Look at my last post. Now read this one over on LiveSide. It’s a short report that Microsoft executives are bragging to MVPs that “we’re in it to win.”
I don’t think Microsoft is. The words are empty. Microsoft’s Internet execution sucks (on whole). Its search sucks. Its advertising sucks (look at that last post again). If that’s “in it to win” then I don’t get it. I saw a bunch of posts similar to the one on LiveSide coming out of the MVP Summit. I didn’t post any of them to my link blog for a reason: All were air, no real demonstrations of how Microsoft is going to lead.
Microsoft isn’t going away. Don’t get me wrong. They have record profits, record sales, all that. But on the Internet? Come on. This isn’t winning. Microsoft: stop the talk. Ship a better search, a better advertising system than Google, a better hosting service than Amazon, a better cross-platform Web development ecosystem than Adobe, and get some services out there that are innovative (where’s the video RSS reader? Blog search? Something like Yahoo’s Pipes? A real blog service? A way to look up people?) That’s how you win.
Oh, and Ballmer, if I ran Google your speech at Stanford yesterday would be plastered on every door on every campus Google has. Why? It’ll motivate Google employees the same way a coach will motivate an opposing team during the Superbowl by taking trash in the press. You’re up against a formidable competitor and one you’ve never seen before that has some real, significant weapons that you can’t deal with (and YouTube isn’t even close to it). Google’s secret weapon? It controls the entire stack in the datacenter. Google writes its own hard disk drivers. It has its datacenter hardware built to its spec. Ever wonder why Live.com is slower than Google? Hint: it’s cause Google is out executing Microsoft in the datacenter.
This isn’t Netscape you’re talking trash to, Steve. Have you really studied Google? It doesn’t sound like you have.
Again, Microsofties, you’d be better served not to talk trash until you have something YOU CAN SHIP!
I sure hope they don’t show up at Mix07 with this kind of “we’re in it to win” talk. The MVPs might be easy to talk into doing some cheerleading but the rest of us are over that now. We’re looking for signs of leadership and so far we don’t see it.
Sigh.
Scobleizer 
“better cross-platform Web development ecosystem than Adobe”
This is the flash2.0 thing they are touting – does it work with Google thats the only browser you sould write for thease days
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“better cross-platform Web development ecosystem than Adobe”
This is the flash2.0 thing they are touting – does it work with Google thats the only browser you sould write for thease days
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Neuromancer: yes, look here: http://finance.google.com/finance?q=MSFT
That chart? It’s done in Adobe Flash.
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Neuromancer: yes, look here: http://finance.google.com/finance?q=MSFT
That chart? It’s done in Adobe Flash.
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*sigh* indeed. In it “to win”? And what happens to the rest of us who are in the trenches? Businesses don’t pick software because they perceive the product to be from ‘winners’, we choose products because they work, provide value and yeah, are probably best of breed because the features kick ass.
My job is not to provide winningest software to the business I support – it is to make sure they get their hands on the very best software that helps them succeed.
Darn it Microsoft, make ME the winner. Or go home.
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*sigh* indeed. In it “to win”? And what happens to the rest of us who are in the trenches? Businesses don’t pick software because they perceive the product to be from ‘winners’, we choose products because they work, provide value and yeah, are probably best of breed because the features kick ass.
My job is not to provide winningest software to the business I support – it is to make sure they get their hands on the very best software that helps them succeed.
Darn it Microsoft, make ME the winner. Or go home.
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“Microsoft isn’t going away. Don’t get me wrong. They have record profits, record sales, all that.”
Yes, they are going away, albeit slowly. And they don’t have record anything when it comes to financial performance as reflected by its stock price, during Ballmer’s disastrous reign:
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“Microsoft isn’t going away. Don’t get me wrong. They have record profits, record sales, all that.”
Yes, they are going away, albeit slowly. And they don’t have record anything when it comes to financial performance as reflected by its stock price, during Ballmer’s disastrous reign:
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Microsoft are the old guard trying to hold on to the fading glory. IBM->Microsoft->Google – I am more interested in who will supplant Google now than worrying about Microsoft, though I would still like to see Microsoft succeed 🙂
For all Googles perceived invincibility, it was a couple of low-level people who saved the company from what I understand. Adwords/Adsense wasn’t in the business plan from the get-go, it was an employees bright idea. All those billions of dollars that move through the company might not have been there if some dude hadn’t taken a good look at Overture and thought they could do it better. Microsoft needs to start listening to their real outside the box thinkers and forget about clinging to shrinkwrapped software and de facto operating system “taxes”. They have money, credible competition and smart people – surely enough ? 🙂
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Microsoft are the old guard trying to hold on to the fading glory. IBM->Microsoft->Google – I am more interested in who will supplant Google now than worrying about Microsoft, though I would still like to see Microsoft succeed 🙂
For all Googles perceived invincibility, it was a couple of low-level people who saved the company from what I understand. Adwords/Adsense wasn’t in the business plan from the get-go, it was an employees bright idea. All those billions of dollars that move through the company might not have been there if some dude hadn’t taken a good look at Overture and thought they could do it better. Microsoft needs to start listening to their real outside the box thinkers and forget about clinging to shrinkwrapped software and de facto operating system “taxes”. They have money, credible competition and smart people – surely enough ? 🙂
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Considering Microsoft’s addiction to “Everything By Committee and Consensus”?
No chance. Microsoft can’t allow any group that small to do anything. It’s not the Microsoft Way.
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Considering Microsoft’s addiction to “Everything By Committee and Consensus”?
No chance. Microsoft can’t allow any group that small to do anything. It’s not the Microsoft Way.
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Re working with google
Er what I was geting at was does it get indexed corectly if you build a compleat site in it and not just a graph on a more traditionaly.
I’me also not totaly convinced by Googles DIY aproach writing your own hdd drivers? – I bet theres a lot of kludgy stuff we dont see in there DC’s
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Re working with google
Er what I was geting at was does it get indexed corectly if you build a compleat site in it and not just a graph on a more traditionaly.
I’me also not totaly convinced by Googles DIY aproach writing your own hdd drivers? – I bet theres a lot of kludgy stuff we dont see in there DC’s
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This might very well be the toughest Microsoft shoot-out post you’ve ever made. Facinating! 🙂
But your analysis seems to be limited to the consumer services that Microsoft is working on. Although this is the bigger piece of the market, it’s still important to consider the business solutions strategies that Microsoft is pursuing. Recent announcements, such as the “Bookkeeper community” (Windows Live Finance if I remember correctly) contradicts some of your critizism. Being in the business solutions market today means watching Microsoft very, very closely for exactly the reasons you argue make Microsoft not doing “Internet”.
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This might very well be the toughest Microsoft shoot-out post you’ve ever made. Facinating! 🙂
But your analysis seems to be limited to the consumer services that Microsoft is working on. Although this is the bigger piece of the market, it’s still important to consider the business solutions strategies that Microsoft is pursuing. Recent announcements, such as the “Bookkeeper community” (Windows Live Finance if I remember correctly) contradicts some of your critizism. Being in the business solutions market today means watching Microsoft very, very closely for exactly the reasons you argue make Microsoft not doing “Internet”.
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Welcome back, Robert!
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Welcome back, Robert!
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Ballmer says MS did two things well, and google only does one thing well. But this is wrong. Search – one, Adwords/Adsense – two. They may be somewhat related, but are separate. Ranking sites, and responding correctly to queries is one thing. Billing advertisers, and having a system for advertisers to create, and classify their ads is something different. Remember, wasn’t MSN using another company for its ads until recently
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Ballmer says MS did two things well, and google only does one thing well. But this is wrong. Search – one, Adwords/Adsense – two. They may be somewhat related, but are separate. Ranking sites, and responding correctly to queries is one thing. Billing advertisers, and having a system for advertisers to create, and classify their ads is something different. Remember, wasn’t MSN using another company for its ads until recently
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Ballmer-bashing aside (nothing wrong with that), Microsoft is doing business solutions way better than Google (with business solutions I’m talking ERP solutions), and they’re definitely doing it online. What Google have shown in that space so far is… nothing unique, innovative or especially useful.
(I’m the one behind the “boreno” nickname, btw).
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Ballmer-bashing aside (nothing wrong with that), Microsoft is doing business solutions way better than Google (with business solutions I’m talking ERP solutions), and they’re definitely doing it online. What Google have shown in that space so far is… nothing unique, innovative or especially useful.
(I’m the one behind the “boreno” nickname, btw).
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When Google is serious about a product they don’t stop until they get it right. Their search engine was noy good from day one. If google is serious about business solutions, watch out – they will persist until they get it right. The Google Reader Team was serious about it, and stuck to it till they got it right. But Google Reader was not a company wide priority, only to the reader team. If the company is serious about business solutions, watch the various get going. This is why google bought Youtube; they were serious about online video; their own wasn’t having traction, so they bought.
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When Google is serious about a product they don’t stop until they get it right. Their search engine was noy good from day one. If google is serious about business solutions, watch out – they will persist until they get it right. The Google Reader Team was serious about it, and stuck to it till they got it right. But Google Reader was not a company wide priority, only to the reader team. If the company is serious about business solutions, watch the various get going. This is why google bought Youtube; they were serious about online video; their own wasn’t having traction, so they bought.
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Wow, maybe you don’t want to work for Microsoft ever again after all 🙂
(This seems more show than tell, however)
“Again, Microsofties, you’d be better served not to talk trash until you have something YOU CAN SHIP!”
Got to tip your hat to Microsoft in the console gaming sector, Robert. The Xbox 360 is rocking and they managed to create the best online console gaming out there (Xbox Live) against the odds. Sony has an interesting idea with Home if they get enough people to pay too much for a PS3, or lower the price to be competitive, but right now it looks more like Nintendo could be the threat going forward.
Vista sucks, Tablet PCs are still overpriced, UMPCs are nowhere to be seen, IE continues to leak users to Firefox and the list goes on.
But as long as Microsoft has the warchest of $$$ they are at least in the running.
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Wow, maybe you don’t want to work for Microsoft ever again after all 🙂
(This seems more show than tell, however)
“Again, Microsofties, you’d be better served not to talk trash until you have something YOU CAN SHIP!”
Got to tip your hat to Microsoft in the console gaming sector, Robert. The Xbox 360 is rocking and they managed to create the best online console gaming out there (Xbox Live) against the odds. Sony has an interesting idea with Home if they get enough people to pay too much for a PS3, or lower the price to be competitive, but right now it looks more like Nintendo could be the threat going forward.
Vista sucks, Tablet PCs are still overpriced, UMPCs are nowhere to be seen, IE continues to leak users to Firefox and the list goes on.
But as long as Microsoft has the warchest of $$$ they are at least in the running.
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While I agree Microsoft (and Yahoo!) both need a blog search(and that Google needs to move blog seach onto the front page immediately), to say that Microsoft search sucks is broad and unfounded. I recently had an experience where I needed to delete an item at the request of someone from my flickr account. Within a week, the live.com and ask.com indexes had updated for it – item gone. Google and Yahoo! still have the item cluttering up their index one month later with a phantom item – now *that* is irrelevancy defined.
In a related matter, what is del.icio.us doing about rogue del.icio.us scraper sites? poorly written scrappers are combing multiple entries creating serious reputation management issues. Who indexes these sites? Again, not live.com or Ask, but Google and Yahoo!
Robert, you are not looking at the whole story with your statement. More data on top of spammy results is not more valuable in many situations.
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While I agree Microsoft (and Yahoo!) both need a blog search(and that Google needs to move blog seach onto the front page immediately), to say that Microsoft search sucks is broad and unfounded. I recently had an experience where I needed to delete an item at the request of someone from my flickr account. Within a week, the live.com and ask.com indexes had updated for it – item gone. Google and Yahoo! still have the item cluttering up their index one month later with a phantom item – now *that* is irrelevancy defined.
In a related matter, what is del.icio.us doing about rogue del.icio.us scraper sites? poorly written scrappers are combing multiple entries creating serious reputation management issues. Who indexes these sites? Again, not live.com or Ask, but Google and Yahoo!
Robert, you are not looking at the whole story with your statement. More data on top of spammy results is not more valuable in many situations.
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Robert, how did MS search go from being only slightly less worthy than Google’s to sucking in less than a year?
http://scobleizer.com/2006/10/12/microsofts-search-a-lot-better-than-it-used-to-be/
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Robert, how did MS search go from being only slightly less worthy than Google’s to sucking in less than a year?
http://scobleizer.com/2006/10/12/microsofts-search-a-lot-better-than-it-used-to-be/
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Greg – By not taking advantage of the situation and shipping something better. Instead, they’ve sat on their behinds and managed to shed their search management in the process. Is that exhibiting leadership in any form/fashion?
I can create a version 1.0. If I don’t iterate/improve in some perceptible manner in one year’s time… I SUCK! ergo… MS Search = SUCK
In the past year Google’s added layer upon layer to their search results, grown their data centers immensely. Meanwhile, MS has only “budgeted” for it. Big woop.
START SHIPPING! or take the whipping!
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Greg – By not taking advantage of the situation and shipping something better. Instead, they’ve sat on their behinds and managed to shed their search management in the process. Is that exhibiting leadership in any form/fashion?
I can create a version 1.0. If I don’t iterate/improve in some perceptible manner in one year’s time… I SUCK! ergo… MS Search = SUCK
In the past year Google’s added layer upon layer to their search results, grown their data centers immensely. Meanwhile, MS has only “budgeted” for it. Big woop.
START SHIPPING! or take the whipping!
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Microsoft doesn’t innovate, I worked 10-15 years ago with Sybase/Unix then Microsoft did SQL, everybody said, It doesn’t work, Microsoft should do DOS not DataBases, now you can see where is Sybase. I think Microsoft its a very copy/cat, they see something and work in version 1, 2 maybe 3 and suddenly they have a better product.
So, if I see Microsoft is doing something I wait..
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Microsoft doesn’t innovate, I worked 10-15 years ago with Sybase/Unix then Microsoft did SQL, everybody said, It doesn’t work, Microsoft should do DOS not DataBases, now you can see where is Sybase. I think Microsoft its a very copy/cat, they see something and work in version 1, 2 maybe 3 and suddenly they have a better product.
So, if I see Microsoft is doing something I wait..
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Scoble: To clarify, I think specifically what Microsoft is trying to say is that they’ve learned from the past and are going to correct mistakes for the future, and that’s how they expect to win. I’m going to be critical as well, just like any MVP or even a Microsoft employee should be, but additionally I like the optimism. I think part of the reason Google is winning is they have confidence that they can, and wave 1 of Windows Live has taken a beating, management needs to make some changes, as well as increasing morale.
I know I’ll be disappointed in not being able to see more stuff before release, but just like Allchin was hammered for “taking things out of Vista”, no one else at Microsoft wants to hear any crap anymore. Thus they’re going to keep quiet and go back to the basics of releasing great products and services, and concentrate on listening to feedback.
Something we can all do is offer Microsoft constructive criticism. I think some press/blog sites want to make outrageous claims that Windows Live is dead, or whatever, and that doesn’t help anyone. Microsoft is building some great products that we’re all going to love, which increases competition in the industry. We will all benefit from an even faster moving industry where all companies think “we’re in it to win!”
As always, thanks for your comments Robert.
@Matthew
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Scoble: To clarify, I think specifically what Microsoft is trying to say is that they’ve learned from the past and are going to correct mistakes for the future, and that’s how they expect to win. I’m going to be critical as well, just like any MVP or even a Microsoft employee should be, but additionally I like the optimism. I think part of the reason Google is winning is they have confidence that they can, and wave 1 of Windows Live has taken a beating, management needs to make some changes, as well as increasing morale.
