149 karma · joined November 6, 2009
A lot of us did what this article mentioned - but probably in the 1990s when desktop programmers were moving to the web. Most probably settled on Perl after trying C and finding development was much faster with Perl.
"Seals" used to be quite popular some years ago (e.g. TrustE seal and the BBB Seal), but they seem to get less press these days, so I wonder how important they are for conversions.
Has Aunt Millie really heard of Verisign ? May actually have heard of GoDaddy though due to the advertising.
Another way is for Microsoft to do a great job of selling the cloud to its enormous client and developer base. I think they can do that. I suspect, but don't know, that most corporations would be happier with Microsoft behind their cloud than Amazon. A lot of corporations will have 10+ year relationships with Microsoft and/or its resellers, certified developers, etc. Amazon to them is an online store.
I think Microsoft has a great chance.
Getting rid of potential competition through legislation is a tried and true method.
University of Chicago - http://masters.cs.uchicago.edu/
If U of Chicago is doing it, likely there are others. I would also suggest looking at UK universities - the 1 year taught course Master's degree is a popular cash cow for many universities.
The risks of operating without limited liability are rather high. The ability to issue shares to millions of people is also rather powerful. The corporation is a massive government subsidy to anyone who wants to manage a legal entity with limited liability, and the ability to raise funds in a big way.
Managing a partnership or any non-government created entity with thousands if not millions of partners is quite difficult.
Contracts cannot provide the same limited liability that the government can.
Simple example: if the driver of a car for a partnership runs over and kills someone in the course of his job -- contracts won't stop the family of the killed person from going after the assets of the natural persons of the partnership. With corporations it would be more impossible to go after shareholder assets.
Limited liability is huge; without it, lawyers would find many ways to get to assets that they can't now.
Also, contracts are not much to hide behind as compared to the government. Contracts can be busted, interpreted in unusual ways, etc. The limited liability offered by the government to shareholders is rather fool-proof.
The nature of the corporate entity is a problem that capitalists (including Rand) like to avoid discussing. Limited liability naturally results in risk taking. What do people expect with limited liability ??? If the shareholders were actually liable for the obligations of the corporation, I think companies would be more careful.
IMHO, only natural persons and partnerships of natural persons, without limited liability, should be legal entities. Getting rid of corporate "shares" also makes it harder to accumulate massive assets...partnerships get tough to deal with when you have lots of partners.