Disclaimer, I have not shown this post to anyone, particularly my employer, er Microsoft. The ideas it contains are not vetted, and probably won't agree with anyone else's ideas.
OK, maybe you haven't heard about Mini-Microsoft yet, but if you care even a little bit about what Microsoft is, you've probably read his blog (he was featured on the cover of Business Week a while back). In my tours around Microsoft it's a rare employee who tells me he or she doesn't read Mini.
Sometimes an employee asks "don't you think they would try to shut Mini down?" (Mini is an anonymous blogger, who generally talks about things that Microsoft is doing wrong, and/or that he wants to see improved. His motto is to, by slimming down Microsoft, make Microsoft a more lean profit-making machine).
I say, no, cause I think he's doing a lot of good for the company and even if you don't agree with that point of view if Mini were fired I'd quit on the spot. I don't think the way you deal with dirty laundry is to get rid of the person hanging the laundry in the public square that way. Deal with the folks who are dirtying up the linen!
But, I'm going to use Mini as a metaphor for the angst that surrounds Microsoft, both internally with its employees, and externally with its customers and shareholders. I'm not talking about physically shutting down his blog or silencing him via censorship. No, I'm talking about taking away his reason for being. His karmic power.
Now, admittedly, I'm going on a small, but decent sized sample. I've interviewed more than 500 employees over two years (and talked with hundreds, maybe even thousands, more) and I've met thousands of our customers and shareholders on trips to conferences, VC firms, camps, private parties, and corporate meetings.
In my travels around Bill Gates' empire I do my usual Channel 9 stuff, but off camera lately I've been asking "how can we make Microsoft better?"
See, I've decided to stick around and make Microsoft better. I own a very very very small slice of Microsoft and so as an employee owner I figure I gotta do my part.
And, generally, what I'm finding on my tours is angst. Angst over stock price (it's gone up about $3 since I've joined three years ago). Angst over marketing issues (why do we make cool names like "Sparkle" lame by changing that to "Expression Interactive Designer?") Angst over vision and direction. Angst over leadership. Angst over advertising like our "dinosaur" ads (which are loudly derided by customers whenever I go to conferences and talk about how we're being perceived).
Yet, on the other hand, our angst is tempered by great products and marketing in other places. Everyone who owns a 360 praises it when I meet with them face-to-face (and I love their advertising and marketing, except that they can't ship enough to fill demand). Good feelings are still flowing over the Mix06 conference (several people remarked on that to me today at Makers Faire). Visual Studio's launch events were mostly overflowing. In Ireland, when I was there, people told me that the events there were standing room only. Our Atlas project is getting kudos. Our Live.com gadgets are seeing sizeable community adoption. MSN Messenger has 170 million active users every month. Hotmail, 200 million. MSN Spaces, tens of millions of active spaces. Whew, what is there to complain about? 😉
I had a huge surge of pride in Microsoft today when I saw a very cool booth that we had at Makers Faire. Robots. People teaching kids to program computers. Xboxes. Media Centers. UMPCs (another lame name for "Origami's" — one fun thing was I was in the booth when someone was holding a UMPC and then asked "can I see the Origamis?" Um, you're holding one, was the answer.)
But, that's off topic here. Back on topic. There are legitimate things to work on improving. If there weren't, Mini's blog wouldn't exist, or at least, no one would pay any attention to it. So, my thoughts over the past two weeks led to this rant:
How Microsoft can take away Mini-Microsoft's karmic power.
Apologies to Martin Luther King.
I have a dream.
I dream of a Microsoft that no longer has anything for Mini, or his commenters to complain about. I dream of a day where every Microsoft employee feels like they are part of a mission, a positive mission for the improvement of all humankind. Where they feel like they are being compensated fairly, and if they don't feel it's fair, that they at least see what behaviors will bring better compensation. Where Microsoft customers and shareholders feel excited by our vision, marketing, and service execution again and will go on blogs and in BusinessWeek and say "they turned a corner."
See, employees tell me they hit too many policies. Bureacracy. Politics. Committeeisms. And too much centralization of power and decision making authority. They also tell me they don't feel like we're on a mission to improve the world, like Gates led in the 1980s with his cry "a computer should be on every desktop." That they don't feel pride in our advertising and marketing and naming. That they feel we aren't making the kind of "bet the company" bets that Microsoft had in the past, like when a strategic decision had been made to go with Windows over OS/2.
So, I've been thinking about it for a couple of weeks. How do we tune up Microsoft's economic engine and get ready for the 2010's?
In September a new generation will enter high school. I call it the "Second Life" generation. They live in a world of always connected high-speed broadband. In a world that has computers that have more graphical power than our most powerful ones just 10 years ago. Where ubiquitous computing isn't a far-off-dream, but something pushed in their face every minute of every day as they see digital displays in classrooms, in shopping malls, in airports, and at movie theaters. They expect their cell phones to do a lot more than just phone their parents. They carry around laptops or Tablet PCs or, maybe soon, ultra mobile PCs that are hooked up through increasingly uniquitous wireless networks. I saw a guy yesterday who was building wifi networks for poor areas in Africa. By 2014 I can't imagine many places in the world without wireless access.
It is a world where they want to make their own experiences. MySpace looks passe to this new generation. Second Life, with its 3D world that can not just be controlled, but produced factory style from pre-built components, along with easy customizations, is where it's at.
It's also a world where the competition has changed. Now you can run Windows in a virtual area on OSX. Windows could be controlled by Apple. Or, by Linux. Once Windows users try OSX, why would they want to use Windows anymore? What's the value proposition? What will bring scarcity or differentiation to the Windows world? Our shareholders are worried, maybe not shortterm, but I notice the stock price isn't going up, even though the Xbox is doing tremendously well (and, actually, most of our product lines are seeing sizeable revenue and profit growth).
What will this generation expect as they move from high school, in the year 2010, to college? What will they expect as they move from college, in the year 2014, to the workforce?
I dream of that world tonight and see that Microsoft must change to be relevant to the Second Life Generation's world.
First, we need a big dream. A moonshot. The kind of challenge that'll keep our newly-hired rock stars minds engaged. That'll give everyone in the company pride when it's accomplished. The kind of goal that'll take four, or maybe even eight years to accomplish. For the Second Life Generation. But, don't stop there. It should be for everyone. It's just that this next generation is going to expect something a lot bigger than just a few gigs of email space.
What's the moonshot? A guaranteed Terabyte of Internet-based storage space for EVERYTHING and for EVERYONE running Windows in the world.
A simple vision. Yes, Mr. Gates, it'll cost billions. We'll need dozens, maybe even hundreds, of data centers around the world. All with state-of-the-art connections. All with state-of-the-art 64-bit servers. All with state-of-the-art backup systems. All with state-of-the-art power and cooling systems. All with state-of-the-art load balancing and data serving technologies. That stuff isn't cheap. But I hear we have a few bucks we can use in such a "bet the company" effort.
In this terabyte, integrate all of the new Live services into one data store. A sort of "WinFS" for our server farms. Why shouldn't Live Mail share the same data store as Live Local or Live Expo? Think about the searching, and data presenting, features our developers could build quickly if we had a common data store with a common framework and a common set of APIs!
"But, Robert, almost every 'big bet' that Microsoft tries doesn't work out," you might say. That isn't true. Just study the history of SQL Server. Of Windows. Of Xbox. We make big bets and stick with most of them, even as they don't look like they'll work out in the marketplace. Yeah, I know we have put a few back on the shelf, but for the most part when the company decides on something big, it sticks with it.
It's time to do that again. Give us all a mission we would get excited by.
"But, Robert, you don't have smart enough employees to do this," you might say. Sorry, as I walk around Microsoft Research, as I walk around the .NET team, as I walk around Ray Ozzie's new team, as I walk around the Live.com team, I realize that we not only have enough smart employees, more are coming every day (welcome Niall and Steve Berkowitz).
But, we do need to make some changes to ensure that every employee is engaged in their work here at Microsoft to make this kind of "big bet" not just a possibility, but an eventuality.
That leads me to the second way of how Microsoft can shut down Mini-Microsoft: buy every employee a top-of-the-line Dell machine with dual monitors running Windows Vista. And do it now.
I've seen the productivity benefits that dual monitors can bring. Every employee who has them says having two monitors is transformational. Especially coders who can have one screen for typing code and another for designing UIs. Or, even if they are just an algorithm kind of person, the second one keeps their email showing so they don't need to switch over when a new email shows up.
Heck, I'd go further. If we want to reach the Second Life generation we need three screens. One to run Second Life (and other kinds of social apps), one to run Visual Studio, and one to run Outlook. Or something like this. Go and watch the researchers at Microsoft Research who are working on multiple screen interfaces. They told me that industry researchers are seeing somewhere between a five to 15% productivity gain when someone goes from one monitor to two.
And, I, and my coworkers in the Evangelism team are now running Windows Vista and finding we're more productive, even WITH the burps that come from using pre-production code. I can't stand using XP anymore after using Vista for a few weeks.
But, as I go around Microsoft there are way too many employees who aren't running Vista and who don't have two monitors.
Want a morale boost? How about buying a new high-end computer, with dual monitors, running Vista for every employee? This would cost around $240 million, if my math is good. But wouldn't that be a great recruiting tool? Wouldn't it help us ship better products faster? Wouldn't it help us see the areas where Vista needs improvement (and, as good as it is, it does need improvements).
Think about the statement that would make to the industry. "We believe in Windows Vista." That's what that would say. And, as customers came onto campus to visit us, as the Chinese President did a week ago, they would see the benefits of having fast computers, with two monitors, running Windows Vista.
And, because we retooled our entire infrastructure, we'd be ready to build the next version of Windows after Vista and would have a ready base of computers to test it on. In fact, we could increase our stress program to use 60,000 new high-speed desktops around the world all running the same OS. Think about the data THAT would generate. No other company in the world would be willing, or able, to make such a bet on the future of operating systems.
That leads me to the third way we could transform Microsoft, er, shut down Mini-Microsoft:
Change employee behavior through public compensation change logs.
This will be the most controversial item. But, how do you change my behavior? Don't like it? Decrease my pay. Nothing tells me better that my behavior isn't what the company wants. Mini wants to go further and wants to see mass firings. That would throw our local economy into chaos and would get rid of potentially good people (I come at it another way, the worst person I've dealt with here at Microsoft is far better than many employees I've dealt with in past jobs, so all we'd be doing by mass firings is helping our competition out and removing brains we'll need to get some big jobs done). I'd rather take a four-year-approach. Remember, this is the Second Life generation. Let's make a Microsoft that's rocking and rolling for 2010 when they get out of high school.
Let's have compensation changes put into public. Say I get a four percent raise. Tell everyone. Let's say my managers don't believe I'm adding value here. They could leave my compensation where it is. After four years of public embarrassment (yes, we'd explain that 0%'ers aren't good, that 2%'ers are OK, that 6%'ers are above average, and that anything above that is way above average).
This would require a major change to our culture. To one that's more transparent. But, over time, it would cause me to change my behavior. "Hey, why does Charles always get 10% raises?" Think about the conversations that would start inside the company.
"But, what if I think your treatment by the company is unfair?" Say I got a 20% raise and you don't think I'm worth that. Well, now you can complain and rally your co-workers and go and sit down with my management so you can see why they think I'm worth that. Or, on the other side of the coin, let's say I got a 0% raise and you think I got screwed. Well, now you'd be able to see my management and find out their side of the story as well as maybe work on my behalf to get me a raise.
OK, this is such a major change that I doubt we could implement that all at once. How about internally only? How about you can only see anonymous names in your group? So you can see how you measured up against other people in your group and you can ask your manager something like "I see that three people in our group got bigger raises than I did, why is that and what can I do to get a raise next time around?"
By doing at least part of this in an open way management would be able to reward those who were taking risks, updating their skills, and learning new, and more productive behaviors. I talked with a developer manager last week who told me about his group's use of Scrum, for instance. I asked "why did you change to a scrum model?" (His group had just won and award for increasing productivity). He said it was due to his belief that every employee should continually educate him/herself about the best practices in the industry and one of his employees had been to a scrum training and found that it could be useful to the team. They tried it and it was hugely useful. Why isn't that team rewarded for trying something new that paid off? For changing their behavior?
And why aren't they rewarded in public, which would encourage other employees to change their behavior and look for better ways to do things?
Speaking of better ways to do things. How about number four?
Get rid of corporate speed bumps. All around Microsoft you hear about the speed bumps. Some of which are there for very good reasons. (Er, corporate pain in the past). But, some of which are just there cause "they've always been done that way." Some of the good ones? Policies to ensure that security reviews have been done on code before checking that code in. But, we've all met a rule that just seems past its due date.
So, can we build a culture that removes rules on a regular basis, or at least looks at updating them for efficiency's sake?
Can we give a little bonus to managers who kill rules? Remove bureacracy? Slash through politics? Exceed expectations?
Of course we can. Make a little game. Imagine if Steve Ballmer posted on an internal blog "here's a rule I killed today." And did that every week. Or every day.
OK, it's 1:30 a.m. Time to rap this little ditty up with #5 on my list of ways Microsoft can shut down Mini-Microsoft.
Force marketers to explain their decisions — in public on their blogs.
Say a marketer names something. Like, say, changes the name "Sparkle" to "Expression Interactive Designer." That person should have to explain their changes in public and sign their names to those changes. If it's a group, the group must sign their names. And must leave comments open so they can take the public scorn if names aren't good.
Heck, I wish this were true of every team. Come up with a new UI for your product? Explain it in public. Come up with a new product that you plan to sell? Explain it to us in clear english and have a conversation with us. Come up with a new logo? Explain why that logo matters. In public. Come up with a way to spend $500 million in advertising? Explain it to us.
Personally, the biggest drag on our morale internally is our advertising and the face we put out to the public. Having a bunch of different RSS icons out there is just an artifact of the problem — one that we aren't solving. We aren't putting a good face to the public. We aren't picking names that have any chance of being popular.
Here's a hint. In the top 100 brand names, as rated by BusinessWeek (PDF), NONE have more than two words in them.
We should make it publicly embarrassing for any employee, or group of employees, to come up with ANY name that has more than two words in it.
So, five things that Microsoft can do to get ready for the Second Life generation.
What do you think? Even if you think I'm on some good drugs, why don't you put forward your ideas instead of just tearing mine down. It's easy to tear down other people's ideas. It's hard to come up with interesting ideas to push things forward.
Hate Microsoft? Well, replace your company's name in whereever I said Microsoft. Every company I've worked for has similar problems to what Microsoft is facing. Even the small companies I worked for didn't make most efficient use of employees possible. Even "hot" companies like Google or Apple are looking for ways to make sure its employees are happy and well engaged in the problems ahead of them.
I figured that complaining about the problems wasn't anywhere near as interesting as proposing some solutions. Anyway, that's the kinds of dreams I've had the past two weeks. Hope they lead to productive conversations in your workplace and mine.
Scobleizer 
Phew! Nothing for a week then … Moonshots and a three-screen world. Maybe I should take a vacation too.
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Phew! Nothing for a week then … Moonshots and a three-screen world. Maybe I should take a vacation too.
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1) Giving bonuses to managers who kill rules? But wont you need to establish some rules to decide what qualifies as a “kill” and what qualifies as a “rule”?
2) I know that having people take public responsibility for their decisions is an important step in getting people to make the correct decisions (or getting people to understand and accept decisions that they would otherwise be against). However, if every marketer (or designer, or anyone else) had to blog about whatever they are doing this couldn’t this lead to:
– Information overload
– People wasting time writing instead of working
Maybe instead have some kind of a meme-tracker that scans the internet to see what types of criticisms MS is receiving for what decisions. When any one issue achieves a critical mass of criticism, someone must give a public explanation.
3) Was your “I have a dream” speech inspired by Paul Thurrotte’s part five of his February Vista Build review – Where Vista Fails (see my review)? Seems like you guys are covering similar ground.
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1) Giving bonuses to managers who kill rules? But wont you need to establish some rules to decide what qualifies as a “kill” and what qualifies as a “rule”?
2) I know that having people take public responsibility for their decisions is an important step in getting people to make the correct decisions (or getting people to understand and accept decisions that they would otherwise be against). However, if every marketer (or designer, or anyone else) had to blog about whatever they are doing this couldn’t this lead to:
– Information overload
– People wasting time writing instead of working
Maybe instead have some kind of a meme-tracker that scans the internet to see what types of criticisms MS is receiving for what decisions. When any one issue achieves a critical mass of criticism, someone must give a public explanation.
3) Was your “I have a dream” speech inspired by Paul Thurrotte’s part five of his February Vista Build review – Where Vista Fails (see my review)? Seems like you guys are covering similar ground.
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Yaakov: good point.
Um, we wouldn’t need to read it, but those who care would at least know why we ended up with a lame name and/or could do something about it cause we’d know where they were coming from. And, forcing things into public does have an effect of putting a spotlight on behavior systems. Translation: fewer bad decisions would get made cause someone would say “hey, I have to explain this to the world, don’t screw me.”
I don’t know about inspired. I’ve been working on this one for far longer than just a week since when Paul’s came out.
I don’t share his angst about Vista in general, for instance, but that probably is cause I’ve seen later builds that are getting better.
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Yaakov: good point.
Um, we wouldn’t need to read it, but those who care would at least know why we ended up with a lame name and/or could do something about it cause we’d know where they were coming from. And, forcing things into public does have an effect of putting a spotlight on behavior systems. Translation: fewer bad decisions would get made cause someone would say “hey, I have to explain this to the world, don’t screw me.”
I don’t know about inspired. I’ve been working on this one for far longer than just a week since when Paul’s came out.
I don’t share his angst about Vista in general, for instance, but that probably is cause I’ve seen later builds that are getting better.
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Doing a grade up from blog chief officer to engagement chief officer? 😉
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Doing a grade up from blog chief officer to engagement chief officer? 😉
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You are right, Robert. Microsoft would be fools to ignore this. Fools.
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You are right, Robert. Microsoft would be fools to ignore this. Fools.
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A real question: Why would Microsoft want to shut down Mini-microsoft? Surely (constructive) criticism is a good thing … or have I misunderstood the whole ‘blog’ thing?
I know you aren’t talking about really shutting it down (i.e. censoring it), but you seem to be saying that you want Microsoft to turn into a company that is so cool and wonderful that noone would want to complain about it ever again – which I find a trifle naive. There will always be controversy, debate and disagreement. You don’t want your company to do anything edgy or controversial ever again?
I’m actually surprised that you as Mr. blog-advocate aren’t suggesting that a) Mini-Microsoft is good for microsoft, that b) Bill Gates should start a blog called Mega-Microsoft where he addresses all the issues in Mini-M, and that c) The day that Mini-Microsoft has no interesting content is the day that Microsoft becomes boring/dead in the water.
(Yes I’m aware that I’m missing the point of your post which was “how to improve things”)
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A real question: Why would Microsoft want to shut down Mini-microsoft? Surely (constructive) criticism is a good thing … or have I misunderstood the whole ‘blog’ thing?
I know you aren’t talking about really shutting it down (i.e. censoring it), but you seem to be saying that you want Microsoft to turn into a company that is so cool and wonderful that noone would want to complain about it ever again – which I find a trifle naive. There will always be controversy, debate and disagreement. You don’t want your company to do anything edgy or controversial ever again?
I’m actually surprised that you as Mr. blog-advocate aren’t suggesting that a) Mini-Microsoft is good for microsoft, that b) Bill Gates should start a blog called Mega-Microsoft where he addresses all the issues in Mini-M, and that c) The day that Mini-Microsoft has no interesting content is the day that Microsoft becomes boring/dead in the water.
(Yes I’m aware that I’m missing the point of your post which was “how to improve things”)
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David: you TOTALLY missed the first part of my post.
I said exactly that MiniMicrosoft is good for Microsoft. I disagree with your point b, Gates doesn’t need to do a MegaMicrosoft blog, just needs to give us a few billion and a mandate for the moonshot, and c, that mini wouldn’t be interesting after we solve all of Microsoft’s problems (I’m sure Mini would change his blog to be one that’s more proactive than reactive if what I suggested would happen).
I didn’t say that Microsoft would want to shut down Mini. But some certainly do. It’s human nature not to like your dirty laundry to be hanging out in the public square for all to see. Heck, some want to fire ME. Heheh. Probably justified, too.
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David: you TOTALLY missed the first part of my post.
I said exactly that MiniMicrosoft is good for Microsoft. I disagree with your point b, Gates doesn’t need to do a MegaMicrosoft blog, just needs to give us a few billion and a mandate for the moonshot, and c, that mini wouldn’t be interesting after we solve all of Microsoft’s problems (I’m sure Mini would change his blog to be one that’s more proactive than reactive if what I suggested would happen).
I didn’t say that Microsoft would want to shut down Mini. But some certainly do. It’s human nature not to like your dirty laundry to be hanging out in the public square for all to see. Heck, some want to fire ME. Heheh. Probably justified, too.
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As an ex-Microsoftie … I have to say I feel your pain. 🙂
I especially like your bit about names. Origami is such a cool codename, why make it into UMPC??
Most of the previous Windows codename, are pretty cool … except for longhorn … which became a joke about longwaits and stuffs! :p
Just compare “Microsoft Windows XP TabletPC UltraMobilePC edition” with “Microsoft Origami”. 😉
I’m glad XBox was not named “Microsoft SuperFun Gaming Console HomeEdition” … doubt it would have caught on.
Oh and while we are at the Great-wishes-for-the-world thingie, how about bringing InstantOn to all PCs? That would I feel be the next big leap for PCs, whether they are Desktops, Notebooks, UMPCs … Origamis or otherwise! :p
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As an ex-Microsoftie … I have to say I feel your pain. 🙂
I especially like your bit about names. Origami is such a cool codename, why make it into UMPC??
Most of the previous Windows codename, are pretty cool … except for longhorn … which became a joke about longwaits and stuffs! :p
Just compare “Microsoft Windows XP TabletPC UltraMobilePC edition” with “Microsoft Origami”. 😉
I’m glad XBox was not named “Microsoft SuperFun Gaming Console HomeEdition” … doubt it would have caught on.
Oh and while we are at the Great-wishes-for-the-world thingie, how about bringing InstantOn to all PCs? That would I feel be the next big leap for PCs, whether they are Desktops, Notebooks, UMPCs … Origamis or otherwise! :p
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IMO, MS is doing an excellent job with its products and public image. I spend a lot time with R/3 – so if you have time, please take a look at the inconsistent and funny world of SAP products.
As an alternative/complementary moonshot: MS could spend its resources in researching and creating a pure artificially intelligent entity. The entity would gather data (images, text, video, music, …) from the net, consume and comprehend it. Then we could throw tasks at it, like: “design a car for the Second Life Generation” and it would generate a set of CAD models we could choose from. 😉
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IMO, MS is doing an excellent job with its products and public image. I spend a lot time with R/3 – so if you have time, please take a look at the inconsistent and funny world of SAP products.
As an alternative/complementary moonshot: MS could spend its resources in researching and creating a pure artificially intelligent entity. The entity would gather data (images, text, video, music, …) from the net, consume and comprehend it. Then we could throw tasks at it, like: “design a car for the Second Life Generation” and it would generate a set of CAD models we could choose from. 😉
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Great post. I’m really excited about Windows Live, but to get people really interested Microsoft has to pull something really interesting out of the bag. A terrabyte of storage? Would be interesting, but that’s a whole lotta gigs. Free for every person who buys Vista? That’d be nice.
But it’s not necessarily all about size. MS should be looking to doing something really innovative and novel that’ll grab both headlines and people’s attention. That’s the only way to beat down Google.
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Great post. I’m really excited about Windows Live, but to get people really interested Microsoft has to pull something really interesting out of the bag. A terrabyte of storage? Would be interesting, but that’s a whole lotta gigs. Free for every person who buys Vista? That’d be nice.
But it’s not necessarily all about size. MS should be looking to doing something really innovative and novel that’ll grab both headlines and people’s attention. That’s the only way to beat down Google.
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AI would be good. For search as well.
A MS SecondLife with full Xbox integration would be good.
Some new social tagging service integrated with Vista would be good.
A really good subscription music/video service integrated with Media Player would be good.
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AI would be good. For search as well.
A MS SecondLife with full Xbox integration would be good.
Some new social tagging service integrated with Vista would be good.
A really good subscription music/video service integrated with Media Player would be good.