I know I’ll be disappointed in not being able to see more stuff before release, but just like Allchin was hammered for “taking things out of Vista”, no one else at Microsoft wants to hear any crap anymore. Thus they’re going to keep quiet and go back to the basics of releasing great products and services, and concentrate on listening to feedback.
Something we can all do is offer Microsoft constructive criticism. I think some press/blog sites want to make outrageous claims that Windows Live is dead, or whatever, and that doesn’t help anyone. Microsoft is building some great products that we’re all going to love, which increases competition in the industry. We will all benefit from an even faster moving industry where all companies think “we’re in it to win!”
As always, thanks for your comments Robert.
@Matthew
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Overlooked is that iTunes is a sophisticated web application in disguise which integrates services and software. So you might also add to your wish list that Microsoft make a better media store than Apple’s, but I wouldn’t hold my breath on that one either.
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Overlooked is that iTunes is a sophisticated web application in disguise which integrates services and software. So you might also add to your wish list that Microsoft make a better media store than Apple’s, but I wouldn’t hold my breath on that one either.
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Well, I think Google is on a stage where they could do no wrong, but it is dangerous for a company who is doing a lot of things just for the coolness factor. Last great innovation I constantly heard from google is giving free massage, free car wash, free food, free laundry, and free shuttle rides to their employees….
If you have been to the Microsoft MVP summit, you will note that there were hundreds of sessions going on — real focused partners talking to MS developers and executives about hundreds of products evolving and solving real life business world problems in real corporations that will earn hard more hard cash.
If that isn’t the business, I don’t know what is.
Google may also be reining in cash, but for now, they have consumers market and still hardly matter to real enterprises except I reckon the ad folks. and it is when you have products that solve problems and creates solutions for big bucks companies with personal relationships that you really have a long term viable business that signals that you will be there for a long time to come.
I do business with both,and I know dozens of Microsoft people who I correspond, talk and meet, and all I know in google is working through their web sites. That hardly counts as a business relationship.
Best regards,
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Well, I think Google is on a stage where they could do no wrong, but it is dangerous for a company who is doing a lot of things just for the coolness factor. Last great innovation I constantly heard from google is giving free massage, free car wash, free food, free laundry, and free shuttle rides to their employees….
If you have been to the Microsoft MVP summit, you will note that there were hundreds of sessions going on — real focused partners talking to MS developers and executives about hundreds of products evolving and solving real life business world problems in real corporations that will earn hard more hard cash.
If that isn’t the business, I don’t know what is.
Google may also be reining in cash, but for now, they have consumers market and still hardly matter to real enterprises except I reckon the ad folks. and it is when you have products that solve problems and creates solutions for big bucks companies with personal relationships that you really have a long term viable business that signals that you will be there for a long time to come.
I do business with both,and I know dozens of Microsoft people who I correspond, talk and meet, and all I know in google is working through their web sites. That hardly counts as a business relationship.
Best regards,
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Come on Robert, you know better-this was preaching to the choir, nothing more. Of COURSE everyone over there bought the act.
I mean, this is a dedicated group of people who work for free for Microsoft, evangelize tirelessly for Microsoft, spam Digg defending Microsoft, and even travel great distances to hang out with others just like themselves, all for the cause of Microsoft.
The funny thing is, no one ever accuses them of being a “cult” like Apple users, yet this is a much more intensely loyal, kool aid drinking crowd than even Steve could hope for.
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Come on Robert, you know better-this was preaching to the choir, nothing more. Of COURSE everyone over there bought the act.
I mean, this is a dedicated group of people who work for free for Microsoft, evangelize tirelessly for Microsoft, spam Digg defending Microsoft, and even travel great distances to hang out with others just like themselves, all for the cause of Microsoft.
The funny thing is, no one ever accuses them of being a “cult” like Apple users, yet this is a much more intensely loyal, kool aid drinking crowd than even Steve could hope for.
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@13, “When Google is serious about a product they don’t stop until they get it right. ”
Really? like Google Answers? like Google Video? Gmail outages last month? Google apps for your domain going down last month?
as somebody noted above, Google has a great perception advantage now. So whatever they do will look like a winning move.
No doubt google has a bigger pie in serach market. But that doesn’t mean its behind google.
It’s not a good idea to calibrate the capabilities of search engines using a single search phrase. Consider this – search for ‘Robert’ in both live and google
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=robert
http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=robert
Google’s first link is scobleizer. While scoble is a great blogger, there is no way people are looking for him when they type in ‘Robert’ in the search box.
Live shows wikipedia entry on the firstname ‘Robert’ which is perfectly reasonable. So do we conclude that live is better?
Business is not a 100 mtr sprint. Being first doesn’t mean that there is NOBODY before you. The winner is one who can do more things better than any other guy. Sure, someone can do a specific thing better than the winner. But that doesn’t mean the winner is losing.
Blogs are replacing the old media. Exactly. Sensation now matters more than substance. Unfortunately Microsoft is not providing the former.
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@13, “When Google is serious about a product they don’t stop until they get it right. ”
Really? like Google Answers? like Google Video? Gmail outages last month? Google apps for your domain going down last month?
as somebody noted above, Google has a great perception advantage now. So whatever they do will look like a winning move.
No doubt google has a bigger pie in serach market. But that doesn’t mean its behind google.
It’s not a good idea to calibrate the capabilities of search engines using a single search phrase. Consider this – search for ‘Robert’ in both live and google
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=robert
http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=robert
Google’s first link is scobleizer. While scoble is a great blogger, there is no way people are looking for him when they type in ‘Robert’ in the search box.
Live shows wikipedia entry on the firstname ‘Robert’ which is perfectly reasonable. So do we conclude that live is better?
Business is not a 100 mtr sprint. Being first doesn’t mean that there is NOBODY before you. The winner is one who can do more things better than any other guy. Sure, someone can do a specific thing better than the winner. But that doesn’t mean the winner is losing.
Blogs are replacing the old media. Exactly. Sensation now matters more than substance. Unfortunately Microsoft is not providing the former.
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“The funny thing is, no one ever accuses them of being a “cult” like Apple users, yet this is a much more intensely loyal, kool aid drinking crowd than even Steve could hope for.”
Becuase, MVPs don’t indulge in personal attacks in a debate.
Because MVPs don’t rationalize every word that comes out of Redmond.
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“The funny thing is, no one ever accuses them of being a “cult” like Apple users, yet this is a much more intensely loyal, kool aid drinking crowd than even Steve could hope for.”
Becuase, MVPs don’t indulge in personal attacks in a debate.
Because MVPs don’t rationalize every word that comes out of Redmond.
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seshadri: maybe they ARE looking for me when they type Robert. PC World named me one of the most important people on the Internet. So did Forbes.
Google reflects Internet popularity.
The fact that I can rely on it for people’s names far more than Live.com means I use it a lot more.
gwhiz: you got it!
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Oh and another thing.
Why is google not seen as a failure when ‘a nobody’ launches something like a twitter? I mean, twitter is part of the *world’s information*. Shouldn’t the ‘shipping’ google have come up with an application like that?
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seshadri: maybe they ARE looking for me when they type Robert. PC World named me one of the most important people on the Internet. So did Forbes.
Google reflects Internet popularity.
The fact that I can rely on it for people’s names far more than Live.com means I use it a lot more.
gwhiz: you got it!
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Oh and another thing.
Why is google not seen as a failure when ‘a nobody’ launches something like a twitter? I mean, twitter is part of the *world’s information*. Shouldn’t the ‘shipping’ google have come up with an application like that?
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@28, I agree to that for the world ‘scoble’. No questions. But surely not robert
why doesn’t Bruce Schneier show up for a search on Bruce?
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=bruce ( he was on the list. IIRC he was about 5-10 positions behind you)
and the same for Om (malik)- http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=om
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@28, I agree to that for the world ‘scoble’. No questions. But surely not robert
why doesn’t Bruce Schneier show up for a search on Bruce?
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=bruce ( he was on the list. IIRC he was about 5-10 positions behind you)
and the same for Om (malik)- http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=om
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@MSWatcher: Microsoft needs to learn to just be quiet when they aren’t doing well.
What I can see behind the scenes that most people can see is just how messed up Microsoft is internally. My friends are telling stories that would make your head spin.
That’s what makes Seshadri just a hype job. He can’t explain the incessant reorgs. The incessant killings of products by marketing. The constant leaving of smart people. The M&A where Microsoft doesn’t buy best of breed.
Yes, there are places where Microsoft is working pretty well. Xbox and anything Scott Guthrie does seem pretty good.
But the Internet space? Has Microsoft really learned and is on a good path? The evidence hasn’t been shown and stories from inside from my friends (IE, people I trust) don’t tell a good story. We’ll see.
As to business side of the Internet. Microsoft is the business computing company now. We’ll see how it goes there cause Microsoft is going to be under constant relenting attack by lots of forces, not just Google there, but Microsoft’s position is far more defensable in business than it is in the consumer space.
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@MSWatcher: Microsoft needs to learn to just be quiet when they aren’t doing well.
What I can see behind the scenes that most people can see is just how messed up Microsoft is internally. My friends are telling stories that would make your head spin.
That’s what makes Seshadri just a hype job. He can’t explain the incessant reorgs. The incessant killings of products by marketing. The constant leaving of smart people. The M&A where Microsoft doesn’t buy best of breed.
Yes, there are places where Microsoft is working pretty well. Xbox and anything Scott Guthrie does seem pretty good.
But the Internet space? Has Microsoft really learned and is on a good path? The evidence hasn’t been shown and stories from inside from my friends (IE, people I trust) don’t tell a good story. We’ll see.
As to business side of the Internet. Microsoft is the business computing company now. We’ll see how it goes there cause Microsoft is going to be under constant relenting attack by lots of forces, not just Google there, but Microsoft’s position is far more defensable in business than it is in the consumer space.
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seshadri: Google did have a Twitter-like thing. It’s called Dodgeball and it was around before Twitter did.
Twitter is lame software. What’s cool about it is most of my friends are on it.
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seshadri: Google did have a Twitter-like thing. It’s called Dodgeball and it was around before Twitter did.
Twitter is lame software. What’s cool about it is most of my friends are on it.
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Bruce and Om?
Om is #3 on Google.
Bruce is #6 on Google.
Not too bad.
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Bruce and Om?
Om is #3 on Google.
Bruce is #6 on Google.
Not too bad.
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“Because MVPs don’t rationalize every word that comes out of Redmond.”
Thats exactly what Scoble is pointing out about “We’re in it to Win”, dude. How the MVPs are rationalizing it, while everyone outside the tent is asking, wtf?
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“Because MVPs don’t rationalize every word that comes out of Redmond.”
Thats exactly what Scoble is pointing out about “We’re in it to Win”, dude. How the MVPs are rationalizing it, while everyone outside the tent is asking, wtf?
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It’s interesting how Oracle has gone pretty quiet lately. It seems the more posturing the “leaders” rant and rave about the more desperate they seem. No one wants talk, they want OSs that are fast and don’t crash. They want cross-app functionality (still can’t believe the issues I have with Outlook & Word). Like my dad says, using Windows ’95 – “Don’t Touch my stuff! It works and every time I get an update or something it stops working and I can never figure out how to fix it so don’t touch it!”
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It’s interesting how Oracle has gone pretty quiet lately. It seems the more posturing the “leaders” rant and rave about the more desperate they seem. No one wants talk, they want OSs that are fast and don’t crash. They want cross-app functionality (still can’t believe the issues I have with Outlook & Word). Like my dad says, using Windows ’95 – “Don’t Touch my stuff! It works and every time I get an update or something it stops working and I can never figure out how to fix it so don’t touch it!”
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Sad, but I agree with you here Robert…and I’m a softie. The thing is that nobody in the trenches at MSFT believes the execu-spin either. I read Ballmer’s talk at Stanford and wanted to jump out my 2nd story window (why won’t these windows open?). And after reading it, I’m even more convinced (like I wasn’t already…yeah right) that Ballmer needs to go. He and the SLT are lost, just lost and can’t see the forest…because they’re f–king blind. They all need to go.
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Sad, but I agree with you here Robert…and I’m a softie. The thing is that nobody in the trenches at MSFT believes the execu-spin either. I read Ballmer’s talk at Stanford and wanted to jump out my 2nd story window (why won’t these windows open?). And after reading it, I’m even more convinced (like I wasn’t already…yeah right) that Ballmer needs to go. He and the SLT are lost, just lost and can’t see the forest…because they’re f–king blind. They all need to go.
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“maybe they ARE looking for me when they type Robert. PC World named me one of the most important people on the Internet. So did Forbes.”
Every once in a while, the ego shines on through the rants 🙂
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“maybe they ARE looking for me when they type Robert. PC World named me one of the most important people on the Internet. So did Forbes.”
Every once in a while, the ego shines on through the rants 🙂
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@32, “What’s cool about it is most of my friends are on it.”
Why weren’t your friends on it? why did they choose twitter over dodgeball?
@33, “Not too bad.”
This is not what you expect from Google. Do you? You expect the best of the lot.
“That’s what makes Seshadri just a hype job”
Incorrect. Nowhere in my comments do/did i hype up MSFT. All i am saying is that a totally different scale is being applied to MSFT to callibrate it while all its competitors seem to enjoy a free ride.
@34, “How the MVPs are rationalizing ”
Where do you see this? Any links where someone has justified anything that was said in this weeks meet?
( I can’t tell you how excited i am for Google to launch its GPhone. For the first time in quite a while we will have a direct 1-to-1 between the #1 and #2 rivals of MSFT. GPhone Vs iPhone. WOW. Should be fun to see if equal scales are applied in that case)
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@32, “What’s cool about it is most of my friends are on it.”
Why weren’t your friends on it? why did they choose twitter over dodgeball?
@33, “Not too bad.”
This is not what you expect from Google. Do you? You expect the best of the lot.
“That’s what makes Seshadri just a hype job”
Incorrect. Nowhere in my comments do/did i hype up MSFT. All i am saying is that a totally different scale is being applied to MSFT to callibrate it while all its competitors seem to enjoy a free ride.
@34, “How the MVPs are rationalizing ”
Where do you see this? Any links where someone has justified anything that was said in this weeks meet?
( I can’t tell you how excited i am for Google to launch its GPhone. For the first time in quite a while we will have a direct 1-to-1 between the #1 and #2 rivals of MSFT. GPhone Vs iPhone. WOW. Should be fun to see if equal scales are applied in that case)
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“It’s an exciting time for the industry, and Microsoft is going to win! Go get them Steven!”
go team! :p
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“It’s an exciting time for the industry, and Microsoft is going to win! Go get them Steven!”
go team! :p
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You are comparing one product, up against a company with a multitude of products, the comparison isn’t really level, nor fair, and they have a number of competitors across all product lines. And Google is a one-trick pony, they haven’t really been successful outside of one area, whereas Microsoft has been. Each company has their pluses and their vices. But rant at the moon, if it makes you feel better. 🙂 Productwise, I think they are doing great, Vista and Office 2007, are wonders to behold, perhaps not all they could have been, but still great for the market. The thing killing Microsoft is not Google, it’s their own internal bitterly political warfare games.
