Microsoft’s Lesson in Strategy: Don’t Fight your Competition, Commoditize them
Love ‘em or hate ‘em … the monolithic Microsoft has some pretty impressive tactics when it comes to the way they deal with their competitors. We’re all familiar with stories of their hostility toward open source software initiatives. But that hostility is actually quite targeted and deliberate. Microsoft doesn’t hate all things “open source” – Microsoft targets their cross hairs on all things “competitor.” That’s why they have (for years) been pouring money into various open source projects. Why? To commoditize their competition’s product and service offerings; essentially sucking the value out of a market that their competitor dominates. Whatever your stance on the ethics, you have to admit it’s a clever strategy. You don’t try take Goliath head-on, you undermine his footing and rob him of his strength. This is precisely what Microsoft is doing with Google Maps to help bolster it’s Bing Maps product.