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I am not an Microsoft employee, but have worked in the industry quite some time (developer tools>Internet>Wireless SMS Messaging). Looking from the outside in, I have seen massive changes in Microsoft over the years. There seems to have been recent changes due to blogging and what I see is a “mini-Microsoft” and its lead by you!. The problem Microsoft has and IBM had, was that Microsoft is now a huge company. You have many corporate customers who expect you to act like IBM. However your consumers and geeks want a modern, moon landing company. They find that in Google (although finding Google has slooooowed down). Just look at Skype! You had MSN and Skype came along to took out MSN, even today Microsoft Live BETA is just too corporate!, and those damm ads! The concept of 1tb of data for everyone and a “internet” application set is the way to go. Google will get there in a few years time and I feel the desktop computer as we know it today will change forever. One reason for this in my view is the “home” and uneducated user. Microsoft OS / software is just too complex, you need a Microsoft Home edition but it should have gone right back to the drawing board and your beta testers should have been your families not us geeks!
Personally I think Microsoft should split, keep a corporate arm to keep those clients happy with its “stable” and “supported” product range. A mini-microsoft should grow and act more like a startup – back in the days when Microsoft started. I should think that BillG etc are at a point where they think why go though the pain of being a startup again – we have done this before. I have more money than I need. People like you are the next generation, you are the next BillG. One of the things I read about Office2007 was the name change of Frontpage! great for corps but what the heck does Expression Web Designer mean for my Mum who does her homepage. It means I have moved her over to googlepages! 🙂 Good luck with mini-microsoft and if you need some staff let me know. 🙂
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I am not an Microsoft employee, but have worked in the industry quite some time (developer tools>Internet>Wireless SMS Messaging). Looking from the outside in, I have seen massive changes in Microsoft over the years. There seems to have been recent changes due to blogging and what I see is a “mini-Microsoft” and its lead by you!. The problem Microsoft has and IBM had, was that Microsoft is now a huge company. You have many corporate customers who expect you to act like IBM. However your consumers and geeks want a modern, moon landing company. They find that in Google (although finding Google has slooooowed down). Just look at Skype! You had MSN and Skype came along to took out MSN, even today Microsoft Live BETA is just too corporate!, and those damm ads! The concept of 1tb of data for everyone and a “internet” application set is the way to go. Google will get there in a few years time and I feel the desktop computer as we know it today will change forever. One reason for this in my view is the “home” and uneducated user. Microsoft OS / software is just too complex, you need a Microsoft Home edition but it should have gone right back to the drawing board and your beta testers should have been your families not us geeks!
Personally I think Microsoft should split, keep a corporate arm to keep those clients happy with its “stable” and “supported” product range. A mini-microsoft should grow and act more like a startup – back in the days when Microsoft started. I should think that BillG etc are at a point where they think why go though the pain of being a startup again – we have done this before. I have more money than I need. People like you are the next generation, you are the next BillG. One of the things I read about Office2007 was the name change of Frontpage! great for corps but what the heck does Expression Web Designer mean for my Mum who does her homepage. It means I have moved her over to googlepages! 🙂 Good luck with mini-microsoft and if you need some staff let me know. 🙂
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What’s the moonshot? A guaranteed Terabyte of Internet-based storage space for EVERYTHING and for EVERYONE running Windows in the world.
A simple vision. Yes, Mr. Gates, it’ll cost billions. We’ll need dozens, maybe even hundreds, of data centers around the world. All with state-of-the-art connections. All with state-of-the-art 64-bit servers. All with state-of-the-art backup systems. All with state-of-the-art power and cooling systems. All with state-of-the-art load balancing and data serving technologies. That stuff isn’t cheap. But I hear we have a few bucks we can use in such a “bet the company” effort.
In this terabyte, integrate all of the new Live services into one data store. A sort of “WinFS” for our server farms. Why shouldn’t Live Mail share the same data store as Live Local or Live Expo? Think about the searching, and data presenting, features our developers could build quickly if we had a common data store with a common framework and a common set of APIs!
Robert, that’s preaching to a narrow swath of the converted. When you talk about Windows, you’re talking about a product that initially, reached out to people who weren’t customers. Microsoft has two sets of problem children: The customers who hate them, and the non-customers who hate them. The first group grows at a rather steep rate, the second, not so fast, but still has steady growth. This idea does nothing for them, and very little for Windows users.
Your idea is interesting, but only works if you trust Microsoft with your data. Not Microsoft products that you control in your own environment, but Microsoft Itself. I’ve yet to see anything to show me Microsoft wanting to be thought of as a trustable entity yet.
Furthermore, what good is this going to do non-broadband users? Yes, I know, in the bubble you live in, they don’t exist. But if you were to ever travel outside of your bubble, you’d see tons of them. Yes, right here in the US. No need to go to other countries. They either don’t have service available, (FAR more common than you think), or they don’t want it. They don’t see a need for the internet beyond a bit of email, and quite frankly, thanks to Microsoft’s continuing problems with active malware, a broadband connection is something to be feared and avoided, for it only leads to people messing up your system. So in the middle of multiple kinds of broadband availability, they stay on dialup, because Microsoft has totally screwed the pooch on malware, and contrary to what you might hear, it’s not fixed yet.
So it’s a nice idea, but reeks of “Let’s throw money, we have money, money fixes everything”. It doesn’t. And it still does nothing for people not using Windows.
That leads me to the second way of how Microsoft can shut down Mini-Microsoft: buy every employee a top-of-the-line Dell machine with dual monitors running Windows Vista. And do it now….
…And, I, and my coworkers in the Evangelism team are now running Windows Vista and finding we’re more productive, even WITH the burps that come from using pre-production code. I can’t stand using XP anymore after using Vista for a few weeks.
But, as I go around Microsoft there are way too many employees who aren’t running Vista and who don’t have two monitors.
I’m sure the people doing XP tech support and patch dev will LOVE this idea. Now they have to either have two rigs, one for “real” work, one for “the new coolness”, or, they have to dual boot. I lived the dual boot life for years, it sucks.
You forget that right now, Vista is not earning you a dime. XP is. XP is making all your Windows desktop money. Your idea, while cool from a dogfooding POV, has real, serious problems from a “We still support XP” POV, and that latter one is making you a bit of cash.
How does that help out anyone who is having problems with XP? How does that help out XP – using customers? How does that help Microsoft regain trust? It doesn’t, not at all. It’s a grand glorious gesture, but what problem does it solve? Since there are a lot of people for whom Vista is going to be a forklift upgrade, made deliberately confusing by some jackass, (and yes, that is the precise word to describe whomever made that decision) who decided that six SKUs helps the customer, how is this going to help that? Only Microsoft would go out of their way to make buying product harder.
Let me split one thing here. I think the dual monitor thing IS brilliant, and I think you’re dead on with that one Robert. I just think the Vista idea has real problems.
Change employee behavior through public compensation change logs.
…Let’s have compensation changes put into public. Say I get a four percent raise. Tell everyone. Let’s say my managers don’t believe I’m adding value here. They could leave my compensation where it is. After four years of public embarrassment (yes, we’d explain that 0%’ers aren’t good, that 2%’ers are OK, that 6%’ers are above average, and that anything above that is way above average).
Um, okay, so what you’re saying is, if someone had a bad year, they should be publicly embarrassed? Because human dignity doesn’t matter at Microsoft, just results?
Dear lord, I hope you don’t run your people like that. “Look everyone, I’m only giving Bill a 3 this year, because Bill sucks. Sucky Bill”. Come on, does Microsoft teach you anything about leadership? Not management, but leadership? About what happens to people when you crap all over their dignity like that? Oh sure, they’ll leave, but it won’t just be the poor performers who leave. It’ll be the people with a clue that maybe working in a place that thinks of its people so callously isn’t a good idea, no matter what the name on the building is.
What happens to that person you drum out via public embarrassment? What kind of job do you think they’re going to get anywhere else? “No Bill, we aren’t going to hire you, we saw your last set of evals from Microsoft, you’re Sucky Bill”. Blacklists, now there’s a new idea.
Okay, so by “Public” you maybe only meant “Within Microsoft”. So you embarrass and humiliate Bill until he leaves. Bill gets a new job, and in an environment that is better for him, Bill turns out to be a genius. Bill creates something dead cool and it’s selling like iPods. Microsoft goes, “Oh CRAP, Bill was a friggin’ genius, we need him back”. Exactly how much money do you think you’re going to have to throw at Bill before he stops wiping his arse with the offer letters? Does even Microsoft have enough money to buy someone back their dignity? What do you think Bill’s interactions with the people who humiliated him and drove him out are going to be like? If you want ex-employees who hate Microsoft and actively evangelize against it, that’s a fantastic way to do it.
Get rid of corporate speed bumps.
Just so this isn’t a “Crap on Robert’s ideas” day…that’s a great idea. The sign of a successful company is a lack of sacred cows. All ideas, processes, traditions and rules must be not just questionable, but questioned. Traditions are great right up until the point they hold people back. Then they have to get changed, or get gone.
Just understand that what you’re talking about would require reducing headcount. There’s no way around that.
Force marketers to explain their decisions — in public on their blogs.
Oh dude, I think I love you for this one. I’d even PAY for those streams.
These are all big ideas, but the first three are classic Microsoft: they do a lot, but don’t actually fix a problem. They’re grand, glorious, but they don’t DO anything but fling money at things or humiliate people.
1) Stop thinking like Microsoft. This is hard, but you have to do it. You cannot assume that money, and lots of it, will solve every problem. It hasn’t done a whit to solve your image problem, in fact, there’s good reason to show it’s made it worse. Stop thinking like that rich kid who owns everything.
2) Make it easier to buy a Microsoft Product. Stop with this facade of choice. There’s only one reason for Six Vista SKUs and that “Live Upgrade” program: To stick Microsoft’s hand deeper in my pocket. Stop it. You only need one version of a client OS. Write a smart installer that looks at the hardware it’s installing on, and works with that. This is a solved problem. Even the Xbox360…why the hell is Microsoft selling a crippled version? You guys push Live and all this other crap as essential to the “Xbox Experience”, but then you sell a crippled version that can’t really play. Screw that. One Xbox.
Office is the worst offender. Dear god, is there anything left you CAN throw into Office? Office was great when it was 4 products: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access. Even then, it had too many SKUs. All the rest? Not Office. They work well with Office, great! They help you do better things with Office, fantastic! But “Office” needs to be explainable without software to assist you, and right now, not even Sinofsky can explain office without a slide show and a cheat sheet. It’s too unwieldy.
Buying Microsoft products sucks. Sucks ass. Sucks like a sucky thing that fell out of a sucky tree, hit every sucky branch on the way down, and landed on a black hole, and was sucked in.
People want to give you money for product. Why is Microsoft so damned allergic to making that easy? Make it easy to buy product.
3) Create a division who’s mission statement is: “Playing nice with others”. A division who’s entire purpose is to figure out ways to make non-windows users Microsoft customers, even if they never, ever, ever buy Windows. Not Bill Hilf’s lab. That’s already tainted by his, and Ballmer’s statements showing that it’s just a data feed for getting people to not buy Linux.
A new division, not in Redmond, hell, not on the west coast. Somewhere else. You have a good model for this in the Mac BU. Even though most of their product is developed in Redmond, the fact that they are their own unit, and they have the SVC, did more for their credibility initially than you’d think possible.
All this division would do is help Microsoft play nice with others. What products do people want to use that shouldn’t require Windows? How can we create Microsoft customers that aren’t windows users? There’s a long list of products that would work here, I’ve shared some with you before.
This would not only help create new Microsoft customers, it would start the process of rebuilding those bridges that BallmerGates crapped on, THEN burned for ten years.
4) regain trust No one trusts Microsoft, not anyone sane. Everyone in the IT industry knows that while you’ll come out with good product, you’ll still create pain, and sometimes, we can’t even FATHOM the reason for it. You’ll lie about release dates, bullshit about featuresets, blame everyone else for security problems. It’s only when FORCED to that Microsoft acts reasonably maturely. If I have to force you to act trustworthy, you aren’t trustworthy.
One big way? Don’t announce crap until you have a date. You want to know why Apple is kicking ass? Because of this. They don’t announce product until they have a date. No Longhorn slips, Vista resets, etc. That does a lot for trust. Contrary to popular belief, they do preview things, but it’s via various programs, like the Apple Developer Connection. What they don’t do is the Longhorn debacle, which is an outgrowth of what happened between NT5 and Windows 2000.
If I can’t trust your product announcements, then I have a hard time believing a damned thing you say.
5) Finally, Cut some stuff loose. Microsoft is an unfocused mess, and it gets worse every year because you guys have this ADD habit of jumping after every sparkly. Figure out what your mission really is, then spin off every product that’s not directly related to it. But right now, you have all the focus of an ADD kid high on sugar in a casino, and it’s why Microsoft is perennially “Good Enough” but RARELY “the best”. If you can’t be the best in everything you do, then maybe you shouldn’t be doing so much.
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What’s the moonshot? A guaranteed Terabyte of Internet-based storage space for EVERYTHING and for EVERYONE running Windows in the world.
A simple vision. Yes, Mr. Gates, it’ll cost billions. We’ll need dozens, maybe even hundreds, of data centers around the world. All with state-of-the-art connections. All with state-of-the-art 64-bit servers. All with state-of-the-art backup systems. All with state-of-the-art power and cooling systems. All with state-of-the-art load balancing and data serving technologies. That stuff isn’t cheap. But I hear we have a few bucks we can use in such a “bet the company” effort.
In this terabyte, integrate all of the new Live services into one data store. A sort of “WinFS” for our server farms. Why shouldn’t Live Mail share the same data store as Live Local or Live Expo? Think about the searching, and data presenting, features our developers could build quickly if we had a common data store with a common framework and a common set of APIs!
Robert, that’s preaching to a narrow swath of the converted. When you talk about Windows, you’re talking about a product that initially, reached out to people who weren’t customers. Microsoft has two sets of problem children: The customers who hate them, and the non-customers who hate them. The first group grows at a rather steep rate, the second, not so fast, but still has steady growth. This idea does nothing for them, and very little for Windows users.
Your idea is interesting, but only works if you trust Microsoft with your data. Not Microsoft products that you control in your own environment, but Microsoft Itself. I’ve yet to see anything to show me Microsoft wanting to be thought of as a trustable entity yet.
Furthermore, what good is this going to do non-broadband users? Yes, I know, in the bubble you live in, they don’t exist. But if you were to ever travel outside of your bubble, you’d see tons of them. Yes, right here in the US. No need to go to other countries. They either don’t have service available, (FAR more common than you think), or they don’t want it. They don’t see a need for the internet beyond a bit of email, and quite frankly, thanks to Microsoft’s continuing problems with active malware, a broadband connection is something to be feared and avoided, for it only leads to people messing up your system. So in the middle of multiple kinds of broadband availability, they stay on dialup, because Microsoft has totally screwed the pooch on malware, and contrary to what you might hear, it’s not fixed yet.
So it’s a nice idea, but reeks of “Let’s throw money, we have money, money fixes everything”. It doesn’t. And it still does nothing for people not using Windows.
That leads me to the second way of how Microsoft can shut down Mini-Microsoft: buy every employee a top-of-the-line Dell machine with dual monitors running Windows Vista. And do it now….
…And, I, and my coworkers in the Evangelism team are now running Windows Vista and finding we’re more productive, even WITH the burps that come from using pre-production code. I can’t stand using XP anymore after using Vista for a few weeks.
But, as I go around Microsoft there are way too many employees who aren’t running Vista and who don’t have two monitors.
I’m sure the people doing XP tech support and patch dev will LOVE this idea. Now they have to either have two rigs, one for “real” work, one for “the new coolness”, or, they have to dual boot. I lived the dual boot life for years, it sucks.
You forget that right now, Vista is not earning you a dime. XP is. XP is making all your Windows desktop money. Your idea, while cool from a dogfooding POV, has real, serious problems from a “We still support XP” POV, and that latter one is making you a bit of cash.
How does that help out anyone who is having problems with XP? How does that help out XP – using customers? How does that help Microsoft regain trust? It doesn’t, not at all. It’s a grand glorious gesture, but what problem does it solve? Since there are a lot of people for whom Vista is going to be a forklift upgrade, made deliberately confusing by some jackass, (and yes, that is the precise word to describe whomever made that decision) who decided that six SKUs helps the customer, how is this going to help that? Only Microsoft would go out of their way to make buying product harder.
Let me split one thing here. I think the dual monitor thing IS brilliant, and I think you’re dead on with that one Robert. I just think the Vista idea has real problems.
Change employee behavior through public compensation change logs.
…Let’s have compensation changes put into public. Say I get a four percent raise. Tell everyone. Let’s say my managers don’t believe I’m adding value here. They could leave my compensation where it is. After four years of public embarrassment (yes, we’d explain that 0%’ers aren’t good, that 2%’ers are OK, that 6%’ers are above average, and that anything above that is way above average).
Um, okay, so what you’re saying is, if someone had a bad year, they should be publicly embarrassed? Because human dignity doesn’t matter at Microsoft, just results?
Dear lord, I hope you don’t run your people like that. “Look everyone, I’m only giving Bill a 3 this year, because Bill sucks. Sucky Bill”. Come on, does Microsoft teach you anything about leadership? Not management, but leadership? About what happens to people when you crap all over their dignity like that? Oh sure, they’ll leave, but it won’t just be the poor performers who leave. It’ll be the people with a clue that maybe working in a place that thinks of its people so callously isn’t a good idea, no matter what the name on the building is.
What happens to that person you drum out via public embarrassment? What kind of job do you think they’re going to get anywhere else? “No Bill, we aren’t going to hire you, we saw your last set of evals from Microsoft, you’re Sucky Bill”. Blacklists, now there’s a new idea.
Okay, so by “Public” you maybe only meant “Within Microsoft”. So you embarrass and humiliate Bill until he leaves. Bill gets a new job, and in an environment that is better for him, Bill turns out to be a genius. Bill creates something dead cool and it’s selling like iPods. Microsoft goes, “Oh CRAP, Bill was a friggin’ genius, we need him back”. Exactly how much money do you think you’re going to have to throw at Bill before he stops wiping his arse with the offer letters? Does even Microsoft have enough money to buy someone back their dignity? What do you think Bill’s interactions with the people who humiliated him and drove him out are going to be like? If you want ex-employees who hate Microsoft and actively evangelize against it, that’s a fantastic way to do it.
Get rid of corporate speed bumps.
Just so this isn’t a “Crap on Robert’s ideas” day…that’s a great idea. The sign of a successful company is a lack of sacred cows. All ideas, processes, traditions and rules must be not just questionable, but questioned. Traditions are great right up until the point they hold people back. Then they have to get changed, or get gone.
Just understand that what you’re talking about would require reducing headcount. There’s no way around that.
Force marketers to explain their decisions — in public on their blogs.
Oh dude, I think I love you for this one. I’d even PAY for those streams.
These are all big ideas, but the first three are classic Microsoft: they do a lot, but don’t actually fix a problem. They’re grand, glorious, but they don’t DO anything but fling money at things or humiliate people.
1) Stop thinking like Microsoft. This is hard, but you have to do it. You cannot assume that money, and lots of it, will solve every problem. It hasn’t done a whit to solve your image problem, in fact, there’s good reason to show it’s made it worse. Stop thinking like that rich kid who owns everything.
2) Make it easier to buy a Microsoft Product. Stop with this facade of choice. There’s only one reason for Six Vista SKUs and that “Live Upgrade” program: To stick Microsoft’s hand deeper in my pocket. Stop it. You only need one version of a client OS. Write a smart installer that looks at the hardware it’s installing on, and works with that. This is a solved problem. Even the Xbox360…why the hell is Microsoft selling a crippled version? You guys push Live and all this other crap as essential to the “Xbox Experience”, but then you sell a crippled version that can’t really play. Screw that. One Xbox.
Office is the worst offender. Dear god, is there anything left you CAN throw into Office? Office was great when it was 4 products: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access. Even then, it had too many SKUs. All the rest? Not Office. They work well with Office, great! They help you do better things with Office, fantastic! But “Office” needs to be explainable without software to assist you, and right now, not even Sinofsky can explain office without a slide show and a cheat sheet. It’s too unwieldy.
Buying Microsoft products sucks. Sucks ass. Sucks like a sucky thing that fell out of a sucky tree, hit every sucky branch on the way down, and landed on a black hole, and was sucked in.
People want to give you money for product. Why is Microsoft so damned allergic to making that easy? Make it easy to buy product.
3) Create a division who’s mission statement is: “Playing nice with others”. A division who’s entire purpose is to figure out ways to make non-windows users Microsoft customers, even if they never, ever, ever buy Windows. Not Bill Hilf’s lab. That’s already tainted by his, and Ballmer’s statements showing that it’s just a data feed for getting people to not buy Linux.
A new division, not in Redmond, hell, not on the west coast. Somewhere else. You have a good model for this in the Mac BU. Even though most of their product is developed in Redmond, the fact that they are their own unit, and they have the SVC, did more for their credibility initially than you’d think possible.
All this division would do is help Microsoft play nice with others. What products do people want to use that shouldn’t require Windows? How can we create Microsoft customers that aren’t windows users? There’s a long list of products that would work here, I’ve shared some with you before.
This would not only help create new Microsoft customers, it would start the process of rebuilding those bridges that BallmerGates crapped on, THEN burned for ten years.
4) regain trust No one trusts Microsoft, not anyone sane. Everyone in the IT industry knows that while you’ll come out with good product, you’ll still create pain, and sometimes, we can’t even FATHOM the reason for it. You’ll lie about release dates, bullshit about featuresets, blame everyone else for security problems. It’s only when FORCED to that Microsoft acts reasonably maturely. If I have to force you to act trustworthy, you aren’t trustworthy.
One big way? Don’t announce crap until you have a date. You want to know why Apple is kicking ass? Because of this. They don’t announce product until they have a date. No Longhorn slips, Vista resets, etc. That does a lot for trust. Contrary to popular belief, they do preview things, but it’s via various programs, like the Apple Developer Connection. What they don’t do is the Longhorn debacle, which is an outgrowth of what happened between NT5 and Windows 2000.
If I can’t trust your product announcements, then I have a hard time believing a damned thing you say.
5) Finally, Cut some stuff loose. Microsoft is an unfocused mess, and it gets worse every year because you guys have this ADD habit of jumping after every sparkly. Figure out what your mission really is, then spin off every product that’s not directly related to it. But right now, you have all the focus of an ADD kid high on sugar in a casino, and it’s why Microsoft is perennially “Good Enough” but RARELY “the best”. If you can’t be the best in everything you do, then maybe you shouldn’t be doing so much.
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This is my first day of blogging. You are the first blog I have read. I have never done this before (can you believe it?) and I am the MD of more than one company.
However, I read your article thoroughly and with the attention it deserves. It is magnificent and if I were BillG, I would certainly pay more than a little attention to what you have to say.
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This is my first day of blogging. You are the first blog I have read. I have never done this before (can you believe it?) and I am the MD of more than one company.
However, I read your article thoroughly and with the attention it deserves. It is magnificent and if I were BillG, I would certainly pay more than a little attention to what you have to say.
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Robert,
You might find my recent post interesting
http://simoncast.blogspot.com/2006/04/microsofts-choice.html
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Robert,
You might find my recent post interesting
http://simoncast.blogspot.com/2006/04/microsofts-choice.html
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You’re incorrect about the Windows division ever having a succesful “big bet”.
The Windows team had ben disbanded until a guy hired in from a debugger company knew a smart way to enable protected mode (Windows 3) and hacked away for a week at nights.
Powers that be, realized it was neat and that OS2 was taking a long time (and Microsoft already had a team developing the successor to OS2 – NT), so they may as well launch Windows 3 and see what happened.
Microsoft were so far behind in GUIs that Windows 95 was a no-brainer to anyone who’d ever used a non-Microsoft GUI.
No – the real successful big bets at Microsoft have come from the apps side. For example, Excel and Word choosing to go with Windows, rather than OS2.
Every version of Windows I know has been late by at least a year. “Windows 94”. Windows ME should never have existed because Windows 2000 had the 9x compat layer cut. Win2K was late anyway. Perhaps XP was on time. 2K3 was late (due to management realizing they’d omitted the chapter titled ‘security’ from their original specs). And Vista has been written twice! The first version of Vista was thrown away in mid-2004 in preference to the infamous “longhorn restart”.
This schedule slippage is gradually creeping into other products too. Once upon a time, the developer tools division had a fantastic record (with the exception of VB4 which was put on hold for a year). Now thought Whidbey and Yukon are getting some of the Windows juice and slipped their schedules significantly.
I don’t want Microsoft to make any big bets. I want solid, reliable, incremental improvements.
Take a look at OSX – of which the 6th major release this decade will be showcased (beta?) this summer. And from Microsoft, we’ve had XP and Vista. How can a company that sells 1/20th the number of operating systems release 3 times as fast?
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You’re incorrect about the Windows division ever having a succesful “big bet”.