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You are comparing one product, up against a company with a multitude of products, the comparison isn’t really level, nor fair, and they have a number of competitors across all product lines. And Google is a one-trick pony, they haven’t really been successful outside of one area, whereas Microsoft has been. Each company has their pluses and their vices. But rant at the moon, if it makes you feel better. 🙂 Productwise, I think they are doing great, Vista and Office 2007, are wonders to behold, perhaps not all they could have been, but still great for the market. The thing killing Microsoft is not Google, it’s their own internal bitterly political warfare games.
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I don’t know what MVPs you hang out with, but the MVPs I know are not particularly fond of koolaid. Just because you work with and understand the tech doesn’t mean you are by definition an apologist.
But that doesn’t make for such sensational text, does it?
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I don’t know what MVPs you hang out with, but the MVPs I know are not particularly fond of koolaid. Just because you work with and understand the tech doesn’t mean you are by definition an apologist.
But that doesn’t make for such sensational text, does it?
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In it to win? Seriously profound statement, and way outta left field. It is still topped by
“I GOT 4 WORDS FOR YUH: I. LOVE. [GASP WHEEZE] THIS. COMPANY.”
yeaaaah. go MS
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In it to win? Seriously profound statement, and way outta left field. It is still topped by
“I GOT 4 WORDS FOR YUH: I. LOVE. [GASP WHEEZE] THIS. COMPANY.”
yeaaaah. go MS
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Mike: and you’re not egotistical? Riiiiigggghhhhhttttt.
When you gonna build a better blog service? My wife is on it and it really really sucks.
Let me worry about my ego, you worry about my wife’s blog service. It’s always so freaking slow.
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Mike: and you’re not egotistical? Riiiiigggghhhhhttttt.
When you gonna build a better blog service? My wife is on it and it really really sucks.
Let me worry about my ego, you worry about my wife’s blog service. It’s always so freaking slow.
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Re: “robert” being first in Google. Scoble, man, you know I like you and all, but you can’t take all this stuff so seriously that you have let yourself think that when people google “Robert” they are all looking for you??? How many people even think of you as “Robert” versus just “Scoble”?
Google results for “Robert” = 429,000,000
Google results for “Scoble” = 5,180,000
Google results for “Robert Scoble” = 1,210,000
I did a whole post recently on first names and Google results: http://www.livedigitally.com/2007/03/12/googling-first-names/
Back to the point at hand, I think you are probably right that they aren’t acting like a company who is tyring to win. That said, I do believe that they still *want* to win, much the same way Sony still *wants* to dominate the MP3 market. They just have way too many people operating with 1990s (or even 1980s) mentality to even become a contender again…
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Re: “robert” being first in Google. Scoble, man, you know I like you and all, but you can’t take all this stuff so seriously that you have let yourself think that when people google “Robert” they are all looking for you??? How many people even think of you as “Robert” versus just “Scoble”?
Google results for “Robert” = 429,000,000
Google results for “Scoble” = 5,180,000
Google results for “Robert Scoble” = 1,210,000
I did a whole post recently on first names and Google results: http://www.livedigitally.com/2007/03/12/googling-first-names/
Back to the point at hand, I think you are probably right that they aren’t acting like a company who is tyring to win. That said, I do believe that they still *want* to win, much the same way Sony still *wants* to dominate the MP3 market. They just have way too many people operating with 1990s (or even 1980s) mentality to even become a contender again…
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@45 Scoble, easy on Mike, he’s one of the good guys. I do agree with you on MSN Spaces being slow but I’m thinking WordPress.com would be crippled with a fraction of the MSN Spaces traffic.
@46 Still, 5.1 million results for Scoble is impressive, Jeremy, got to give Scoble props for that.
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@45 Scoble, easy on Mike, he’s one of the good guys. I do agree with you on MSN Spaces being slow but I’m thinking WordPress.com would be crippled with a fraction of the MSN Spaces traffic.
@46 Still, 5.1 million results for Scoble is impressive, Jeremy, got to give Scoble props for that.
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I *completely* give him props for that, and would even state that 99% (or more) of searches for “Scoble” are for him! I give him props for a lot of stuff, I just don’t agree that 99% of people who enter “Robert” as a search term (which I don’t think happens all that frequently to begin with) are looking for him, that’s all…
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I *completely* give him props for that, and would even state that 99% (or more) of searches for “Scoble” are for him! I give him props for a lot of stuff, I just don’t agree that 99% of people who enter “Robert” as a search term (which I don’t think happens all that frequently to begin with) are looking for him, that’s all…
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another trivia, Larry Page is not the ‘Larry’-est of em all in google – http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=larry
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another trivia, Larry Page is not the ‘Larry’-est of em all in google – http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=larry
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@seshadri: “Something we can all do is offer Microsoft constructive criticism…”
Why? Some of us would like to see MSFT just implode. We’d all be better seeing a convicted monopoly abuser that taxes computing the world over just go away. So I love Ballmer. I love what he’s done to the MSFT stock. I love the fact that MSFT just can’t do anything right. I love the fact that product after product they have failed pretty much in everything they’ve gone after. Love it.
“Microsoft is building some great products that we’re all going to love”
And you’re claiming you’re not a MSFT mouthpiece? Get real.
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@seshadri: “Something we can all do is offer Microsoft constructive criticism…”
Why? Some of us would like to see MSFT just implode. We’d all be better seeing a convicted monopoly abuser that taxes computing the world over just go away. So I love Ballmer. I love what he’s done to the MSFT stock. I love the fact that MSFT just can’t do anything right. I love the fact that product after product they have failed pretty much in everything they’ve gone after. Love it.
“Microsoft is building some great products that we’re all going to love”
And you’re claiming you’re not a MSFT mouthpiece? Get real.
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@50, what are you smoking? i didn’t say either of those things.
Try to match them up with the actual commenter.
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@50, what are you smoking? i didn’t say either of those things.
Try to match them up with the actual commenter.
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After several years of strongly supporting Windows Mobile Microsoft still has not given me MVP just because old MVPs, who get the award for ever, are jealous of myself. So you are absolutely right that “The words are empty.”.
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After several years of strongly supporting Windows Mobile Microsoft still has not given me MVP just because old MVPs, who get the award for ever, are jealous of myself. So you are absolutely right that “The words are empty.”.
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PS their MVP process is stupid. I know people who should most definitely not be representing MSFT as MVPs and others who should (and have been nominated and not chosen).
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PS their MVP process is stupid. I know people who should most definitely not be representing MSFT as MVPs and others who should (and have been nominated and not chosen).
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I was just scrolling back through your post and came up with this: that MSFT has no Pipes killer, no adWords killer, no Flash killer, no killer searchbox, no killer datacenter. Just what Ballmer might call cute efforts.
And I’m wondering if that’s fine.
Has MSFT already bet on business communications instead? I mean, I haven’t seen it yet, but I thought the Live Communications server/client is intended to be MSFTs next trick. That search is kind of a competitive reflex, but enterprise communications is supposed to be the future growth area for the company. Isn’t everything else just smoke and mirrorss? I thought that was why Jeff Raikes took the telephone job himself last spring.
I kind of interpreted Live and the internet products as they stand today as mostly misdirection – sort of a pump fake.
And I think the TellMe acquisition lines up really well with my idea.
Am I on to something?
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I was just scrolling back through your post and came up with this: that MSFT has no Pipes killer, no adWords killer, no Flash killer, no killer searchbox, no killer datacenter. Just what Ballmer might call cute efforts.
And I’m wondering if that’s fine.
Has MSFT already bet on business communications instead? I mean, I haven’t seen it yet, but I thought the Live Communications server/client is intended to be MSFTs next trick. That search is kind of a competitive reflex, but enterprise communications is supposed to be the future growth area for the company. Isn’t everything else just smoke and mirrorss? I thought that was why Jeff Raikes took the telephone job himself last spring.
I kind of interpreted Live and the internet products as they stand today as mostly misdirection – sort of a pump fake.
And I think the TellMe acquisition lines up really well with my idea.
Am I on to something?
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“Mike: and you’re not egotistical? Riiiiigggghhhhhttttt.”
Well, I don’t know. But I don’t praise myself in my own comments every week 🙂
“When you gonna build a better blog service? My wife is on it and it really really sucks.”
That’s constructive. You guys have my email address, phone number, office number, and URL. The last time I received any feedback was probably almost 2 years ago.
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“Mike: and you’re not egotistical? Riiiiigggghhhhhttttt.”
Well, I don’t know. But I don’t praise myself in my own comments every week 🙂
“When you gonna build a better blog service? My wife is on it and it really really sucks.”
That’s constructive. You guys have my email address, phone number, office number, and URL. The last time I received any feedback was probably almost 2 years ago.
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Mike,
I agree with David. You are one of the good guys. I still am using spaces, but it does have a few problems. I mentioned them last August in my blog and none of the problems, to my knowledge, have been fixed.
http://maryamie.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!9592F3DEF41537A3!2002.entry
Thanks for your consideration.
Maryam
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Mike,
I agree with David. You are one of the good guys. I still am using spaces, but it does have a few problems. I mentioned them last August in my blog and none of the problems, to my knowledge, have been fixed.
http://maryamie.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!9592F3DEF41537A3!2002.entry
Thanks for your consideration.
Maryam
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Maryam, change your blog to WordPress. It’s the best!!!!
🙂
regards,
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Maryam, change your blog to WordPress. It’s the best!!!!
🙂
regards,
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Thanks Maryam. I will check it out.
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Thanks Maryam. I will check it out.
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Thanks Mike! Really the commenting system is the one that makes my readers upset.
Nelson,
I like WordPress and I like Matt, but spaces feels like home. I am hoping with time they will improve. It’s hard to move!
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Thanks Mike! Really the commenting system is the one that makes my readers upset.
Nelson,
I like WordPress and I like Matt, but spaces feels like home. I am hoping with time they will improve. It’s hard to move!
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“maybe they ARE looking for me when they type Robert. PC World named me one of the most important people on the Internet. So did Forbes.”
You’ve gotta be kidding me! Seriously, you’re saying that when people serch for “Robert” on Google, they’re not looking for Robert DeNiro or Robert Redford, but for Robert Scoble? Aren’t you giving yourself a little too much importance? That’s probably one of the reasons you like Google so much – because of the importance they give you. Wow! 🙂
Also, I don’t know Mike personally but he comes across as a nice person in his blog.
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Mike: ‘“When you gonna build a better blog service? My wife is on it and it really really sucks.”
That’s constructive. You guys have my email address, phone number, office number, and URL. The last time I received any feedback was probably almost 2 years ago.’
You mean you can’t tell that it’s slow? Are you bypassing something that everyone else outside of Microsoft sees?
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“maybe they ARE looking for me when they type Robert. PC World named me one of the most important people on the Internet. So did Forbes.”
You’ve gotta be kidding me! Seriously, you’re saying that when people serch for “Robert” on Google, they’re not looking for Robert DeNiro or Robert Redford, but for Robert Scoble? Aren’t you giving yourself a little too much importance? That’s probably one of the reasons you like Google so much – because of the importance they give you. Wow! 🙂
Also, I don’t know Mike personally but he comes across as a nice person in his blog.
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Mike: ‘“When you gonna build a better blog service? My wife is on it and it really really sucks.”
That’s constructive. You guys have my email address, phone number, office number, and URL. The last time I received any feedback was probably almost 2 years ago.’
You mean you can’t tell that it’s slow? Are you bypassing something that everyone else outside of Microsoft sees?
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On second thoughts, maybe you are the most popular “Robert” of them all!
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On second thoughts, maybe you are the most popular “Robert” of them all!
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Maryam,
You’re a doll, but your husband needs help. Soon all sorts of Softietards will be calling him with advice to apologize to Ballmer & Co. Don’t let him do it. I’m told he might be prone to doing so. He doesn’t have to go back to Redmond for another tour of duty. The world is seeing the salesguy for what he is. He’s asleep at the wheel; let him be. Much love.
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Maryam,
You’re a doll, but your husband needs help. Soon all sorts of Softietards will be calling him with advice to apologize to Ballmer & Co. Don’t let him do it. I’m told he might be prone to doing so. He doesn’t have to go back to Redmond for another tour of duty. The world is seeing the salesguy for what he is. He’s asleep at the wheel; let him be. Much love.
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Diego: Ultimately, just like any site, the more content you have on your page(s) the slower the page will load. We do take performance very seriously and are making gains every release – we’ve improved quite a bit recently.
Maryam: We’re working on commenting!
One thing to point out though: comparing WordPress to Spaces is like comparing Twitter to IM or Facebook to Flickr. They are just different tools with different goals for a different audience. Not everyone strives to be the #1 Robert or to get their service mentioned in Mashable on Tuesdays.
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Diego: Ultimately, just like any site, the more content you have on your page(s) the slower the page will load. We do take performance very seriously and are making gains every release – we’ve improved quite a bit recently.
Maryam: We’re working on commenting!
One thing to point out though: comparing WordPress to Spaces is like comparing Twitter to IM or Facebook to Flickr. They are just different tools with different goals for a different audience. Not everyone strives to be the #1 Robert or to get their service mentioned in Mashable on Tuesdays.
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@Mike – I’m still rooting for just giving domain control features to MSN Spaces users so that people like Maryam, myself and others could have our own domain names instead of a live.whatever.whatever/name/ space or whatever flavor the domain structure changes. I think since launch it’s changed what, four times?
Hopefully speed and increased flexibility are on the map as high priorities for the team.
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@Mike – I’m still rooting for just giving domain control features to MSN Spaces users so that people like Maryam, myself and others could have our own domain names instead of a live.whatever.whatever/name/ space or whatever flavor the domain structure changes. I think since launch it’s changed what, four times?
Hopefully speed and increased flexibility are on the map as high priorities for the team.
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Eh, who really wants Microsoft to win? I mean, they already control the desktop and the office suite. I’d rather not have my only option for everything to be Microsoft.
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Eh, who really wants Microsoft to win? I mean, they already control the desktop and the office suite. I’d rather not have my only option for everything to be Microsoft.
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I know TDavid, I want it too (I have my domain ready to go) but there are some pretty complex scaling and authentication issues to get over first before it’s possible. Part of the “problem” with a big service. If we only had 10,000 or 100,000 or even 1 mil users, we could do it tomorrow.
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I know TDavid, I want it too (I have my domain ready to go) but there are some pretty complex scaling and authentication issues to get over first before it’s possible. Part of the “problem” with a big service. If we only had 10,000 or 100,000 or even 1 mil users, we could do it tomorrow.
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Microsoft has two problems really. 1. They don’t develop, they takeover/buy (although Google seems to be heading in that direction). 2. When they do develop, they do it for the lowest common denominator (Reminds me of AOL).
Its all about the bottom dollar and not innovation for them. If it’s not pre-installed it doesn’t do well. Give anyone a choice and 9/10 times they will use a competitors product.
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Microsoft has two problems really. 1. They don’t develop, they takeover/buy (although Google seems to be heading in that direction). 2. When they do develop, they do it for the lowest common denominator (Reminds me of AOL).
Its all about the bottom dollar and not innovation for them. If it’s not pre-installed it doesn’t do well. Give anyone a choice and 9/10 times they will use a competitors product.
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Mike: why would we continue giving feedback when you don’t listen to what we told you years ago?
1) Make it faster.
2) Make it so our friends can comment without signing in (anonymous jerks are a big part of commenting).
3) Make it faster.
4) Make it so we can customize the look and feel.
5) Make it so we can add lots of cool gadgets easily.
6) Make it faster.
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Mike: why would we continue giving feedback when you don’t listen to what we told you years ago?
1) Make it faster.
2) Make it so our friends can comment without signing in (anonymous jerks are a big part of commenting).
