Issue 57 – Autumn 2012

Editorial Intro – Matt Nicholson

A long time ago I found myself at an exhibition in discussion with the vendor of a range of custom controls for Visual Studio. He was upset because Microsoft had included in the new version of Visual Studio, which had just been announced, the functionality of his top-selling control, so wiping out the market for his product overnight. His bitterness is understandable, but then it was Microsoft which had created the market for custom controls in the first place. Rather less acceptable was the situation in which Netscape found itself when Microsoft decided to include a Web browser with Windows. The ensuing battle resounded around the courts for decades, and is the reason why even now an uninvited dialog occasionally pops up requesting that you select your default browser.

Such matters were brought to mind by recent developments. Like many, I use a range of products and services from a number of different companies. Much of it comes from Microsoft, but there are others. I have, for example, started using Dropbox cloud storage. Dropbox keeps my files backed up and synchronised across my various devices, and works well. However I am aware that Microsoft would much prefer me to use its own SkyDrive or Office 365 services, and that I am missing out on an increasing number of features by choosing to use something else. This is doubtless going to become even more apparent when I eventually upgrade to Office 2013, which is likely to be so integrated with Office 365 that I will eventually succumb – to the detriment of Dropbox and other companies like it.