The Windows team had ben disbanded until a guy hired in from a debugger company knew a smart way to enable protected mode (Windows 3) and hacked away for a week at nights.
Powers that be, realized it was neat and that OS2 was taking a long time (and Microsoft already had a team developing the successor to OS2 – NT), so they may as well launch Windows 3 and see what happened.
Microsoft were so far behind in GUIs that Windows 95 was a no-brainer to anyone who’d ever used a non-Microsoft GUI.
No – the real successful big bets at Microsoft have come from the apps side. For example, Excel and Word choosing to go with Windows, rather than OS2.
Every version of Windows I know has been late by at least a year. “Windows 94”. Windows ME should never have existed because Windows 2000 had the 9x compat layer cut. Win2K was late anyway. Perhaps XP was on time. 2K3 was late (due to management realizing they’d omitted the chapter titled ‘security’ from their original specs). And Vista has been written twice! The first version of Vista was thrown away in mid-2004 in preference to the infamous “longhorn restart”.
This schedule slippage is gradually creeping into other products too. Once upon a time, the developer tools division had a fantastic record (with the exception of VB4 which was put on hold for a year). Now thought Whidbey and Yukon are getting some of the Windows juice and slipped their schedules significantly.
I don’t want Microsoft to make any big bets. I want solid, reliable, incremental improvements.
Take a look at OSX – of which the 6th major release this decade will be showcased (beta?) this summer. And from Microsoft, we’ve had XP and Vista. How can a company that sells 1/20th the number of operating systems release 3 times as fast?
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RichB: Apple has no partners to convince to do drivers for. Has eight SKUs vs. how many permutations on Windows? Thousands. The scale is completely different.
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RichB: Apple has no partners to convince to do drivers for. Has eight SKUs vs. how many permutations on Windows? Thousands. The scale is completely different.
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Robert that was a truely inspiring post. Working for MS I have been reading some of the horror stories that have been posted in Mini MSFT. After a while you tend to feel a little desicated from all the heat all the time we feel from customers and members of the public
your post has given me the slap on the back that I needed to rool up my sleeves and look after a very little piece of MS that I can control.
Thanks
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Robert that was a truely inspiring post. Working for MS I have been reading some of the horror stories that have been posted in Mini MSFT. After a while you tend to feel a little desicated from all the heat all the time we feel from customers and members of the public
your post has given me the slap on the back that I needed to rool up my sleeves and look after a very little piece of MS that I can control.
Thanks
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Yawn. I had 3 monitors on my desk in Las Colinas running and working so well that everyone was begging for them. I brought in my own video cards and scrounged up two other monitors to make it happen – and I was only a TAM.
When I left to head to the field and get closer to customers they handed that PC over to the next person who could benefit from it and he brought it with him to Houston when he went to the local office there.
I had Clarify open in one window, email in another and the main work area was front and center – it was a HUGE time saver.
But, MS won’t ever do that wholesale. Used to be it felt like I was helping change the world – I feel like that again, but I work elsewhere. Now at MS, it feels like you need to duck under Ballmer’s GE inspired cost cutting – only he doesn’t have the brain to build the revenue centers like GE.
Good luck, Robert, I hope you help fix it.
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Yawn. I had 3 monitors on my desk in Las Colinas running and working so well that everyone was begging for them. I brought in my own video cards and scrounged up two other monitors to make it happen – and I was only a TAM.
When I left to head to the field and get closer to customers they handed that PC over to the next person who could benefit from it and he brought it with him to Houston when he went to the local office there.
I had Clarify open in one window, email in another and the main work area was front and center – it was a HUGE time saver.
But, MS won’t ever do that wholesale. Used to be it felt like I was helping change the world – I feel like that again, but I work elsewhere. Now at MS, it feels like you need to duck under Ballmer’s GE inspired cost cutting – only he doesn’t have the brain to build the revenue centers like GE.
Good luck, Robert, I hope you help fix it.
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A terrabyte of storage? I didn’t think anyone trusted Microsoft enough to share anything, let alone a terabyte of data.
And the multimonitor idea? Great – that would help get rid of the multimonitor bugs in the Visual Studio IDE…
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A terrabyte of storage? I didn’t think anyone trusted Microsoft enough to share anything, let alone a terabyte of data.
And the multimonitor idea? Great – that would help get rid of the multimonitor bugs in the Visual Studio IDE…
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Marc: that’s a common belief on the street, but it just isn’t true. For one +I+ trust Microsoft with my data. For two, there are 200 million people who’ve used Hotmail in the past 30 days. Think about that one for a moment. For three, have you seen how many people are using Xbox Live? Millions. For four, you should see the growth in our online services. Even the ones that are perceived as being behind Google or Yahoo. Going nuts.
And, then, there’s Youtube and other video sites. Clearly there’s a need for new kinds of services where you can store a boatload of things up in the Internet cloud.
Oh, and you should see the corporations that entrust their email to us. That’s a little sung secret, but you’ll hear it in a future Channel 9 video.
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Marc: that’s a common belief on the street, but it just isn’t true. For one +I+ trust Microsoft with my data. For two, there are 200 million people who’ve used Hotmail in the past 30 days. Think about that one for a moment. For three, have you seen how many people are using Xbox Live? Millions. For four, you should see the growth in our online services. Even the ones that are perceived as being behind Google or Yahoo. Going nuts.
And, then, there’s Youtube and other video sites. Clearly there’s a need for new kinds of services where you can store a boatload of things up in the Internet cloud.
Oh, and you should see the corporations that entrust their email to us. That’s a little sung secret, but you’ll hear it in a future Channel 9 video.
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Welcome back and a great post. Remember to hit the apple with the arrow you need to aim high.
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Welcome back and a great post. Remember to hit the apple with the arrow you need to aim high.
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I worked for MS briefly in 1999. Although I’m sure things have changed in the intervening years, your comments rung true with my memory of my brief time there.
However, I think you’re missing some of the challenges that make this mini-fying process so hard. The first problem is inertia and fiefdom building. The people I remember working with were very bright, passionate people. This means that when you go to cut things, you’re inevitably screwing with someone’s pet project, and for a lot of really passionate people, their definition of self. It’s one of those double-edged swords. You can’t have the benefits of passion without the drawbacks.
Generally speaking (not unique to MS,) it’s very easy to sit at the lower levels of the company hierarchy and think that you could run it better. I’ve never seen a company where everyone was happy all the time. People inevitably get together over lunch and kvetch. If you accept the hypothesis that there is at least some evolutionary development of business practices, and if your company does any significant amount of promotion-from-within, then you have to be prepared to at least consider the proposition that management has evolved to this point for a reason. ‘Survival of the fittest.’
I think those sorts of issues are big, oft-neglected, contributors to the difficulties you’re addressing.
Nice read!
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I worked for MS briefly in 1999. Although I’m sure things have changed in the intervening years, your comments rung true with my memory of my brief time there.
However, I think you’re missing some of the challenges that make this mini-fying process so hard. The first problem is inertia and fiefdom building. The people I remember working with were very bright, passionate people. This means that when you go to cut things, you’re inevitably screwing with someone’s pet project, and for a lot of really passionate people, their definition of self. It’s one of those double-edged swords. You can’t have the benefits of passion without the drawbacks.
Generally speaking (not unique to MS,) it’s very easy to sit at the lower levels of the company hierarchy and think that you could run it better. I’ve never seen a company where everyone was happy all the time. People inevitably get together over lunch and kvetch. If you accept the hypothesis that there is at least some evolutionary development of business practices, and if your company does any significant amount of promotion-from-within, then you have to be prepared to at least consider the proposition that management has evolved to this point for a reason. ‘Survival of the fittest.’
I think those sorts of issues are big, oft-neglected, contributors to the difficulties you’re addressing.
Nice read!
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Two thing to add to your list on how to ‘fix’ Mini’s complaints…
1. MANAGER’S HAVE TO STOP CODING! NO EXCEPTIONS!
2. Create an uber-coder career path.
Part of the reason you have poor middle level management is for a developer to get more money/power/influence/benefits, they have to become a Team Lead or a Mid-Level manager. While that works some time, it’s not a great career path for a developer, because they are used to succeeding by their individual efforts, and management is about directing a group of people.
Good luck on getting Microsoft to change. The ideas are great, and it would truly make it a company that people would line up to work for.
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Two thing to add to your list on how to ‘fix’ Mini’s complaints…
1. MANAGER’S HAVE TO STOP CODING! NO EXCEPTIONS!
2. Create an uber-coder career path.
Part of the reason you have poor middle level management is for a developer to get more money/power/influence/benefits, they have to become a Team Lead or a Mid-Level manager. While that works some time, it’s not a great career path for a developer, because they are used to succeeding by their individual efforts, and management is about directing a group of people.
Good luck on getting Microsoft to change. The ideas are great, and it would truly make it a company that people would line up to work for.
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What’s all the hub-bub about? From the outside, Microsoft looks like a collection of independent product groups. Some are very professional (SQL Server), some totally rock (XBOX), and others are gradually getting their stuff together (Windows Media). It’s difficult to brand the entire hive under one “Microsoft” flag, and it must be even more difficult to manage the whole mess under one structure.
Microsoft’s challenges are not defined by a single 1-terrabyte moon shot. The 1-TB thing is a neat idea, but it needs to answer the question: “How does this help Microsoft foster passionate users, continue to listen to those users, and let the users/markets shape your products.” I propose that you do it from the bottom-up, one product/feature/user/employee at a time.
Regarding morale: Relevant employees are happy employees. Connect your employees to the users and watch the magic happen.
Also, please don’t get every employee dual monitors unless you plan to give every user dual monitors. Someone must represent my mother who still has a 17″ screen running at 1024 x 768.
I’ve watched Microsoft do a better job every year since 1999(since the Millenium debacle). The products have gotten more stable, blogs have added some transparency, MS conferences are getting better, MSDN is shaping up, and developer licensing isn’t as draconian as it was the last time the licesning stazi called me.
“I can’t think of a single current MS product that sucks so bad that I would warn someone not to use it.” Tthat’s not a bad slogan considering the number of MS products available. Just don’t put that as a cartoon thought bubble over one of the dinosaur heads.
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What’s all the hub-bub about? From the outside, Microsoft looks like a collection of independent product groups. Some are very professional (SQL Server), some totally rock (XBOX), and others are gradually getting their stuff together (Windows Media). It’s difficult to brand the entire hive under one “Microsoft” flag, and it must be even more difficult to manage the whole mess under one structure.
Microsoft’s challenges are not defined by a single 1-terrabyte moon shot. The 1-TB thing is a neat idea, but it needs to answer the question: “How does this help Microsoft foster passionate users, continue to listen to those users, and let the users/markets shape your products.” I propose that you do it from the bottom-up, one product/feature/user/employee at a time.
Regarding morale: Relevant employees are happy employees. Connect your employees to the users and watch the magic happen.
Also, please don’t get every employee dual monitors unless you plan to give every user dual monitors. Someone must represent my mother who still has a 17″ screen running at 1024 x 768.
I’ve watched Microsoft do a better job every year since 1999(since the Millenium debacle). The products have gotten more stable, blogs have added some transparency, MS conferences are getting better, MSDN is shaping up, and developer licensing isn’t as draconian as it was the last time the licesning stazi called me.
“I can’t think of a single current MS product that sucks so bad that I would warn someone not to use it.” Tthat’s not a bad slogan considering the number of MS products available. Just don’t put that as a cartoon thought bubble over one of the dinosaur heads.
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Heya, Robert. I kinda like the public compensation part of this: I tend to be afraid to bring up pay at work, because of the don’t-ask-don’t-tell culture that’s so prevalent in Corporate America.
Another reason it would be good to publicize it would be to avoid situations like the one the VFP Test team ran into a while back, as chronicled by John Koziol here.
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Heya, Robert. I kinda like the public compensation part of this: I tend to be afraid to bring up pay at work, because of the don’t-ask-don’t-tell culture that’s so prevalent in Corporate America.
Another reason it would be good to publicize it would be to avoid situations like the one the VFP Test team ran into a while back, as chronicled by John Koziol here.
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Hey mate, not sure I agree, but I love the discussion this is already stirring up. Great job. See how useful a break is? I’m taking one for all of 2 days this week (first days off in over a month). I can see a longer break could be really useful though 😉
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Hey mate, not sure I agree, but I love the discussion this is already stirring up. Great job. See how useful a break is? I’m taking one for all of 2 days this week (first days off in over a month). I can see a longer break could be really useful though 😉
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I worked for 15 months as an intern in Microsoft, and all I can say is “Hell yes”. About 12 months in, I managed to get a second machine (the stuff I was working on regularly made my machine unusable for 15+ minute blocks, while it ‘computed’). I never did manage to get a second monitor.
And as for raises to managers who kill rules – I’d have given one of the managers on my team a raise out of my own pay, if he’d managed to kill some of the rules that held back the stuff I was working on. Fifteen months later, he was about halfway to getting approval for something that should have been there twelve months before… Ack!
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I worked for 15 months as an intern in Microsoft, and all I can say is “Hell yes”. About 12 months in, I managed to get a second machine (the stuff I was working on regularly made my machine unusable for 15+ minute blocks, while it ‘computed’). I never did manage to get a second monitor.
And as for raises to managers who kill rules – I’d have given one of the managers on my team a raise out of my own pay, if he’d managed to kill some of the rules that held back the stuff I was working on. Fifteen months later, he was about halfway to getting approval for something that should have been there twelve months before… Ack!
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If you really want to improve your products, use your competitor’s products. You say above about OSX: “Once Windows users try OSX, why would they want to use Windows anymore?” If you believe this and I think you do, then every Microsoft employee should use and understand OSX until this isn’t true anymore. Instead of buying everyone a Dell with two monitors, buy everyone a Mac with two monitors, running Vista as a virtual guest of OSX. That’ll wake people up and put them on a mission.
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If you really want to improve your products, use your competitor’s products. You say above about OSX: “Once Windows users try OSX, why would they want to use Windows anymore?” If you believe this and I think you do, then every Microsoft employee should use and understand OSX until this isn’t true anymore. Instead of buying everyone a Dell with two monitors, buy everyone a Mac with two monitors, running Vista as a virtual guest of OSX. That’ll wake people up and put them on a mission.
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Robert
I think it comes down to trust. Neither developers nor customers trust Microsoft. Developers like me don’t trust you because of technology churn and lock-in. My business customer’s don’t trust you because of the price gouging and the forced update cycle (without commensurate payoff) of your flag ship Office products.
Personally I think that Mini’s solution of breaking up Microsoft so they can become more customer and developer centered is the only solution, but it’s nice to see that you are trying.
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Robert
I think it comes down to trust. Neither developers nor customers trust Microsoft. Developers like me don’t trust you because of technology churn and lock-in. My business customer’s don’t trust you because of the price gouging and the forced update cycle (without commensurate payoff) of your flag ship Office products.
Personally I think that Mini’s solution of breaking up Microsoft so they can become more customer and developer centered is the only solution, but it’s nice to see that you are trying.
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As you said, substitute your companies name where you see Microsoft…
After more years in the business than I can count it’s about time and actualy the right time for this type of change to occur.
I agree with most of your post. Like everything though, nothing is 100% but it’s alright to shoot for perfection as long as you realize you’ll never achieve it (hpoefully most of it though). I for one would like to be able to look up to MS again and the do need to be prepared for what the next generation will demand but they are going to have to do a huge turn around (and stick with it!) before that will occur.
Good luck with your dream.
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As you said, substitute your companies name where you see Microsoft…
After more years in the business than I can count it’s about time and actualy the right time for this type of change to occur.
I agree with most of your post. Like everything though, nothing is 100% but it’s alright to shoot for perfection as long as you realize you’ll never achieve it (hpoefully most of it though). I for one would like to be able to look up to MS again and the do need to be prepared for what the next generation will demand but they are going to have to do a huge turn around (and stick with it!) before that will occur.
Good luck with your dream.
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Kudos Robert. There’s more internal honesty in that one post than has come from the entire senior management team in the past 5 years. As a shareholder, I’m tired of hearing snr mgt tell me what a great job they’re doing and what big bets they’re making, while they miss every major new opportunity that has come down the pike in the past 5 years (Ozzie to his credit nailed this albeit that he was overly kind) and operating results and especially the stock continue to move in an anemic fashion. I’m also tired of seeing these same people who are so bullish publically, consistently selling their entire MS stock holdings as soon as they vest. That said, I’m not sure I see a moon shot as the solution. Moon shots like Xbox, which you (and several MS execs) interestingly call a success, traditionally have a low success rate and require massive capital. Xbox alone has lost some $5B so far and there’s no end to those losses in sight nor any guarantee that having invested (wasted?) that much money, it will ever prevail and therefore have been a wise business move. In my view, MS needs to focus on fewer battles (it’s way too overextended), make customer-focus job #1 (it’s somewhere between #1 and non-existent currently depending on which group you’re talking about – itself a problem) and create a true internal meritocracy with absolute accountability (vs the ass kissing/political/buddy system culture with limited accountability especially at the highest level that reigns today and has for most of MS’s history). Yes, product names and marketing generally suck. Yes, MS is too often (perpetually even?) the laggard vs the innovator. But fix the customer focus and accountability and in short order, all these issues will fall into line. Unfortunately, to make any of this happen, both Gates and Ballmer need to go – which they should have done when MS lost the DOJ case. First of all, MS detractors will likely never believe the company has really changed as long as those two are still at the helm. Second and far more importantly, both had demonstrated over the past 5 years, that they’re either incapable of or unwilling to provide the vision/leadership and make the tough changes necessary for MS to re-emerge as a leader vs an increasingly irrelevant also ran. They also seem to have been perfectly happy to create the bloated, largely overpaid and underperforming mgt bureaucracy which has slowly sucked the lifeblood out of MS. In my dream, Gates/Ballmer resign and are replaced by a competent outsider who isn’t wedded to the past. He/She in turn focuses on the customer period, rationalizes MS current overextended investments, puts every snr mgr on notice that with total autonomy comes total accountability (i.e. no more years and years of losses or botched 5 year development windows), cleaves at least 20% of mgt and 5-10% of employees (MSFT is way too bloated), publically fires every one responsible for the Vista fuckup, and lets those who remain across the company know that their number one job is to thrill customers and kick competitors asses and that’s how they’ll be judged and rewarded. No more posing, no more chronic sucking up, no more pet projects with no customer/return in mind, no more product groups operating in a vacumn w/o ever soliciting customer’s needs, no more shoddy or half-complete products rolled out as finished, no more trash talking competitors offering while being unable to respond with anything at all far less anything better, etc. etc.
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Kudos Robert. There’s more internal honesty in that one post than has come from the entire senior management team in the past 5 years. As a shareholder, I’m tired of hearing snr mgt tell me what a great job they’re doing and what big bets they’re making, while they miss every major new opportunity that has come down the pike in the past 5 years (Ozzie to his credit nailed this albeit that he was overly kind) and operating results and especially the stock continue to move in an anemic fashion. I’m also tired of seeing these same people who are so bullish publically, consistently selling their entire MS stock holdings as soon as they vest. That said, I’m not sure I see a moon shot as the solution. Moon shots like Xbox, which you (and several MS execs) interestingly call a success, traditionally have a low success rate and require massive capital. Xbox alone has lost some $5B so far and there’s no end to those losses in sight nor any guarantee that having invested (wasted?) that much money, it will ever prevail and therefore have been a wise business move. In my view, MS needs to focus on fewer battles (it’s way too overextended), make customer-focus job #1 (it’s somewhere between #1 and non-existent currently depending on which group you’re talking about – itself a problem) and create a true internal meritocracy with absolute accountability (vs the ass kissing/political/buddy system culture with limited accountability especially at the highest level that reigns today and has for most of MS’s history). Yes, product names and marketing generally suck. Yes, MS is too often (perpetually even?) the laggard vs the innovator. But fix the customer focus and accountability and in short order, all these issues will fall into line. Unfortunately, to make any of this happen, both Gates and Ballmer need to go – which they should have done when MS lost the DOJ case. First of all, MS detractors will likely never believe the company has really changed as long as those two are still at the helm. Second and far more importantly, both had demonstrated over the past 5 years, that they’re either incapable of or unwilling to provide the vision/leadership and make the tough changes necessary for MS to re-emerge as a leader vs an increasingly irrelevant also ran. They also seem to have been perfectly happy to create the bloated, largely overpaid and underperforming mgt bureaucracy which has slowly sucked the lifeblood out of MS. In my dream, Gates/Ballmer resign and are replaced by a competent outsider who isn’t wedded to the past. He/She in turn focuses on the customer period, rationalizes MS current overextended investments, puts every snr mgr on notice that with total autonomy comes total accountability (i.e. no more years and years of losses or botched 5 year development windows), cleaves at least 20% of mgt and 5-10% of employees (MSFT is way too bloated), publically fires every one responsible for the Vista fuckup, and lets those who remain across the company know that their number one job is to thrill customers and kick competitors asses and that’s how they’ll be judged and rewarded. No more posing, no more chronic sucking up, no more pet projects with no customer/return in mind, no more product groups operating in a vacumn w/o ever soliciting customer’s needs, no more shoddy or half-complete products rolled out as finished, no more trash talking competitors offering while being unable to respond with anything at all far less anything better, etc. etc.
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Pow! I freaking loved this article Robert. Thank you for sharing something that motivates and excites in a way that only you could! Can’t wait to hear the echo’s!
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Pow! I freaking loved this article Robert. Thank you for sharing something that motivates and excites in a way that only you could! Can’t wait to hear the echo’s!
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Buying Microsoft products sucks. Sucks ass. Sucks like a sucky thing that fell out of a sucky tree, hit every sucky branch on the way down, and landed on a black hole, and was sucked in.
Apart from the LOL element (substantial and mildly embarrassing in the middle of the office) this is painfully true. So the Marketing part of your impressive post is for me the biggest deal. Don’t fire them, shoot them. If you can’t do either, then your wimpy alternative is the next best. I really would like to read an intelligent justification for removing the “cool” from products.
A TB of storage? Nice idea, but push it down the list for a while – you need to do some of the other stuff before people will go for this. Hmmm. Actually it’s the other way round – because those who are aware of it will largely not trust MS with their data, whether justified or not, you don’t need billions so provided there’s a better-than-half-arsed architecture you can start pretty small and scale as needed.
I’m astonished by the dual-monitor thing, btw (that not everyone at MS has it). I’m curious about how much extra can be gained from a third screen, if anything at all – curious enough that I’m considering testing the water with my boss.
I keep coming back to the marketing/branding/pricing/squeeze-em-till-they-squeak thing though. how much would it cost to have one Office, one Windows (OK, you can maybe have another one for servers), one Visual Studio? How much extra revenue do the high-end versions generate and how much do they cost to put together? How much goodwill is lost in the process?
The more I think about it, the more it’s this that really annoys us out here in the “real world”. The products themselves are generally pretty good – I’ve few complaints after a decade and a half of earning my corn from MS software.
How about a Channel 9 probe into the realm of the marketing nitwit? Start with the Office and Vista bazillion verison nonsense and see where that takes you.
Thanks for the post – one of the most thought-provoking of the year. Let’s hope the thoughts get provoked in the right places.
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Buying Microsoft products sucks. Sucks ass. Sucks like a sucky thing that fell out of a sucky tree, hit every sucky branch on the way down, and landed on a black hole, and was sucked in.
Apart from the LOL element (substantial and mildly embarrassing in the middle of the office) this is painfully true. So the Marketing part of your impressive post is for me the biggest deal. Don’t fire them, shoot them. If you can’t do either, then your wimpy alternative is the next best. I really would like to read an intelligent justification for removing the “cool” from products.
A TB of storage? Nice idea, but push it down the list for a while – you need to do some of the other stuff before people will go for this. Hmmm. Actually it’s the other way round – because those who are aware of it will largely not trust MS with their data, whether justified or not, you don’t need billions so provided there’s a better-than-half-arsed architecture you can start pretty small and scale as needed.
I’m astonished by the dual-monitor thing, btw (that not everyone at MS has it). I’m curious about how much extra can be gained from a third screen, if anything at all – curious enough that I’m considering testing the water with my boss.
I keep coming back to the marketing/branding/pricing/squeeze-em-till-they-squeak thing though. how much would it cost to have one Office, one Windows (OK, you can maybe have another one for servers), one Visual Studio? How much extra revenue do the high-end versions generate and how much do they cost to put together? How much goodwill is lost in the process?
The more I think about it, the more it’s this that really annoys us out here in the “real world”. The products themselves are generally pretty good – I’ve few complaints after a decade and a half of earning my corn from MS software.
How about a Channel 9 probe into the realm of the marketing nitwit? Start with the Office and Vista bazillion verison nonsense and see where that takes you.