3) Make it faster.
4) Make it so we can customize the look and feel.
5) Make it so we can add lots of cool gadgets easily.
6) Make it faster.
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#47: There are TONS of good guys at Microsoft. They just aren’t focused on me as a customer. Rather they want to “win.” WTF?
Big companies win by listening.
Microsoft doesn’t demonstrate listening behavior very often.
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#47: There are TONS of good guys at Microsoft. They just aren’t focused on me as a customer. Rather they want to “win.” WTF?
Big companies win by listening.
Microsoft doesn’t demonstrate listening behavior very often.
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“Big companies win by listening.
Microsoft doesn’t demonstrate listening behavior very often.”
And obviously, any big company that doesn’t demonstrate listening behavior does not win because it does not come up with cool products, right?
So, your position is: Microsoft doesn’t make any cool products… errr… no, wait… they do make cool products…. no, they don’t…
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“Big companies win by listening.
Microsoft doesn’t demonstrate listening behavior very often.”
And obviously, any big company that doesn’t demonstrate listening behavior does not win because it does not come up with cool products, right?
So, your position is: Microsoft doesn’t make any cool products… errr… no, wait… they do make cool products…. no, they don’t…
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“Big companies win by listening”
very true. Do you have any examples?
(My examples : Google -big, not listening; Apple – big, not listening)
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“Big companies win by listening”
very true. Do you have any examples?
(My examples : Google -big, not listening; Apple – big, not listening)
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You can install thousands of gadgets including custom HTML (so technically unlimited) already. There are tons of cool ones in Live Gallery. And if you see one you like on someone’s space, you can add it to your own.
And we HAVE made it faster. If something is still running slower than you’d like, you might want to remove some stuff (like gadgets). You can’t load your page up with a bunch of Ajax goodness and expect it to load as fast as Google search results of course.
Anonymous comments is something we all want.
Customization has also gotten a LOT more flexible (more layouts, more themes, more color and transparency options, more custom HTML options) and we have even more coming that will allow people to make the page look completely unique without having to deal with HTML.
I can take you through it so you are up to speed on everything.
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You can install thousands of gadgets including custom HTML (so technically unlimited) already. There are tons of cool ones in Live Gallery. And if you see one you like on someone’s space, you can add it to your own.
And we HAVE made it faster. If something is still running slower than you’d like, you might want to remove some stuff (like gadgets). You can’t load your page up with a bunch of Ajax goodness and expect it to load as fast as Google search results of course.
Anonymous comments is something we all want.
Customization has also gotten a LOT more flexible (more layouts, more themes, more color and transparency options, more custom HTML options) and we have even more coming that will allow people to make the page look completely unique without having to deal with HTML.
I can take you through it so you are up to speed on everything.
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I agree with you, Robert. MS isn’t going anywhere. They make a product that is just “good enough”. They have 95% of the desktop market, so technically, since they have achieved vendor lock-in, good enough is all they have to do.
They throw a few bones to the masses now and again, like Vista. Vista is more or less XP with a few new things, but a lot of eye candy. I’m not even going there.
I’m rarely a tech front liner. In other words, I’m not a hardware/software guinea pig. I wait for others to blow their money and let the bugs get worked out first.
MS is along for the ride, that’s it. They don’t deliver anything that I can’t do without. Nothing.
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I agree with you, Robert. MS isn’t going anywhere. They make a product that is just “good enough”. They have 95% of the desktop market, so technically, since they have achieved vendor lock-in, good enough is all they have to do.
They throw a few bones to the masses now and again, like Vista. Vista is more or less XP with a few new things, but a lot of eye candy. I’m not even going there.
I’m rarely a tech front liner. In other words, I’m not a hardware/software guinea pig. I wait for others to blow their money and let the bugs get worked out first.
MS is along for the ride, that’s it. They don’t deliver anything that I can’t do without. Nothing.
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@74:
“My examples : Google -big, not listening; Apple – big, not listening”
They don’t need to. The media (including bloggers) loves what they do. They may be big but as far as the media is concerned, they’re still underdogs in the fight against Microsoft.
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@74:
“My examples : Google -big, not listening; Apple – big, not listening”
They don’t need to. The media (including bloggers) loves what they do. They may be big but as far as the media is concerned, they’re still underdogs in the fight against Microsoft.
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@77,
I agree.
That’s why i can’t wait for iPhone Vs GPhone
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@77,
I agree.
That’s why i can’t wait for iPhone Vs GPhone
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@seshadri: “Do you have any examples?”
Sure, Microsoft.
MSFT listened to companies that want better search.
MSFT went back to the labs to see if it can out-innovate Google.
MSFT realized it couldn’t. So it unleashed Ballmer to go bark at Google.
And, as it always does, MSFT decided to PAY companies to use its (otherwise) unpopular products:
http://news.com.com/2061-10803_3-6168028.html
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@seshadri: “Do you have any examples?”
Sure, Microsoft.
MSFT listened to companies that want better search.
MSFT went back to the labs to see if it can out-innovate Google.
MSFT realized it couldn’t. So it unleashed Ballmer to go bark at Google.
And, as it always does, MSFT decided to PAY companies to use its (otherwise) unpopular products:
http://news.com.com/2061-10803_3-6168028.html
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@77,
what about Linux? Linux seems to be the underdog in its own circles, but no one else seems to care about getting out from under MS.
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@77,
what about Linux? Linux seems to be the underdog in its own circles, but no one else seems to care about getting out from under MS.
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“Google writes its own hard disk drivers.”
Microsoft writes its own entire OPERATING SYSTEM. It writes drivers!
Anyway I think you are confusing GoogleFS (filesystem) with HD drivers. Their boxes probably max out on RAM — HD search is just too slow, so it’s probably not even a factor here.
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“Google writes its own hard disk drivers.”
Microsoft writes its own entire OPERATING SYSTEM. It writes drivers!
Anyway I think you are confusing GoogleFS (filesystem) with HD drivers. Their boxes probably max out on RAM — HD search is just too slow, so it’s probably not even a factor here.
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@79, what about Google paying Dell to have its toolbar installed on every computer sold? Also, what about this: http://www.spreadfirefox.com/node/24451 ?
I’m going to restate Scoble’s comment: “Companies survive by listening.” No company that doesn’t listen to its customers can survive for as long as Microsoft has.
@80:
“what about Linux? Linux seems to be the underdog in its own circles, but no one else seems to care about getting out from under MS.”
Realistically speaking, Apple and Google have a better chance of beating Microsoft.
“They don’t deliver anything that I can’t do without. Nothing.”
I can say the same about Apple or Google too. I really can do without Google search or the iPod. In fact, I don’t think I can do without Excel or Outlook.
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@79, what about Google paying Dell to have its toolbar installed on every computer sold? Also, what about this: http://www.spreadfirefox.com/node/24451 ?
I’m going to restate Scoble’s comment: “Companies survive by listening.” No company that doesn’t listen to its customers can survive for as long as Microsoft has.
@80:
“what about Linux? Linux seems to be the underdog in its own circles, but no one else seems to care about getting out from under MS.”
Realistically speaking, Apple and Google have a better chance of beating Microsoft.
“They don’t deliver anything that I can’t do without. Nothing.”
I can say the same about Apple or Google too. I really can do without Google search or the iPod. In fact, I don’t think I can do without Excel or Outlook.
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@77,
in the Pre-google era, Linux was the mascot of anything anti-MSFT. (Redhat was supposed kicking MSFT’s ass in the desktops)
@79 – I think that’s a good move.
Why?
LIVE search is certainly not inferior to Google/yahoo/. But it is suffering from not having acceptability and lack of intertia. (and some branding confusion too). So this will help overcome those issues.
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@77,
in the Pre-google era, Linux was the mascot of anything anti-MSFT. (Redhat was supposed kicking MSFT’s ass in the desktops)
@79 – I think that’s a good move.
Why?
LIVE search is certainly not inferior to Google/yahoo/. But it is suffering from not having acceptability and lack of intertia. (and some branding confusion too). So this will help overcome those issues.
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@82,
I use Linux exclusively. No Outlook, no Excel. OpenOffice has served me well for years now with no hitches on either end.
You (metaphorically speaking) are only trapped by MS if you choose to remain trapped. See, that’s the rub. People care too much about compatibility with their friends. Ever heard of plain text? What about RTF? What about pushing, encouraging, and ACTUALLY using open standards instead of complaining about MS?
I left MS products a long time ago with zero ill effects. You, too, can do this.
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@82,
I use Linux exclusively. No Outlook, no Excel. OpenOffice has served me well for years now with no hitches on either end.
You (metaphorically speaking) are only trapped by MS if you choose to remain trapped. See, that’s the rub. People care too much about compatibility with their friends. Ever heard of plain text? What about RTF? What about pushing, encouraging, and ACTUALLY using open standards instead of complaining about MS?
I left MS products a long time ago with zero ill effects. You, too, can do this.
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“I think that’s a good move.”
Of course, it is.
IF all you’re interested in is to “win.”
But then don’t be surprised if MSFT is despised and not trusted.
Who needs to listen to customers when you can literally bribe them into using your products?
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“I think that’s a good move.”
Of course, it is.
IF all you’re interested in is to “win.”
But then don’t be surprised if MSFT is despised and not trusted.
Who needs to listen to customers when you can literally bribe them into using your products?
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@86 – this is an accepted practice in the tech world. google bundles its toolbar with acrobat reader install. Not just in software, every industry bundles deals as part of promotions.
Particularly in this case, its not an inferior product. All the negative perception apart, Live search is atleast on par with google.
BTW,How do you connect this with ‘trust’?
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@86 – this is an accepted practice in the tech world. google bundles its toolbar with acrobat reader install. Not just in software, every industry bundles deals as part of promotions.
Particularly in this case, its not an inferior product. All the negative perception apart, Live search is atleast on par with google.
BTW,How do you connect this with ‘trust’?
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@ seshadri: “this is an accepted practice in the tech world.”
Boggles the mind. Lots of thigs are “accepted practice” out there; does that make them good?
If a company’s natural reaction to adversity is to “win” by bribing, then you have MSFT exactly where it belongs: unable to invent or innovate, it bullies or bribes.
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@ seshadri: “this is an accepted practice in the tech world.”
Boggles the mind. Lots of thigs are “accepted practice” out there; does that make them good?
If a company’s natural reaction to adversity is to “win” by bribing, then you have MSFT exactly where it belongs: unable to invent or innovate, it bullies or bribes.
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Got to tip your hat to Microsoft in the console gaming sector, Robert. The Xbox 360 is rocking and they managed to create the best online console gaming out there (Xbox Live) against the odds. Sony has an interesting idea with Home if they get enough people to pay too much for a PS3, or lower the price to be competitive, but right now it looks more like Nintendo could be the threat going forward.
*looks like*?
Dude, the Xbox can’t even outsell the PS2, meanwhile the Wii is kicking EVERYONE’s ass. The *Wii* is rocking, the Xbox is wobbling.
Mike: and you’re not egotistical? Riiiiigggghhhhhttttt.
When you gonna build a better blog service? My wife is on it and it really really sucks.
Let me worry about my ego, you worry about my wife’s blog service. It’s always so freaking slow.
Dear god, what is up with the new login for spaces. Could it suck any MORE? I don’t see how.
“Big companies win by listening”
very true. Do you have any examples?
(My examples : Google -big, not listening; Apple – big, not listening)
Funny how Apple “doesn’t listen”, but they keep coming out with stuff that people love. Maybe there’s more ways of listening besides blogs…oh wait, how silly of me…blogs are the only things that count. Observation and all the rest are crap, right? Only blogs matter. Microsoft has hundreds of blogs, and look how well they’re doing…um…oops.
Realistically speaking, Apple and Google have a better chance of beating Microsoft.
“beating the other guy” is the wrong focus. It puts you into a reactive posture. Just like Microsoft. They only care about beating the competition, so everything they do is derived from that.
Apple and Google are servicing their customers, and doing the things they do best. They have a small number of things they do, they do them really well, and trust in their customers to recognize that. They ship regularly, and don’t bullshit their customers the way Microsoft does, like with that entire Port25 marketing spew.
That’s why they’re doing well. And why Microsoft isn’t.
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Got to tip your hat to Microsoft in the console gaming sector, Robert. The Xbox 360 is rocking and they managed to create the best online console gaming out there (Xbox Live) against the odds. Sony has an interesting idea with Home if they get enough people to pay too much for a PS3, or lower the price to be competitive, but right now it looks more like Nintendo could be the threat going forward.
*looks like*?
Dude, the Xbox can’t even outsell the PS2, meanwhile the Wii is kicking EVERYONE’s ass. The *Wii* is rocking, the Xbox is wobbling.
Mike: and you’re not egotistical? Riiiiigggghhhhhttttt.
When you gonna build a better blog service? My wife is on it and it really really sucks.
Let me worry about my ego, you worry about my wife’s blog service. It’s always so freaking slow.
Dear god, what is up with the new login for spaces. Could it suck any MORE? I don’t see how.
“Big companies win by listening”
very true. Do you have any examples?
(My examples : Google -big, not listening; Apple – big, not listening)
Funny how Apple “doesn’t listen”, but they keep coming out with stuff that people love. Maybe there’s more ways of listening besides blogs…oh wait, how silly of me…blogs are the only things that count. Observation and all the rest are crap, right? Only blogs matter. Microsoft has hundreds of blogs, and look how well they’re doing…um…oops.
Realistically speaking, Apple and Google have a better chance of beating Microsoft.
“beating the other guy” is the wrong focus. It puts you into a reactive posture. Just like Microsoft. They only care about beating the competition, so everything they do is derived from that.
Apple and Google are servicing their customers, and doing the things they do best. They have a small number of things they do, they do them really well, and trust in their customers to recognize that. They ship regularly, and don’t bullshit their customers the way Microsoft does, like with that entire Port25 marketing spew.
That’s why they’re doing well. And why Microsoft isn’t.
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@85:
“I left MS products a long time ago with zero ill effects. You, too, can do this.”
I agree. I could start using Gnumeric instead of Excel. But I can live without Google too, or even Apple.
@88:
“If a company’s natural reaction to adversity is to “win” by bribing, then you have MSFT exactly where it belongs: unable to invent or innovate, it bullies or bribes.”
So, it’s okay for Google to pay Dell to have its toolbar installed on every PC sold? It’s okay for Google to pay AdSense publishers $1 for referring Firefox with Google toolbar?
@90:
” The *Wii* is rocking, the Xbox is wobbling.”
Yes, the Wii is rocking. Is the XBox really wobbling? Whatever makes you happy.
“That’s why they’re doing well. And why Microsoft isn’t.”
So, Microsoft isn’t doing well? Hmm. Again, whatever makes you happy!
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@85:
“I left MS products a long time ago with zero ill effects. You, too, can do this.”
I agree. I could start using Gnumeric instead of Excel. But I can live without Google too, or even Apple.
@88:
“If a company’s natural reaction to adversity is to “win” by bribing, then you have MSFT exactly where it belongs: unable to invent or innovate, it bullies or bribes.”
So, it’s okay for Google to pay Dell to have its toolbar installed on every PC sold? It’s okay for Google to pay AdSense publishers $1 for referring Firefox with Google toolbar?
@90:
” The *Wii* is rocking, the Xbox is wobbling.”
Yes, the Wii is rocking. Is the XBox really wobbling? Whatever makes you happy.
“That’s why they’re doing well. And why Microsoft isn’t.”
So, Microsoft isn’t doing well? Hmm. Again, whatever makes you happy!
