"When Hernan Cortes landed in Mexico in 1519, he was no less
ambitious than Microsoft, but differences between the man and the
monopolist were immediately apparent. Cortes, for instance, burned
his ships so that no retreat was possible, then marched through the
interior of the country on an imperialistic orgy, massacred people
in the marketplaces, overthrew an empire, and set himself up as the
ruler. And Microsoft.... well, depending on who you ask, Microsoft
did basically the same thing.
"But in Burning the Ships, Microsoft's Marshall Phelps and
writer David Kline argue that all the imperialistic stuff--the
massacres, the hangings, the occupations and conquests--was a
hallmark of the Old Microsoft. In the early 2000s, the company had
an epiphany: technological progress was simply moving too fast and
going on in too many places to control it all in-house."
