

Ask News.YC: What is the best scenario for the future of Microsoft and Xobni? - fiaz

First off, Xobni is awesome.  It's so awesome that it invokes feelings like, "I wish I thought of that!" (but surely such an idea requires proper execution, which I probably could NOT have managed as well as they have).  I applaud the Xobni guys for what they've done and admire YC for investing in them and supporting a small band of amazing/innovative developers.<p>This question stems from the 80s/90s dream of being acquired by Microsoft.  Those were the days when hitting the big time meant getting acquired by Microsoft.  The game has definitely changed with the internet and in many ways Google is to the internet as Microsoft is to the desktop (but that's a different discussion altogether).<p>I noticed over the years that Apple has cultivated a culture of "grassroots development" such that there is an amazingly gifted community of developers creating innovative products that are growing the appeal of OSX as both user-friendly and developer-friendly (by "developer-friendly" I am referring to the anecdotally evident numerous small companies that have been established to fill a need for many small niche applications and those companies seem to do quite nicely; for example Delicious Monster, OmniGroup, Pixelmator...).<p>When I say "gifted developers" that could be restated as "enabled/empowered developers" in the sense that Apple has gone through great lengths to ensure the applications developed for OSX are clean, beautiful, and uniformly usable.  I get the impression that Apple has more of an interest in spreading diversity on its platform through encouraging independent developers to innovate such that additional value is brought to OSX from many sources instead of from Apple as the sole provider of value.<p>And thus we arrive at the heart of my question: which of the following scenarios is "optimal"?:<p>1) Microsoft acquires Xobni.  Outlook becomes better and Microsoft maintains dominance on their own platform.<p>2) Microsoft promotes Xobni as an example of grassroots development and starts to make it easier for independent developers to innovate upon the Windows platform.<p>3) &#60;add your own scenario&#62;<p>Which is the better scenario in the long-run for:<p>1) Microsoft<p>2) Customers<p>3) Xobni/YC
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pchristensen
1) Scenario #2 - Xobni would be a drop in the bucket to Microsoft so they
wouldn't have the incentive to manage it properly. The Xobnis can make it much
more prominent and important than MSFT would. Plus, Xobni is about the only
thing I can think of that gives MSFT products some hacker cred.

2) Scenario #2 - more people/companies are helping customers so they're more
likely to get an offering that fits. Microsoft might do a good job taking care
of customers, but a diversity of ideas is more likely to produce the right fit
for any given customer.