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“That’s why they’re doing well. And why Microsoft isn’t”
All bashing aside, its not like MSFT is in red. It still has double digit growth. If – this is a forecast – i would love to see how many of the nay sayers actually go short on MSFT. The market does let you bet both ways.
Apple can gain 1% marketshare and be called ‘doing well’, but XBOX 360 is a failure even when it is gaining marketshare and is #2? (Yeah yeah PS2 kicks 360 in the rear. unfortnately theres some friendly fire going on with PS3 as well)
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“That’s why they’re doing well. And why Microsoft isn’t”
All bashing aside, its not like MSFT is in red. It still has double digit growth. If – this is a forecast – i would love to see how many of the nay sayers actually go short on MSFT. The market does let you bet both ways.
Apple can gain 1% marketshare and be called ‘doing well’, but XBOX 360 is a failure even when it is gaining marketshare and is #2? (Yeah yeah PS2 kicks 360 in the rear. unfortnately theres some friendly fire going on with PS3 as well)
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IBM was making lots of profit, even when it was doing really poorly.
The fact is, No one cares about Vista, Office 2007 is a non-issue for at least a year, and the Xbox 360 can’t outsell a five year old game system, and is getting its ass beat by everything BUT the PS3.
Microsoft didn’t build the Xbox 360 to do anything but beat the PS3. In that, it succeeded. Nintendo ignored both of them, and built a game system that was damned near instantly usable by anyone with enough coordination to hold a stick, and made playing games fun OUTSIDE of the game.
That’s the difference. Nintendo decided on a goal that wasn’t dependent on the competition, Microsoft was all about being better than Sony.
And no, the Xbox 360 is not #2.
It’s number *Three*.
the Wii is #1, the PS2 is #2.
Xbox? #3.
Your own myopia here is a perfect example of Microsoft’s.
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IBM was making lots of profit, even when it was doing really poorly.
The fact is, No one cares about Vista, Office 2007 is a non-issue for at least a year, and the Xbox 360 can’t outsell a five year old game system, and is getting its ass beat by everything BUT the PS3.
Microsoft didn’t build the Xbox 360 to do anything but beat the PS3. In that, it succeeded. Nintendo ignored both of them, and built a game system that was damned near instantly usable by anyone with enough coordination to hold a stick, and made playing games fun OUTSIDE of the game.
That’s the difference. Nintendo decided on a goal that wasn’t dependent on the competition, Microsoft was all about being better than Sony.
And no, the Xbox 360 is not #2.
It’s number *Three*.
the Wii is #1, the PS2 is #2.
Xbox? #3.
Your own myopia here is a perfect example of Microsoft’s.
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“Your own myopia here is a perfect example of Microsoft’s.”
Pot, meet kettle.
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“Your own myopia here is a perfect example of Microsoft’s.”
Pot, meet kettle.
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“No one cares about Vista”
How do you know? you’ve spoken to ALL? Look at this – http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=229
so, Having the latest OS release labelled as a non-starter is not something new for MSFT. But hey, may be even Ed Bott is myopic and thats symbolic of the problem with MSFT?
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“No one cares about Vista”
How do you know? you’ve spoken to ALL? Look at this – http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=229
so, Having the latest OS release labelled as a non-starter is not something new for MSFT. But hey, may be even Ed Bott is myopic and thats symbolic of the problem with MSFT?
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“IBM was making lots of profit, even when it was doing really poorly.”
Not exactly, as IBM lost billions of dollars in the early 90’s. Microsoft anywhere near that point.
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“IBM was making lots of profit, even when it was doing really poorly.”
Not exactly, as IBM lost billions of dollars in the early 90’s. Microsoft anywhere near that point.
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“Anonymous comments is something we all want.”
Yes! Why is it that Spaces requires someone to have an account on there? That is extremelly lame. As Scoble says, anonymous jerks are a big part of comments. Maybe requiring an account is just a way of trying to force people in to the Microsoft camp? Doesn’t make sense I know. All it does is annoy people. I know that when I’m on Digg, or some other place, and I land on a Spaces blog I just close the browser tab. I don’t want to be part of the conversation if you’re forcing me to signup.
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“Anonymous comments is something we all want.”
Yes! Why is it that Spaces requires someone to have an account on there? That is extremelly lame. As Scoble says, anonymous jerks are a big part of comments. Maybe requiring an account is just a way of trying to force people in to the Microsoft camp? Doesn’t make sense I know. All it does is annoy people. I know that when I’m on Digg, or some other place, and I land on a Spaces blog I just close the browser tab. I don’t want to be part of the conversation if you’re forcing me to signup.
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>seshadri: Particularly in this case, its not an inferior product. All the negative perception apart, Live search is atleast on par with google.
You just lost any credibility you might have had here.
I’ve done tons of searches and Live is behind — often way behind — in almost any search I do (except for the aformentioned “Robert”).
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>seshadri: Particularly in this case, its not an inferior product. All the negative perception apart, Live search is atleast on par with google.
You just lost any credibility you might have had here.
I’ve done tons of searches and Live is behind — often way behind — in almost any search I do (except for the aformentioned “Robert”).
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>Seshadri: Do you have any examples?
(My examples : Google -big, not listening; Apple – big, not listening)
Hah! Google has a news reader. We asked for that. Where’s Microsoft’s? Google has blog search engine. Where’s Microsoft’s? Apple has a podcasting client. Where’s Microsoft’s? Apple puts blogging on its signs in its stores. Where’s Microsoft’s?
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>Seshadri: Do you have any examples?
(My examples : Google -big, not listening; Apple – big, not listening)
Hah! Google has a news reader. We asked for that. Where’s Microsoft’s? Google has blog search engine. Where’s Microsoft’s? Apple has a podcasting client. Where’s Microsoft’s? Apple puts blogging on its signs in its stores. Where’s Microsoft’s?
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Can someone tell me one more success that Google has under its belt besides Search …. mmmm … mmmm …. mmmm … mmmm …
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Can someone tell me one more success that Google has under its belt besides Search …. mmmm … mmmm …. mmmm … mmmm …
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Murali: it’s mapping service has most of the mashups on the Web using it. Google Reader is #1 according to most stats. And its big success? It isn’t search.
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Murali: it’s mapping service has most of the mashups on the Web using it. Google Reader is #1 according to most stats. And its big success? It isn’t search.
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Robert, in post 97, you mention “I’ve done tons of searches and Live is behind — often way behind — in almost any search I do (except for the aformentioned “Robert”).”
Yet, not too long ago, you mentioned, “Damn, I saw some people talking about how much better Microsoft’s Live Search was and I just tried a few searches and, indeed, it’s a lot better than it used to be. They’ve significantly closed the gap with Google.
How does it do on your favorite searches? I even picked out a random Windows API call and did a search on that. MSN used to always suck on those. But Live.com gets it right.
It’s also fast and the UI is nice. I think it matches Google all the way around on search.”
Taken from: http://scobleizer.com/2006/10/12/microsofts-search-a-lot-better-than-it-used-to-be/
I’m sure I and your other readers would be curious to know what exactly changed between the Live Search of then compared to the Live Search of today.
Cheers!
Kirupa
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Robert, in post 97, you mention “I’ve done tons of searches and Live is behind — often way behind — in almost any search I do (except for the aformentioned “Robert”).”
Yet, not too long ago, you mentioned, “Damn, I saw some people talking about how much better Microsoft’s Live Search was and I just tried a few searches and, indeed, it’s a lot better than it used to be. They’ve significantly closed the gap with Google.
How does it do on your favorite searches? I even picked out a random Windows API call and did a search on that. MSN used to always suck on those. But Live.com gets it right.
It’s also fast and the UI is nice. I think it matches Google all the way around on search.”
Taken from: http://scobleizer.com/2006/10/12/microsofts-search-a-lot-better-than-it-used-to-be/
I’m sure I and your other readers would be curious to know what exactly changed between the Live Search of then compared to the Live Search of today.
Cheers!
Kirupa
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Kirupa: go back and read my earlier articles: I said that Live.com had closed the gap.
Now, go back and try the searches again. The gap hasn’t narrowed and, in some cases, Google has pulled way ahead again (look at yesterday’s “notary” search for an example).
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Kirupa: go back and read my earlier articles: I said that Live.com had closed the gap.
Now, go back and try the searches again. The gap hasn’t narrowed and, in some cases, Google has pulled way ahead again (look at yesterday’s “notary” search for an example).
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@ John C. Welch – you wrote: “Dude, the Xbox can’t even outsell the PS2, meanwhile the Wii is kicking EVERYONE’s ass. The *Wii* is rocking, the Xbox is wobbling.”
Come on, John, facts are facts. We all know the Wii is having a great launch period and outselling the Xbox 360 and PS3 at the moment. Now go look up the numbers on online gaming penetration. Go look who just passed the six million member mark.
Not Sony. Not Nintendo. Forgetting about the online gaming sector?
As someone who owns all three systems (do you, John?) I can tell you that the major weakness for Nintendo Wii and the PS3 is their online strategy and current implementation. The Wii is overcharging for games we already have with little to no enhancement.
The Wii is a gimmick (Twitter, anyone?) — a fun one for the entire family, yes, which explains why it’s so popular at the moment — but still a gimmick. Enough of a gimmick and priced right so that Nintendo can pick up lost ground over the Gamecube. The whole Mii thing is intriguing but poorly executed at the moment. There’s plenty of time for Nintendo to improve upon this and become a serious #1 threat in the coming days, but they have a long ways to go and a lot more Wiis to sell. Their system doesn’t even double as a DVD player yet, nor does it talk to your machine for playing music. Online gaming with your friends? Rest my case.
The PS2 has sold very well, absolutely yes, but you don’t know that much about the console gaming market John if you don’t realize how cyclical the market is and just how many people are pissed at Sony. Not just customers, but partners and developers too.
Check what Sony’s Phil Harrison had to say about GTA being lost as an exclusive title because the PS3 audience wasn’t big enough. If the PS2 was doing so well, then why couldn’t Sony secure the next GTA as exclusive for the PS2?
Answer: PS2 is yesterday.
Sony can only live on yesterday so long. Their arrogance got the best of them when they believed that they could shove another largely unnecessary proprietary format down customer’s throats (Blu-Ray) just because they are Sony.
Don’t get me wrong, that’s Microsoft’s biggest problem too. They are living on yesterday on a lot of things.
They pissed off developers when they went to .NET from VB6, they irritated customers with their whole legacy program which forces upgrades prematurely.
But a bright star in M$ stable — different from most other departments and teams there — is the Xbox Live platform.
They have actually innovated and done something very, very well.
Does the Wii or PS2 sell/rent TV/Movies? Xbox Live does and in fact if you look beyond the microcosm that is Scoble’s comment area, the facts show it’s been *THE* most successful at selling and renting TVs/Movies.
Nintendo up until the Wii pretty much scoffed at the idea of gaming online.
Xbox Live is Microsoft’s trojan horse. Apple, Google, Sony, they’d love to have such a juicy piece of the online gaming action. Apple is trying to get into games, in fact and doing a miserable job so far. Ever try playing any sort of game on your iPod?
I’ll be among the first to criticize Microsoft for their many failings — and live search has definitely been a dud so far — but they have to be given credit for Xbox Live. It’s better than anybody else out there. To claim otherwise is misguided and misinformed.
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@ John C. Welch – you wrote: “Dude, the Xbox can’t even outsell the PS2, meanwhile the Wii is kicking EVERYONE’s ass. The *Wii* is rocking, the Xbox is wobbling.”
Come on, John, facts are facts. We all know the Wii is having a great launch period and outselling the Xbox 360 and PS3 at the moment. Now go look up the numbers on online gaming penetration. Go look who just passed the six million member mark.
Not Sony. Not Nintendo. Forgetting about the online gaming sector?
As someone who owns all three systems (do you, John?) I can tell you that the major weakness for Nintendo Wii and the PS3 is their online strategy and current implementation. The Wii is overcharging for games we already have with little to no enhancement.
The Wii is a gimmick (Twitter, anyone?) — a fun one for the entire family, yes, which explains why it’s so popular at the moment — but still a gimmick. Enough of a gimmick and priced right so that Nintendo can pick up lost ground over the Gamecube. The whole Mii thing is intriguing but poorly executed at the moment. There’s plenty of time for Nintendo to improve upon this and become a serious #1 threat in the coming days, but they have a long ways to go and a lot more Wiis to sell. Their system doesn’t even double as a DVD player yet, nor does it talk to your machine for playing music. Online gaming with your friends? Rest my case.
The PS2 has sold very well, absolutely yes, but you don’t know that much about the console gaming market John if you don’t realize how cyclical the market is and just how many people are pissed at Sony. Not just customers, but partners and developers too.
Check what Sony’s Phil Harrison had to say about GTA being lost as an exclusive title because the PS3 audience wasn’t big enough. If the PS2 was doing so well, then why couldn’t Sony secure the next GTA as exclusive for the PS2?
Answer: PS2 is yesterday.
Sony can only live on yesterday so long. Their arrogance got the best of them when they believed that they could shove another largely unnecessary proprietary format down customer’s throats (Blu-Ray) just because they are Sony.
Don’t get me wrong, that’s Microsoft’s biggest problem too. They are living on yesterday on a lot of things.
They pissed off developers when they went to .NET from VB6, they irritated customers with their whole legacy program which forces upgrades prematurely.
But a bright star in M$ stable — different from most other departments and teams there — is the Xbox Live platform.
They have actually innovated and done something very, very well.
Does the Wii or PS2 sell/rent TV/Movies? Xbox Live does and in fact if you look beyond the microcosm that is Scoble’s comment area, the facts show it’s been *THE* most successful at selling and renting TVs/Movies.
Nintendo up until the Wii pretty much scoffed at the idea of gaming online.
Xbox Live is Microsoft’s trojan horse. Apple, Google, Sony, they’d love to have such a juicy piece of the online gaming action. Apple is trying to get into games, in fact and doing a miserable job so far. Ever try playing any sort of game on your iPod?
I’ll be among the first to criticize Microsoft for their many failings — and live search has definitely been a dud so far — but they have to be given credit for Xbox Live. It’s better than anybody else out there. To claim otherwise is misguided and misinformed.
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“we’re in it to win” — Really?
Message to Seattle:
This is way too cute. It echoes our theme song “We’re All In This Together”. We are going to launch a live performance at our celebration party.
I can tell Microsoft is up to something good lately with their buyings and pieces. I can see Microsoft is moving strategically to capture the Future.
Shipping alone can’t be used as success measurement. I just hope the big ship can safely make the turn in a fast moving ocean current.
I will leave some Genie Potion #9 at upcoming.org to wax the crystal ball for a company attempting to use technology to save lives.
Echo from Silicon Valley
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“we’re in it to win” — Really?
Message to Seattle:
This is way too cute. It echoes our theme song “We’re All In This Together”. We are going to launch a live performance at our celebration party.
I can tell Microsoft is up to something good lately with their buyings and pieces. I can see Microsoft is moving strategically to capture the Future.
Shipping alone can’t be used as success measurement. I just hope the big ship can safely make the turn in a fast moving ocean current.
I will leave some Genie Potion #9 at upcoming.org to wax the crystal ball for a company attempting to use technology to save lives.
Echo from Silicon Valley
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Mike! I Told’Ya, Didn’t I!!!
Huh? …Didn’t I!!!
Now, STOP Posting Here, Get Back Over To “Spaces” & Get The D@MN Thing RUNNING RIGHT!!!