Thanks for the post – one of the most thought-provoking of the year. Let’s hope the thoughts get provoked in the right places.
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Very nice post. I do think that the “trust” issue for microsoft online (“live”) services is overstated
Just look at the crowd (of “seconf life” generation people) following every development of live messenger on the live messenger blog and to a lesser extent the same happening on the live mail blog. I don’t think there is more of a trust issue with any of microsoft services than with google or yahoo services.
Actually I would personnaly feel more confortable with microsoft handling my data than google and i think most people wouldn’t care and go for the best service/package anyway.
The trust issue is more with Microsoft as a whole, the company, than with any of it’s particular product or services.
Actually , speaking of products, how many can a consumer really buy? Windows, office, xbox… that’s about it.
Microsoft is a plateform company and most of its other products are targetted at companies or developers which makes it a bit of a stretch to compare it with Apple.
But still, to come back to the trust issue, i think it breaks down on the following:
1. You can’t trust Windows : it is insecure by default and you need anti spyware, anti virus , anti anything to keep it more or less working. On top of that, it “feels” insecure as you need to reboot it with every update. Looks like the problem is deep inside.
2. microsoft only works (well is compatible with) with microsoft.
3. lame desinformation campaigns against linux and/or opensource software. Why do you even think of spending money on that? Nice to see Bill Hilf lab bringing a bit of pragmatism there though
for the last 2 , the average non techy users don’t care/know but the influencers (and most of the second life generation is going to be) will
Soo how to try to cure those sources:
1. Make vista unbreakable. Sell Win XP PCs with SP2 installed and fully patched
2. Give people choice. Accept that people can use other stuff than microsoft but this doens’t mean they don’t want to buy microsoft products.
For example Why have the (great by the way) .net framework only run on windows while it could run on all OS.
Windows can still be the best of breed platform to run .net apps offering the most features ut why not let it run on other OSes?
A lot of companies would actually choose the windows solution over the linux solution but would just like to have the choice.
Just by giving the choice, more people will trust microsoft and their investment in microsoft technology.
So for the companies who run linux, you can still sell them visual studio instead of having no sale at all.
If windows solution is so much better (and it will be) at running .net , people will choose windows, because the want it => more trust
3. Quit doing that, it’s useless
Finally, keep all the great people working at microsoft and keep them blogging (Scott Guthrie (one of the best), mini, the win mobile team , etc (many other excellent ones))
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Very nice post. I do think that the “trust” issue for microsoft online (“live”) services is overstated
Just look at the crowd (of “seconf life” generation people) following every development of live messenger on the live messenger blog and to a lesser extent the same happening on the live mail blog. I don’t think there is more of a trust issue with any of microsoft services than with google or yahoo services.
Actually I would personnaly feel more confortable with microsoft handling my data than google and i think most people wouldn’t care and go for the best service/package anyway.
The trust issue is more with Microsoft as a whole, the company, than with any of it’s particular product or services.
Actually , speaking of products, how many can a consumer really buy? Windows, office, xbox… that’s about it.
Microsoft is a plateform company and most of its other products are targetted at companies or developers which makes it a bit of a stretch to compare it with Apple.
But still, to come back to the trust issue, i think it breaks down on the following:
1. You can’t trust Windows : it is insecure by default and you need anti spyware, anti virus , anti anything to keep it more or less working. On top of that, it “feels” insecure as you need to reboot it with every update. Looks like the problem is deep inside.
2. microsoft only works (well is compatible with) with microsoft.
3. lame desinformation campaigns against linux and/or opensource software. Why do you even think of spending money on that? Nice to see Bill Hilf lab bringing a bit of pragmatism there though
for the last 2 , the average non techy users don’t care/know but the influencers (and most of the second life generation is going to be) will
Soo how to try to cure those sources:
1. Make vista unbreakable. Sell Win XP PCs with SP2 installed and fully patched
2. Give people choice. Accept that people can use other stuff than microsoft but this doens’t mean they don’t want to buy microsoft products.
For example Why have the (great by the way) .net framework only run on windows while it could run on all OS.
Windows can still be the best of breed platform to run .net apps offering the most features ut why not let it run on other OSes?
A lot of companies would actually choose the windows solution over the linux solution but would just like to have the choice.
Just by giving the choice, more people will trust microsoft and their investment in microsoft technology.
So for the companies who run linux, you can still sell them visual studio instead of having no sale at all.
If windows solution is so much better (and it will be) at running .net , people will choose windows, because the want it => more trust
3. Quit doing that, it’s useless
Finally, keep all the great people working at microsoft and keep them blogging (Scott Guthrie (one of the best), mini, the win mobile team , etc (many other excellent ones))
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Wow, this is better than 99% of your other posts Scoble. I’m especially shocked as it came after your moderating comments posts, which I thought was going to kill any critique of MSFT. Good job!
I like the idea of Balmer killing a speed bump everyday — he has to look for a way to motivate internal employees and this is a great idea.
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Wow, this is better than 99% of your other posts Scoble. I’m especially shocked as it came after your moderating comments posts, which I thought was going to kill any critique of MSFT. Good job!
I like the idea of Balmer killing a speed bump everyday — he has to look for a way to motivate internal employees and this is a great idea.
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Robert, time to pack the bags and head out to a startup. The vision, ambition, passion, and action that you crave aren’t bigco traits; they’re the creed of entrepreneurs and small teams.
You would be worth a lot to an entrepreneurial team. Evangelism is fundamental to most startup marketing.
Even with the web 2.0 wave, there aren’t a lot of startups around that have a vision both as big as the one you thirst for, and as viable as the next version of Windows. Look for a place that’s not driven by conventional wisdom. (There’s a ton of conventional wisdom in webland these days.)
When you’re ready to jump, see my blog for some interesting ideas…
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Robert, time to pack the bags and head out to a startup. The vision, ambition, passion, and action that you crave aren’t bigco traits; they’re the creed of entrepreneurs and small teams.
You would be worth a lot to an entrepreneurial team. Evangelism is fundamental to most startup marketing.
Even with the web 2.0 wave, there aren’t a lot of startups around that have a vision both as big as the one you thirst for, and as viable as the next version of Windows. Look for a place that’s not driven by conventional wisdom. (There’s a ton of conventional wisdom in webland these days.)
When you’re ready to jump, see my blog for some interesting ideas…
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Wow, great work Robert. Seriously. I love the idea of openness, and I’m surprised it isn’t implemented (at least in part) moreso at MS. I don’t know if the financial aspect wouldn’t create more politics than it solves, but the marketing aspect, uh yes. A million times yes. I got 3 words for you that cause the hair on my neck to stand: Mac+Book Pro. Not really 3, but a lot less fun than Power+Book. Which would you rather drive down the coastline? Yeah, Sparkle for me too sir!
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Wow, great work Robert. Seriously. I love the idea of openness, and I’m surprised it isn’t implemented (at least in part) moreso at MS. I don’t know if the financial aspect wouldn’t create more politics than it solves, but the marketing aspect, uh yes. A million times yes. I got 3 words for you that cause the hair on my neck to stand: Mac+Book Pro. Not really 3, but a lot less fun than Power+Book. Which would you rather drive down the coastline? Yeah, Sparkle for me too sir!
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I’ve seen the productivity benefits that dual monitors can bring. Every employee who has them says having two monitors is transformational. Especially coders who can have one screen for typing code and another for designing UIs. Or, even if they are just an algorithm kind of person, the second one keeps their email showing so they don’t need to switch over when a new email shows up.
Have you visited the Google campus? There, ALL engineers have at least dual monitors. Initially, we were running mostly dual 18″ monitors. Then, one day while at lunch I noticed a bunch of guys pushing carts of 24″ monitors around the halls. Turns out they upgraded everyone to dual 24″ monitors that day.
It is amazing what happens when you prioritize engineers productivity. Having slogged through Microsoft for years, and then switched sides to Google, it is like night and day in this aspect alone. Its been a long time since engineers have been running engineering at Microsoft. I think it would make a huge difference in your productivity and happiness if you put some engineers back in charge.
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I’ve seen the productivity benefits that dual monitors can bring. Every employee who has them says having two monitors is transformational. Especially coders who can have one screen for typing code and another for designing UIs. Or, even if they are just an algorithm kind of person, the second one keeps their email showing so they don’t need to switch over when a new email shows up.
Have you visited the Google campus? There, ALL engineers have at least dual monitors. Initially, we were running mostly dual 18″ monitors. Then, one day while at lunch I noticed a bunch of guys pushing carts of 24″ monitors around the halls. Turns out they upgraded everyone to dual 24″ monitors that day.
It is amazing what happens when you prioritize engineers productivity. Having slogged through Microsoft for years, and then switched sides to Google, it is like night and day in this aspect alone. Its been a long time since engineers have been running engineering at Microsoft. I think it would make a huge difference in your productivity and happiness if you put some engineers back in charge.
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That’s a long post Robert, I’ll admit that I didn’t read all of this post (reading a blog vs writing a paper…), but do you really think this could happen? If I am understanding you correctly, you are saying mold Microsoft to this kickass company that basically doesn’t give Mini fuel for his fire?
Take a look at Ford, it was for years one of “America’s companies,” but I just read that they are shutting down 6 plants across the US, cutting some 43K jobs in the next 5-6 years. If a car company is forced to shut down, it shows no company is perfect. And I will say that the demand of cars greatly overruns the need of computers.
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That’s a long post Robert, I’ll admit that I didn’t read all of this post (reading a blog vs writing a paper…), but do you really think this could happen? If I am understanding you correctly, you are saying mold Microsoft to this kickass company that basically doesn’t give Mini fuel for his fire?
Take a look at Ford, it was for years one of “America’s companies,” but I just read that they are shutting down 6 plants across the US, cutting some 43K jobs in the next 5-6 years. If a car company is forced to shut down, it shows no company is perfect. And I will say that the demand of cars greatly overruns the need of computers.
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There is a difference between trusting Hotmail and Xbox live and trusting you with critical data. I’ve a 2GB .Mac space, I don’t use it for critical stuff. You could wipe it tomorrow, and it would only be inconvenient. Same thing for Gmail. Face it, if your Xbox Live data goes bye-bye, it’s not going to tank your company. What your proposing begs for people actually using it. That means REAL data. There are questions that have to be answered:
Where’s my SLA that guarantees me 24x7x365 access to my data securely?
What compensation do I get when I can’t?
Where’s my guarantee that NO ONE who is not me, or on a list i Explicitly approve, can get to my data. This includes Microsoft staff.
What’s the backup schedule for these servers?
If I need to, how do I get to my data from non-MS OSen? (by using WebDAV as a primary access, .Mac is available to all).
What’s my bandwidth cost? Someone has to pay that, it’s always there, and increasing. What kind of notification, in both time, and method do I get in the event of a planned outage?
these are just what occured to me in 5 minutes, and it’s just the start of what would have to be answered.
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There is a difference between trusting Hotmail and Xbox live and trusting you with critical data. I’ve a 2GB .Mac space, I don’t use it for critical stuff. You could wipe it tomorrow, and it would only be inconvenient. Same thing for Gmail. Face it, if your Xbox Live data goes bye-bye, it’s not going to tank your company. What your proposing begs for people actually using it. That means REAL data. There are questions that have to be answered:
Where’s my SLA that guarantees me 24x7x365 access to my data securely?
What compensation do I get when I can’t?
Where’s my guarantee that NO ONE who is not me, or on a list i Explicitly approve, can get to my data. This includes Microsoft staff.
What’s the backup schedule for these servers?
If I need to, how do I get to my data from non-MS OSen? (by using WebDAV as a primary access, .Mac is available to all).
What’s my bandwidth cost? Someone has to pay that, it’s always there, and increasing. What kind of notification, in both time, and method do I get in the event of a planned outage?
these are just what occured to me in 5 minutes, and it’s just the start of what would have to be answered.
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Mr.Schoble there appears to be the start of a “ctrl-alt-delete your company” book there.. I think there was a lot of good comments there and some of the ideas, although complete mind-fekers to implement would do wonders for the overall business be it Microsoft or anywhere else. I have two young kids (3 & 6) the eldest just started blogging, they both “play” with the computer, my eldest loves my i-mate PDA2K.. mainly for JawBreaker, bit its fascinating to watch him navigate… the whole focus of the “second life generation” is very true.. these guys are growing up with computing power and social networking and transparency and reputation tools such as eBay and http://www.iKarma.com
If current businesses don’t embrace this and drive it into their very fabric then these kids, 10 years down the line will do it themselves.. their brains are that much more in-tune with technology and their needs… most of us have grown up with technology in the background as opposed to it being an integral part of the life experience for these seconf-lifers..
Now is the time to evolve our business and perceptions otherwise it will be way too late… challenge, innovate and move forwards with our kids.. lets add value now to enrich their lives then..
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Mr.Schoble there appears to be the start of a “ctrl-alt-delete your company” book there.. I think there was a lot of good comments there and some of the ideas, although complete mind-fekers to implement would do wonders for the overall business be it Microsoft or anywhere else. I have two young kids (3 & 6) the eldest just started blogging, they both “play” with the computer, my eldest loves my i-mate PDA2K.. mainly for JawBreaker, bit its fascinating to watch him navigate… the whole focus of the “second life generation” is very true.. these guys are growing up with computing power and social networking and transparency and reputation tools such as eBay and http://www.iKarma.com
If current businesses don’t embrace this and drive it into their very fabric then these kids, 10 years down the line will do it themselves.. their brains are that much more in-tune with technology and their needs… most of us have grown up with technology in the background as opposed to it being an integral part of the life experience for these seconf-lifers..
Now is the time to evolve our business and perceptions otherwise it will be way too late… challenge, innovate and move forwards with our kids.. lets add value now to enrich their lives then..
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I don’t know whether to digg this, del.icio.us this or just stand up and clap. Awesome post 🙂
Now if only they could actually DO some of that.
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I don’t know whether to digg this, del.icio.us this or just stand up and clap. Awesome post 🙂
Now if only they could actually DO some of that.
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Robert great to see you back. Maybe not everyone is running Vista cos the management has to little faith in it. Its an excellent idea to have everyone running state of the art machines with multiple monitors as a showcase.
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Robert great to see you back. Maybe not everyone is running Vista cos the management has to little faith in it. Its an excellent idea to have everyone running state of the art machines with multiple monitors as a showcase.
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“And, generally, what I’m finding on my tours is angst. Angst over stock price (it’s gone up about $3 since I’ve joined three years ago). Angst over marketing issues (why do we make cool names like “Sparkle” lame by changing that to “Expression Interactive Designer?”) Angst over vision and direction. Angst over leadership. Angst over advertising like our “dinosaur” ads (which are loudly derided by customers whenever I go to conferences and talk about how we’re being perceived).”
This is because Microsoft has been marketing to businesses for so long that it’s forgotten what appeals to consumers.
I think Mini-MSFT is right that Microsoft needs to be slimmed down. There’s no way that’s going to happen before Vista comes out. We’ll see if the hammer drops after 2007 starts, and people are trimmed. If nothing happens, then we’ll all know the message didn’t get through.
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“And, generally, what I’m finding on my tours is angst. Angst over stock price (it’s gone up about $3 since I’ve joined three years ago). Angst over marketing issues (why do we make cool names like “Sparkle” lame by changing that to “Expression Interactive Designer?”) Angst over vision and direction. Angst over leadership. Angst over advertising like our “dinosaur” ads (which are loudly derided by customers whenever I go to conferences and talk about how we’re being perceived).”
This is because Microsoft has been marketing to businesses for so long that it’s forgotten what appeals to consumers.
I think Mini-MSFT is right that Microsoft needs to be slimmed down. There’s no way that’s going to happen before Vista comes out. We’ll see if the hammer drops after 2007 starts, and people are trimmed. If nothing happens, then we’ll all know the message didn’t get through.
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Ride Mini-M$FT Ride!
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Ride Mini-M$FT Ride!
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“A guaranteed Terabyte of Internet-based storage space for EVERYTHING and for EVERYONE running Windows in the world.”
Wow. You think people are going to trust personal data to Microsoft with their track record? Both in terms of their general anti-competitive, file-format-lock-in, decommoditisation-of-protocols behaviour (if this is for Windows users only, I take it you’re going to try to lock out MacOS and Linux users, meaning if people choose to store their data on this system, they won’t be able to get it out if they move to those OSs) and in terms of their stability/security record. This’ll be such a target for hackers, now they can target *everyone*s data all at once.
I think MS has a lot to fix *first*, before they can look at something like this.
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Holy cow Robert!
That was a great post. That was a “Jerry Maguire” moment. You deserve a standing ovation.
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“A guaranteed Terabyte of Internet-based storage space for EVERYTHING and for EVERYONE running Windows in the world.”
Wow. You think people are going to trust personal data to Microsoft with their track record? Both in terms of their general anti-competitive, file-format-lock-in, decommoditisation-of-protocols behaviour (if this is for Windows users only, I take it you’re going to try to lock out MacOS and Linux users, meaning if people choose to store their data on this system, they won’t be able to get it out if they move to those OSs) and in terms of their stability/security record. This’ll be such a target for hackers, now they can target *everyone*s data all at once.
I think MS has a lot to fix *first*, before they can look at something like this.
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Holy cow Robert!
That was a great post. That was a “Jerry Maguire” moment. You deserve a standing ovation.
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Adam, yes I do. More than 200 million people trust us with Hotmail. Lots of enterprises already trust Microsoft with our email. Yes, not everyone would trust us. But, even if you hate Microsoft you’d probably win because our competitors would have to respond in kind too (just like we’re responding to Gmail with many improvements). So, even if you trusted Google, eBay, Apple, or Yahoo, you’d probably see increases in storage space available.
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Adam, yes I do. More than 200 million people trust us with Hotmail. Lots of enterprises already trust Microsoft with our email. Yes, not everyone would trust us. But, even if you hate Microsoft you’d probably win because our competitors would have to respond in kind too (just like we’re responding to Gmail with many improvements). So, even if you trusted Google, eBay, Apple, or Yahoo, you’d probably see increases in storage space available.
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Bubba just posted here (this post was influenced, in part, by a dinner we had last night): http://spaces.msn.com/bubba/blog/cns!4EA1C1E757D2CC06!229.entry
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Bubba just posted here (this post was influenced, in part, by a dinner we had last night): http://spaces.msn.com/bubba/blog/cns!4EA1C1E757D2CC06!229.entry
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I don’t like the “Second Life Generation” thing. You aren’t using Second Life in reaction to how appealing it is to the masses. You’re using your blog to try to make Second Life more ubiquitous. Count how often you mention it (in all posts, not just this one) and you’ll get a very high number. But the reality is that very few people are actively using it when compared to the social services you like to compare it to. And right now, it’s all about the sex. At least, that’s the coverage it is getting. That’s what the mainstream is going to see it as as it gets more popular, a virtual sex service.
Also, the comment from RichB above is not me. I always sign my name with my blog URL.
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I don’t like the “Second Life Generation” thing. You aren’t using Second Life in reaction to how appealing it is to the masses. You’re using your blog to try to make Second Life more ubiquitous. Count how often you mention it (in all posts, not just this one) and you’ll get a very high number. But the reality is that very few people are actively using it when compared to the social services you like to compare it to. And right now, it’s all about the sex. At least, that’s the coverage it is getting. That’s what the mainstream is going to see it as as it gets more popular, a virtual sex service.
Also, the comment from RichB above is not me. I always sign my name with my blog URL.
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Robert, you think just like Bill.
A whole terabyte.
A lot less than a whole week of HDTV.
Unless you want to record more than a single channel at full res.
You aren’t talking about tomorrow’s Microsoft, you are talking about tomorrow’s TiVo.
And a terabyte won’t last them very long either.
“I left my TiVo on for a two week vacation and it ran out of Microsoft Drive space at the end of the first week”
“A terabyte should be enough for anybody”.
Heheh.
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Robert, you think just like Bill.
A whole terabyte.
A lot less than a whole week of HDTV.
Unless you want to record more than a single channel at full res.
You aren’t talking about tomorrow’s Microsoft, you are talking about tomorrow’s TiVo.
And a terabyte won’t last them very long either.
“I left my TiVo on for a two week vacation and it ran out of Microsoft Drive space at the end of the first week”
“A terabyte should be enough for anybody”.
Heheh.
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Ricky, actually, I have an HDTV camcorder that records in 1080i. An hour of HDTV is about 4GB when moved into the computer in compressed format. A Terrabyte stores a LOT of HDTV video. Far more than I can watch in a week. And how many people will store all their Tivo-style videos up in the Internet cloud? Not many since local hard drives are going to be far faster and easier to work with for a long time to come.
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Ricky, actually, I have an HDTV camcorder that records in 1080i. An hour of HDTV is about 4GB when moved into the computer in compressed format. A Terrabyte stores a LOT of HDTV video. Far more than I can watch in a week. And how many people will store all their Tivo-style videos up in the Internet cloud? Not many since local hard drives are going to be far faster and easier to work with for a long time to come.
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Since my blog doesn’t really do trackbacks, just a polite link instead.
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Richard: before 1977, who had a personal computer? They were just for the freaks and geeks. Before 1994, who had a Web browser? Just the freaks and geeks.
There are 6,000 people online continuously in Second Life, hundreds of thousands of members, and I still haven’t seen a sex act in there. Maybe I’m not hanging out in the wrong (or right, depending on how you look at it) neighborhoods, though.
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Since my blog doesn’t really do trackbacks, just a polite link instead.
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Richard: before 1977, who had a personal computer? They were just for the freaks and geeks. Before 1994, who had a Web browser? Just the freaks and geeks.
There are 6,000 people online continuously in Second Life, hundreds of thousands of members, and I still haven’t seen a sex act in there. Maybe I’m not hanging out in the wrong (or right, depending on how you look at it) neighborhoods, though.
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On the subject of Hotmail being an example of trusting Microsoft with data, eh, only just barely. I just checked — I have over 40,000 email messages in my GMail account right now. If Google were to lose them all, I’d be really upset, and terribly inconvenienced. No doubt. But it would be far from the end of the world. The only emails I genuinely care about are really the ones from the last 3 days and the conversation threads that are still being carried on.
Storage is a whole different ball game.
Really, it’s apple and oranges, comparing Hotmail to a Microsoft-powered online drive. As I said in my post, the only reason you’d get customers is because Microsoft has the power of the default, and because there’s still a lot of people who haven’t come up with their own personal reason not to trust you guys yet.
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On the subject of Hotmail being an example of trusting Microsoft with data, eh, only just barely. I just checked — I have over 40,000 email messages in my GMail account right now. If Google were to lose them all, I’d be really upset, and terribly inconvenienced. No doubt. But it would be far from the end of the world. The only emails I genuinely care about are really the ones from the last 3 days and the conversation threads that are still being carried on.
Storage is a whole different ball game.
Really, it’s apple and oranges, comparing Hotmail to a Microsoft-powered online drive. As I said in my post, the only reason you’d get customers is because Microsoft has the power of the default, and because there’s still a lot of people who haven’t come up with their own personal reason not to trust you guys yet.
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Note: I haven’t used Second Life. It’s one of those things that I *know* I’ll waste a lot of time in, so I don’t want to tempt myself (almost the same reason I still haven’t installed Myst Revelation, but that’s another thing all together 🙂 ).
Richard: even if most people use Second Life for the sex, who cares? Don’t ‘they’ say that sex drives all the new technologies? VHS, the commercialisation of the internet, e-commerce, DVDs… the porn industry played a big part in getting these things off the ground. I’m not saying that e-commerce would not exist without porn, but I am saying that it would still be a few years behind where it is now…
The thing is, though, owning a DVD player doesn’t mean you use it to watch porn, does it? Everything has to start somewhere and I hate to say it, but Second Life probably needs the sex (even when it’s avoidable) to reach the larger market…
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Note: I haven’t used Second Life. It’s one of those things that I *know* I’ll waste a lot of time in, so I don’t want to tempt myself (almost the same reason I still haven’t installed Myst Revelation, but that’s another thing all together 🙂 ).
Richard: even if most people use Second Life for the sex, who cares? Don’t ‘they’ say that sex drives all the new technologies? VHS, the commercialisation of the internet, e-commerce, DVDs… the porn industry played a big part in getting these things off the ground. I’m not saying that e-commerce would not exist without porn, but I am saying that it would still be a few years behind where it is now…
The thing is, though, owning a DVD player doesn’t mean you use it to watch porn, does it? Everything has to start somewhere and I hate to say it, but Second Life probably needs the sex (even when it’s avoidable) to reach the larger market…
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Microsoft’s biggest challenge seems to me to be it’s size. This causes two major problems. Firstly, its inability to adapt to situations and bring out lots of products fast, even if only a few turn out to be successful and innovative. Google’s dealing with the problem by having their famed ‘20% time’ policy. Whilst it is clear that this policy has its weaknesses (such as dilution of the corporate image and direction by vast numbers of products which don’t necessarily fit with anything else that is going on) it does at least show an attempt to stay like a startup.
