Raikes Unplugged: 'Failure is not an option'
ZDNet | at | by Mike
"Sun and Oracle are companies that make good products," acknowledged Microsoft Productivity and Business Services Group Vice President Jeff Raikes midway through our interview. Complimentary comments about a competitor aren't what I'm accustomed to hearing from most tech executives. But Raikes chose to focus on what gives Microsoft unique differentiation: cost. Indeed, he was well prepared to respond to the long standing "you get what you pay for" rhetoric of Microsoft critics.
Microsoft often delivers a mea culpa for not making its platform easy enough for mere mortals to use. In recent Comdex keynotes, Chairman Bill Gates has labeled computers "too hard to set up" and "laborious" and opined that "it's got to be easier." Meanwhile, citing Moore's Law, Gates extols the improvements in price/performance. When I read between the lines, there is a bit of admission that Intel has done its job while the software has lagged.