Tim Oren's Due Diligence

(Archival) Platform Wars: Net Wars 1993-1997 (4/30/1997)

(NB: I am moving some years-old writings into Due Diligence for future reference. This piece originally appeared in early 1997 on Howard Rheingold's old Electric Minds site. Little or no effort has been expended on cleaning up links broken in the intervening decade.)

The Way It Was Supposed to Be

A Microsoft strategy statement in the early nineties could have gone something like this:

"We have achieved dominance in desktop operating systems, and a large share in the associated programming tools and user applications. We need to keep growing the business, and to anticipate threats to our current market. Moore's law shows that 'desktop' machinery will soon have the power necessary to fill the roles of workstations and servers. The dominant operating system in these markets is UNIX, and the network capability implied by servers is supplied by TCP/IP. Collision is inevitable. We need a platform that we control, which has similar or superior capabilities, and is leveraged from our current competitive position."

(Archival) Platform Wars: The Clone Wars - 4/16/1997

(NB: I am moving some years-old writings into Due Diligence for future reference. This piece originally appeared in early 1997 on Howard Rheingold's old Electric Minds site. Little or no effort has been expended on cleaning up links broken in the intervening decade.)

In The Beginning

The dominant computing platform of the mid-seventies was IBM mainframe architecture. For those allergic to big iron, there were minicomputers from companies like DEC, Data General, HP, and, of course, IBM. Each had its own proprietary operating system. Programs often came from the platform vendors as well, or were custom-written in COBOL and FORTRAN, typically using features peculiar to the machine. The entire stack, from hardware to end user, was vertically integrated and highly specific.

(Archival) How to Make Platform War - 3/5/1997

(NB: I am moving some years-old writings into Due Diligence for future reference. This piece originally appeared in early 1997 on Howard Rheingold's old Electric Minds site. Little or no effort has been expended on cleaning up links broken in the intervening decade.)

Last time I wrote about platforms in general, and how they can create
great value for society and businesses. Now I'll focus on a battle for
platform definition that has been going on since the late seventies. The
objective for the warriors may be stated as:

Share dominance in the specification of programming and user interfaces
for general purpose computing and communications, leading to a role as
de facto market definer for all other players.

(Archival) Of Platform Wars, Monopoly, and Microsoft - 1/22/1997

(NB: I am moving a few years' old writings into Due Diligence for future reference. This piece originally appeared in early 1997 on Howard Rheingold's old Electric Minds site. Little or no effort has been expended on cleaning up links broken in the intervening decade.)

What's a Platform?

Let's try this first without any computers involved: If you live in North
America, take a minute and examine the nearest electrical appliance. Somewhere
on or by the power cord, you'll find printed or stamped something like the
following:

115-120 VAC 60Hz