Microsoft software implicated in LAX shutdown
ZDNet says
A three-hour system shutdown that affected South California's airports was reportedly caused by a technician who failed to reboot an MS-based system A bug in a Microsoft system compounded by human error was ultimately responsible for a three-hour radio breakdown that left hundreds of aircraft aloft without guidance on Tuesday, according to a report in the LA Times.
(The story is here, but it seems to screw up Firefox, so you might want to view it in Lynx or Dillo.)
posted Thu 23 Sep 2004 in /business/microsoft | link
MiniMSFT
Mini-Microsoft is the blog of a Microsoft employee who wants the company to shrink down to regain some more small-company aggression and agility. I think that not many companies manage to succeed in doing so, even if they want to.
This reminds me very much of Christensen's The Innovator's Dilemma. (Is that too obvious to even mention?) One of Christensen's points is that it is extremely difficult for established companies to cope with new disruptive technologies.
It's remarkable how much Linux fits the pattern of disruptive technologies. At first, it's just a toy, it's not very capable, it's missing lots of industrial-strength qualities, big companies and big customers laugh at it. However, it is cheap and flexible, and this attracts cheap-ass students, small companies, innovators. Eventually it grows up, but it's hard for the big companies of the previous generation to adapt.
You can make a similar argument about other technologies: web user interfaces were pretty clunky at first, but they've grown up so that as Tim O'Reilly says, the most interesting applications never get installed on your PC.
Of course this is not to say that every small/cheap new technology is destined to disrupt the big players.
Death is a part of the life of companies. Possibly the best fix for Microsoft shareholders is to start a new business nearby, put money into that, and poach their best people before someone else does.
posted Tue 21 Sep 2004 in /business/microsoft | link
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