Quote:
Originally Posted by 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.
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1) FIRST has cachet.
FIRST + MSRS is a bounty of good marketing material waiting to be harvested inexpensively.
2) Microsoft isn't going after the market you appear to have in mind. They are going after the ubiquitous-computing, home-full-of-robots market (see the unusual Bill Gates article Scientific American chose to publish a few months back). That market doesn't exist yet, but I would tend to believe that the future innovators in the
FIRST and other pipelines today, are good ones to target if you want to influence the form that future, very-large, robotics market takes when/if it does begin to bear fruit.
3) Microsoft has deep pockets and sees MSRS as a long-term investment in the shape of the future (see point number 2), not one that will contribute much if anything to the next few quarters' financial statements. Viewed in that way, inserting MSRS into programs like
FIRST that train the future roboticists would be a smart investment that will pay off in the expected time frame.
About my third item above. The investment would be a smart one for Microsoft to make; but, there are two sides to that hypothetical transaction. I'm pretty sure that for any "agnostic" science and technology program like FIRST, becoming too entangled with any single technology, company or product isn't a wise thing to do. I hope I clearly explained those opinions in earlier posts.
So that we can focus where I think we should focus, I hope that, based on the discussion so far, we are willing to agree that
- Having an FRC regional named the Microsoft Seattle Regional is harmless in itself.
- Having a new FRC regional bear the Microsoft name, makes good conspiracy fodder when added to the recent introduction of MSRS, and to the recent mysterious FIRST announcement about FTC probably not using Vex products next year.
Blake