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petsfedtoday at 3:33 PM3 repliesview on HN

Not to white-knight microsoft here, but I think the problem they run into with every product is that because of their ubiquity, they rapidly reach saturation with most every specialized product they sell. You cannot grow a business if your market is saturated, even if you're the only one selling. So they have to find a way to expand their market. With specialized tools, that's done by generalizing, right? And anyone who has ever driven a screw with a swiss-army knife can tell you, generalized tools never work as well as dedicated tools. Thus, Word ultimately sucks. Windows ultimately sucks. Github ultimately sucks. They are all of them trying to be everything for everyone, because the alternative is just mumbling along, being really good at being tools, but being really bad at conveying profit to their creators.


Replies

cortesofttoday at 3:39 PM

> You cannot grow a business if your market is saturated

At some point, a business should shift from growth state to a steady state. The idea that businesses have to grow forever is a sad consequence to how we fund companies.

The only thing that grows forever unchecked is cancer.

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jacquesmtoday at 8:08 PM

If you can't grow your business then maybe you should just be satisfied with what you have. Growth without limit has a name: cancer.

BobaFloutisttoday at 4:26 PM

>And anyone who has ever driven a screw with a swiss-army knife can tell you, generalized tools never work as well as dedicated tools

>Windows ultimately sucks

I actually want a generalized tool for my OS, a specialized OS sounds like a pain in the ass.

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