American History 1988
Chapter 278 - 269: Making a Move Later

Chapter 278: Chapter 269: Making a Move Later

"Is there any response from Microsoft?" Dean signaled to Jennifer to wait a moment as he needed to take a call.

"On the surface, it looks like nothing is happening, but I bet Gates is about to explode, hahaha~"

Cook’s laughter was indescribably satisfying; it had been a long time since he had felt such a surge of triumphant relief.

"OK," Dean laughed too, "there’s no issue with the spiked data, right? Microsoft should discover them."

"Rest assured, Dean, this game of cat and mouse will go on for a long while. Every guy on our team is raring to go!"

Cook was now utterly in awe of Dean. How did he come up with these disgusting yet legally risk-free tricks?

They had set up various hurdles for exporting data from Quicken, controlling the pace so delicately that it wouldn’t entirely provoke user resentment.

Under the guise of protecting financial data, adding a patch isn’t too excessive, right?

Don’t want to install the patch? Want to skip this step?

Sorry, Quicken doesn’t offer that option at the moment.

Either patch it or give up on exporting data.

This tactic might seem draconian, but users tend to overlook this point subconsciously during the process.

After all, Intuit’s justification is regarded as noble—all for your financial security.

Installing the patch requires an internet connection, and many households don’t even have that service.

Even if they do, the mere act of patching could defeat many users.

As Dean and Cook anticipated, more than 50% of users would likely give up at this stage.

Don’t overestimate the current level of computer literacy; managing to use software is already quite good.

As for slightly more technical operations, few people understand them.

But this is just an appetizer that Intuit has prepared. The real ace up their sleeve is the exported data itself.

Of course, Quicken allows users to export their data because forbidding it could risk a lawsuit.

In America, using China’s rogue tactics—directly preventing users from exporting data or suggesting uninstalling a competitor’s software—is unacceptable.

Intuit can set barriers, but ultimately, users must be able to export their data completely.

So, to completely cut off the users’ option of switching to Microsoft Money, Intuit could only play tricks on the exported data.

After inadvertently discussing the underlying code issues of a particular financial software with Teresa, Cook and his team inserted a specific piece of code into the data.

This code has no effect on Quicken itself but would cause a logic conflict with Microsoft Money.

It then significantly increases the computational power required, a limit far beyond the capabilities of current hardware.

Consequently, the issues reflected on the client-side are freezes, white screens...

Look, this has nothing to do with Quicken. The problem lies with Microsoft Money.

Intuit perfectly passes the buck, and users only vent their frustration on Microsoft Money.

They would have gone through various difficulties to export their data, only to fail at the final hurdle.

This accumulation of dissatisfaction and discontent would backlash against Microsoft Money exponentially.

All these traps, one connected to another, are Intuit’s countermeasure against Microsoft’s price war.

Cook and his team called it the "Lockout Strategy," a very apt name.

As for how that spiked code got added to the data? The initial patch was key.

The trap was ready from the beginning—if not triggered, all was well.

If otherwise... Steve had already demonstrated it to Gates once.

However, with Microsoft’s capabilities, they should eventually find the issue and make targeted optimizations.

But the time frame for this is unpredictable, and whenever Cook needs to, he could continue to chat with Teresa.

Unless Microsoft completely overturns and rewrites the underlying code of Microsoft Money, it has no chance of stealing a user from Intuit.

In the end, if Microsoft really does rewrite the Microsoft Money software, they will find that the Quicken exported data is still unusable.

Because the data format exported by Quicken is incompatible with Microsoft Money unless Microsoft develops a specific conversion tool, everything goes back to square one.

Developing a dedicated conversion tool to accommodate two data formats is an exhausting task in itself.

So if Microsoft is wise enough, they wouldn’t consider this option.

After designing multiple layers of protection, Intuit has almost completely cut off the possibility of users switching to Microsoft.

Microsoft Money wanting to compete for the personal finance software market can only consider the incremental market Quicken hasn’t captured yet.

But how significant is this segment, and is it worth Microsoft’s continued investment? That’s not for Intuit to worry about.

As for whether Microsoft would sabotage by meddling with the underlying operating system to cripple Quicken?

If they dared to do so, Silicon Valley would probably be eager to throw a grand celebration.

IBM, Apple, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, DR Dos, Novell... Any company involved in network systems would wake up laughing from their dreams.

Do you think the Department of Justice is just for show? The antitrust stick hits hard and accurately.

The once-mighty Standard Oil empire, the AT&T telephone empire—were they not powerful enough? Did they lack connections or funds?

They had it all, each once holding over 90% of their respective market shares, but in the end, they couldn’t escape being dismantled.

Microsoft using its system to block competitor products would be digging its own grave.

All application software companies would then view it as a common enemy, and Wall Street would forsake it.

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