Comments on: And Another Thing Or Two About Bundling http://www.sfsmith.com/blog/2004/03/31/and-another-thing-or-two-about-bundling/ The dynamic new way to bore you with stories about what I watched on TV last night. Or stuff about Macs, libertarianism, prog rock, cockatiels, mountains, travel, science fiction, the Web, and what a totally awesome guy I would be if I were anything like I would like to think I am. Wed, 07 Jan 2009 03:45:19 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5 By: Jason Lefkowitz http://www.sfsmith.com/blog/2004/03/31/and-another-thing-or-two-about-bundling/#comment-103 Jason Lefkowitz Wed, 31 Mar 2004 16:59:45 +0000 http://www.sfsmith.com/blog/?p=70#comment-103 But the virus-ridden-E-mail problem DOES demonstrate negative consequences of Microsoft bundling -- just not Microsoft bundling IE with Windows. It's another bit of bundling behavior, the bundling of Outlook with MS Office. The E-mail virus crisis is the fault of the poor design of MS Outlook. Period. End of argument. No other e-mail client is remotely as vulnerable as Outlook is. And yet the corporate desktop has overwhelmingly been standardized on Outlook (at least in the USA). Why? Two reasons: 1) Collaboration features like group calendaring 2) It comes free when you buy MS Office I would argue that #2 is a much stronger motivator. If you're already shelling out mad bucks for an enterprise-wide license for Office, being able to save some cash by removing the line item for e-mail software is nice. The collaboration features are OK but they fall more into the "nice-to-have" category. If Outlook was sold separately, say for $99/seat, would it have achieved nearly the market share that it did as a part of the Office bundle? And would we have nearly the virus problem we have today? I submit that the answer to both questions is a resounding "no". But the virus-ridden-E-mail problem DOES demonstrate negative consequences of Microsoft bundling — just not Microsoft bundling IE with Windows. It’s another bit of bundling behavior, the bundling of Outlook with MS Office.

The E-mail virus crisis is the fault of the poor design of MS Outlook. Period. End of argument. No other e-mail client is remotely as vulnerable as Outlook is.

And yet the corporate desktop has overwhelmingly been standardized on Outlook (at least in the USA). Why? Two reasons:

1) Collaboration features like group calendaring
2) It comes free when you buy MS Office

I would argue that #2 is a much stronger motivator. If you’re already shelling out mad bucks for an enterprise-wide license for Office, being able to save some cash by removing the line item for e-mail software is nice. The collaboration features are OK but they fall more into the “nice-to-have” category.

If Outlook was sold separately, say for $99/seat, would it have achieved nearly the market share that it did as a part of the Office bundle? And would we have nearly the virus problem we have today? I submit that the answer to both questions is a resounding “no”.

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