10. Corel and Microsoft
Frenemies since: 1989, when the fledgling, Ottawa-based Corel introduced the first version of CorelDRAW. It was a Windows graphics application at a time when most software developers were on the wild goose chase known as OS/2, and it did as much as any app to establish Windows as a legitimate platform for significant new applications.
Acts of friendship: In 2000, Microsoft invested $135 million in then-struggling Corel in return for Corel’s support for Microsoft’s .Net platform; in 2002, Corel was an early booster of Microsoft’s Tablet PC with its Grafigo application.
Acts of enmity: In the mid- to late-1990s, Corel founder Michael Cowpland bought bought WordPefect from Novell and pitched it as Pepsi to Microsoft Office’s Coke, wrote another Office rival from scratch in Java, attempted to consumerize Linux into a Windows competitor, and frequently bashed Microsoft in public. Cowpland was forced to step down in 2000, and the company then largely abandoned its efforts to turn itself into the Microsoft of the Great White North.
Current state of the frenemyship: WordPerfect is still around, but even Corel markets it more as as a Royal Crown Cola than a Pepsi; the company has gone back to being a solid citizen on the Windows platform, and is no longer trying to kill the king. I’d say this is one frenemyship which blossomed into a friendship–though not, of course, one of equals–period.
December 11th, 2008 at 6:05 am
Great list, I enjoyed that, thanks. ;-)
December 11th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Great job on this, Harry. Many of us have lived through the stuff you’ve written about here, but were we really paying attention? On some levels, yes, but we all tend to be revisionist historians to a certain degree. With this article you’ve put a stake in the ground. Would love to see you do a periodic update on the same 12 — maybe adding or deleting as new frenemies develop or others lose pertinence.
December 15th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
What about nVidia and AMD? It seems like that’s a big one.
December 17th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Great article!
December 18th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Frenemies—- are they not just competitors? OR two persons/entities that have a mutual love hate relationship that shift from one end of teh spectrum to another….
December 23rd, 2008 at 1:03 am
Wow. Microsoft has many enemies.
December 30th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Not to be a grammar policeman, but it seems you spelled “enmity” wrong.
Oh, well. Pretty awesome article. That there are six pages containing Microsoft relationships says something….
May 4th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
Wow, I immensely enjoyed this list. Microsoft leads the ranks with enemies on almost both ends of the list.
I’m missing the iFruad producers vs Apple on the list though. :P
http://kixtrix.com
May 8th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
Microsoft and Nintendo! While it may not be cpu-based, nintendo helped microsoft get going with the xbox, which then completely left nintendo to branch out their own and is now nintendo’s biggest opponent (sorry sony). Not to mention how nintendo is so bitchy about making sure that nobody but themselves and add programs and games to their consoles, so there isn’t a nintendo game on the xbox and vise versa. And, Gates has famously said quote, “”There’s room for innovation (on the wii), but moving that controller around — it’s something that’s not mainstream for most games.” Who knows? Maybe Gates will give in to 114,000,000 dollars a year of motion-sensitivity and make a motion-sensitive Halo. YES.
June 15th, 2009 at 10:01 am
You forgot Google and Mozilla, google has always been a big but quiet supporter of firefox, and then they release Chrome…
September 27th, 2009 at 3:55 am
Hey, you have a great blog here! I’m definitely going to bookmark you! Thank you for your info.And this is bookmarkth.com site. It pretty much covers DoFollow Social Bookmark related stuff.
Thank.
November 4th, 2009 at 10:40 am
Great article!I enjoyed that, thanks. ;-)