The second problem is perception. As far as MS’s business clients go, it doesn’t look like there’s much more they can do to appeal to them; they tend to buy most of the products thrown at them. However, the consumer does not have an ideal view of the Microsoft brand. They respect it to a level which ordinary companies would love to have, but for a tech company hoping to define the future and persuade people to buy into it (both through products and shares) MS needs to have a more ‘modern’ and forward looking image. Dare I say it, but like Google’s. The Terabyte storage idea is the sort of thing which MS has to look at. I think the average consumer would trust MS with their data, and by offering the storage MS would show that they were coming up with new ideas. Whenever Google are in the mainstream news, pictures of there offices in all their multi-olour, lava lamp, spacehopper splendour show that they are different as a company, and futuristic. Microsoft needs to appear ultimately in the same way, but certainly through different means so that Ballmer and Gates continue to look like grownups – unlike Google’s Brin and Page – to prevent businesses turning away.
Just my ideas from the outside, and the fact that MS insiders like Scoble are writing blog posts like this show that there is a real appreciation of the problem, and thus hope that it can be solved. Lets hope that it is, because MS is a good company, by in large producing good products.
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Microsoft’s biggest challenge seems to me to be it’s size. This causes two major problems. Firstly, its inability to adapt to situations and bring out lots of products fast, even if only a few turn out to be successful and innovative. Google’s dealing with the problem by having their famed ‘20% time’ policy. Whilst it is clear that this policy has its weaknesses (such as dilution of the corporate image and direction by vast numbers of products which don’t necessarily fit with anything else that is going on) it does at least show an attempt to stay like a startup.
The second problem is perception. As far as MS’s business clients go, it doesn’t look like there’s much more they can do to appeal to them; they tend to buy most of the products thrown at them. However, the consumer does not have an ideal view of the Microsoft brand. They respect it to a level which ordinary companies would love to have, but for a tech company hoping to define the future and persuade people to buy into it (both through products and shares) MS needs to have a more ‘modern’ and forward looking image. Dare I say it, but like Google’s. The Terabyte storage idea is the sort of thing which MS has to look at. I think the average consumer would trust MS with their data, and by offering the storage MS would show that they were coming up with new ideas. Whenever Google are in the mainstream news, pictures of there offices in all their multi-olour, lava lamp, spacehopper splendour show that they are different as a company, and futuristic. Microsoft needs to appear ultimately in the same way, but certainly through different means so that Ballmer and Gates continue to look like grownups – unlike Google’s Brin and Page – to prevent businesses turning away.
Just my ideas from the outside, and the fact that MS insiders like Scoble are writing blog posts like this show that there is a real appreciation of the problem, and thus hope that it can be solved. Lets hope that it is, because MS is a good company, by in large producing good products.
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Welcome back!
I am a Microsoft customer that is treated like the ugly stepchild of the family. I use a Mac. Because I don’t like Windows, Microsoft doesn’t give me video chat, doesn’t give me Access, doesn’t give me a real IE and doesn’t compete for my dollars. Now, consider all the other customers that MS treats with disdain – Linux, Unix. ARE MY DOLLARS WORTHLESS TO YOU?
No, the problem is that MS has no vision. The leadership is clueless and jump on every passing trend in desperate hope to not be the next IBM. Throwing away good money after bad is NOT the answer!
IT’S BEEN OVER 10 YEARS SINCE YOU TOOK OVER THE DESKTOP! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH IT? WHY IS ALL THE EXCITEMENT COMING FROM PLACES OTHER THAN MICROSOFT?
Stop following – LEAD!
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Welcome back!
I am a Microsoft customer that is treated like the ugly stepchild of the family. I use a Mac. Because I don’t like Windows, Microsoft doesn’t give me video chat, doesn’t give me Access, doesn’t give me a real IE and doesn’t compete for my dollars. Now, consider all the other customers that MS treats with disdain – Linux, Unix. ARE MY DOLLARS WORTHLESS TO YOU?
No, the problem is that MS has no vision. The leadership is clueless and jump on every passing trend in desperate hope to not be the next IBM. Throwing away good money after bad is NOT the answer!
IT’S BEEN OVER 10 YEARS SINCE YOU TOOK OVER THE DESKTOP! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH IT? WHY IS ALL THE EXCITEMENT COMING FROM PLACES OTHER THAN MICROSOFT?
Stop following – LEAD!
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Ok, Robert, I screwed up, I assumed about 8GB an hour (which is roughly what HD-DVD will be).
Not store stuff in the cloud?
And what other pitch do we have for offering them a terabyte?
“Microsoft patents the cloud”
Evil.
But surprisingly cool.
Worthy of Apple.
Apple makes evil cool.
Today’s Microsoft makes evil seem limp and pathetic.
Guess which strategy gives most market share?
Evil.
Cool.
Evool.
Evoogle.
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Ok, Robert, I screwed up, I assumed about 8GB an hour (which is roughly what HD-DVD will be).
Not store stuff in the cloud?
And what other pitch do we have for offering them a terabyte?
“Microsoft patents the cloud”
Evil.
But surprisingly cool.
Worthy of Apple.
Apple makes evil cool.
Today’s Microsoft makes evil seem limp and pathetic.
Guess which strategy gives most market share?
Evil.
Cool.
Evool.
Evoogle.
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You need some manager 2.0.
I have a friend who works at a large consulting firm. The management there is dead flat with everyone working and billing clients while cycling themselves through proj mgmt when their strengths are involved. They set when they work, where, how etc. They know exactly what everyone else makes because they put it down on project plans (with a beefy multiplier) and such to know how much to charge the client. They make a killing and have fun and work hard.
You should not only get you multiple monitors or large monitors (I saw dell 24″ for $800-something yesterday) but computers and complimentary connections from home.
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You need some manager 2.0.
I have a friend who works at a large consulting firm. The management there is dead flat with everyone working and billing clients while cycling themselves through proj mgmt when their strengths are involved. They set when they work, where, how etc. They know exactly what everyone else makes because they put it down on project plans (with a beefy multiplier) and such to know how much to charge the client. They make a killing and have fun and work hard.
You should not only get you multiple monitors or large monitors (I saw dell 24″ for $800-something yesterday) but computers and complimentary connections from home.
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Why you can’t offer a terabyte online:
It’s not because no one really needs the space, it’s not because most people don’t even know what a terabyte is. It’s because your hardware partners can’t sell hard drive upgrades if you’re offering a lifetime’s worth of storage online. You can’t marginalize your hardware partners forever (and I’d argue that’s how you’re in the Ipod mess).
You left for how long and all you have is an echo of Google’s gmail buzz, warmed over?
btw, the X360 isn’t that successful yet.
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Robert:
It sounds to me that a lot of Microsoft’s morale troubles (both internal and external) simply derive from the fact that you guys are so big, and you try to do so much. Some of your suggestions are good, and even the ones that aren’t at least have a nice poetry to them; they express good intentions even if they’re not good ideas. But you devote very little attention to fixing the problems of a bloated company in the process of being swallowed by its own bueracracy and collapsing beneath endless hierarchy. Saying Microsoft should “Get rid of corporate speedbumps” is so generic and vague as to be laughable. Microsoft doesn’t have speedbumps; it has mountains of middle-management rubble. It takes astonishingly good managers to run a company as large, and with its fingers in as many pies, as Microsoft. From what I can see, you guys don’t have that kind of talent, regardless of the lower-level talent that actually builds your products.
John Welch put it very well: Microsoft needs to simplify. It *does* seem like Microsoft has some sort of corporate ADD, constantly whipping to and fro to catch everything that comes along. You either need to restrict Microsoft to doing a few things well, or give your major product groups the complete autonomy they need to build exactly what their customers want, to brand them how they want, to advertise and sell them how they want. The ’90s are over, and the computing landscape is too big and complex for one monolithic company to preside over.
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Why you can’t offer a terabyte online:
It’s not because no one really needs the space, it’s not because most people don’t even know what a terabyte is. It’s because your hardware partners can’t sell hard drive upgrades if you’re offering a lifetime’s worth of storage online. You can’t marginalize your hardware partners forever (and I’d argue that’s how you’re in the Ipod mess).
You left for how long and all you have is an echo of Google’s gmail buzz, warmed over?
btw, the X360 isn’t that successful yet.
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Robert:
It sounds to me that a lot of Microsoft’s morale troubles (both internal and external) simply derive from the fact that you guys are so big, and you try to do so much. Some of your suggestions are good, and even the ones that aren’t at least have a nice poetry to them; they express good intentions even if they’re not good ideas. But you devote very little attention to fixing the problems of a bloated company in the process of being swallowed by its own bueracracy and collapsing beneath endless hierarchy. Saying Microsoft should “Get rid of corporate speedbumps” is so generic and vague as to be laughable. Microsoft doesn’t have speedbumps; it has mountains of middle-management rubble. It takes astonishingly good managers to run a company as large, and with its fingers in as many pies, as Microsoft. From what I can see, you guys don’t have that kind of talent, regardless of the lower-level talent that actually builds your products.
John Welch put it very well: Microsoft needs to simplify. It *does* seem like Microsoft has some sort of corporate ADD, constantly whipping to and fro to catch everything that comes along. You either need to restrict Microsoft to doing a few things well, or give your major product groups the complete autonomy they need to build exactly what their customers want, to brand them how they want, to advertise and sell them how they want. The ’90s are over, and the computing landscape is too big and complex for one monolithic company to preside over.
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I like your ideas but do you really think you can make a difference? A company, particularly a large one, is not a democracy but rather more like a soviet-era command economy.
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I like your ideas but do you really think you can make a difference? A company, particularly a large one, is not a democracy but rather more like a soviet-era command economy.
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So, I finished reading the book this morning, and I’ve been reading the blog for about a month now, and here’s the first post I’ve felt a real karmic connection to – one big enough to draw me to comment.
You almost lost me until you said, insert your company name here. I don’t know whether to be comforted or disturbed by the fact that MS has the same issue as my little technology company has. Microsoft has been what many of us have always aspired to be like, and to hear that the big, bad beurocracy (pardon my spelling) machine is alive and well at the House that Gates built is not what I necessarily wanted to hear.
I can relate, however. I will never forget the day when I realized that the generation gap was not a crack but an expansive chasm. August 24, 1997. That’s the day my then 6.5 year old son watched me unpack my albums in the living room of our new house, and he asked me how I played those “big CDs”. That was the same year he told his first grade teacher he didn’t need to learn to write and spell because he had a word processing program with spell-checker, and he already knew how to type.
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Quote:
Take a look at OSX – of which the 6th major release this decade will be showcased (beta?) this summer. And from Microsoft, we’ve had XP and Vista. How can a company that sells 1/20th the number of operating systems release 3 times as fast?
Comment by RichB — April 24, 2006 @ 5:56 am
/quote.
As an Apple user I’m continually amazed at how Microsoft’s customers don’t demand more innovation out of a company with 30 times the market-share of OSX. I really think that MS could take a page out of Apple’s book, and redesign Windows on an open OS like Apple did with BSD.
Throwing money at problems is what Apple did in the late ’80s & early ’90s. That nearly killed them. Getting away from proprietary “standards” and and cheaply building on open foundations saved them. When you are part of an open community your code has to meet rigid object-oriented standards, and can be improved by any of your customers.
Switching from the Classic Mac OS to OSX was a small pain, but very worth it. I think MS can do a similar transition (even if they created the underlying open OS from scratch) with greater results as they have many times the resources.
This is the classic ‘bet the farm’ mentality that MS used to have when they were much smaller.
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So, I finished reading the book this morning, and I’ve been reading the blog for about a month now, and here’s the first post I’ve felt a real karmic connection to – one big enough to draw me to comment.
You almost lost me until you said, insert your company name here. I don’t know whether to be comforted or disturbed by the fact that MS has the same issue as my little technology company has. Microsoft has been what many of us have always aspired to be like, and to hear that the big, bad beurocracy (pardon my spelling) machine is alive and well at the House that Gates built is not what I necessarily wanted to hear.
I can relate, however. I will never forget the day when I realized that the generation gap was not a crack but an expansive chasm. August 24, 1997. That’s the day my then 6.5 year old son watched me unpack my albums in the living room of our new house, and he asked me how I played those “big CDs”. That was the same year he told his first grade teacher he didn’t need to learn to write and spell because he had a word processing program with spell-checker, and he already knew how to type.
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Quote:
Take a look at OSX – of which the 6th major release this decade will be showcased (beta?) this summer. And from Microsoft, we’ve had XP and Vista. How can a company that sells 1/20th the number of operating systems release 3 times as fast?
Comment by RichB — April 24, 2006 @ 5:56 am
/quote.
As an Apple user I’m continually amazed at how Microsoft’s customers don’t demand more innovation out of a company with 30 times the market-share of OSX. I really think that MS could take a page out of Apple’s book, and redesign Windows on an open OS like Apple did with BSD.
Throwing money at problems is what Apple did in the late ’80s & early ’90s. That nearly killed them. Getting away from proprietary “standards” and and cheaply building on open foundations saved them. When you are part of an open community your code has to meet rigid object-oriented standards, and can be improved by any of your customers.
Switching from the Classic Mac OS to OSX was a small pain, but very worth it. I think MS can do a similar transition (even if they created the underlying open OS from scratch) with greater results as they have many times the resources.
This is the classic ‘bet the farm’ mentality that MS used to have when they were much smaller.
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I think your dismissing the solution to easily, and perhaps asking the wrong question.
see : http://www.folknology.com/blog/1/1/2006/4/24/366
How Microsoft can re-invent itself
Disclaimer :- I do not, have not and will probably never work for Microsoft, I am expessing the opinion of a common user, developer and small business.
Regards
Al
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I think your dismissing the solution to easily, and perhaps asking the wrong question.
see : http://www.folknology.com/blog/1/1/2006/4/24/366
How Microsoft can re-invent itself
Disclaimer :- I do not, have not and will probably never work for Microsoft, I am expessing the opinion of a common user, developer and small business.
Regards
Al
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Welcome back – great post.
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Welcome back – great post.
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Jeez Scoble, you’re one hell of a clever political mover! In a single post you’ve ensured that you have become unsackable (the MS share price will take an immediate and prolonged dive) no matter how uncomfortable your views might sit. Secondly, every employer who values their business and their employees will want to pay good money for your talents which can only force MS to pay you more and more. I know you don’t do it for the money dude but you had better start learning to live with plenty of it. 😉
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Jeez Scoble, you’re one hell of a clever political mover! In a single post you’ve ensured that you have become unsackable (the MS share price will take an immediate and prolonged dive) no matter how uncomfortable your views might sit. Secondly, every employer who values their business and their employees will want to pay good money for your talents which can only force MS to pay you more and more. I know you don’t do it for the money dude but you had better start learning to live with plenty of it. 😉
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Dells? Are you shitting me? You’re going to bring about a new age of elegance and innovation with Michael “R&D is for suckers” DELL computers?
You’ll buy every employee a MacBook Pro and a 30″ screen. You’ll do it for the same reason Steve Jobs had a Bosendorfer Piano in the lobby of the building where the Macintosh was born. Because its cracking GREAT design. You soak up great design like you soak up culture. Just be around it. And it’ll be a GREAT mindbomb to show up with a zillion apples pushing your software.
Hint – MS gets nicknamed the Borg not because they assimilate all – but because they have the same design sense – practically none.
Or you could resurrect Microsoft Bob. Your choice.
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Dells? Are you shitting me? You’re going to bring about a new age of elegance and innovation with Michael “R&D is for suckers” DELL computers?
You’ll buy every employee a MacBook Pro and a 30″ screen. You’ll do it for the same reason Steve Jobs had a Bosendorfer Piano in the lobby of the building where the Macintosh was born. Because its cracking GREAT design. You soak up great design like you soak up culture. Just be around it. And it’ll be a GREAT mindbomb to show up with a zillion apples pushing your software.
Hint – MS gets nicknamed the Borg not because they assimilate all – but because they have the same design sense – practically none.
Or you could resurrect Microsoft Bob. Your choice.
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Devils: actually, I’m kicking myself that I didn’t advocate getting the new Intel Macs. But, then, I’m trying to support the OEMs that supported us for years, not just the ones who are jumping in now. But there is something to be said for competitive research. Maybe just the Windows team gets Macs. Everyone else gets Dells or some other OEM’s machines.
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Devils: actually, I’m kicking myself that I didn’t advocate getting the new Intel Macs. But, then, I’m trying to support the OEMs that supported us for years, not just the ones who are jumping in now. But there is something to be said for competitive research. Maybe just the Windows team gets Macs. Everyone else gets Dells or some other OEM’s machines.
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Tom: I know I can make a difference. It’s why I stay here. Why do I know that? Cause I’ve already made a difference in a few areas.
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Tom: I know I can make a difference. It’s why I stay here. Why do I know that? Cause I’ve already made a difference in a few areas.
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What if you sold an appliance, something like Apple’s Xserve Raid. But instead of $6000 for 1TB, you subsidised its cost by allowing msn to search it like a search appliance/also load it down with ads or content with commercials or something. You could also cut down on cost by allowing users to add hard drives as they need them not having a lot initially. Plus you offload the backup chore, power costs etc as everyone has one that runs in their garage. It might even allow other services to charge less for their products a la Flickr because users host their own files and just use Flickr as the interface.
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What if you sold an appliance, something like Apple’s Xserve Raid. But instead of $6000 for 1TB, you subsidised its cost by allowing msn to search it like a search appliance/also load it down with ads or content with commercials or something. You could also cut down on cost by allowing users to add hard drives as they need them not having a lot initially. Plus you offload the backup chore, power costs etc as everyone has one that runs in their garage. It might even allow other services to charge less for their products a la Flickr because users host their own files and just use Flickr as the interface.
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“I’m kicking myself that I didn’t advocate getting the new Intel Macs. But, then, I’m trying to support the OEMs that supported us for years, not just the ones who are jumping in now.”
I dunno – one move honors the past you’re trying to move beyond, the other embraces the future you covet. Purchases are politics.
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“I’m kicking myself that I didn’t advocate getting the new Intel Macs. But, then, I’m trying to support the OEMs that supported us for years, not just the ones who are jumping in now.”
I dunno – one move honors the past you’re trying to move beyond, the other embraces the future you covet. Purchases are politics.
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Nice write-up, but I kinda doubt much of this will happen without an IBM-style “dancing elephant” routine. http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/headlines/vftt_gerstner.shtml
One thing that really bugs me about MS’ business practice is that they are trying too hard to be the one and only name around. Hey MS – you’re over-reaching. You’re doing too many things at once, and it’s affecting your quality. Slow down, focus your efforts on fixing what you’ve got (including your reputation); maybe making a few awesome products will be better for you than making a lot of “iffy” ones.
A TB of storage? Never in a bazillion years! No, I will not trust you to keep that much of my data. Well, maybe I would. Do you wanna be a great single-point-of-backup for my MP3 and ISO collections? No personal data, nothing too important, nothing that I can’t get again – but a good 4th resort. Yes, Robert, you did say that many people “trust their data” to MS, and there are ‘X’ number of accounts with all these different services. Didya forget that to get almost anywhere in the MS arena (support, downloads, tips, code, etc), you have to get a Passport? OOh, wait, doesn’t that mean it’s an automatic setup of a couple other accounts? Not gonna happen for me buddy – I don’t trust MS enough to sign myself up for a Hotmail account (I just borrow one).
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Nice write-up, but I kinda doubt much of this will happen without an IBM-style “dancing elephant” routine. http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/headlines/vftt_gerstner.shtml
One thing that really bugs me about MS’ business practice is that they are trying too hard to be the one and only name around. Hey MS – you’re over-reaching. You’re doing too many things at once, and it’s affecting your quality. Slow down, focus your efforts on fixing what you’ve got (including your reputation); maybe making a few awesome products will be better for you than making a lot of “iffy” ones.
A TB of storage? Never in a bazillion years! No, I will not trust you to keep that much of my data. Well, maybe I would. Do you wanna be a great single-point-of-backup for my MP3 and ISO collections? No personal data, nothing too important, nothing that I can’t get again – but a good 4th resort. Yes, Robert, you did say that many people “trust their data” to MS, and there are ‘X’ number of accounts with all these different services. Didya forget that to get almost anywhere in the MS arena (support, downloads, tips, code, etc), you have to get a Passport? OOh, wait, doesn’t that mean it’s an automatic setup of a couple other accounts? Not gonna happen for me buddy – I don’t trust MS enough to sign myself up for a Hotmail account (I just borrow one).
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I feel late in coming to the party on this, and its only 7:25pm Eastern! Good grief!
Robert, this post is an anthem, and I applaud you for it. I want to work for Microsoft after reading this, and will apply tomorrow! You have given Bill and Steve lots to consider here, in terms of initiatives, and culture that will take Microsoft into the next level.
Colin
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I feel late in coming to the party on this, and its only 7:25pm Eastern! Good grief!
Robert, this post is an anthem, and I applaud you for it. I want to work for Microsoft after reading this, and will apply tomorrow! You have given Bill and Steve lots to consider here, in terms of initiatives, and culture that will take Microsoft into the next level.
Colin
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Bravo for the post. But I think the meat is in the comments!
Speaking of Vista, where is the Vista family pack? Most people I know now have multiple computers at home. Microsoft XP now runs on the Mac Book Pro. How long do you think it will be before Intel OSX is hacked to run on PC’s, and then maybe the official version will follow. Apple offers a family pack.
As for your continued reference to Hotmail and it’s 2 million users..I am one. I use it for my “junk” email account. Gmail, now with calendar, is real world useful.
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Bravo for the post. But I think the meat is in the comments!
Speaking of Vista, where is the Vista family pack? Most people I know now have multiple computers at home. Microsoft XP now runs on the Mac Book Pro. How long do you think it will be before Intel OSX is hacked to run on PC’s, and then maybe the official version will follow. Apple offers a family pack.
As for your continued reference to Hotmail and it’s 2 million users..I am one. I use it for my “junk” email account. Gmail, now with calendar, is real world useful.
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Windows once solved a problem. It provided a pleasant, easy-to-use interface, and allowed users to run more than one application at a time.
That was then. This is now.
What problem is Microsoft trying to solve now? Does it even know?
Maybe that should be the first thing they figure out.
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Windows once solved a problem. It provided a pleasant, easy-to-use interface, and allowed users to run more than one application at a time.
That was then. This is now.
What problem is Microsoft trying to solve now? Does it even know?
Maybe that should be the first thing they figure out.
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Robert.
You’re a GREAT guy and all… don’t get me wrong – but you’re beating a dead horse.
Its dead. Microsoft will have to go through a LOT of bad days before it needs to change.
Take all this energy and start your own company. You’ll make WAY more wealth than you’d ever make at Microsoft and I think consumers would be happier.
Hell…. you already know what MS is bad at.
Start a startup that will end up getting BOUGHT by Microsoft.
Anyway…
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Robert.
You’re a GREAT guy and all… don’t get me wrong – but you’re beating a dead horse.
Its dead. Microsoft will have to go through a LOT of bad days before it needs to change.
Take all this energy and start your own company. You’ll make WAY more wealth than you’d ever make at Microsoft and I think consumers would be happier.
Hell…. you already know what MS is bad at.
Start a startup that will end up getting BOUGHT by Microsoft.
Anyway…
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I have a simple prescription:
1) Reward groups based on user satisfaction
2) Put marketing and design back in the product groups
3) Get rid of all the layers in between
I, too, have been around a long time and talked with a lot of really smart people in the first 3 levels at Microsoft. They really want to build stuff that solves people’s problems.
Above that, the number of people who care about customers decreases considerably, with the bulk of middle management concerned about getting ahead. *That* is the main problem, and it’s a huge one, as the people who could fix the problem *are* the problem.
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I have a simple prescription:
1) Reward groups based on user satisfaction
2) Put marketing and design back in the product groups
3) Get rid of all the layers in between
I, too, have been around a long time and talked with a lot of really smart people in the first 3 levels at Microsoft. They really want to build stuff that solves people’s problems.
Above that, the number of people who care about customers decreases considerably, with the bulk of middle management concerned about getting ahead. *That* is the main problem, and it’s a huge one, as the people who could fix the problem *are* the problem.
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Robert: More than 200 million people trust us with Hotmail
I’ve heard you say this a few times, like on Steve Gillmor’s podcast, and was wondering if these were active users or registered users? By active I mean people who log in to the Hotmail web site (or through Outlook, etc) and check their email regularly. As opposed to people that may have registered an account and leave it dormant.
