Bill Gates originally got to work on a site called Marvel. It was later called Microsoft. The first Microsoft Internet site was launched in 1993. John Martin who was the Group Manager of Microsoft’s Corporate Network Systems group acquired the necessary permission or charter to post the Microsoft Support Resources to a public FTP server.“gowinnt.microsoft.com” was the first name of the site (Kramer, Microsoft). Later it became ftp.microsoft.com. 1994 saw the expansion of the site to include gopher and Web servers. Mark Ingalls who tried to enter the site found that it had already been used by J.Allard who was a Microsoft developer trying out his new TCP/IP. The server was then handed over to the product support group. The European Microsoft Windows Academic Consortium (EMWAC) WWW server software was used to deliver content on Windows NT 3.1. (Kramer, Microsoft). Ingalls and his team used an automated rich text-to-Html process and spent plenty of time to convince the rest of the company about the Web site’s benefits. They found the usefulness of the Web to search for matter with ease. Bill Gates commented so in 1995. Before Microsoft launched its site, most of the matter on the web was disorganized clumps of matter. Originally, updating the site was done at great intervals. Soon this became a daily affair within a year. Then the Internet Explorer 3.0 was launched. Windows 95 was a turning point and it came with the third Web server (Kramer, Microsoft).
Microsoft planned to buy a minority stake in Uunet Technologies Incorporation which was the Internet access provider. This was the strategy employed by Microsoft to conquer the Internet (Clark, 1995a). Uunet was happy that this business helped it to extend to more than its original 25 cities. Microsoft’s investment created more competition for other online service providers. Microsoft also licensed its Mosaic Technology for browsing the net (Clark, 1995). Microsoft expected to start its online service in August 1995. Many independent companies under the group ASCII filed a case against Microsoft fearing that it would cause other small companies to lose their business, illegally passing over them (Clark, 1995b). Microsoft changed its strategy of MSN online in December 1995. The content providers were unsure of how they could regain their investment (Clark, 1996).
Bill Gates had delivered a set of tools and technologies for developers in March 1996.
In the middle of 1996, as Microsoft Chairman and CEO, he defined the 3rd part of Microsoft’s strategy to deliver a group of products and services which included the “desktops, LANs, client-server applications, legacy systems, and the public Internet to create dramatically more effective corporate computing systems” (Microsoft, 1996). Intranet-related products and future technologies were announced. Microsoft’s strategy was to integrate seamlessly internal LANS with the Internet. This would improve communications between businesses, customers, and partners. New navigation paradigms were to be pioneered on the net into all products which would help users to find, create, analyze and collaborate (Microsoft, 1996). Customers could streamline business processes and shorten development cycles by simple applications. Technology investment to integrate new products and evolving Information technology systems were introduced. Bill Gates spoke about integrating the best in the computer and the best on the internet to allow businesses to grow and expand (Microsoft, 1996). The next generation intranets were to be enabled using the Microsoft Office, Microsoft Windows, Windows NT workstation, Windows NT Server and the Directory server. Corporate users could make use of the technologies introduced.
High technology firms face the dangers of inflection points in the trajectory (Grove, 1996). Changes in the dynamics of the basic industry, the successful winning strategies, and dominant technologies cause this strategic dissonance. Strategic dissonance sends feelers to the top management who lead the organization through the turbulence of the uncertain period using innovative strategic intent. Strategic recognition is based on competitive reality and dissent and debate.
Different free goods and premium goods markets are selected by different companies (Parker and van Alstyne, 2002). In any system, the same operating system is depended upon by consumers and developers; the same credit card is accepted by cardholders and merchants and content consumers and creators, players and developers exist together. Price pairs and profits are compared in two markets. When a free good is provided in one market, this subsidized market shows increased demand and profit. The market which creates more surplus is chosen to be a subsidized one. So while some companies sell only competitive goods, others sell competitive complementary goods too (Parker and van Alstyne, 2002). When one company sells new goods which completely wipe out other competitive goods, the new good is a competitive substitute. A competitive complement justifies asking for a share of the market. MS Office or Netscape or Media Player may be a competitor while the complement could be Workstations/OX or MS Ofice/Active X. Product substitutes also justify the seeking of the share of the market. Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson commented that Microsoft gave away Internet Explorer as it was concentrating on protecting the applications barrier to its operating systems (Parker and van Alstyne, 2002).
The powerful management tool of decision acceleration improves execution performance and innovation capability, reducing the cycle times of strategic change (Worley et al, 2007).
Efficient collaborative planning would maximize the productivity of resources. Stakeholder commitment would be accelerated. A bias would be created for action. “Innovative, comprehensive and practical solutions would be implemented” (Worley et al, 2007).
References
Clark, D. (1995a). “Microsoft outlines Internet strategy, which includes buying a stake in Uunet”.
The Wall Street Journal, Western Ed., Dow Jones and Company Inc.
Clark, D. (1995b). “Retailers fear Microsoft Network will leave them out of the loop; dealer group seeks action by the U.S. to prevent direct online sales” The Wall Street Journal, Western Ed., Dow Jones and Company Inc.
Clark, D. (1996). “Microsoft’s partners in the online network feel the brunt of change; new Internet model leaves some content providers without much of a home”. The Wall Street Journal, Western Ed., Dow Jones and Company Inc.
Grove, A.S. and Burgelman, R.A. (1996). “Strategic dissonance”. Web.
Kramer, D. (1999). “A brief history of Microsoft on the Web”. 2009.
Microsoft Corporation, (1996). “Microsoft Outlines Intranet Strategy, Demonstrates Wide Range of New Intranet-Related Products And Future Technologies”. 2009. Microsoft Corporation.
Parker, G. and van Alstyne, M. (2002). “Information complements, substitutes, strategic product design”. Sponsored by NSF Career award. 2009. Web.
Worley,C.; Mohrman, S. and Winby, S. (2007). “Accelerating strategy and complex change: The role of large group interventions”. Centre for Effective organizations, Web.