EMBRACE EXTEND EXTINGUISH PC
EMBRACE EXTEND EXTINGUISH SERIES

In the first edition of The Road Ahead, Bill Gates explains in detail his plans to use the network effect to Microsoft's advantage. The purported effectiveness of EEE lies in network effect, the idea that the value of a product to a potential customer increases as the number of customers who already use that product increases. It remains to be seen whether these new extensions, which are scheduled to appear in Visual Studio.NET 2005, will gain wide acceptance. Because of the poor reception, Microsoft made a second attempt at extending C++, this time calling it C++/CLI. First, Microsoft tried to extend it as Managed C++ in Visual C++.NET however, this attempt was met with a lot of resistance as the managed extensions were poorly implemented and aesthetically unappealing. Some observers suspect that Microsoft intends to use EEE with the C# programming language, by first getting many users for the ECMA-standard version of the language, which was intentionally designed as a successor to the popular C programming language, then later adding proprietary extensions and removing support for the standards-based version.Īnother example is the C++ programming language. NET as a Microsoft-influenced alternative to Java. NET is marketed under the Microsoft brand name. Therefore, in the subject Java vs.NET, EEE would not strictly apply, either, because. The phrase 'embrace, extend and extinguish' should be reserved for the particular strategy outlined above. The last example was the subject of a widely-publicized lawsuit between Microsoft and Sun Microsystems.

EMBRACE EXTEND EXTINGUISH PC

Indirect control of the IBM compatible PC architecture.Raymond has stated that these documents constitute incontrovertible proof of Microsoft's unfair business practices.Įxamples of areas where 'embrace, extend and extinguish' have been alleged: What exactly can be inferred from the documents about Microsoft's strategies is up to debate.

EMBRACE EXTEND EXTINGUISH SERIES

The Microsoft standard then becomes the only standard that matters in practical terms (a de facto standard), because it allows the company to control the industry by controlling the standard.Įvidence held up in support of the 'EEE' view of Microsoft's policies include the Halloween documents, a series of confidential, internal Microsoft memos related to dealing with Linux and open source software, which were leaked to the public.

Extinguish: Through various means, such as driving use of their extended standard through their server products and developer tools, they increase use of the proprietary extensions to the point that competitors who do not follow the Microsoft version of the standard cannot compete.

They argue that they are trying only to add value for their customers, who want them to provide these features.

Extend: They do support the standard, at least partially, but start adding Microsoft-only extensions of the standard to their products.

They assign employees to work with the standards bodies, such as the W3C and the IETF.

Embrace: Microsoft publicly announces that they are going to support a standard.

The three stages of the firm's supposed EEE strategy consists of the following steps: Microsoft's strategy toward the Internet and other standards is often described as being EEE by those who claim that the company exercises unfair anticompetitive practices. Microsoft, the Internet, and other standards

Embrace extend extinguish