Does this number include Microsoft Passport accounts?
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Robert: More than 200 million people trust us with Hotmail
I’ve heard you say this a few times, like on Steve Gillmor’s podcast, and was wondering if these were active users or registered users? By active I mean people who log in to the Hotmail web site (or through Outlook, etc) and check their email regularly. As opposed to people that may have registered an account and leave it dormant.
Does this number include Microsoft Passport accounts?
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one fun thing was I was in the booth when someone was holding a UMPC and then asked “can I see the Origamis?” Um, you’re holding one, was the answer.)
Translation: “what is this junk? show me what you were hyping a few weeks ago.” “oh, it’s the same thing? nevermind.”
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one fun thing was I was in the booth when someone was holding a UMPC and then asked “can I see the Origamis?” Um, you’re holding one, was the answer.)
Translation: “what is this junk? show me what you were hyping a few weeks ago.” “oh, it’s the same thing? nevermind.”
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Well, just a minute ago I saw the most compelling MS ad I have seen in a long time – it starts out bland, just like most big business ads, and ends with a female Ex asking, “What do we have that nobody else has?” A male exec looks around, then looks through the ‘ohhh to damn expensive’ glass palace windows of the Exec office (which does send a kind of mixed message), at the “worker bees” and says, “Them”. Only then do we see the Microsoft name. A VERY well done commercial overall.
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Well, just a minute ago I saw the most compelling MS ad I have seen in a long time – it starts out bland, just like most big business ads, and ends with a female Ex asking, “What do we have that nobody else has?” A male exec looks around, then looks through the ‘ohhh to damn expensive’ glass palace windows of the Exec office (which does send a kind of mixed message), at the “worker bees” and says, “Them”. Only then do we see the Microsoft name. A VERY well done commercial overall.
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Fantastic post Robert…agree with all points completely except for the compensation post.
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Fantastic post Robert…agree with all points completely except for the compensation post.
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Robert,
Thanks for the response on my blog. I agree that Microsoft is slowly but surely bringing people in who are willing to try to move the needle. As an institutional investor, I’m certainly confident that at least some of those changes will a) be implemented and b) amount to tangible incremental success.
All the best,
Jason
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Robert,
Thanks for the response on my blog. I agree that Microsoft is slowly but surely bringing people in who are willing to try to move the needle. As an institutional investor, I’m certainly confident that at least some of those changes will a) be implemented and b) amount to tangible incremental success.
All the best,
Jason
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Here’s a real moonshot:
How about an operating system that is totally bulletproof and requires no attention from the end-user to keep it that way? Take away all the headaches of viruses, adware, malware – whateverware. Give us an operating system that works without a hitch and stays that way.
If you say it can’t be done then you’d be saying the same thing that was said about the original moon landing by all but a few with the vision who actually pulled it off.
Want to win the hearts and minds of customers forever – give ’em a bulletproof OS. Can you imagine how much money could be saved if customers didn’t have to continually protect their disaster-prone operating system?
Can you feel the love that this would engender?
I can.
It can be done, but it will take vision, genius and hard work. I think MS has all three in abundance. Now, where is the will and the leadership?
The next Google will be the company that pulls this off.
When you build your house on sand you have to expect things to start falling apart before long. A strong foundation… that is what we want.
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Here’s a real moonshot:
How about an operating system that is totally bulletproof and requires no attention from the end-user to keep it that way? Take away all the headaches of viruses, adware, malware – whateverware. Give us an operating system that works without a hitch and stays that way.
If you say it can’t be done then you’d be saying the same thing that was said about the original moon landing by all but a few with the vision who actually pulled it off.
Want to win the hearts and minds of customers forever – give ’em a bulletproof OS. Can you imagine how much money could be saved if customers didn’t have to continually protect their disaster-prone operating system?
Can you feel the love that this would engender?
I can.
It can be done, but it will take vision, genius and hard work. I think MS has all three in abundance. Now, where is the will and the leadership?
The next Google will be the company that pulls this off.
When you build your house on sand you have to expect things to start falling apart before long. A strong foundation… that is what we want.
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Robert, your post was right on, as far as the marketing, it’s something that I have said myself over and over starting with the “people_ready” campaign. I know alot of people are concerned with MS, because we are passionate about your products and most of the complaints I have read really are unjustified in the greater scheme of your company’s position. I just want to say a few things for people to mull about concerning the common complaints. Maybe there’s so many different versions of Vista coming out to keep the EU regulators off your back. (The main complaint from the EU is that you created an os that had so many built in components that competitors were “locked out”. This I beleive is totally false compared to the add remove components, and program access and defaults built into XP.) I am guessing that Microsoft is building Vista on two hard facts gained from experience. One is the failure of the stripped down xp build for the EU has not sold compared to the standard version, and that sales of the core system of the xbox greatly pales compared to the “fully decked out” version. Good strategy from both a legal and a sales viewpoint. I expect MS to sell more copies of Vista Ultimate in the consumer market than the other consumer builds combined. The second complaint I have been seeing alot of is that Microsoft is too slow in shipping out their security patches. I experienced a rushed hotfix last week that gave me nightmares when I found out what it had done to our machines. (In our case it appears 99.9999999999% were fine.) Thanks to tech net we tracked down the problem and are able to fix it. I would rather MS take a year to rush out a hotfix, than get one that killed machines and made me scratch my head and wonder what else was going down. Most of the people complaining about security slowness, would also be the one’s complaining that the fix wasn’t debugged before it was sent out. Third is the idea that Apple can do no wrong. It seems to me, that it is alot easier to engineer and manage a “closed” system. It also has to be alot easier when the software catalog for your product is greatly reduced compared to the pc market or primarily produced in house. It tends to give you a slight edge over a competitor that bends over backwards to make things so accessible to third party vendors and producers and also makes sure that everyone plays well together. As far as your moonshot idea, I think you need it. I don’t think the TB data storage would be it though for different reasons than most mentioned here. American’s tend to be very paranoid people and not just about data loss it would I think that people wouldn’t use it out of fear of someone else getting ahold of the data. I don’t think it will work with Google or any other company unless people adapt to using it in a system similar to Share Point and at that point I still think that most people would not trust it. I do think that MS should wade deeper into the educational software market, there’s greater growth potential there. (Yes, I have looked at class server and if I could get a demo for a production environment, I think we might be able to let WebCT go.) Good luck, and keep us informed.
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Robert, your post was right on, as far as the marketing, it’s something that I have said myself over and over starting with the “people_ready” campaign. I know alot of people are concerned with MS, because we are passionate about your products and most of the complaints I have read really are unjustified in the greater scheme of your company’s position. I just want to say a few things for people to mull about concerning the common complaints. Maybe there’s so many different versions of Vista coming out to keep the EU regulators off your back. (The main complaint from the EU is that you created an os that had so many built in components that competitors were “locked out”. This I beleive is totally false compared to the add remove components, and program access and defaults built into XP.) I am guessing that Microsoft is building Vista on two hard facts gained from experience. One is the failure of the stripped down xp build for the EU has not sold compared to the standard version, and that sales of the core system of the xbox greatly pales compared to the “fully decked out” version. Good strategy from both a legal and a sales viewpoint. I expect MS to sell more copies of Vista Ultimate in the consumer market than the other consumer builds combined. The second complaint I have been seeing alot of is that Microsoft is too slow in shipping out their security patches. I experienced a rushed hotfix last week that gave me nightmares when I found out what it had done to our machines. (In our case it appears 99.9999999999% were fine.) Thanks to tech net we tracked down the problem and are able to fix it. I would rather MS take a year to rush out a hotfix, than get one that killed machines and made me scratch my head and wonder what else was going down. Most of the people complaining about security slowness, would also be the one’s complaining that the fix wasn’t debugged before it was sent out. Third is the idea that Apple can do no wrong. It seems to me, that it is alot easier to engineer and manage a “closed” system. It also has to be alot easier when the software catalog for your product is greatly reduced compared to the pc market or primarily produced in house. It tends to give you a slight edge over a competitor that bends over backwards to make things so accessible to third party vendors and producers and also makes sure that everyone plays well together. As far as your moonshot idea, I think you need it. I don’t think the TB data storage would be it though for different reasons than most mentioned here. American’s tend to be very paranoid people and not just about data loss it would I think that people wouldn’t use it out of fear of someone else getting ahold of the data. I don’t think it will work with Google or any other company unless people adapt to using it in a system similar to Share Point and at that point I still think that most people would not trust it. I do think that MS should wade deeper into the educational software market, there’s greater growth potential there. (Yes, I have looked at class server and if I could get a demo for a production environment, I think we might be able to let WebCT go.) Good luck, and keep us informed.
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What a great post, Robert. It’s nice to see you back on top of your game. I don’t miss the Chihuahuas at all. Do you?
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What a great post, Robert. It’s nice to see you back on top of your game. I don’t miss the Chihuahuas at all. Do you?
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Once again, John C. Welch hits an upper decker with his comments. Scoble, some of these ideas are great, but some are naive at best. Hotmail as an example of trust? Gimme a break. You get what you pay for with Hotmail. Hosting won’t take off in the enterprise space (where most of the money MS would make in that space) until you (MS) can definitively answer John’s SLA questions.
A Dell PC with 3 monitors running Vista? Again, why? The only examples you give for the advantages of Vista over OSX are the ability to write on the screen and the fact that it appears to be V2 of Media Center. What productive advantages would running Vista with 3 monitors bring over, say, continuing to run and XP machine, and a second machine with duallmonitor cards running Maxivista? (www.maxivista.com). I mean, if its simply >1 monitor that increases productivty, that would seem to be a more efficient use of shareholder money than wasting it on a shitty PC with an yet to be proven OS.
And finally, would you quit on the spot if Mini-Microsoft were fired for lack of performance for the job MS pays him to do?
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Once again, John C. Welch hits an upper decker with his comments. Scoble, some of these ideas are great, but some are naive at best. Hotmail as an example of trust? Gimme a break. You get what you pay for with Hotmail. Hosting won’t take off in the enterprise space (where most of the money MS would make in that space) until you (MS) can definitively answer John’s SLA questions.
A Dell PC with 3 monitors running Vista? Again, why? The only examples you give for the advantages of Vista over OSX are the ability to write on the screen and the fact that it appears to be V2 of Media Center. What productive advantages would running Vista with 3 monitors bring over, say, continuing to run and XP machine, and a second machine with duallmonitor cards running Maxivista? (www.maxivista.com). I mean, if its simply >1 monitor that increases productivty, that would seem to be a more efficient use of shareholder money than wasting it on a shitty PC with an yet to be proven OS.
And finally, would you quit on the spot if Mini-Microsoft were fired for lack of performance for the job MS pays him to do?
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and to follow up on John’s “sucky” comment on buying MS products. Nothing could be more accurate. Office is becoming very bloated from a branding perspective. And what the hell is Windows Server System. Same thing. It seems that at some point MS is going to become two products: Windows and Office. Of course, then there will be XBOX; the only thing MS has gotten right from a branding perspective in recent memory. And that’s because they managed to dissassociate it with the Microsoft brand. Briliiant decison. Same thing could have happend with Sparkle. I think the more obtuse the name, the better for Microsoft. Like you say, anything with more than 2 words is doomed. I submit that if you put 20 random computer savvy people in a room and gave them brand names, anything with two words or more they would associate with MS.
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and to follow up on John’s “sucky” comment on buying MS products. Nothing could be more accurate. Office is becoming very bloated from a branding perspective. And what the hell is Windows Server System. Same thing. It seems that at some point MS is going to become two products: Windows and Office. Of course, then there will be XBOX; the only thing MS has gotten right from a branding perspective in recent memory. And that’s because they managed to dissassociate it with the Microsoft brand. Briliiant decison. Same thing could have happend with Sparkle. I think the more obtuse the name, the better for Microsoft. Like you say, anything with more than 2 words is doomed. I submit that if you put 20 random computer savvy people in a room and gave them brand names, anything with two words or more they would associate with MS.
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When JFK talked about moonshot he talked about getting there and safely bringing man back…whatever you do, the safely bringing back part is make darn sure your customers can implement it, uprgade to it cheaply, efficiently…too many software companies forget the second part so customer take years to migrate…
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When JFK talked about moonshot he talked about getting there and safely bringing man back…whatever you do, the safely bringing back part is make darn sure your customers can implement it, uprgade to it cheaply, efficiently…too many software companies forget the second part so customer take years to migrate…
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I begged for Dual Monitors at work for years. I finally cobbled together some CRT’s and watched my co-worker envy grow. Your idea of supplying everyone with Dualies is awesome! I remember being on campus a while back and couldn’t believe the hodge-podge of machines and monitors I saw, almost every office I saw (not many) had different configurations. Needless to say I was a little wonderous, here is the biggest software company in the world and their employees have worse equipment than I do! As for the Terabyte of storage for everyone, Accessing his much data over our current internet is going to be painful.
Then there is the dreaded DRM and rights management stuff, if Microsofts rents out space to me, can I put anything I want in this space, even if it’s violating some law somewhere?
I have to agree with the earlier posters about product SKU’s. I have always thought it odd that inorder to understand Microsofts licensing, one has to attended a licensing class! It took me 3 days to figure out what version of SQL 2005 I needed for my project, then the darn per-processor licensing stuff, reminds me of another company charging for MIPS, this just has to stop.
I remember reading somewhere that Microsoft should license “PEOPLE” not machines, this is a great idea, at least for Desktop applications. I can then use any device with the knowledge that I am going to get the best experience on any machine, any device.
-Los
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I begged for Dual Monitors at work for years. I finally cobbled together some CRT’s and watched my co-worker envy grow. Your idea of supplying everyone with Dualies is awesome! I remember being on campus a while back and couldn’t believe the hodge-podge of machines and monitors I saw, almost every office I saw (not many) had different configurations. Needless to say I was a little wonderous, here is the biggest software company in the world and their employees have worse equipment than I do! As for the Terabyte of storage for everyone, Accessing his much data over our current internet is going to be painful.
Then there is the dreaded DRM and rights management stuff, if Microsofts rents out space to me, can I put anything I want in this space, even if it’s violating some law somewhere?
I have to agree with the earlier posters about product SKU’s. I have always thought it odd that inorder to understand Microsofts licensing, one has to attended a licensing class! It took me 3 days to figure out what version of SQL 2005 I needed for my project, then the darn per-processor licensing stuff, reminds me of another company charging for MIPS, this just has to stop.
I remember reading somewhere that Microsoft should license “PEOPLE” not machines, this is a great idea, at least for Desktop applications. I can then use any device with the knowledge that I am going to get the best experience on any machine, any device.
-Los
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1. Sadly Robert, MSFT’s marketing has been pretty poor for a very long time. That’s a tough one to fix without a dose of marketing process angioplasty treatment. IMO.
2. I wonder the extent to which MSFTs SAP implementation has imposed process to the detriment of the business.
3. Big business is usually about command and control. Until that’s addressed in such a way as to not scare Wall Street, I find it hard to imagine how the fundamentals change.
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1. Sadly Robert, MSFT’s marketing has been pretty poor for a very long time. That’s a tough one to fix without a dose of marketing process angioplasty treatment. IMO.
2. I wonder the extent to which MSFTs SAP implementation has imposed process to the detriment of the business.
3. Big business is usually about command and control. Until that’s addressed in such a way as to not scare Wall Street, I find it hard to imagine how the fundamentals change.
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Great post. My house is, literally, surrounded on all side by Microsofties, so I feel their angst. I love your comment on the best 100 brand names always being two or less as it reinforces something I become more sure of every year I live: simple is almost always better. This even holds true in the law.
China Law
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Great post. My house is, literally, surrounded on all side by Microsofties, so I feel their angst. I love your comment on the best 100 brand names always being two or less as it reinforces something I become more sure of every year I live: simple is almost always better. This even holds true in the law.
China Law
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Damn GMT-5, I’m always late to comment, he he…
You know, the fact that I’m reading your ideas and thinking “these are great” while being at the same time awed by the scale of the changes necessary, probably means you’ve hit nail in the head…
Now, I just can’t convince myself otherwise: Live is the future, if done correctly. I know I’ve heard it before, but lately I just don’t need to leave my browser because everything I need is online from the apps to the data. Netvibes and the rest are the companies to beat. That and the X-box are the future of MS.
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Damn GMT-5, I’m always late to comment, he he…
You know, the fact that I’m reading your ideas and thinking “these are great” while being at the same time awed by the scale of the changes necessary, probably means you’ve hit nail in the head…
Now, I just can’t convince myself otherwise: Live is the future, if done correctly. I know I’ve heard it before, but lately I just don’t need to leave my browser because everything I need is online from the apps to the data. Netvibes and the rest are the companies to beat. That and the X-box are the future of MS.
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I love the terabyte idea. It would suck Windows and Office into “the cloud.” The services you could offer to help people connect and share their data would be unreal.
I think it’s the right idea at the right time. How about renaming your blog The Terabyte Idea and making this thing happen???
Of course, with things like video, a terabyte isn’t enough. Also, MS would have to work with cable companies to widen the pipe for uploads. I just ran a Speakeasy speed test at home and received these results:
Download Speed: 8186 kbps
Upload Speed: 353 kbps
Anyway, great work, Robert. Welcome back.
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I love the terabyte idea. It would suck Windows and Office into “the cloud.” The services you could offer to help people connect and share their data would be unreal.
I think it’s the right idea at the right time. How about renaming your blog The Terabyte Idea and making this thing happen???
Of course, with things like video, a terabyte isn’t enough. Also, MS would have to work with cable companies to widen the pipe for uploads. I just ran a Speakeasy speed test at home and received these results:
Download Speed: 8186 kbps
Upload Speed: 353 kbps
Anyway, great work, Robert. Welcome back.
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How to fix what ails at Microsoft:
Split the company up into profit centers and key pay to their profit.
Money talks, the rest walks.
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How to fix what ails at Microsoft:
Split the company up into profit centers and key pay to their profit.
Money talks, the rest walks.
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Dear Microsoft: Fire your marketing department and advertising agency for everything but the game group.
Back when the Vista name was revealed, I wrote an editorial about the naming of things and how/why it’s important. http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1840154,00.asp
Microsoft is TERRIBLE at naming things. It’s terrible at designing boxes. It’s terrible at making compelling ads. We all know it. We all complain about it. We all shake our heads and say “that SO TRUE” when we see that “what if Microsoft made the iPod box” video.
Why isn’t anyone doing anything about it? How many thousands of employees, consumers, press, PEOPLE have to complain about an obvious problem before Microsoft moves to correct it?
Most of Microsoft simply doesn’t understand “cool.” I hate to say it. There are some people, sure. The game group gets it, as a whole. But one of the side effects of a computer on every desktop is that now you have to sell to people who aren’t computer nerds. In fact, that’s got to be most of your market. And people – normal people, your customers! – want to buy cool stuff.
They want iTunes. They don’t want Windows Media Player. Who came up with that name, and why hasn’t it been changed yet? That’s like naming the Xbox “Microsoft Game Console.” It’s rediculous. Why not call WMP “Showtime” or “AMP” or, you know, anything but Windows Media Player? This culture of “drain the cool out of everything” permeates Microsoft.
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Dear Microsoft: Fire your marketing department and advertising agency for everything but the game group.
Back when the Vista name was revealed, I wrote an editorial about the naming of things and how/why it’s important. http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1840154,00.asp
Microsoft is TERRIBLE at naming things. It’s terrible at designing boxes. It’s terrible at making compelling ads. We all know it. We all complain about it. We all shake our heads and say “that SO TRUE” when we see that “what if Microsoft made the iPod box” video.
Why isn’t anyone doing anything about it? How many thousands of employees, consumers, press, PEOPLE have to complain about an obvious problem before Microsoft moves to correct it?
Most of Microsoft simply doesn’t understand “cool.” I hate to say it. There are some people, sure. The game group gets it, as a whole. But one of the side effects of a computer on every desktop is that now you have to sell to people who aren’t computer nerds. In fact, that’s got to be most of your market. And people – normal people, your customers! – want to buy cool stuff.
They want iTunes. They don’t want Windows Media Player. Who came up with that name, and why hasn’t it been changed yet? That’s like naming the Xbox “Microsoft Game Console.” It’s rediculous. Why not call WMP “Showtime” or “AMP” or, you know, anything but Windows Media Player? This culture of “drain the cool out of everything” permeates Microsoft.
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@113: until the whole ‘tiered internet’ thing is sorted out, I don’t know how receptive cable companies are going to be to encouraging users to throw about terabytes of data.
@114: the problem I see with splitting the company in to profit centres is that (according to most reports) only Windows and Office are profitable. That is to say, they all need to be together, to keep all the other stuff afloat.
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@113: until the whole ‘tiered internet’ thing is sorted out, I don’t know how receptive cable companies are going to be to encouraging users to throw about terabytes of data.
@114: the problem I see with splitting the company in to profit centres is that (according to most reports) only Windows and Office are profitable. That is to say, they all need to be together, to keep all the other stuff afloat.
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How about a better PR campaign.. Microsoft almost seems like a Walmart (for Software). They make lot of money, kill competition; Yet is not a darling of Street…
Hmm I wonder what is happening..
Good blog..
Thanks
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How about a better PR campaign.. Microsoft almost seems like a Walmart (for Software). They make lot of money, kill competition; Yet is not a darling of Street…
Hmm I wonder what is happening..
Good blog..
Thanks
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Scoble: Congrats on this post, but more on the thinking behind it.
Some of your ideas are wacky and far-out, but that’s the magic of them. And some of them are just simple basic common-sense.
Even partial implementation would have huge positive impact on most companies.
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Scoble: Congrats on this post, but more on the thinking behind it.
Some of your ideas are wacky and far-out, but that’s the magic of them. And some of them are just simple basic common-sense.
Even partial implementation would have huge positive impact on most companies.
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kudos Scoble, this is one of the reasons why i admire you: you’ve got BIG compassionate balls 😉
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kudos Scoble, this is one of the reasons why i admire you: you’ve got BIG compassionate balls 😉
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Robert – I’m always interested when you write about product naming at Microsoft. In part I agree with criticism. There are way too many bad examples of naming at Microsoft (Internet Security and Acceleration Server?). But I think you’re a bit confused about why naming at Microsoft often sucks. Hint: it’s usually not the fault of the marketing people. Crappy names are more often the result of
(1) devs or program managers who come up with a “cute” codename and fall in love with it
(2) mid to senior level engineering execs who provide random input or feedback
(3) mid to senior level marketing execs who provide random input or feedback
(4) other mid to senior level engineering executives who secretly think of themselves as marketing or naming experts or
(4) other mid to senior level engineering executives, PM’s or product managers who give marketing 2 weeks to name a product, feature or technology or
(5) did I mention mid to senior level marketing execs who don’t let the people “on the ground” do their jobs?
I have been involved in many many naming projects and at least 3/4 of them are doomed from the beginning because of poor exec leadership.
And another thing…
You or someone you spoke to seem to be in love with “Sparkle.” Here’s the thing – opinions on names are incredibly subjective. To me, Sparkle is the most rediculous name I’ve ever heard. It’s so…lamely Flash obsessed. “Look, they’re Flashy so we better be Sparkly.” Give me a break.
There’s a truism in naming that is…well…true. Rarely if ever does a name resonate immediately when you first hear it. I’m sure you could list examples of names that you loved at first sight but maybe that’s just because you’re special. True story: when the name “Powerbook” was first suggested, Apple execs HATED it. Same with Pentium. The “braintrust” at Intel wanted 496. It was the marketers who finally made the case that Pentium was a better brand name…and history would suggest the marketers were right.
One more thing about codenames. Engineers and PM’s simply LOVE to come up with cute codenames. The problem is that in many cases the codenames are trademarks owned by another company or they have absolutely nothing to do with the “value prop” of the offering. But that doesn’t stop them. They print t-shirts. They create logos that they plaster all over their intranet sites and, if they’re particularly dumb, on external sites. Then the marketers have to spend an unbodly amount of time convincing the product team that the code names can’t be used when they could be spending their time coming up with a better (and legally available) alternative.
And another thing. Low-level product managers or PM’s love to talk about how they want a name that “is cool.” Tell you what. Using “cool” as a criteria isn’t particularly helpful…especially when the product or technology isn’t particularly cool. One man (or woman’s) cool is another man’s distinctly uncool. Using “cool” as a criteria for a name is lazy. A better approach is to think about (1) what the product or technology actually deliver to customers and (2) think about the characteristics you want the name to convey. “Sparkle” may convey…sparkliness but what else?
Did I mention that Sparkle is a lame name?
Just my personal two cents.
