Rob Enderle’s article, Why Linux may never be a true desktop OS raises some interesting points that apply to a lot more than just Linux.  The entire doing what is necessary section highlights a mistake we’re all guilty of making at various times.

When it comes to competition, typically you have the folks who are willing to do what is necessary to win and the folks who aren’t. In my personal experience, I’ve seen again and again scenarios where a team would lay out a plan for what they deemed was needed in order to be successful in a market and then they’d watch as the executive in charge cherry picked the things he/she wanted to do. As a result, the project failed, often disastrously.

This statement paints a common problem in a new light for me.  I’ve seen (and committed) this error many times, but hadn’t ever thought of it in terms of “cherry picking“, and that being the ultimate downfall of a project.  We like to think that life is full of gray areas and nothing is truly ever an all-or-nothing proposition.  Perhaps it’s the ability to see things in black and white that separates the winner from second place?