Soapbox TOO!!!
NOW GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
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Mike! I Told’Ya, Didn’t I!!!
Huh? …Didn’t I!!!
Now, STOP Posting Here, Get Back Over To “Spaces” & Get The D@MN Thing RUNNING RIGHT!!!
Soapbox TOO!!!
NOW GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
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Never put a marketing person in charge of a technology company. MS’s CEO (Ballimer) doesn’t grok technology, not even a little.
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Never put a marketing person in charge of a technology company. MS’s CEO (Ballimer) doesn’t grok technology, not even a little.
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Pretty Interesting Article…:)
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Pretty Interesting Article…:)
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You might heed your own advice Scoble. I can recall many times you hyping Microsoft stuff before it was shipped. Including search. This post makes me wonder how much of your previous posts were marketing bulls**t and how much was real. And how much I can trust your opinion going forward…
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You might heed your own advice Scoble. I can recall many times you hyping Microsoft stuff before it was shipped. Including search. This post makes me wonder how much of your previous posts were marketing bulls**t and how much was real. And how much I can trust your opinion going forward…
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“Hah! Google has a news reader. We asked for that. Where’s Microsoft’s? Google has blog search engine. Where’s Microsoft’s? Apple has a podcasting client. Where’s Microsoft’s? Apple puts blogging on its signs in its stores. Where’s Microsoft’s?”
You can’t give a single example to prove that a company always listens to its customers. A single counter-example is enough to disprove your claim – it doesn’t work the other way around. In any case, you want to know where Microsoft listened to its customers? Everyone wanted Windows to be more secure. Vista and XP are arguably more secure than their predecessors: http://www.twit.tv/sn83
So, there, I’ve given one example of where Microsoft listened to its customers. I can give several more. What exactly was your point again?
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“Hah! Google has a news reader. We asked for that. Where’s Microsoft’s? Google has blog search engine. Where’s Microsoft’s? Apple has a podcasting client. Where’s Microsoft’s? Apple puts blogging on its signs in its stores. Where’s Microsoft’s?”
You can’t give a single example to prove that a company always listens to its customers. A single counter-example is enough to disprove your claim – it doesn’t work the other way around. In any case, you want to know where Microsoft listened to its customers? Everyone wanted Windows to be more secure. Vista and XP are arguably more secure than their predecessors: http://www.twit.tv/sn83
So, there, I’ve given one example of where Microsoft listened to its customers. I can give several more. What exactly was your point again?
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Does your opinion of Microsoft vary depending on which side of the bed you get up on, Scoble?
“You just lost any credibility you might have had here.”
And you, with all your flip-flops, somehow still manage to hang on to it. Wow!
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Does your opinion of Microsoft vary depending on which side of the bed you get up on, Scoble?
“You just lost any credibility you might have had here.”
And you, with all your flip-flops, somehow still manage to hang on to it. Wow!
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@102 Robert, you have to give specific examples of search phrases for which Live is inferior.(though random examples don’t qualify the engine totally.)
I’ll say again, Live’s performance against Google is atleast equal. Anyway it’s not possible to directly calibrate the ‘quality’ of search engines. This has to be a subjective call based on usage. My assertion is based on a 6 month experience when i used Live and Google side by side. Yes – side by side, every search would be brought up in both. There is virtually no differnce between both NOW.
(if i just wanted to hype up something MSFT without conviction, live is the last thing i would have chosen. As this is one MSFT service that has been so heavily invested in and lagging far behind in terms of numbers)
reg listening – I have been in the frontline dealing with support calls for some of the developer products until recently. I can vouch for the amount of listening that was done and the amount of feedback that was propagated trhough the layers on to the next version.
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@102 Robert, you have to give specific examples of search phrases for which Live is inferior.(though random examples don’t qualify the engine totally.)
I’ll say again, Live’s performance against Google is atleast equal. Anyway it’s not possible to directly calibrate the ‘quality’ of search engines. This has to be a subjective call based on usage. My assertion is based on a 6 month experience when i used Live and Google side by side. Yes – side by side, every search would be brought up in both. There is virtually no differnce between both NOW.
(if i just wanted to hype up something MSFT without conviction, live is the last thing i would have chosen. As this is one MSFT service that has been so heavily invested in and lagging far behind in terms of numbers)
reg listening – I have been in the frontline dealing with support calls for some of the developer products until recently. I can vouch for the amount of listening that was done and the amount of feedback that was propagated trhough the layers on to the next version.
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Hey and one more thing. I don’t see any of you telling Matt Cutts(a great guy – no offence to him) to go fix Orkut or make Blogger a better platform than wordpress. Since they listen you might get this done very easily.
How many of you are willing to bet you can get Steve Jobs to put a keyboard on iPhone and make it non-exclusive with cingular? After all he would listen…
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Hey and one more thing. I don’t see any of you telling Matt Cutts(a great guy – no offence to him) to go fix Orkut or make Blogger a better platform than wordpress. Since they listen you might get this done very easily.
How many of you are willing to bet you can get Steve Jobs to put a keyboard on iPhone and make it non-exclusive with cingular? After all he would listen…
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Shravan,
Is it not fact that the Xbox finished third in February sales? In fact, it finished fourth if you include portable sales.
The supply problems Microsoft had during the 360’s first christmas has really ruined any hope the 360 had of being number one.
Let’s try and stick to the facts.
And by the way, Apple absolutely listens – just not through blogs.
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Shravan,
Is it not fact that the Xbox finished third in February sales? In fact, it finished fourth if you include portable sales.
The supply problems Microsoft had during the 360’s first christmas has really ruined any hope the 360 had of being number one.
Let’s try and stick to the facts.
And by the way, Apple absolutely listens – just not through blogs.
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#111: I gave you a very specific example just on Thursday.
#112: Blogger is a better blogging service than Live.com and has been improved lately. Agree with you about Orkut. As for iPhone: somethings are impossible.
#113: Apple reads blogs religiously. They just aren’t able to talk back through them. They use blogs and podcasts and video blogs in their advertising and signage in their stores (and are really the only big company I’ve seen do that).
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#111: I gave you a very specific example just on Thursday.
#112: Blogger is a better blogging service than Live.com and has been improved lately. Agree with you about Orkut. As for iPhone: somethings are impossible.
#113: Apple reads blogs religiously. They just aren’t able to talk back through them. They use blogs and podcasts and video blogs in their advertising and signage in their stores (and are really the only big company I’ve seen do that).
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@114, I gave back one example that shows otherwise. So these could be considered an exception
Again, i wouldn’t decide based on even a 100 individual cases. It should be based on a subjective experience over a reasonable amount of time. In early – mid 2006 i would get good live results less than 30% of the time. Now i get correct results 100% (I don;t use side-by-side search anymore. It’s throuh the address bar.Here’s my methodology – search in live, if i don’t get what i am looking for then fallback on google. But off late if i don’t something in Live, i don’t get that in google also)
Note that i am talking about live.com website search only. Not local VS maps;
(If possible, i even urge people to do the same. Use live for sometime. The moment you find things are crappy go back to google.)
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@114, I gave back one example that shows otherwise. So these could be considered an exception
Again, i wouldn’t decide based on even a 100 individual cases. It should be based on a subjective experience over a reasonable amount of time. In early – mid 2006 i would get good live results less than 30% of the time. Now i get correct results 100% (I don;t use side-by-side search anymore. It’s throuh the address bar.Here’s my methodology – search in live, if i don’t get what i am looking for then fallback on google. But off late if i don’t something in Live, i don’t get that in google also)
Note that i am talking about live.com website search only. Not local VS maps;
(If possible, i even urge people to do the same. Use live for sometime. The moment you find things are crappy go back to google.)
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Scoble, have you ever stopped to think that you may not be Live Spaces’ (and not Live,com) intended target audience? Google Reader may be the most popular blog reader but how many people actually use blog readers? Again, regarding podcasting, a very small percentage of computer and mp3 player owners listen to podcasts. Microsoft listens to its customers but they may not always listen to you.
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Scoble, have you ever stopped to think that you may not be Live Spaces’ (and not Live,com) intended target audience? Google Reader may be the most popular blog reader but how many people actually use blog readers? Again, regarding podcasting, a very small percentage of computer and mp3 player owners listen to podcasts. Microsoft listens to its customers but they may not always listen to you.
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“Is it not fact that the Xbox finished third in February sales? In fact, it finished fourth if you include portable sales.”
Well, if you are going to include gaming devices, why don’t you include PCs in your equation. In that case, XBox will probably be nowhere in the top 10. I think its too early to write off the XBox.
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“Is it not fact that the Xbox finished third in February sales? In fact, it finished fourth if you include portable sales.”
Well, if you are going to include gaming devices, why don’t you include PCs in your equation. In that case, XBox will probably be nowhere in the top 10. I think its too early to write off the XBox.
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Shravan: you’re right. I’m not. But my wife is in their target market. And I watch her suffer with it.
A lot of people use feed readers. (They don’t just read blogs — the front page of the BBC has RSS all over it).
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Shravan: you’re right. I’m not. But my wife is in their target market. And I watch her suffer with it.
A lot of people use feed readers. (They don’t just read blogs — the front page of the BBC has RSS all over it).
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Seshadri: search is a lot more than just the correct results. It’s formatting. It’s the advertising choices. It’s whether you include maps and charts.
If Live.com has passed Google (hint: it hasn’t) its market share would be going up (hint: it’s not).
Why? Cause people aren’t stupid. They can see when the results are better on one service or another.
I can tell you work at Microsoft cause you’re the only one sticking up for Live.com.
If Microsoft actually had a great service there would be more than Microsofties sticking up for it.
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Seshadri: search is a lot more than just the correct results. It’s formatting. It’s the advertising choices. It’s whether you include maps and charts.
If Live.com has passed Google (hint: it hasn’t) its market share would be going up (hint: it’s not).
Why? Cause people aren’t stupid. They can see when the results are better on one service or another.
I can tell you work at Microsoft cause you’re the only one sticking up for Live.com.
If Microsoft actually had a great service there would be more than Microsofties sticking up for it.
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@98 “Hah! Google has a news reader. We asked for that. Where’s Microsoft’s? Google has blog search engine. Where’s Microsoft’s? Apple has a podcasting client. Where’s Microsoft’s? Apple puts blogging on its signs in its stores. Where’s Microsoft’s?”
“We”? We who? Please be specific. How many people amongst the broad population Microsoft sells to asked for a news reader, a blog search engine, a podcasting client? Who outside of your own myopic sheltered SV world asked for these things? On top of that, how much revenue are these doodads adding to Google’s bottom line? Ever stopped to think that there’s not enough money on the table for Microsoft to really care about those things? Ever stopped to think there might be a WHOLE DIFFERENT AUDIENCE that Microsoft is listening to other than your small world?
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@98 “Hah! Google has a news reader. We asked for that. Where’s Microsoft’s? Google has blog search engine. Where’s Microsoft’s? Apple has a podcasting client. Where’s Microsoft’s? Apple puts blogging on its signs in its stores. Where’s Microsoft’s?”
“We”? We who? Please be specific. How many people amongst the broad population Microsoft sells to asked for a news reader, a blog search engine, a podcasting client? Who outside of your own myopic sheltered SV world asked for these things? On top of that, how much revenue are these doodads adding to Google’s bottom line? Ever stopped to think that there’s not enough money on the table for Microsoft to really care about those things? Ever stopped to think there might be a WHOLE DIFFERENT AUDIENCE that Microsoft is listening to other than your small world?
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LayZ: let’s see, in the past two months I’ve spoken to audiences in Germany, Switzerland, Phoenix, Utah, Austin, and in Silicon Valley and at all the audiences more than 60% say they use RSS feed readers. This is going mainstream. Or did you miss the RSS feeds on the BBC home page? Yeah, that’s really Silicon Valley.
You sound like a Microsoft employee. I know you work for another large company that actually does a lot less for the world than Microsoft does. Now I understand why.
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LayZ: let’s see, in the past two months I’ve spoken to audiences in Germany, Switzerland, Phoenix, Utah, Austin, and in Silicon Valley and at all the audiences more than 60% say they use RSS feed readers. This is going mainstream. Or did you miss the RSS feeds on the BBC home page? Yeah, that’s really Silicon Valley.
You sound like a Microsoft employee. I know you work for another large company that actually does a lot less for the world than Microsoft does. Now I understand why.
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Every Apple store I’ve been in (even overseas) uses blogging and podcasting in its signage — I guess they are only listening to the Silicon Valley weirdos, right? Yeah…
Shows how clueless you are about how big these things really are.
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Every Apple store I’ve been in (even overseas) uses blogging and podcasting in its signage — I guess they are only listening to the Silicon Valley weirdos, right? Yeah…
Shows how clueless you are about how big these things really are.
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“If Live.com has passed Google (hint: it hasn’t) its market share would be going up (hint: it’s not).”
try telling this to John C Welch; if mac was better than windows then its market share would be going up. (It’s been 12 years since Win95)
This is the major problem with all anti MSFT views. You choose different yardsticks depending on the situation. Windows’ marketshare doesnt mean squat about its success while live’s lack of market share means its inferior. Grossly unfair.
Live suffers from some branding confusion, lacklstre initial performance and being a late entrant to the market.
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“If Live.com has passed Google (hint: it hasn’t) its market share would be going up (hint: it’s not).”
try telling this to John C Welch; if mac was better than windows then its market share would be going up. (It’s been 12 years since Win95)
This is the major problem with all anti MSFT views. You choose different yardsticks depending on the situation. Windows’ marketshare doesnt mean squat about its success while live’s lack of market share means its inferior. Grossly unfair.
Live suffers from some branding confusion, lacklstre initial performance and being a late entrant to the market.
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Seshadri: Apple’s market share HAS been going up in the past two years. It IS better according to the market. Especially for consumers.
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Seshadri: Apple’s market share HAS been going up in the past two years. It IS better according to the market. Especially for consumers.
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Scoble, do you really believe that a company like Microsoft could have survived for so long without listening to its consumers?
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Scoble, do you really believe that a company like Microsoft could have survived for so long without listening to its consumers?
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#123: Live.com suffers from a lot more than all of that. The service sucks when compared to Google. It hasn’t demonstratably passed Google in any search I’ve done yet.
Cloning is NOT going to be an effective business model on the Internet. Why? This is akin to the music industry more than it was to other things.
Try to clone the Beattles and see if you get anywhere close to the economic success that band had.
Yet Microsoft’s entire strategy is “clone, clone, clone.”
Oh, sorry, “win, win, win.”
Yeah, right.
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#123: Live.com suffers from a lot more than all of that. The service sucks when compared to Google. It hasn’t demonstratably passed Google in any search I’ve done yet.
Cloning is NOT going to be an effective business model on the Internet. Why? This is akin to the music industry more than it was to other things.
Try to clone the Beattles and see if you get anywhere close to the economic success that band had.
Yet Microsoft’s entire strategy is “clone, clone, clone.”
Oh, sorry, “win, win, win.”
Yeah, right.
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@126: “Yet Microsoft’s entire strategy is “clone, clone, clone.””
A few days ago you said Microsoft was doing a lot of cool stuff. What exactly has changed since then?
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@126: “Yet Microsoft’s entire strategy is “clone, clone, clone.””
A few days ago you said Microsoft was doing a lot of cool stuff. What exactly has changed since then?
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@126, the internet is proving to be too fast and dynamic to even guess what is a winning strategy and what is not. So i am not going to debate if cloning will win or not.
