Microsoft and the little guy - a tale with a different ending

Michael Gartenberg | October 27, 2004, 11:15 AM

Some background. A number of years ago, when I was first starting out in the industry, I worked for small software developer/VAR that specialized in Hebrew/Judaic software called Davka. They carved out a market for themselves with products related Hebrew word processing, Judaic clip-art, Synagogue management systems and other things of interest to the Jewish community. They brought out the first mass market edition of the Talmud on CD-ROM in the days where few consumers had ever heard of the technology. Hebrew word processing in particular was a lucrative market. In addition to the non-Roman character sets, text needs to be entered from right to left but also be able to switch back to English. Vowel and cantillation marks were an even bigger challenge as they need to go directly above, below and sometimes to the left and right of the letters without interfering with the letters themselves. The company produced solutions for DOS, Windows, Mac OS and others and as the market moved to Win32 so did Davka. Unfortunately for them, so did Microsoft. Microsoft included Hebrew support in every copy of Windows sold and made it an enabling feature of MS-Word. In short, if you were a Microsoft customer and needed to do Hebrew word processing, you didn't need to pay for the privilege from Davka anymore.

A sad story and one that you've heard a million times before. Microsoft adds a feature that was previously standalone and includes it in Windows and Office and some small developer is out of business... Right? Except in this case, it's wrong. Davka thrives quite well today and one their strongest products is their Hebrew word processor, DavkaWriter. You see, the Davka folks realized they couldn't compete with Office and Windows so they changed. They added features that MS couldn't bother with. They focused and creating better vowel placement, cantillation marks and the like. They included a ton of Judaic themed clip-art to make the product more useful and then also threw in a ton on Hebrew texts so users, like educators could insert them and customize them as needed. In short, they leveraged off of the platform and went to places where Microsoft couldn't go.

Progress can't be stopped. Windows and Office needed Hebrew functionality to compete with the marketplace. The key is understanding this and adapting the business model so you can leverage the other work that's being done. I'm sure there are more tales out there like this, it's just easier sometimes to whine about the way things were as opposed to going out and changing them