet, working together, could do it, but that >is not where energy is being devoted. > >Something like Excel, circa approximately 1993 (last time I paid any attention >to that group), had like 40 developers (programmers) working on it. That's a >big project and one that lends itself into being broken up into feature areas, >each with several people working in the area. It also earns vast amounts of >money because everybody buys it. > >A chess program would end up being written by one or two engine guys plus a few >people (sometimes the same people) on the user interface. Just like everybody >else does it, but possibly with a bit support, probably on parts of the thing >other than the engine. I think that if they got a top-ten engine they probably >wouldn't care that much about making it a top-three engine. > >My information in Microsoft is not terribly current, but that's my best guess. > >bruce
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