The Art of War
...t has had a series of trip to the Court. One of them being with Netscape and the antitrust suit of 1995. Microsoft was trying to terminate its main competitor Netscape Navigator, the only competitor to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Microsoft went on a bad business tactic with Netscape by asking them to abandon Navigator. Obviously, Netscape refused so Microsoft decided to suspend technical information that Navigator needed to upgrade its program to Window 95. Both parties went to court in which the judge concluded that Microsoft was not trying to improve customer experience but in fact to hurt Netscape. Another incident occurred with IBM. Years ago, IBM had as much control of the market as Microsoft. At the time, IBM was selling a competitive operating system called OS/2. Soon after, IBM bought Lotus and announced that it will intend to install Lotus software on PCs it sold. Microsoft was furious and declared that they will end negotiations on IBM’s licensing of Window 95 pending a review of past royalty payments. IBM offered a $10 million bond to cover the royalty to protect its license in order its launch its software. When negotiations took place, Microsoft executive suggested to lower the royalty payment if IBM would not launch its Lotus software onto its PCs for another 6 months to 1 year. IBM refused and soon after launch its new software while having to back $31 millions in royalty. Compaq intended to ship PCs without the screen icons for Microsoft Network and Internet Explorer. After multiple negotiations, Microsoft threatened to cancel the licencing of Windows 95, Compaq feared the consequence of its business and therefore conceded. Microsoft has been trying to lock its competitors out of the game. Microsoft is famous to use its leverage to correct concessions and change his competitors’ plans on product which also happened to be its customers. “Test them to find out where they are sufficient and where they are lacking.” (p111) An example for this quote is the negotiations story of the Washington Wood Product (WWP). According to Christopher P.Wells, the WWP is one of the largest exporters and producers of Wood products. It has some strong dispute with the United States Unions and about 40% of its Labor force is unionized. WWP-Japan is an owned sales and subsidiary of WWP having over 800 employees and the most profitable subsidiary of WWP producing over 40% of the firm net profit. However, with the recent recession, they have decrease to 30% and WWP-Japan has asked to a series of budget tightening measures. As a consequence, Mr Smith (Human resources) was assigned to go to Japan to oversee the subsidiary. A couple weeks later, Mr Smith laid off 6 people with the promise of a generous severance package, for the reason of low productivity. As a consequence, a request for mediation was filed with the Tokyo Metropolitan Labor Office and a general strike went on against the WWP-Japan by the Federation of Japanese Office Workers Unions (FOJOW) for the dismissal of the employees. WWP is starting to suffer from bad advertisement it had received from the incident as well as the lack of support. WWP has sent their most experience negotiation team to try to resolve the dispute with the head of the WWP employee union. “Those skilled in war subdue the enemy’s army without battle. They capture his cities without assaulting them and overthrow his state without protracted operations. They conquer by strategy.” This example shows how America should consider the words of Master Sun Tzu. America needs to pay attention to the war against terrorism and understand that terrorists are rebellious operation around the world. The rebellion in Thailand or the one in Iraq are usually fought against the government. However, the dispute with Al Qaeda, is not fought against the government and should be resolve with minimum violence by focusing on the socioeconomic, politic and security of the Al Qaeda’s population concerns. The United States need to work on eliminating terrorists at its roots. According to F. Andy Messing, segregating the insurgents from the population should be done ideologically and geographically. If there is a need to violence, this should be done in a focused manner to avoid the people’s anger, pushing them against the enemy’s cause. Currently, the United States concentrate on political options and military force which is not solving anything and will certainly not gain them victory. The United States need to address the socioeconomic factors, provide aid to population at risk for insurgent exploitation. "War is a matter of vital importance to the State; the province of life or death; the road to survival or ruin . . . . If not in the interests of the state, do not act. If you cannot succeed, do not use troops. If you are not in danger, do not fight. A sovereign cannot raise an army because he is enraged, . . a state that has perished cannot be restored, nor can the dead be brought back to life.” An example for this quote is the Vietnam War which Americans have a hard time to let go for many reasons. According to Alan Gropman, first, it was a defeat, and a loss can’t be forgotten easily. Many American had to be evacuated from helicopters from the American Embassy, the country lost over 58,000 Americans. Second, many Americans felt they were dumbed by many lies from the White House and the Pentagon which was under the presidency of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson accused to be done for domestic rather than international political reasons . The war was a sever trauma for many Americans U.S. war colleges, distraught at the failure began in the 1970s to read again military classics like Karl Von Clausewitz's "On War" and Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" to garner the wisdom these ancients transmitted in the hopes of not repeating Vietnam. Probably no war in American history violated as many classical aphorisms, particularly those of the Chinese master Sun Tzu Compensating the workers with better salaries benefits so they will do a better job A good example is the strike over non payment salaries in the Comoros. For 5 consecutive months, teachers in the Comoros were not paid and threatened to continue their strike unless they receive their 5 months pay back salary. The teachers were outraged because they have been working for 5 months without a pay. In general, these teachers make about $370 per month which is not even enough for them to survive. The teacher’s Union was ready to negotiate for the promise to receive at least one to two month salary payments. According to the authorities, the lack of funds was the main reason for not paying the teachers. Another strike went on in Yemen for an increased in salaries as well as an improvement of benefits. According to Peter Willems, the strike totalled 2250 full and associate professors and another 3000 lecturers. Two out of seven universities across the country started the strike when the next semester was started to begin. Soon after the next five universities joined the other two universities in their strike. Iqbal Al-Alas, the head of the Syndicate of the Teaching Body in Aden University and the official spokesperson for the Union Council which coordinates the syndicates in the Universities, said that he has no idea when the strike will end and will clearly go on until a settlement is reached with the government. According to Abdulrahman Ghanem, the head of the Supreme Council of University Teaching Unions, the file for the demands might take some time and is in the hand of the Ministry of Finance. The Council said that the average salary is one of the lowest in the region and that other Arabic countries receives twice or three times as much. The average teacher salary in Yemen is $600 whereas in other Arabic countries are between $1500 and $2000. In the mean time, professors...