[Leica] Kodak Focus now management hubris

[Nick Roberts <nickbroberts@yahoo.co.uk>]

> From: Mike Quinn <mlquinn.mail@earthlink.net>
> Subject: Re: [Leica] Kodak Focus now management
> hubris
> Message-ID:
> <BB9CE898.2E287%mlquinn.mail@earthlink.net>
> References: 
> 
> Sadly, it's just the other way.
> PREVENTING standardization has been one of
> Microsoft's more successful
> tactics.
> 
> They (and others) have worked diligently to prevent
> standards from being
> adopted. IF standards are adopted, Microsoft prefers
> to ignore them and come
> up with it's own (non-standard and undocumented) way
> to implement the
> "standard". This guarantees that it will be
> difficult to read or modify
> documents using other than Microsoft software.
> 
> (It would be like Kodak reaching an agreement with
> Leica to help them design
> the film compartment for Leica cameras. With
> standardization, they'd also
> publish the spec for the film cassette so anyone
> could make one to fit your
> camera. Microsoft wouldn't do it that way. Instead
> they'd change the
> cassette spec every time another film manufacturer
> figured out how to make
> one fit. They'd then offer you a good deal on a
> upgrade to the new body with
> the changed cassette. Eventually you'd buy only
> Kodak film, since the other
> companies cassettes would cease to work properly
> whenever you upgraded. This
> would give them a monopoly (because they were able
> to prevent
> standardization). 
> 
> (Then again, this probably wouldn't work for Kodak.
> They'd forget they had a
> monopoly and discontinue the film even if they had a
> monopoly on it...)
> 

Er, isn't that broadly the history of Kodak? How many
new formats have they invented over the years in an
attempt to tie customers in to their products, only to
abandon them later? 620, 828, 127, 110, 126, Disk and
probably a load of others I've forgotten. Once others
have adopted the format, Kodak have tried a new one.
Microsoft have behaved rather well in comparison - at
least there's a degree of backwards compatability...
;)

Nick

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