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Robert – I’m always interested when you write about product naming at Microsoft. In part I agree with criticism. There are way too many bad examples of naming at Microsoft (Internet Security and Acceleration Server?). But I think you’re a bit confused about why naming at Microsoft often sucks. Hint: it’s usually not the fault of the marketing people. Crappy names are more often the result of
(1) devs or program managers who come up with a “cute” codename and fall in love with it
(2) mid to senior level engineering execs who provide random input or feedback
(3) mid to senior level marketing execs who provide random input or feedback
(4) other mid to senior level engineering executives who secretly think of themselves as marketing or naming experts or
(4) other mid to senior level engineering executives, PM’s or product managers who give marketing 2 weeks to name a product, feature or technology or
(5) did I mention mid to senior level marketing execs who don’t let the people “on the ground” do their jobs?
I have been involved in many many naming projects and at least 3/4 of them are doomed from the beginning because of poor exec leadership.
And another thing…
You or someone you spoke to seem to be in love with “Sparkle.” Here’s the thing – opinions on names are incredibly subjective. To me, Sparkle is the most rediculous name I’ve ever heard. It’s so…lamely Flash obsessed. “Look, they’re Flashy so we better be Sparkly.” Give me a break.
There’s a truism in naming that is…well…true. Rarely if ever does a name resonate immediately when you first hear it. I’m sure you could list examples of names that you loved at first sight but maybe that’s just because you’re special. True story: when the name “Powerbook” was first suggested, Apple execs HATED it. Same with Pentium. The “braintrust” at Intel wanted 496. It was the marketers who finally made the case that Pentium was a better brand name…and history would suggest the marketers were right.
One more thing about codenames. Engineers and PM’s simply LOVE to come up with cute codenames. The problem is that in many cases the codenames are trademarks owned by another company or they have absolutely nothing to do with the “value prop” of the offering. But that doesn’t stop them. They print t-shirts. They create logos that they plaster all over their intranet sites and, if they’re particularly dumb, on external sites. Then the marketers have to spend an unbodly amount of time convincing the product team that the code names can’t be used when they could be spending their time coming up with a better (and legally available) alternative.
And another thing. Low-level product managers or PM’s love to talk about how they want a name that “is cool.” Tell you what. Using “cool” as a criteria isn’t particularly helpful…especially when the product or technology isn’t particularly cool. One man (or woman’s) cool is another man’s distinctly uncool. Using “cool” as a criteria for a name is lazy. A better approach is to think about (1) what the product or technology actually deliver to customers and (2) think about the characteristics you want the name to convey. “Sparkle” may convey…sparkliness but what else?
Did I mention that Sparkle is a lame name?
Just my personal two cents.
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Totally agree that Marketing needs a kick in the pants. The names they come up with suck 90% of the time – in many cases the code names are much better.
The public compensation change logs is certainly an interesting idea. If we did that at my organization, I’m sure a lot of people would take less cigarette breaks.
I’ll echo some of the other comments and ask for a reduction in SKUs! Likewise, can we move to a simpler licensing arrangement? I’d love to be able to get a copy of Exchange (one SKU, please) and load it up with as many users as possible rather than continually track the number of users I have using the product and buy CALs as necessary. The whole licensing/SKU schemes are bloated and confusing.
Other than that, how about beginning to make changes in Windows that break compatibility with legacy applications in the name of security, speed, etc.?
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Totally agree that Marketing needs a kick in the pants. The names they come up with suck 90% of the time – in many cases the code names are much better.
The public compensation change logs is certainly an interesting idea. If we did that at my organization, I’m sure a lot of people would take less cigarette breaks.
I’ll echo some of the other comments and ask for a reduction in SKUs! Likewise, can we move to a simpler licensing arrangement? I’d love to be able to get a copy of Exchange (one SKU, please) and load it up with as many users as possible rather than continually track the number of users I have using the product and buy CALs as necessary. The whole licensing/SKU schemes are bloated and confusing.
Other than that, how about beginning to make changes in Windows that break compatibility with legacy applications in the name of security, speed, etc.?
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Robert,
You were a bit of a lightning rod before, now you’re Ben Franklin wielding his kite before the storm! I think the Bubba move was brilliant, and your new postings are too. We are not worthy!
The open ratings and raises proposal is fascinating. As a member of the Wichita Engineering Association (WEA), an engineer’s union at Boeing many years ago, I enjoyed getting charts of salary and grade versus raise percentages, split up by various skill definitions. I could literally figure out who was getting what even though the graphs were anonymous. I don’t think it was a life-changing experience, and I don’t see how a public version would encourage people to run to my boss and persuade him to correct the situation the next review/raise cycle.
However, I’m a strong believer in bonuses and performance citations. Some “backwards” companies still do this. When somebody tames the progressive HR beast, that may return to large corporations. It just makes sense to reward patent applications, innovative management, or great performance under trying circumstances.
Keep up the good work! And thanks, Bubba!
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Robert,
You were a bit of a lightning rod before, now you’re Ben Franklin wielding his kite before the storm! I think the Bubba move was brilliant, and your new postings are too. We are not worthy!
The open ratings and raises proposal is fascinating. As a member of the Wichita Engineering Association (WEA), an engineer’s union at Boeing many years ago, I enjoyed getting charts of salary and grade versus raise percentages, split up by various skill definitions. I could literally figure out who was getting what even though the graphs were anonymous. I don’t think it was a life-changing experience, and I don’t see how a public version would encourage people to run to my boss and persuade him to correct the situation the next review/raise cycle.
However, I’m a strong believer in bonuses and performance citations. Some “backwards” companies still do this. When somebody tames the progressive HR beast, that may return to large corporations. It just makes sense to reward patent applications, innovative management, or great performance under trying circumstances.
Keep up the good work! And thanks, Bubba!
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Well now… this post sure got a lot of attention. My heart certainly skipped a beat when I read the title.
I’ll say right here and now nothing would please me more than to be marginalized by outstanding execution by Microsoft. If the rumored revamp of our review system goes through and it’s wildly positive, heck, I’ll applaud enthusiastically and get back to coding more and criticizing less.
Anyway, thanks for the post Robert. I hope it inspires more Microsofties, and other people, to rise up with their ideas. And if one day black-clothed commandos repel out of the walls and surround me and escort me off campus, I’d certainly never hold you to coming with me to the land of the unemployed.
Though I’m sure we could make one heck of an unemployed blogger buddy movie out of it…
Cheers,
Mini.
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Well now… this post sure got a lot of attention. My heart certainly skipped a beat when I read the title.
I’ll say right here and now nothing would please me more than to be marginalized by outstanding execution by Microsoft. If the rumored revamp of our review system goes through and it’s wildly positive, heck, I’ll applaud enthusiastically and get back to coding more and criticizing less.
Anyway, thanks for the post Robert. I hope it inspires more Microsofties, and other people, to rise up with their ideas. And if one day black-clothed commandos repel out of the walls and surround me and escort me off campus, I’d certainly never hold you to coming with me to the land of the unemployed.
Though I’m sure we could make one heck of an unemployed blogger buddy movie out of it…
Cheers,
Mini.
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Hey, welcome back. Very provacative post…I enjoyed it.
I have to agree with some of the above posters, though, a “complaint-free” Microsoft would be impossible. However, I do agree on your point, Mini is doing the company a favor. It’s showing a breakdown in communcation that has no way to be resolved. Personally, I like your 3 big bet ideas, but don’t think they’re big enough. (I sympathize with the “Quit thinking like Microsoft” post as well.) Don’t forget when the vision you quoted was formulated, there was a HUGE dependency on a hardware industry evolving with the software one.
The ideas are good, but they’re not big enough. What about this: Focus on “connectivity”. Similar to google’s focus on finding things, focus on connecting things. Focus on helping people communicate with other people, programs, corporations, departments, devices, etc. Accept that people are going to have multiple computing devices, and want files, settings, preferences, interfaces, etc. shared between them (Even if they’re not running Microsoft software!)
What’s happening today is the OS is being abstracted to the network. Personally, I think its a cycle that will swing back in a year or two…companies that can get in on that swing will have it made. (Think pre-caching Web 2.0 interfaces for offline use…)
A final comment, your “Second Life” generation is about 3% of the world’s population. (Don’t forget 97% of statistics are made up on the spot.) What I see happening is the next generation growing up with a knowledge and understanding of computers what will empower them. This has been feeding the open source movement, and I don’t think there is a lot Microsoft can do about it. (Ok, after midnight local time for me…sorry if this is too ramble-y.)
Thanks!
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Hey, welcome back. Very provacative post…I enjoyed it.
I have to agree with some of the above posters, though, a “complaint-free” Microsoft would be impossible. However, I do agree on your point, Mini is doing the company a favor. It’s showing a breakdown in communcation that has no way to be resolved. Personally, I like your 3 big bet ideas, but don’t think they’re big enough. (I sympathize with the “Quit thinking like Microsoft” post as well.) Don’t forget when the vision you quoted was formulated, there was a HUGE dependency on a hardware industry evolving with the software one.
The ideas are good, but they’re not big enough. What about this: Focus on “connectivity”. Similar to google’s focus on finding things, focus on connecting things. Focus on helping people communicate with other people, programs, corporations, departments, devices, etc. Accept that people are going to have multiple computing devices, and want files, settings, preferences, interfaces, etc. shared between them (Even if they’re not running Microsoft software!)
What’s happening today is the OS is being abstracted to the network. Personally, I think its a cycle that will swing back in a year or two…companies that can get in on that swing will have it made. (Think pre-caching Web 2.0 interfaces for offline use…)
A final comment, your “Second Life” generation is about 3% of the world’s population. (Don’t forget 97% of statistics are made up on the spot.) What I see happening is the next generation growing up with a knowledge and understanding of computers what will empower them. This has been feeding the open source movement, and I don’t think there is a lot Microsoft can do about it. (Ok, after midnight local time for me…sorry if this is too ramble-y.)
Thanks!
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Great ideas for revamping any company:
1. Create a vision that inspires.
2. Give every employee top of the line tools to do their jobs.
3. Allow for public understanding of who’s moving ahead, who’s not and WHY. Or at least public discussions of which ideas are moving people ahead or holding them back.
4. Make the rules and systems serve progress. Incorporate a system that reviews and revised. Make public input (internally at least) to that system easy.
5. Explain decisions publicly (at least internally) and allow for comments.
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Great ideas for revamping any company:
1. Create a vision that inspires.
2. Give every employee top of the line tools to do their jobs.
3. Allow for public understanding of who’s moving ahead, who’s not and WHY. Or at least public discussions of which ideas are moving people ahead or holding them back.
4. Make the rules and systems serve progress. Incorporate a system that reviews and revised. Make public input (internally at least) to that system easy.
5. Explain decisions publicly (at least internally) and allow for comments.
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I think Microsoft should split itself into multiple companies. Of course, the split would be on their on terms, not at the point of a gun held by intrusive government.
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I think Microsoft should split itself into multiple companies. Of course, the split would be on their on terms, not at the point of a gun held by intrusive government.
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Eh, Micorsoft can do whatever at this point, for all I care. Ubuntu does everything I need, it’s free, and it’s faster and easier to use then Windows XP.
Quite honestly, I don’t care how much online storage space MS offers Windows users. What the heck would I do with a terabyte of disk space?
Pretty much the only thing MS could do at this point to win me over would be to either base Vista off UNIX (doubtful), or send me lots of free computer equipment and software. I’m not entirely sure that bribing your customers is the best long term business plan, though. 😉
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Eh, Micorsoft can do whatever at this point, for all I care. Ubuntu does everything I need, it’s free, and it’s faster and easier to use then Windows XP.
Quite honestly, I don’t care how much online storage space MS offers Windows users. What the heck would I do with a terabyte of disk space?
Pretty much the only thing MS could do at this point to win me over would be to either base Vista off UNIX (doubtful), or send me lots of free computer equipment and software. I’m not entirely sure that bribing your customers is the best long term business plan, though. 😉
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I see that microsoft’s Internet explorer has freeze its feature back somewhere in 2001. I like it and want microsoft should extend its feature likes other are doing.
Whatever, Microsoft is unbeatable
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I see that microsoft’s Internet explorer has freeze its feature back somewhere in 2001. I like it and want microsoft should extend its feature likes other are doing.
Whatever, Microsoft is unbeatable
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What’s needed is the equivalent of “A PC on every desktop”, but a) for devices and services and b) in non-geek speak. “A terabyte for everyone” is still old-school thinking.
Everyone has a PC now. Evangelizing and iterating on things for PCs isn’t a moonshot.
Getting to the point where anyone can get to, manipulate and share their data, from anywhere, to anywhere… when people don’t have to think about where it’s stored, how it’s formatted, who they’re sharing with… but can trivially find out if they have to… when we have collaboration software and web authoring tools so good that our own company actually USES them… when the only printers on campus are for compatibility testing, and the conference rooms are all turned into lounges, labs and extra offices… when we’re not trying to sell people on a way to live (“store your photos this way, share your photos that way, listen to your music this way, set up your home computers that way”), but rather subtly finding and enhancing the things they already do… when getting a new MSFT product is less like learning a whole new language and more like buying a new bicycle(i.e., i already _know_ how to ride it, don’t make me relearn how to pedal)…
THAT is a moonshot.
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What’s needed is the equivalent of “A PC on every desktop”, but a) for devices and services and b) in non-geek speak. “A terabyte for everyone” is still old-school thinking.
Everyone has a PC now. Evangelizing and iterating on things for PCs isn’t a moonshot.
Getting to the point where anyone can get to, manipulate and share their data, from anywhere, to anywhere… when people don’t have to think about where it’s stored, how it’s formatted, who they’re sharing with… but can trivially find out if they have to… when we have collaboration software and web authoring tools so good that our own company actually USES them… when the only printers on campus are for compatibility testing, and the conference rooms are all turned into lounges, labs and extra offices… when we’re not trying to sell people on a way to live (“store your photos this way, share your photos that way, listen to your music this way, set up your home computers that way”), but rather subtly finding and enhancing the things they already do… when getting a new MSFT product is less like learning a whole new language and more like buying a new bicycle(i.e., i already _know_ how to ride it, don’t make me relearn how to pedal)…
THAT is a moonshot.
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“Even “hot” companies like Google or Apple are looking for ways to make sure its employees are happy and well engaged in the problems ahead of them.”
Precisely. That’s what makes them “hot”. Unhappy employees are bad employees.
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“Even “hot” companies like Google or Apple are looking for ways to make sure its employees are happy and well engaged in the problems ahead of them.”
Precisely. That’s what makes them “hot”. Unhappy employees are bad employees.
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Great article! I had a chance to use a dual display system once, and I was impressed by how helpful it was in my work. I tried to interest my management, but they won’t listen if I can’t quantify the increase in productivity. Can you point me to a study which documents dual-display productivity improvements?
Thanks!
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Great article! I had a chance to use a dual display system once, and I was impressed by how helpful it was in my work. I tried to interest my management, but they won’t listen if I can’t quantify the increase in productivity. Can you point me to a study which documents dual-display productivity improvements?
Thanks!
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Microsoft needs another Windows 95. That was a “I NEED TO GET THIS THING” kind of product. Ask yourself this: Is Vista like that? NO it’s not. Screw copying goog. Focus on the important stuff : SOFTWARE.
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Microsoft needs another Windows 95. That was a “I NEED TO GET THIS THING” kind of product. Ask yourself this: Is Vista like that? NO it’s not. Screw copying goog. Focus on the important stuff : SOFTWARE.
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“Let’s have compensation changes put into public. Say I get a four percent raise. Tell everyone. Let’s say my managers don’t believe I’m adding value here. They could leave my compensation where it is. After four years of public embarrassment (yes, we’d explain that 0%’ers aren’t good, that 2%’ers are OK, that 6%’ers are above average, and that anything above that is way above average).”
This wouldn’t solve anything – the review process is not broken because it’s not public, it’s broken because it’s a popularity contest. Making it public would just give the people who spend their whole day shaking hands and kissing babies for a good review something else to waste time on – arguments with other groups as to why they’re so much better and deserve to be compensated more richly.
Until the words “managing perception” disappear off the face of the Microsoft campus map, the review process will stay busted, busted, busted. Hey, here’s a thought – how about reviewing and compensating people based on their actual on-the-job performance?
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“Let’s have compensation changes put into public. Say I get a four percent raise. Tell everyone. Let’s say my managers don’t believe I’m adding value here. They could leave my compensation where it is. After four years of public embarrassment (yes, we’d explain that 0%’ers aren’t good, that 2%’ers are OK, that 6%’ers are above average, and that anything above that is way above average).”
This wouldn’t solve anything – the review process is not broken because it’s not public, it’s broken because it’s a popularity contest. Making it public would just give the people who spend their whole day shaking hands and kissing babies for a good review something else to waste time on – arguments with other groups as to why they’re so much better and deserve to be compensated more richly.
Until the words “managing perception” disappear off the face of the Microsoft campus map, the review process will stay busted, busted, busted. Hey, here’s a thought – how about reviewing and compensating people based on their actual on-the-job performance?
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… just thinking aloud on the [marketing and the] product name thing: How much of that is driven by marketing’s wishes around product naming vs. how much of that is driven by (1) existing patented name conflicts, (2) global friendly name considertions, (3)etc.
I totally agree on the need for cool product names, but it seems there are some limitations. (and also wonder about how “fake” the public may perceive the attempts to sound/act cool: Like Gramps putting on some hip-hop bling, oversized jersey with cap backwards, making gangsta hand-signs and tring to act young.)
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… just thinking aloud on the [marketing and the] product name thing: How much of that is driven by marketing’s wishes around product naming vs. how much of that is driven by (1) existing patented name conflicts, (2) global friendly name considertions, (3)etc.
I totally agree on the need for cool product names, but it seems there are some limitations. (and also wonder about how “fake” the public may perceive the attempts to sound/act cool: Like Gramps putting on some hip-hop bling, oversized jersey with cap backwards, making gangsta hand-signs and tring to act young.)
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“And, I, and my coworkers in the Evangelism team are now running Windows Vista and finding we’re more productive, even WITH the burps that come from using pre-production code. ”
I HATE to start off on a negative note, but there’s no other way to say this: Mr. Scoble, you are a liar.
The OS is not up to snuff right now for daily use, though it is rapidly getting there are they approach beta 2. But this claim is complete and utter crap.
I generally support your suggestion for public compensation change logs. I think just publishing the percentages is a great way to add some transparency to the review process.
“the worst person I’ve dealt with here at Microsoft is far better than many employees I’ve dealt with in past jobs ”
But I also support Mini’s suggestion that mass firings are needed. The statement above about the worst person you’ve met @ MSFT just tells me that you’re only talking to the smartest folks. There are PLENTY of people throughout the company who aren’t cutting it anymore (or maybe never were; many people snuck in around the time of the perma-temp lawsuit, many others were probably just hired because a team needed a warm body in a hurry…hey, it happens). Maybe we’re responsible for burning them up. That’s one of the many management problems we have. But that doesn’t mean we need to keep the dead weight here.
As for the multi-mon suggestion, I can’t remember the last time I walked into someone’s office and didn’t see at least 2 monitors already. So there’s probably a good chunk of that $240 million that we won’t even need to spend 🙂 I believe most LCD’s also use much less standby power than your typical CRT, so this could also have cost savings to Microsoft as well as making us much more eco-friendly.
Here’s an idea that’s no more crazy than the ones you proposed: Hold LisaB accountable for at least some of the promises that she made in her listening series discussions. For starters, get her to update her website with the list of common themes. It hasn’t been *touched* in over 3 months!!! She’s supposed to be fixing morale problems. Instead, she’s now causing them.
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“And, I, and my coworkers in the Evangelism team are now running Windows Vista and finding we’re more productive, even WITH the burps that come from using pre-production code. ”
I HATE to start off on a negative note, but there’s no other way to say this: Mr. Scoble, you are a liar.
The OS is not up to snuff right now for daily use, though it is rapidly getting there are they approach beta 2. But this claim is complete and utter crap.
I generally support your suggestion for public compensation change logs. I think just publishing the percentages is a great way to add some transparency to the review process.
“the worst person I’ve dealt with here at Microsoft is far better than many employees I’ve dealt with in past jobs ”
But I also support Mini’s suggestion that mass firings are needed. The statement above about the worst person you’ve met @ MSFT just tells me that you’re only talking to the smartest folks. There are PLENTY of people throughout the company who aren’t cutting it anymore (or maybe never were; many people snuck in around the time of the perma-temp lawsuit, many others were probably just hired because a team needed a warm body in a hurry…hey, it happens). Maybe we’re responsible for burning them up. That’s one of the many management problems we have. But that doesn’t mean we need to keep the dead weight here.
As for the multi-mon suggestion, I can’t remember the last time I walked into someone’s office and didn’t see at least 2 monitors already. So there’s probably a good chunk of that $240 million that we won’t even need to spend 🙂 I believe most LCD’s also use much less standby power than your typical CRT, so this could also have cost savings to Microsoft as well as making us much more eco-friendly.
Here’s an idea that’s no more crazy than the ones you proposed: Hold LisaB accountable for at least some of the promises that she made in her listening series discussions. For starters, get her to update her website with the list of common themes. It hasn’t been *touched* in over 3 months!!! She’s supposed to be fixing morale problems. Instead, she’s now causing them.
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Scoble– what are you smoking man? And where did you get it? -3 today and falling!! Is there any hope for us?
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Scoble– what are you smoking man? And where did you get it? -3 today and falling!! Is there any hope for us?
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Hmmmmm…If managers are payed for pruning rules, I see scope for “rule-farming”…managers making sure that lots of new ones are created so they can get paid for killing them later (and they don’t have to create the rules themselves – all you need to do is appraise someone with the appropriate responsibility of a “problem”, and the rule will suggest itself.
But then I have a twisty mind.
And as people in our profession are so fond of saying: “Surely Nobody Would Ever Do That”.
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Hmmmmm…If managers are payed for pruning rules, I see scope for “rule-farming”…managers making sure that lots of new ones are created so they can get paid for killing them later (and they don’t have to create the rules themselves – all you need to do is appraise someone with the appropriate responsibility of a “problem”, and the rule will suggest itself.
But then I have a twisty mind.
And as people in our profession are so fond of saying: “Surely Nobody Would Ever Do That”.
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Branding seems to be Microsoft’s downfall. “Windows” was the branding effort that has lasted the longest. It seems to come and go, though – we had the Windows [release number] thing for a while. Then we got to the Windows [year of possible release], which ended with Windows 2k3. Then we had the Windows [Random Initials] sequence, which pretty much describes XP.
Office has been through the same trauma.
But I couldn’t believe the absurdity when a friend explained he had a Vista Beta. I repeated quizzically to myself “Sex Sells”? – after we parted. After the Microsoft Windows CE/ME/NT hilarity, Microsoft could have made a better job of branding.
To put it crudely, I can’t take Microsoft’s Windows Vista Beta at all seriously. Can you?
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Branding seems to be Microsoft’s downfall. “Windows” was the branding effort that has lasted the longest. It seems to come and go, though – we had the Windows [release number] thing for a while. Then we got to the Windows [year of possible release], which ended with Windows 2k3. Then we had the Windows [Random Initials] sequence, which pretty much describes XP.
Office has been through the same trauma.
But I couldn’t believe the absurdity when a friend explained he had a Vista Beta. I repeated quizzically to myself “Sex Sells”? – after we parted. After the Microsoft Windows CE/ME/NT hilarity, Microsoft could have made a better job of branding.
To put it crudely, I can’t take Microsoft’s Windows Vista Beta at all seriously. Can you?
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Robert: I salute you for this call to action, which is never easy in a big company, and even less so when done publicly. I firmly believe that those who are not part of the solution are part of the problem; complaining without suggestions is pointless.
To me, the obvious moonshot is one that was routinely announced every year in the 1990s: speech recognition. This is the true killer app, and requires participation from every coding group imaginable, since it is indeed much more complicated than anyone ever suspected; so much so that today, it no longer even rates a mention, being considered simply unattainable. For my part, I don’t think Microsoft will ever bring that innovation to the world, because efficient, modular code is not in your genes, but never mind me: while equipping staff with dual monitors (100% guaranteed to boost productivity, and easy/cheap now with TFTs), equip them with VOIP handsets set up for sound input. Ask for their help: once a week, have everyone read the same text into their handset/PC, so Research will instantly have massive samples for variance studies. Everyone in the company, from overworked coders to middle-management speedbump slackers, can contribute. Get the XBox people to come up with a small, robust music player/VOIP handset… set up for voice input to ANY computer on ANY OS running a Microsoft client app (a tried and tested business model, known to music lovers). And forget about patents and blackbox voodoo firmware: open up the source as Microsoft’s contribution to Earth, and work on developing profitable business models providing vertical applications, everywhere connectivity, and 7/24/365 reliable (absolutely SLA) data availability.
