Borrowing ideas is essential to progress in the computer industry. Technically; you measure progress not by market results, but by the spread of ideas. The value of ideas lies not in how much money the one company that owns those ideas makes, but by how readily those ideas are given away and used by everybody as a community good.
It is nice to be an idealist, but the reality is that a lot of
superior technology has gone by the wayside - its line snuffed out
only because it was unable to gain sufficiently in the market place.
Microsoft did not gain its position because of superior technology
in the products they sold, but in "superior" abililty in the marketplace -
sometimes abilities that we question should be exercised - eg may not have been for the common good.
Even (or perhaps I should say especially) IBM and MicroSoft are part of this ecology of ideas; you need look no further than MS DOS or the 5150 (and their competition) to see the importance of this.
The alpha microprocessor comes to mind:killed by DEC "stealth marketing". A vastly superior technology to peecees, yet beaten in the end by better marketing and price pressures. There are many, many other examples of this axiom.
Ted
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