on Jul 13th, 2009Innovation, Competition and Open Source
There is an interesting op-ed in today’s NY Times from the venerable Robert Cringley:
Chrome vs. Bing vs. You and Me
Cringley implicitly asserts that neither Google nor Microsoft are going to innovate in the interest of You and Me and sadly, I think this is all-to-often true in ‘big-time, big-money’ corporate software.
First and formost, companies are interested to achieve ever higher ROI for their shareholders. This does not necessarily mean that they will build anything of value for You and Me. They may innovate and that’s terrific when it happens. However, if they can make more money by attacking each other and protecting their existing turf… I think it’s pretty clear they will frequently do so.
In my view, this points directly at a long-term sustainable role for open source and startup ecosystems: end-user-focused innovation. Of course, as Bjorn Freeman-Benson points out, end-user focus can be a challenge for open source communities.
What’s your opinion?
Related posts:
- Open Source Strategy Summit at EclipseCon
- Open Source Development Metrics
- Eclipse, Education and Open Source
- An open source visual editor for Rich Internet Applications – the Eclipse way
- Teamwork, Innovation and Diversity
I don’t think any discussion of Google’s relationship with its investors can be had without acknowledging its two stock classes.
http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/07/twoclass_corporate_ownership_s.php
I am a Google employee, but I do not speak for Google.
Hi Robert.
A clarification request: Just so I (and maybe others) understand what you are saying in your comment…are you saying that Google’s two-class ownership structure materially changes its relationship with shareholders and investors?
Also a question that I’ve had since hearing about this ownership structure: Do you think it also has some effect on the likelihood of Google persuing innovation as a competitive business strategy?
Open Source makes innovation possible for startups, Competition is for the grasping of a market and Innovation doesnt need to grasp but just innovate. The aims are different.
Hi Pierre,
>Open Source makes innovation possible for startups, Competition is for the grasping of a market and Innovation >doesnt need to grasp but just innovate. The aims are different.
I don’t agree with you if you are asserting that Innovation doesn’t need a marketplace (which is what you seem to be saying in your quote above “…and Innovation doesn’t need to grasp but just innovate. The aims are different”).
I think the only way that small companies can compete against the large is by innovation…which *has* to be followed by marketplace adoption. And it turns out that for small companies the marketplace adoption is almost always the hard part.
Even if a small company successfully innovates, market success (or even survival) based upon that innovation is far from guaranteed. That is, innovation by small companies gives small companies a chance to survive, but sadly there are lots of ways that innovation can be squashed by competition in the marketplace. There are lots of examples of this…some of which I’ve experienced personally…from large companies buying smaller ones (and effectively killing the smaller companies innovations), to beating them into the ground with sales (of sometimes far inferior products), to fud and so on.