(comparing to Beattles is totally out of place here. Music is about content and internet is distribution)
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@126, the internet is proving to be too fast and dynamic to even guess what is a winning strategy and what is not. So i am not going to debate if cloning will win or not.
(comparing to Beattles is totally out of place here. Music is about content and internet is distribution)
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I think one of the best things Microsoft could ever do is to get rid of Steve Ballmer and put some new, younger, more energetic blood in the executive suite. The landscape of business is shifting away from Microsoft’s core way of doing things and moving more and more to the Internet. I don’t think Microsoft’s old guard is capable of executing that shift within the company and that is why they will continue their downward spiral into irrelevance. They might be winning on the desktop but they are losing mind share and the hearts of developers.
Why is Google kicking Microsoft’s collective ass? Simple: the spirit of entrepreneur-ism is alive and well at Google. Yes, they’re a mega-corporation but they encourage and nurture the entrepreneurial spirit in each and every one of their people. Everyone feels like Google is *their* company and that they are a vital part of its success. Microsoft, while it preaches the “win win win” attitude, still fosters a very “corporate drone” type of mindset. That doesn’t work in the new web enabled world.
It’s for the reasons above that I believe that Microsoft will eventually fall – not to Google – but to the thousands of smaller, more agile, start ups run by passionate people who really ARE “in it to win”.
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I think one of the best things Microsoft could ever do is to get rid of Steve Ballmer and put some new, younger, more energetic blood in the executive suite. The landscape of business is shifting away from Microsoft’s core way of doing things and moving more and more to the Internet. I don’t think Microsoft’s old guard is capable of executing that shift within the company and that is why they will continue their downward spiral into irrelevance. They might be winning on the desktop but they are losing mind share and the hearts of developers.
Why is Google kicking Microsoft’s collective ass? Simple: the spirit of entrepreneur-ism is alive and well at Google. Yes, they’re a mega-corporation but they encourage and nurture the entrepreneurial spirit in each and every one of their people. Everyone feels like Google is *their* company and that they are a vital part of its success. Microsoft, while it preaches the “win win win” attitude, still fosters a very “corporate drone” type of mindset. That doesn’t work in the new web enabled world.
It’s for the reasons above that I believe that Microsoft will eventually fall – not to Google – but to the thousands of smaller, more agile, start ups run by passionate people who really ARE “in it to win”.
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#127: this is the problem. Microsoft is actually something like 100 companies lashed together. The Xbox team might be doing something cool while the Internet team is totally sucking wind.
In this context we’re talking about the Internet team.
Oh, and cool?
How about Photosynth? http://scobleizer.com/2006/11/10/demo-of-the-year-photosynth/
That’s cool. But it can’t be turned into a product.
Why? Cause it takes nine hours to stitch together a few hundred photos. Unusable.
So, very cool, but not a business.
Most of what we’re talking about above is about being BOTH cool and a great business ON THE INTERNET.
Microsoft is lacking on both areas.
And the comparison to the Beattles is NOT out of place here. Demonstrates that you take a Microsoft approach here.
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#127: this is the problem. Microsoft is actually something like 100 companies lashed together. The Xbox team might be doing something cool while the Internet team is totally sucking wind.
In this context we’re talking about the Internet team.
Oh, and cool?
How about Photosynth? http://scobleizer.com/2006/11/10/demo-of-the-year-photosynth/
That’s cool. But it can’t be turned into a product.
Why? Cause it takes nine hours to stitch together a few hundred photos. Unusable.
So, very cool, but not a business.
Most of what we’re talking about above is about being BOTH cool and a great business ON THE INTERNET.
Microsoft is lacking on both areas.
And the comparison to the Beattles is NOT out of place here. Demonstrates that you take a Microsoft approach here.
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Anthony: what you just said is profound. Deeply profound.
Microsofties won’t understand why. But you nailed it in a way I couldn’t.
Thank you.
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Anthony: what you just said is profound. Deeply profound.
Microsofties won’t understand why. But you nailed it in a way I couldn’t.
Thank you.
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I seem to have missed something…What kind of hosting service are Amazon offering?
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I seem to have missed something…What kind of hosting service are Amazon offering?
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#110: Does your opinion of Microsoft vary depending on which side of the bed you get up on, Scoble?
No, it depends what part of Microsoft we’re talking about.
And, don’t your opinions change based on new information?
Ever since I’ve left a lot of the smartest people I knew at Microsoft have left too. And the folks who ARE left tell me of massive disarray and lack of leadership. Lack of willingness to really do the right things.
Has anything shipped lately from Microsoft that caught your attention (again, in context, in Internet space?)
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#110: Does your opinion of Microsoft vary depending on which side of the bed you get up on, Scoble?
No, it depends what part of Microsoft we’re talking about.
And, don’t your opinions change based on new information?
Ever since I’ve left a lot of the smartest people I knew at Microsoft have left too. And the folks who ARE left tell me of massive disarray and lack of leadership. Lack of willingness to really do the right things.
Has anything shipped lately from Microsoft that caught your attention (again, in context, in Internet space?)
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bitsandpcs: Do a Google search for “Amazon S3.”
SmugMug has terabytes of photos there. TOns of startups lately have been telling me they are using it to either augment, or replace, their datacenters.
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bitsandpcs: Do a Google search for “Amazon S3.”
SmugMug has terabytes of photos there. TOns of startups lately have been telling me they are using it to either augment, or replace, their datacenters.
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@130: “The Xbox team might be doing something cool while the Internet team is totally sucking wind.”
So, XBox Live doesn’t count as something on the internet? What about Windows Live Maps? There are people who think Windows Live Hotmail is cool (http://tinyurl.com/ytln3b. Live Spaces continues to be popular. If you look at usage, many of the Windows Live products are doing well. If you look at revenues (and I agree that matters more), Windows Live is in trouble. So, again, maybe it’s not what you personally want but apparently a lot of people want these things.
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@130: “The Xbox team might be doing something cool while the Internet team is totally sucking wind.”
So, XBox Live doesn’t count as something on the internet? What about Windows Live Maps? There are people who think Windows Live Hotmail is cool (http://tinyurl.com/ytln3b. Live Spaces continues to be popular. If you look at usage, many of the Windows Live products are doing well. If you look at revenues (and I agree that matters more), Windows Live is in trouble. So, again, maybe it’s not what you personally want but apparently a lot of people want these things.
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#125: Microsoft listens to its customers on a granular level. Via MVP programs. Partner programs. Newsgroups. Etc.
But they don’t listen on a meta level and they’ve bought into the bullshit that you should only do things after they are proven to be “big.”
Steven Sinofsky disease major time (I have the email).
http://www.businessweek.com/chapter/christensen.htm Innovators Dilemma big time!
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#125: Microsoft listens to its customers on a granular level. Via MVP programs. Partner programs. Newsgroups. Etc.
But they don’t listen on a meta level and they’ve bought into the bullshit that you should only do things after they are proven to be “big.”
Steven Sinofsky disease major time (I have the email).
http://www.businessweek.com/chapter/christensen.htm Innovators Dilemma big time!
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My comment somehow got lost:
@130: “The Xbox team might be doing something cool while the Internet team is totally sucking wind.”
XBox live has something to do with the internet, right? Windows Live Maps is pretty cool. Some people think Windows Live Mail is good (http://tinyurl.com/ytln3b). Windows Live Spaces continues to be popular and so does Messenger. Again, you may not think these are cool, but apparently there are a lot of people that do.
And, no, I can’t think of anything cool that the internet group has shipped recently but that doesn’t mean they never will. As you yourself mentioned, the group is in disarray. Give them some time.
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My comment somehow got lost:
@130: “The Xbox team might be doing something cool while the Internet team is totally sucking wind.”
XBox live has something to do with the internet, right? Windows Live Maps is pretty cool. Some people think Windows Live Mail is good (http://tinyurl.com/ytln3b). Windows Live Spaces continues to be popular and so does Messenger. Again, you may not think these are cool, but apparently there are a lot of people that do.
And, no, I can’t think of anything cool that the internet group has shipped recently but that doesn’t mean they never will. As you yourself mentioned, the group is in disarray. Give them some time.
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@scoble, you accept that your views about microsoft changed big time with ‘new information’. What if you get more ‘new information’ – this time from CTOs and IT managers from big corporations who don’t take decisions based on coolness? incidentally they are the guys that actally play a big role in ‘bottom lines’. May be that information would lead you think Microsoft isn’t a ‘total loser’ – as your current social circle makes it out to be…
DO you really expect a organisation of 70K employees not have HR problems? Like you said ‘some things are impossible’
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@scoble, you accept that your views about microsoft changed big time with ‘new information’. What if you get more ‘new information’ – this time from CTOs and IT managers from big corporations who don’t take decisions based on coolness? incidentally they are the guys that actally play a big role in ‘bottom lines’. May be that information would lead you think Microsoft isn’t a ‘total loser’ – as your current social circle makes it out to be…
DO you really expect a organisation of 70K employees not have HR problems? Like you said ‘some things are impossible’
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My comment somehow got lost:
@130: “The Xbox team might be doing something cool while the Internet team is totally sucking wind.”
XBox live has something to do with the internet, right? Windows Live Maps is pretty cool. Some people think Windows Live Mail is good (it recently received the PC MAgazine Editor’s Choice award). Windows Live Spaces continues to be popular and so does Messenger. Again, you may not think these are cool, but apparently there are a lot of people that do.As far as the Live team is concerned, they definitely have the numbers but not the revenue (which is tied to search advertising) and that’s probably what matters the most.
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“No one cares about Vista”
How do you know? you’ve spoken to ALL? Look at this – http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=229
so, Having the latest OS release labelled as a non-starter is not something new for MSFT. But hey, may be even Ed Bott is myopic and thats symbolic of the problem with MSFT?
Yeah, just look at the corporate adoption rate. It’s flying off the charts. Oh wait, no it’s not. In fact, it’s not selling worth a crap compared to XP or 2000.
Come on, John, facts are facts. We all know the Wii is having a great launch period and outselling the Xbox 360 and PS3 at the moment. Now go look up the numbers on online gaming penetration. Go look who just passed the six million member mark.
Yeah. That’s why I can buy a 360 without trying hard, or a PS3, but no one’s been able to buy a Wii for what, four months now? How long is the “launch period” anyway? A year? A decade?
Care to explain why the 360 STILL can’t outsell the PS2?
Looks like the online part isn’t all that important after all. Of course, the Wii DOES have an online component, for the game downloads, et al.
Comparing market penetration is a nice try, but how many months of a lead did the 360 have? By everything you’re saying, it should be outselling EVERYTHING.
But it’s not. Hmm.
The Wii is a gimmick (Twitter, anyone?) — a fun one for the entire family, yes, which explains why it’s so popular at the moment — but still a gimmick. Enough of a gimmick and priced right so that Nintendo can pick up lost ground over the Gamecube. The whole Mii thing is intriguing but poorly executed at the moment. There’s plenty of time for Nintendo to improve upon this and become a serious #1 threat in the coming days, but they have a long ways to go and a lot more Wiis to sell. Their system doesn’t even double as a DVD player yet, nor does it talk to your machine for playing music. Online gaming with your friends? Rest my case.
Yet with all that, the 360 can’t manage to outsell the PS2. And oddly enough, the Wii is smoking, just SMOKING the 360. Can’t use it as a DVD player? So what? How well are the HD-DVD addons for the 360 selling? Ask Sony how well the Blu-Ray marketing gimmick is working. %52 drop in sales from Jan. says “not so well”. You keep bringing up all these reasons why the 360 should be kicking everyone’s ass, but the only thing it’s beating is the PS3. Between the DS and the Wii, Nintendo is over half the market. But right, that’s not really happening. Every Wii is really a 360 sale somehow. It’s not really outselling the 360 at all. That’s just imagination.
The PS2 has sold very well, absolutely yes, but you don’t know that much about the console gaming market John if you don’t realize how cyclical the market is and just how many people are pissed at Sony. Not just customers, but partners and developers too.
PS2 sales dropped around 2% from Jan. 360 sales dropped over 20%. If that’s being pissed off at sony, I’d say Sony can last a long time on that. If you define that as being pissed, then the 360 still ain’t doing so well. For your cyclical theory to be right, then the PS2 sales should be almost nil. Yet they aren’t. Better recheck your theory.
Check what Sony’s Phil Harrison had to say about GTA being lost as an exclusive title because the PS3 audience wasn’t big enough. If the PS2 was doing so well, then why couldn’t Sony secure the next GTA as exclusive for the PS2?
Answer: PS2 is yesterday.
BWAAAHAHAHAHAHA. Wait, so you’re saying that a next generation game not being developed for a last-generation console is a sign that the PS2 is yesterday?
Again, if the PS2 is so yesterday why can’t the 360 outsell it? If the Wii is “only a gimmick”, why isn’t the 360 kicking its ass from day one?
You have yet to explain any of this.
Sony can only live on yesterday so long. Their arrogance got the best of them when they believed that they could shove another largely unnecessary proprietary format down customer’s throats (Blu-Ray) just because they are Sony.
Wait, a Microsoft fanboy complaining about shoving a proprietary format down someone’s throat? Get a grip.
Don’t get me wrong, that’s Microsoft’s biggest problem too. They are living on yesterday on a lot of things.
They pissed off developers when they went to .NET from VB6, they irritated customers with their whole legacy program which forces upgrades prematurely.
But a bright star in M$ stable — different from most other departments and teams there — is the Xbox Live platform.
Yeah, that’s why they’re just smoking everyone else. Oh shit, wait, they aren’t. Oops.
They have actually innovated and done something very, very well.
Does the Wii or PS2 sell/rent TV/Movies? Xbox Live does and in fact if you look beyond the microcosm that is Scoble’s comment area, the facts show it’s been *THE* most successful at selling and renting TVs/Movies.
BWAAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…so the Xbox is a MOVIE PLAYER? That’s funny, I thought it was a game console. Maybe that’s why it’s not doing so well. Face it, if the big draw of the Xbox is online movies, it’s in deep trouble. Contrary to popular belief, around half the US is still not on broadband. Tell me how that movie rental feels at 56K. That’s Microsoft…no focus.
Nintendo up until the Wii pretty much scoffed at the idea of gaming online.
And they um…learned. And now one of the biggest draws for the Wii is…GAMES. Downloadable classics. Oooh…so the Wii does have an online strategy, and it seems to be working rather nicely too. Maybe it’s that whole “focus” thing.
Xbox Live is Microsoft’s trojan horse. Apple, Google, Sony, they’d love to have such a juicy piece of the online gaming action. Apple is trying to get into games, in fact and doing a miserable job so far. Ever try playing any sort of game on your iPod?
BAAAAHAHAHAHAHAA…Strawman much? Apple doesn’t care, and Google is kicking Microsoft’s ass so hard and fast that they need to get a new leg. The ONLY thing Microsoft hasn’t fucked up in the last year is the Xbox, but even in their ONE success, they still aren’t the dominant player. That’s hardly a rousing endorsement of that strategy.
I’ll be among the first to criticize Microsoft for their many failings — and live search has definitely been a dud so far — but they have to be given credit for Xbox Live. It’s better than anybody else out there. To claim otherwise is misguided and misinformed.
So why are the Wii and the PS2 outselling the 360?
You can cheer on Live all you want, but the fact is, the 360 can’t even outsell the PS2.
try telling this to John C Welch; if mac was better than windows then its market share would be going up. (It’s been 12 years since Win95)
What Robert said. Ditto.
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My comment somehow got lost:
@130: “The Xbox team might be doing something cool while the Internet team is totally sucking wind.”
