[ebarker]

Interesting thread.

I would like to hear three GOOD reasons why MS would even think about entering the robotic controller market for FIRST. They would need a good business case and I don't think it is there. FIRST is just too tiny a market and doesn't have money flowing TOWARD Microsoft, relative to their cost stucture.

Relatively speaking, the FIRST controller market is tiny relative to their other product lines. It would be a distraction to their management and engineering teams that frankly have a lot bigger fish to fry. It would almost certainly be cash negative for a long time.

The type of electronics that FIRST uses is best developed by a team of 3 or 4 people with a passion for entrepreneurship. That is why companies like IFI and AndyMark do such a good job with FIRST. If these companies had to ship 100 million units a year they would in fact be large and cumbersome. In other words like Microsoft.

Sometimes people attribute evil to companies when in fact it is just 50,000 employees tripping over themselves. Self inflicted incompetance.

20 years ago the evil empire was IBM. For a while people thought the good side was Digital Equipment but then they became TOO successful. And HP was an IBM wanna be. Bill Gates came along as the underdog. None of the young people reading this post perceive IBM as 'evil' I'd bet. In 20 years the same will be said of Microsoft.

Nearly every project that I worked on where we recommended IBM, DEC, or HP, there was someone that furiously argued for MS products for blah blah blah reasons. MS wasn't the best for those projects. It is just that the person wanted the underdog to win, and the market leader to lose for no good technical reason.

Basically it is 'king of the hill'. Whoever is on the hill becomes the target.

As I write this I'm watching Notre Dame and Michigan bite the dust.