As a concrete suggestion, Microsoft could start supporting industry standards instead of fighting, subverting, or ignoring them. Microsoft has always penetrated new markets by supporting existing formats, conveniently dropping support as competition heats up. Examples: The OpenDocument file format, which is very clearly what the world needs for long-term document archival – yet today, Microsoft has nothing better to do than push an encumbered alternative and refuse to add a filter to the 73 (I counted them) filters currently in Office. Or how about the MPEG-4 Chapter 10 (AVC, H.264) video standard, enthusiastically supported by every audiovisual industry player except Microsoft; no codec for Windows Media Player in the forseeable future – native on Macs for months now already, supported on a multitude of platforms including GNU/Linux by VLC and others. The list is long – PDF write support at OS level, W3C browser compliance, SMB/CIFS, the RTF and CSV pseudoformats which wander aimlessly with every version of Office, etc. Building to industry standards would be win/win/win for everyone – developers who could be more productive, integrators and administrators who could spend less time solving silly problems, users who could discover a system that just works. After all, dropping NetBEUI for TCP/IP never did Microsoft any harm. Why not show true commitment to customers and open the proprietary binary formats of previous Office versions, so we could all be assured of accessing our data in 10 years should we want to? In that vein, why not open the source code to your legacy apps? I fondly remember Excel 3, which ran well on my little 386 with 12 Mb of RAM… and had enough functionality to model the mortgage loans I’m still paying. Microsoft has always spared no expense wooing developers; you are losing a generation of engineers to the superior Free Open Source Software model.
Too, you didn’t mention virtualization, which is about to eat Microsoft for lunch: The future of Windows is an image running in a sealed container over a serious OS (and by that I mean stable and secure and multiprocessor optimized) such as GNU/Linux or *BSD. Malware will be as eaily handled as flushing a contaminated image. Banking data will run in a separate image from gaming, or surfing. Users will become accustomed to using alternative (secure, ergonomic, standards-based) main desktops, keeping a virtual Windows around for legacy apps and data. In this context, insisting on licenses per image, rather than per CPU, will simply hasten the departure of fed-up users.
I’m afraid Microsoft is destined to be seen as an accident of history: IBM gives away the store, savage business practice of browbeating OEMs into exclusively preinstalling DOS and later Windows quashes OS competitors, OS dominance makes conditions ripe for Office monopoly, stagnation rots bloated empire from within. The traditional strengths which justified this monoculture – rock-solid DOS under floopy Windows, robust installers with outstanding hardware support, localization in numerous languages – have been surpassed by FOSS. I moved to a new office recently and was dismayed to discover my first day that I had forgotten the new password on my XP Professional-equipped laptop. Fortunately, I had a recent Knoppix with me, booted with that, and was able to access all of my supposedly encrypted files, which of course meant i had to later encrypt my sensitive business data with third-party software (a FOSS project, naturally). Since Windows 3.0, I have not seen Microsoft as a tech company, but as a profit-making venture – the poverty of the DOS CLI compared to Unix was a dead giveaway. That’s been fine until now for the founders of the company and for shareholders, but rotten for the industry and for end users. Today, Microsoft consistently reminds me of a country I had the privilege to visit in 1991, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics – born with passion and vision, capable of great strides in the early days despite the warning signs, finally extinguished as the fire went out and today judged harshly for its catastrophic failures. Microsoft’s paralysis even as revenue streams in from Windows and Office (and doesn’t from other products) is ghastly to watch – Microsoft can’t hold those monopolies for long, for a number of reasons (growing irrelevance of PC-centric computing, stronger and stronger offerings from standards-based FOSS). I suspect that Microsoft’s tumble, when it comes, will come more quickly than anyone suspects… when your OEMs rebel and start offering choice to buyers. Don’t alienate your OEMs by going all-Dell; although they are fine machines, Microsoft would do much better to buy from ALL its OEMs, ideally in proportions related to marketshare. Any biologist will confirm the advantages of diversity, and for once you could properly debug an OS before shipping it. I don’t agree that you need to convince any partners about driver development, given your marketshare, but not shutting out any of your OEMs could do wonders for the way you are perceived by your partners.
Your marketers, unfortunately, have to deal with senior managers who have only a passing interest in the arts and culture, the enabler of taste in what’s cool. It was said that the USSR could have bloomed if Lenin appreciated fine wine and modern art more. I am one of those personally offended by the ads which describe me as a dinosaur because I won’t shell out for buggy new Office software (which I know is buggy since my employer has already shelled out). Savvy buyers feel locked in; unsavvy buyers just assume it’s normal for a company to be so greedy. Today, most of the 20-odd basic users of Windows I support (for free – family, friends, neighbors) assume that all personal computer operating systems are as crappy as Windows. They feel cheated when they have to buy additional software to secure their computers, in particular when they are surprised to learn that less or none is necessary for the alternatives. They wonder why GNU/Linux or the Mac was never talked about at the store, feeling like they have been rooked. Finally, they ask if their data – documents, photos – would be readable on another platform. By the way, without exception, they are incapable of backing up their data, aside from the occasional CD burn.
Sadly, Microsoft has stunted innovation in the IT industry for years; the industry’s response is to move to collaborative development, which is fundamentally incompatible with Microsoft’s sell-licenses-forget-support-laugh-to-bank business model. FOSS is coming after you, and you can’t compete on quality and you can’t compete on price. I personally believe it is too late to change; I think the future can only hold a diminished Microsoft, or maybe a group of companies – each focused on services and products meeting customer needs. The golden boom years are ending, and a huge number of current Microsoft employees won’t make it through. But there is still a long-term possibility that Microsoft’s successor startup companies, or a reduced and focused core, could thrive. Should you continue to decide to stay with Microsoft, I wish you luck – you shall need it.
Sean DALY.
LikeLike
Robert: I salute you for this call to action, which is never easy in a big company, and even less so when done publicly. I firmly believe that those who are not part of the solution are part of the problem; complaining without suggestions is pointless.
To me, the obvious moonshot is one that was routinely announced every year in the 1990s: speech recognition. This is the true killer app, and requires participation from every coding group imaginable, since it is indeed much more complicated than anyone ever suspected; so much so that today, it no longer even rates a mention, being considered simply unattainable. For my part, I don’t think Microsoft will ever bring that innovation to the world, because efficient, modular code is not in your genes, but never mind me: while equipping staff with dual monitors (100% guaranteed to boost productivity, and easy/cheap now with TFTs), equip them with VOIP handsets set up for sound input. Ask for their help: once a week, have everyone read the same text into their handset/PC, so Research will instantly have massive samples for variance studies. Everyone in the company, from overworked coders to middle-management speedbump slackers, can contribute. Get the XBox people to come up with a small, robust music player/VOIP handset… set up for voice input to ANY computer on ANY OS running a Microsoft client app (a tried and tested business model, known to music lovers). And forget about patents and blackbox voodoo firmware: open up the source as Microsoft’s contribution to Earth, and work on developing profitable business models providing vertical applications, everywhere connectivity, and 7/24/365 reliable (absolutely SLA) data availability.
As a concrete suggestion, Microsoft could start supporting industry standards instead of fighting, subverting, or ignoring them. Microsoft has always penetrated new markets by supporting existing formats, conveniently dropping support as competition heats up. Examples: The OpenDocument file format, which is very clearly what the world needs for long-term document archival – yet today, Microsoft has nothing better to do than push an encumbered alternative and refuse to add a filter to the 73 (I counted them) filters currently in Office. Or how about the MPEG-4 Chapter 10 (AVC, H.264) video standard, enthusiastically supported by every audiovisual industry player except Microsoft; no codec for Windows Media Player in the forseeable future – native on Macs for months now already, supported on a multitude of platforms including GNU/Linux by VLC and others. The list is long – PDF write support at OS level, W3C browser compliance, SMB/CIFS, the RTF and CSV pseudoformats which wander aimlessly with every version of Office, etc. Building to industry standards would be win/win/win for everyone – developers who could be more productive, integrators and administrators who could spend less time solving silly problems, users who could discover a system that just works. After all, dropping NetBEUI for TCP/IP never did Microsoft any harm. Why not show true commitment to customers and open the proprietary binary formats of previous Office versions, so we could all be assured of accessing our data in 10 years should we want to? In that vein, why not open the source code to your legacy apps? I fondly remember Excel 3, which ran well on my little 386 with 12 Mb of RAM… and had enough functionality to model the mortgage loans I’m still paying. Microsoft has always spared no expense wooing developers; you are losing a generation of engineers to the superior Free Open Source Software model.
Too, you didn’t mention virtualization, which is about to eat Microsoft for lunch: The future of Windows is an image running in a sealed container over a serious OS (and by that I mean stable and secure and multiprocessor optimized) such as GNU/Linux or *BSD. Malware will be as eaily handled as flushing a contaminated image. Banking data will run in a separate image from gaming, or surfing. Users will become accustomed to using alternative (secure, ergonomic, standards-based) main desktops, keeping a virtual Windows around for legacy apps and data. In this context, insisting on licenses per image, rather than per CPU, will simply hasten the departure of fed-up users.
I’m afraid Microsoft is destined to be seen as an accident of history: IBM gives away the store, savage business practice of browbeating OEMs into exclusively preinstalling DOS and later Windows quashes OS competitors, OS dominance makes conditions ripe for Office monopoly, stagnation rots bloated empire from within. The traditional strengths which justified this monoculture – rock-solid DOS under floopy Windows, robust installers with outstanding hardware support, localization in numerous languages – have been surpassed by FOSS. I moved to a new office recently and was dismayed to discover my first day that I had forgotten the new password on my XP Professional-equipped laptop. Fortunately, I had a recent Knoppix with me, booted with that, and was able to access all of my supposedly encrypted files, which of course meant i had to later encrypt my sensitive business data with third-party software (a FOSS project, naturally). Since Windows 3.0, I have not seen Microsoft as a tech company, but as a profit-making venture – the poverty of the DOS CLI compared to Unix was a dead giveaway. That’s been fine until now for the founders of the company and for shareholders, but rotten for the industry and for end users. Today, Microsoft consistently reminds me of a country I had the privilege to visit in 1991, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics – born with passion and vision, capable of great strides in the early days despite the warning signs, finally extinguished as the fire went out and today judged harshly for its catastrophic failures. Microsoft’s paralysis even as revenue streams in from Windows and Office (and doesn’t from other products) is ghastly to watch – Microsoft can’t hold those monopolies for long, for a number of reasons (growing irrelevance of PC-centric computing, stronger and stronger offerings from standards-based FOSS). I suspect that Microsoft’s tumble, when it comes, will come more quickly than anyone suspects… when your OEMs rebel and start offering choice to buyers. Don’t alienate your OEMs by going all-Dell; although they are fine machines, Microsoft would do much better to buy from ALL its OEMs, ideally in proportions related to marketshare. Any biologist will confirm the advantages of diversity, and for once you could properly debug an OS before shipping it. I don’t agree that you need to convince any partners about driver development, given your marketshare, but not shutting out any of your OEMs could do wonders for the way you are perceived by your partners.
Your marketers, unfortunately, have to deal with senior managers who have only a passing interest in the arts and culture, the enabler of taste in what’s cool. It was said that the USSR could have bloomed if Lenin appreciated fine wine and modern art more. I am one of those personally offended by the ads which describe me as a dinosaur because I won’t shell out for buggy new Office software (which I know is buggy since my employer has already shelled out). Savvy buyers feel locked in; unsavvy buyers just assume it’s normal for a company to be so greedy. Today, most of the 20-odd basic users of Windows I support (for free – family, friends, neighbors) assume that all personal computer operating systems are as crappy as Windows. They feel cheated when they have to buy additional software to secure their computers, in particular when they are surprised to learn that less or none is necessary for the alternatives. They wonder why GNU/Linux or the Mac was never talked about at the store, feeling like they have been rooked. Finally, they ask if their data – documents, photos – would be readable on another platform. By the way, without exception, they are incapable of backing up their data, aside from the occasional CD burn.
Sadly, Microsoft has stunted innovation in the IT industry for years; the industry’s response is to move to collaborative development, which is fundamentally incompatible with Microsoft’s sell-licenses-forget-support-laugh-to-bank business model. FOSS is coming after you, and you can’t compete on quality and you can’t compete on price. I personally believe it is too late to change; I think the future can only hold a diminished Microsoft, or maybe a group of companies – each focused on services and products meeting customer needs. The golden boom years are ending, and a huge number of current Microsoft employees won’t make it through. But there is still a long-term possibility that Microsoft’s successor startup companies, or a reduced and focused core, could thrive. Should you continue to decide to stay with Microsoft, I wish you luck – you shall need it.
Sean DALY.
LikeLike
Mini is no more with Microsoft. He is being fed by his old MS disgruntled colleagues.
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Mini is no more with Microsoft. He is being fed by his old MS disgruntled colleagues.
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Giving everyone a TB of storage is similar to googles desktop beta three. The problem then arises that the data stored on a corporate network, even e-mail like hotmail, yahoo mail and gmail are discoverable. that would then entail that all my data on the corporate shared drive is also discoverable under the same circumstances.
What would stop RIAA or MPAA from subpeonaing the entire system to see what MP3’s and movie files were on those drives to see what was legal and what was not. We have yet to learn what the impacts of google’s shared drive is going to be, but the major security companies are against it, and many have labeled it malware because of that issue, and advocate not using it.
Is anyone going to pass up a file named “US Senate Master Misstress list.xls”? We would have to have better trust in the corporation (even google has problems with this right now), and we would have to seriously stregthen privacy laws before I would ever use something other than my own drives for storgage of my data.
Nice idea, too many risks for me to adopt it.
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Giving everyone a TB of storage is similar to googles desktop beta three. The problem then arises that the data stored on a corporate network, even e-mail like hotmail, yahoo mail and gmail are discoverable. that would then entail that all my data on the corporate shared drive is also discoverable under the same circumstances.
What would stop RIAA or MPAA from subpeonaing the entire system to see what MP3’s and movie files were on those drives to see what was legal and what was not. We have yet to learn what the impacts of google’s shared drive is going to be, but the major security companies are against it, and many have labeled it malware because of that issue, and advocate not using it.
Is anyone going to pass up a file named “US Senate Master Misstress list.xls”? We would have to have better trust in the corporation (even google has problems with this right now), and we would have to seriously stregthen privacy laws before I would ever use something other than my own drives for storgage of my data.
Nice idea, too many risks for me to adopt it.
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[…] Scoble said “But, Robert, almost every ‘big bet’ that Microsoft tries doesn’t work out,” you might say. That isn’t true. Just study the history of SQL Server.” […]
A product which was bought, not ‘innovated’. FoxPro probably doesn’t count as a ‘big bet’, but can certainly be counted as another victim of “embrace … extinguish”, without, unfortunately, the intervening ‘extend’.
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[…] Scoble said “But, Robert, almost every ‘big bet’ that Microsoft tries doesn’t work out,” you might say. That isn’t true. Just study the history of SQL Server.” […]
A product which was bought, not ‘innovated’. FoxPro probably doesn’t count as a ‘big bet’, but can certainly be counted as another victim of “embrace … extinguish”, without, unfortunately, the intervening ‘extend’.
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You are all looking in a wrong direction, guys… Sorry to say that. Have you EVER read ANY MS End-User Aggreement? preferably the one for ANY on-line services and especially a VOLUMINOUS “Indemnification” clause…
MS ALWAYS disclaims ANY liability for whatever happens with it’s customer as a consequence of using… whatever it’s offering.
It came to the point when this is a ‘no go’… Enough is enough. Think about this for a moment. You have to take responsibility FOR SOMETHING, otherwise – MS will become history.
Regards.
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You are all looking in a wrong direction, guys… Sorry to say that. Have you EVER read ANY MS End-User Aggreement? preferably the one for ANY on-line services and especially a VOLUMINOUS “Indemnification” clause…
MS ALWAYS disclaims ANY liability for whatever happens with it’s customer as a consequence of using… whatever it’s offering.
It came to the point when this is a ‘no go’… Enough is enough. Think about this for a moment. You have to take responsibility FOR SOMETHING, otherwise – MS will become history.
Regards.
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Datecenters and storage investments are the most capital intensive and least profitable.
Microsoft’s “big bets” have always been in innovative software, not hardware infrastructure.
Think bigger… if “the network is the computer” then MSN should be managed as the new computer.
Create “Web OS” software that let’s any hosting partner or VAR participate in the MSN cluster and reap some rewards for being part of MSN.
Even Google will eventually need to decide whether their core competency is in innovative datacenter operations or software development. They’ll likely outsource or contract the hardware in the future.
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Datecenters and storage investments are the most capital intensive and least profitable.
Microsoft’s “big bets” have always been in innovative software, not hardware infrastructure.
Think bigger… if “the network is the computer” then MSN should be managed as the new computer.
Create “Web OS” software that let’s any hosting partner or VAR participate in the MSN cluster and reap some rewards for being part of MSN.
Even Google will eventually need to decide whether their core competency is in innovative datacenter operations or software development. They’ll likely outsource or contract the hardware in the future.
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Lets see – Microsoft is facing STIFF competition from Google (Gmail), Apple (iTunes/iPod, and increasingly Macs – I am a college student, and you see Macbooks and iMacs mushrooming in libraries and dorm rooms like nobody’s business) and Mozilla (Firefox). The digital music battle seems all but lost, Gmail is far and away better than any free email service out there and IE 7 is,um, late (as Media Player 11 is, and Vista will be).
I think Steve Ballmer should be fired. Plain and simple.
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Lets see – Microsoft is facing STIFF competition from Google (Gmail), Apple (iTunes/iPod, and increasingly Macs – I am a college student, and you see Macbooks and iMacs mushrooming in libraries and dorm rooms like nobody’s business) and Mozilla (Firefox). The digital music battle seems all but lost, Gmail is far and away better than any free email service out there and IE 7 is,um, late (as Media Player 11 is, and Vista will be).
I think Steve Ballmer should be fired. Plain and simple.
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your blog is a gold mine of info, thx
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your blog is a gold mine of info, thx
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As a person in the storage business, I applaud your suggestion #1 re 1T of storage for every person. However, I also recommend that be RAID1 (that’s 2T of disk space), and include some kind of remote snapshot facility in case the home site is lost (that’s 4T… 2 on each end). And really, is 1T enough? Think about the pr0n.
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As a person in the storage business, I applaud your suggestion #1 re 1T of storage for every person. However, I also recommend that be RAID1 (that’s 2T of disk space), and include some kind of remote snapshot facility in case the home site is lost (that’s 4T… 2 on each end). And really, is 1T enough? Think about the pr0n.
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A site putting insight in sight. After years of working with Microsoft Windows and suffering a simply evelasting stream of trouble I finally switched the business/home system over to Linux. To say I didn’t strike trouble would be lying. I had to wrestle for three months with hardware incompatibilities, new software, finding suitable software and with the numerous glitches that catch up with anybody changing over. After that three months and now for a further couple of years down the track, I have seen a dream come true. I have all the software I need and it is completely cost free, I have no more everlastingly repeated maintenance worries, I have no security concerns whatsoever. Yes, things occasionally go wrong as they do with any system that is worked hard. I have screwed up the odd desktop and found the odd thing I just cannot manage to untangle but by and large I have massive control over what I am doing, I enjoy simplicity and clarity and the change I made was the best move I have ever made since I began working with computers decades ago. I am not arbitrarily anti-Micrososft but I have a serious question. Why does Microsoft, deliberately promote absolute lies in the name of providing facts about Linux? If a firm lies to me, either partially, directly, indirectly or in some other subtle and slanted way, how can I trust that firm?
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A site putting insight in sight. After years of working with Microsoft Windows and suffering a simply evelasting stream of trouble I finally switched the business/home system over to Linux. To say I didn’t strike trouble would be lying. I had to wrestle for three months with hardware incompatibilities, new software, finding suitable software and with the numerous glitches that catch up with anybody changing over. After that three months and now for a further couple of years down the track, I have seen a dream come true. I have all the software I need and it is completely cost free, I have no more everlastingly repeated maintenance worries, I have no security concerns whatsoever. Yes, things occasionally go wrong as they do with any system that is worked hard. I have screwed up the odd desktop and found the odd thing I just cannot manage to untangle but by and large I have massive control over what I am doing, I enjoy simplicity and clarity and the change I made was the best move I have ever made since I began working with computers decades ago. I am not arbitrarily anti-Micrososft but I have a serious question. Why does Microsoft, deliberately promote absolute lies in the name of providing facts about Linux? If a firm lies to me, either partially, directly, indirectly or in some other subtle and slanted way, how can I trust that firm?
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It has amazed me from the early days 3.1. That every roll-out. from day one, created such problems as to cause the consumer hours of grief and frustration trying to find a solution totally foreign to them.
It does not matter to the consumer that a driver or dll is needed from an hardware vendor that is compatible with the current os version. Or that Microsoft has trained the general public into purchasing a product that will not have full functionality until the arrival of the first service pack.
What continues to befuddle me, any other business sector that sells a product that does not work off the show room floor as advertised is bound by consumer law that recalls that product at no cost to the consumer until repaired or replaced. Otherwise the consumer is refunded their money.
When Microsoft advertises that a particular flavor os will work with specific hardware and then it doesn’t. The consumer should be refunded.
When a consumer buys an off the shelf box that is preloaded with an Microsoft os, and the os prompts them to install patches to fix a broken preloaded os, and the patch crashes the consumers off the shelf box, the consumer should be refunded.
If someone would take the time to do the statistical analysis of lost productivity from unrecoverable data, or data that is recoverable, the cost to the consumer to retrieve said data. Microsoft would be getting off cheap refunding just the initial cost to the consumer. It would in no way cover the actual loss the consumer experiences.
If consumer protection laws were changed to reflect real life consumer experience with software and hardware vendors across the board, impose real time fines and sanctions to said companies. It would have an impact that would not only get their attention, it would enforce b2b to change their policy to get the lead out of whats dragging the industry down and deflating consumer confidence, in the so called vision of the future.
I realize on the surface this may appear as off thread, then again it used to be the most important person in a corporation was the consumer. No consumer, no Microsoft, go figure.
Mo Better to point, so now that Microsoft Employees are no longer treated like upper class citizens and find themselves downgraded to the consumer level, how’s that working for ya? Because it sure has not been working out for those of us that keep praying the next version is really going to work as advertised.
So let’s try and keep it real, the consumer either owns or works for a company that supports Microsoft Employees. If they come up short on their offerings they do not implore their company to offer them incentives to be better employees. Nor expect their employers to give them a voice in how the company is run or change company offerings. They either put their nose to the grind stone or they find another job. Welcome to the lobby….
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It has amazed me from the early days 3.1. That every roll-out. from day one, created such problems as to cause the consumer hours of grief and frustration trying to find a solution totally foreign to them.
It does not matter to the consumer that a driver or dll is needed from an hardware vendor that is compatible with the current os version. Or that Microsoft has trained the general public into purchasing a product that will not have full functionality until the arrival of the first service pack.
What continues to befuddle me, any other business sector that sells a product that does not work off the show room floor as advertised is bound by consumer law that recalls that product at no cost to the consumer until repaired or replaced. Otherwise the consumer is refunded their money.
When Microsoft advertises that a particular flavor os will work with specific hardware and then it doesn’t. The consumer should be refunded.
When a consumer buys an off the shelf box that is preloaded with an Microsoft os, and the os prompts them to install patches to fix a broken preloaded os, and the patch crashes the consumers off the shelf box, the consumer should be refunded.
If someone would take the time to do the statistical analysis of lost productivity from unrecoverable data, or data that is recoverable, the cost to the consumer to retrieve said data. Microsoft would be getting off cheap refunding just the initial cost to the consumer. It would in no way cover the actual loss the consumer experiences.
If consumer protection laws were changed to reflect real life consumer experience with software and hardware vendors across the board, impose real time fines and sanctions to said companies. It would have an impact that would not only get their attention, it would enforce b2b to change their policy to get the lead out of whats dragging the industry down and deflating consumer confidence, in the so called vision of the future.
I realize on the surface this may appear as off thread, then again it used to be the most important person in a corporation was the consumer. No consumer, no Microsoft, go figure.
Mo Better to point, so now that Microsoft Employees are no longer treated like upper class citizens and find themselves downgraded to the consumer level, how’s that working for ya? Because it sure has not been working out for those of us that keep praying the next version is really going to work as advertised.
So let’s try and keep it real, the consumer either owns or works for a company that supports Microsoft Employees. If they come up short on their offerings they do not implore their company to offer them incentives to be better employees. Nor expect their employers to give them a voice in how the company is run or change company offerings. They either put their nose to the grind stone or they find another job. Welcome to the lobby….
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