Growing Up
Adapting To The Market’s Message
“It’s too easy to describe these kinds of things with the boxes of words provided by sports and war metaphors. A better metaphorical system is environmental. By looking at computing as a world rather than as a battlefield or a sports arena, we can see operating systems and development environments as overlapping ecosystems with larger contexts.
…It makes sense to see both companies come together at this point in time, but not because of anything either company happens to be doing right now. Instead, it makes sense because the Net is growing thicker and more solid. Its infrastructure includes more and more useful and ubiquitous protocols and other standards originating in the resourceful work of allied individuals, rather than in any company’s corporate agenda. For example, while Microsoft makes a big deal about Web services in its propaganda about .Net, RSS and other systems for deploying practical Web services have been developed and deployed by other companies large and small–and by countless individuals whose leadership comes from themselves and one another. The Web services market today is a conversation no company can dominate.”