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Story: Medieval secrets behind Microsoft Research
Rupert, a question if I may...
You say that Microsoft's key benefit from its 'research' is 'status capital', which it converts to increased revenues in some way further down the corporate pipeline, which I can accept as a valid perspective.
However, what would happen if Microsoft's core franchise monopolies vanished overnight? Would that translate into a new era where Microsoft's research actually produced ($DEITY forbid) viable and beneficial technological breakthroughs?
I ask this knowing that this is pretty much what happened at IBM back in the day...
At IBM, technologies, even brilliant ones, which might in some way eat into Big Blue's then cash cows, were often suppressed.
You see, if you have a phenomenally lucrative monopoly market, it's difficult to visualise a scenario where any new technology which you might devise, not matter how brilliant, could generate more profit than what you already have. Therefore, it's best to suppress many of these new discoveries, on the off-chance that they somehow devour your key markets.
It is one of the more insidious aspects of monopolies within the ICT space, and a great loss to our industry of clever ideas from clever people.
Thoughts?
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