Companies Need to Acknowledge Their Competitors’ Existence
One seemingly common business practice really, really annoys me. It goes something like this:
Company A develops a clever product or technology that takes off and becomes popular. Eventually, Company B (for behemoth) decides that A may actually be on to something and starts to fear for its own market share. At this point, B wakes from its stupor, thoroughly rips off A’s product, changes a few details to throw off the truly naive, and markets it under its own brand. Usually, B makes no mention whatsoever of A and parades this imitation as innovation. For shame.
Intel is not alone here; Microsoft also does this from time to time. C# has actually gained a lot of begrudging respect from Java programmers, but not because of its thinly-disguised “borrowed” constructs. Read through the C#/.NET documentation, and you’ll find plenty of these alterations. StringBuffer becomes StringBuilder. NullPointerException becomes NullReferenceException. The suggested method of doc comments goes from slash-star-star to three slashes. “See,” Microsoft seems to be saying, “C# really is different. Let us count the ways…” It’s amusing to think that some poor employee was tasked with this pointless chore, and, in carrying it out, may have actually slowed the platform’s adoption.
Superficial changes like these do not fool anybody. Big companies are certainly capable of innovation, but I wish they would tout only their true innovations and give their competitors credit where it is due (well, I can dream). Or at least acknowledge their existence.
