Gordon Haff Microsoft Quotations

Certainly it's at least at the same level of sophistication that Office 97 was in terms of features and capabilities, which is enough for most people, ... Microsoft seems determined to see how much money it can squeeze out of buyers, but in doing so, they're opening up an opportunity for somebody else to come in.

Microsoft is going to be very late to the game and will need to overcome a presumption that it will favor Windows.

Microsoft has made a few unsuccessful attempts to become a key player in the supercomputer market but the company could be in a better position for success this time.

Microsoft has built its business on working with third party software vendors and wants to leverage that expertise to the supercomputing arena.

In the sense of having this ongoing awareness of and feedback mechanism, it does mirror certain elements of open source development. If not openness of code and standards, there is greater visibility into what's going on. Customers have visibility more than an ability to necessarily influence Microsoft greatly.

I don't think Microsoft had much choice in the matter. The bottom line is there is not a whole lot of market to buy that product from Microsoft.