The Hand of FuManChu

From DNJ. "Steve" is Steve Cook, an architect for Visual Studio Team System.

Matt: So the automation tools depend on the job you’re doing.

Steve: Yes. If you were implementing an e-commerce application then you’d clearly need a web site, so you’d have all the stuff you need to create web sites. If your software factory was for producing an embedded system for a robot then you wouldn’t have a web site.

So if you have a great idea for a web server to be built into your robot, you're out of luck. Or rather, in luck, because you've got a competitive advantage over those who can't see beyond the tools Microsoft gives them.

Do bigger tools hamper innovation more than smaller ones? The innovations to come out of the Unix philosophy might indicate that.