People always criticize Microsoft for shabby software, especially in new products. Their new software is so often so very bad. How do they end up with the most popular and successful software in the world?
John Murrell nails it in this post from Good Morning Silicon Valley:
But the thing about Microsoft is that on some missions, it can be as relentless and implacable as a Terminator. Version 1.0 may fail miserably, Version 2.0 may fall short, Version 3.0 may be semi-respectable, but if the target is important enough, they just keep coming.
Like no other company, Microsoft has an ability to fix and fix and fix until, one day, they win. Again and again, the critics mock 1.0 and 2.0 – and get their ass kicked by 3.0. I wonder if Google CEO Eric Schmidt remembers this lesson from his Novell days.
The Lesson: Slow and steady wins the race. Remember the Tortoise and the Hare.
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…yeah, but persistence is easy when you have a cash reservoir so large you can develop a strategy that knows going in that initial success or initial customer buy-in doesn’t really matter, or at least as much as it should.
I’d also say that the problem with that kind of ability is that it inherently moves you further away from being honestly concerned with your customers. Persistence and ungodly size vs. persistence and smallness are two vastly different things with two vastly different results.
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