XBox live has something to do with the internet, right? Windows Live Maps is pretty cool. Some people think Windows Live Mail is good (it recently received the PC MAgazine Editor’s Choice award). Windows Live Spaces continues to be popular and so does Messenger. Again, you may not think these are cool, but apparently there are a lot of people that do.As far as the Live team is concerned, they definitely have the numbers but not the revenue (which is tied to search advertising) and that’s probably what matters the most.
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“No one cares about Vista”
How do you know? you’ve spoken to ALL? Look at this – http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=229
so, Having the latest OS release labelled as a non-starter is not something new for MSFT. But hey, may be even Ed Bott is myopic and thats symbolic of the problem with MSFT?
Yeah, just look at the corporate adoption rate. It’s flying off the charts. Oh wait, no it’s not. In fact, it’s not selling worth a crap compared to XP or 2000.
Come on, John, facts are facts. We all know the Wii is having a great launch period and outselling the Xbox 360 and PS3 at the moment. Now go look up the numbers on online gaming penetration. Go look who just passed the six million member mark.
Yeah. That’s why I can buy a 360 without trying hard, or a PS3, but no one’s been able to buy a Wii for what, four months now? How long is the “launch period” anyway? A year? A decade?
Care to explain why the 360 STILL can’t outsell the PS2?
Looks like the online part isn’t all that important after all. Of course, the Wii DOES have an online component, for the game downloads, et al.
Comparing market penetration is a nice try, but how many months of a lead did the 360 have? By everything you’re saying, it should be outselling EVERYTHING.
But it’s not. Hmm.
The Wii is a gimmick (Twitter, anyone?) — a fun one for the entire family, yes, which explains why it’s so popular at the moment — but still a gimmick. Enough of a gimmick and priced right so that Nintendo can pick up lost ground over the Gamecube. The whole Mii thing is intriguing but poorly executed at the moment. There’s plenty of time for Nintendo to improve upon this and become a serious #1 threat in the coming days, but they have a long ways to go and a lot more Wiis to sell. Their system doesn’t even double as a DVD player yet, nor does it talk to your machine for playing music. Online gaming with your friends? Rest my case.
Yet with all that, the 360 can’t manage to outsell the PS2. And oddly enough, the Wii is smoking, just SMOKING the 360. Can’t use it as a DVD player? So what? How well are the HD-DVD addons for the 360 selling? Ask Sony how well the Blu-Ray marketing gimmick is working. %52 drop in sales from Jan. says “not so well”. You keep bringing up all these reasons why the 360 should be kicking everyone’s ass, but the only thing it’s beating is the PS3. Between the DS and the Wii, Nintendo is over half the market. But right, that’s not really happening. Every Wii is really a 360 sale somehow. It’s not really outselling the 360 at all. That’s just imagination.
The PS2 has sold very well, absolutely yes, but you don’t know that much about the console gaming market John if you don’t realize how cyclical the market is and just how many people are pissed at Sony. Not just customers, but partners and developers too.
PS2 sales dropped around 2% from Jan. 360 sales dropped over 20%. If that’s being pissed off at sony, I’d say Sony can last a long time on that. If you define that as being pissed, then the 360 still ain’t doing so well. For your cyclical theory to be right, then the PS2 sales should be almost nil. Yet they aren’t. Better recheck your theory.
Check what Sony’s Phil Harrison had to say about GTA being lost as an exclusive title because the PS3 audience wasn’t big enough. If the PS2 was doing so well, then why couldn’t Sony secure the next GTA as exclusive for the PS2?
Answer: PS2 is yesterday.
BWAAAHAHAHAHAHA. Wait, so you’re saying that a next generation game not being developed for a last-generation console is a sign that the PS2 is yesterday?
Again, if the PS2 is so yesterday why can’t the 360 outsell it? If the Wii is “only a gimmick”, why isn’t the 360 kicking its ass from day one?
You have yet to explain any of this.
Sony can only live on yesterday so long. Their arrogance got the best of them when they believed that they could shove another largely unnecessary proprietary format down customer’s throats (Blu-Ray) just because they are Sony.
Wait, a Microsoft fanboy complaining about shoving a proprietary format down someone’s throat? Get a grip.
Don’t get me wrong, that’s Microsoft’s biggest problem too. They are living on yesterday on a lot of things.
They pissed off developers when they went to .NET from VB6, they irritated customers with their whole legacy program which forces upgrades prematurely.
But a bright star in M$ stable — different from most other departments and teams there — is the Xbox Live platform.
Yeah, that’s why they’re just smoking everyone else. Oh shit, wait, they aren’t. Oops.
They have actually innovated and done something very, very well.
Does the Wii or PS2 sell/rent TV/Movies? Xbox Live does and in fact if you look beyond the microcosm that is Scoble’s comment area, the facts show it’s been *THE* most successful at selling and renting TVs/Movies.
BWAAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…so the Xbox is a MOVIE PLAYER? That’s funny, I thought it was a game console. Maybe that’s why it’s not doing so well. Face it, if the big draw of the Xbox is online movies, it’s in deep trouble. Contrary to popular belief, around half the US is still not on broadband. Tell me how that movie rental feels at 56K. That’s Microsoft…no focus.
Nintendo up until the Wii pretty much scoffed at the idea of gaming online.
And they um…learned. And now one of the biggest draws for the Wii is…GAMES. Downloadable classics. Oooh…so the Wii does have an online strategy, and it seems to be working rather nicely too. Maybe it’s that whole “focus” thing.
Xbox Live is Microsoft’s trojan horse. Apple, Google, Sony, they’d love to have such a juicy piece of the online gaming action. Apple is trying to get into games, in fact and doing a miserable job so far. Ever try playing any sort of game on your iPod?
BAAAAHAHAHAHAHAA…Strawman much? Apple doesn’t care, and Google is kicking Microsoft’s ass so hard and fast that they need to get a new leg. The ONLY thing Microsoft hasn’t fucked up in the last year is the Xbox, but even in their ONE success, they still aren’t the dominant player. That’s hardly a rousing endorsement of that strategy.
I’ll be among the first to criticize Microsoft for their many failings — and live search has definitely been a dud so far — but they have to be given credit for Xbox Live. It’s better than anybody else out there. To claim otherwise is misguided and misinformed.
So why are the Wii and the PS2 outselling the 360?
You can cheer on Live all you want, but the fact is, the 360 can’t even outsell the PS2.
try telling this to John C Welch; if mac was better than windows then its market share would be going up. (It’s been 12 years since Win95)
What Robert said. Ditto.
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Umm, John. C. Welch, just a reminder that we are talking about internet stuff. Thank you!
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Umm, John. C. Welch, just a reminder that we are talking about internet stuff. Thank you!
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“What Robert said. Ditto.”
Robert said ‘mac is growing for the past 2 years’.What happened before that? till 2 years agao Windows was better than Mac and then it became bad?
Rather, why did it even lose the major share to windows?
“Yeah, just look at the corporate adoption rate.”
See that link again. It says this adoption rate has been the norm for all windows releases. So this doesn’t mean VISTA is doomed.
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“What Robert said. Ditto.”
Robert said ‘mac is growing for the past 2 years’.What happened before that? till 2 years agao Windows was better than Mac and then it became bad?
Rather, why did it even lose the major share to windows?
“Yeah, just look at the corporate adoption rate.”
See that link again. It says this adoption rate has been the norm for all windows releases. So this doesn’t mean VISTA is doomed.
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Frankly, Scoble, it would have helped if you had indicated that you were talking only about the internet group at Microsoft (as opposed to the whole company) – you could have used “Windows Live” instead of “Microsoft”, unless your idea was to give impetus to the Microsoft bashers. Constructive criticism is one thing. Mindless bashing is another. And, for the record, I don’t work for Microsoft. I use some MS products and think they’re really “cool”.
Regarding Windows Live Spaces, you’re probably right. IF your wife is indeed a target audience, I think they’re doing a bad job.
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Frankly, Scoble, it would have helped if you had indicated that you were talking only about the internet group at Microsoft (as opposed to the whole company) – you could have used “Windows Live” instead of “Microsoft”, unless your idea was to give impetus to the Microsoft bashers. Constructive criticism is one thing. Mindless bashing is another. And, for the record, I don’t work for Microsoft. I use some MS products and think they’re really “cool”.
Regarding Windows Live Spaces, you’re probably right. IF your wife is indeed a target audience, I think they’re doing a bad job.
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Shravan: I specifically said “Internet execution” and linked to another post where I was talking about search engines.
The execs were bragging how they were gonna come back against Google.
Are you really that lame that I need to spell it out?
I want to go back to the days when I had smart readers. Sigh.
We weren’t talking about SQL Server.
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Shravan: I specifically said “Internet execution” and linked to another post where I was talking about search engines.
The execs were bragging how they were gonna come back against Google.
Are you really that lame that I need to spell it out?
I want to go back to the days when I had smart readers. Sigh.
We weren’t talking about SQL Server.
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“Are you really that lame that I need to spell it out?”
Look at the comments. It appeared to me that you took the example of the internet team at Microsoft to generalize your perception about the company and apparently I’m not the only one. How do Wii and PS2 figure in this discussion? What about Vista? By the way, Google Apps competes directly with Microsoft Office, which really isn’t part of the internet team at Microsoft.
“I want to go back to the days when I had smart readers. Sigh.”
Deal with it. This is one of the side-effects of “fame”.
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“Are you really that lame that I need to spell it out?”
Look at the comments. It appeared to me that you took the example of the internet team at Microsoft to generalize your perception about the company and apparently I’m not the only one. How do Wii and PS2 figure in this discussion? What about Vista? By the way, Google Apps competes directly with Microsoft Office, which really isn’t part of the internet team at Microsoft.
“I want to go back to the days when I had smart readers. Sigh.”
Deal with it. This is one of the side-effects of “fame”.
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@Shravan: I use Google Apps BESIDE Office. So, maybe they don’t compete as much as lots of people think.
>Rather, why did it even lose the major share to windows?
I was a Mac fan from 1988 through 93. What happened in 93? Windows NT came out, which was so far superior to Mac it wasn’t funny (it didn’t crash every hour, for one).
What happened in 1999? Steve Jobs came back. Apple has been going up ever since.
Moving to OSX was brilliant. Macs are ahead of Windows because of that move — at least for regular people. Windows is ahead for businesses.
Apple made a number of missteps in the 1980s which made them a great brand (which is why iPod is such a successful business) but which kept their marketshare down (businesses went totally Windows in the 1990s, which is where Microsoft’s massive profits came from).
At this point Microsoft could fire everyone and ride off of the profits of Windows for years.
Heck, Microsoft closed down the Internet Explorer team for about five years and most people didn’t even notice.
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@Shravan: I use Google Apps BESIDE Office. So, maybe they don’t compete as much as lots of people think.
>Rather, why did it even lose the major share to windows?
I was a Mac fan from 1988 through 93. What happened in 93? Windows NT came out, which was so far superior to Mac it wasn’t funny (it didn’t crash every hour, for one).
What happened in 1999? Steve Jobs came back. Apple has been going up ever since.
Moving to OSX was brilliant. Macs are ahead of Windows because of that move — at least for regular people. Windows is ahead for businesses.
Apple made a number of missteps in the 1980s which made them a great brand (which is why iPod is such a successful business) but which kept their marketshare down (businesses went totally Windows in the 1990s, which is where Microsoft’s massive profits came from).
At this point Microsoft could fire everyone and ride off of the profits of Windows for years.
Heck, Microsoft closed down the Internet Explorer team for about five years and most people didn’t even notice.
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Microsoft is in a new business that has nothing to do with software, and until everyone realizes that, nothing is going to change. Internally, Microsoft is in the business of coming up wth elaborate schemes to measure things, including large, strange, convoluted ways to measure employee performance (read up on Career Compass). The focus on the customer and the concept of beginning with the end in mind is nearly nonexistent. While the intention may be good, the result is absolute paralysis. As other well-read software pundits have noted on the web, the majority of the energy inside the company is focused on creating processes. Did you hear that? Creating PROCESSES? But Microsoft sells software, so why isn’t all their time devoted to creating SOFTWARE? Last time I looked, you couldn’t put a process in a box, slap a heck of a lot of labels and system requirements on it and sell it on Amazon.
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Microsoft is in a new business that has nothing to do with software, and until everyone realizes that, nothing is going to change. Internally, Microsoft is in the business of coming up wth elaborate schemes to measure things, including large, strange, convoluted ways to measure employee performance (read up on Career Compass). The focus on the customer and the concept of beginning with the end in mind is nearly nonexistent. While the intention may be good, the result is absolute paralysis. As other well-read software pundits have noted on the web, the majority of the energy inside the company is focused on creating processes. Did you hear that? Creating PROCESSES? But Microsoft sells software, so why isn’t all their time devoted to creating SOFTWARE? Last time I looked, you couldn’t put a process in a box, slap a heck of a lot of labels and system requirements on it and sell it on Amazon.
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@141 John C. Welch – you calling me a “Microsoft fanboy” is laughable considering I’m not the one with a gigantic picture of an Apple computer as my primary blog’s logo 😉 Good luck on adding up those PayPal donations to get someone to be your life’s partner, though!
You completely sidestepped my question about whether you own all three systems so I’ll take that as a no.
Lastly, if you knew anything about the Xbox 360 LAUNCH you’d know it was not well into late March, early April following the launch the preceding Novemeber before Xbox 360 were readily available in stores, just as is happening now with the Wii. The Wii and PS3 both should be outselling the Xbox 360 right now. Also the Wii is at a much, much more favorable price point than both the PS3 and Xbox 360.
And in case your ability to follow history is really impaired, the same thing happened with the PS2! People were complaining about Microsoft not being able to keep up with the demand, don’t you remember?
Some people have very short term memories and like to twist the facts to fit their obsessions, er arguments. I’m more than happy to give credit where it’s due as well as criticize when appropriate. For example, Nintendo clearly owns the portable market. This is why I wrote some time ago on my blog that Apple should look to a partnership or acquisition with them if they seriously want to get into the game business.
@Scoble “I want to go back to the days when I had smart readers. Sigh.”
When you primarily or only respond to the idiots and allow anybody with any fake name to respond, what do you expect, Robert? You seem to love to stroke the trolls!
The truth seems to be that you’d rather have 100+ comments on a post with anonymous cowards propping your numbers than create any kind of civil commenting environment that would encourage more intelligent dialog and discussion.
Sad, but true.
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@141 John C. Welch – you calling me a “Microsoft fanboy” is laughable considering I’m not the one with a gigantic picture of an Apple computer as my primary blog’s logo 😉 Good luck on adding up those PayPal donations to get someone to be your life’s partner, though!
You completely sidestepped my question about whether you own all three systems so I’ll take that as a no.
Lastly, if you knew anything about the Xbox 360 LAUNCH you’d know it was not well into late March, early April following the launch the preceding Novemeber before Xbox 360 were readily available in stores, just as is happening now with the Wii. The Wii and PS3 both should be outselling the Xbox 360 right now. Also the Wii is at a much, much more favorable price point than both the PS3 and Xbox 360.
And in case your ability to follow history is really impaired, the same thing happened with the PS2! People were complaining about Microsoft not being able to keep up with the demand, don’t you remember?
Some people have very short term memories and like to twist the facts to fit their obsessions, er arguments. I’m more than happy to give credit where it’s due as well as criticize when appropriate. For example, Nintendo clearly owns the portable market. This is why I wrote some time ago on my blog that Apple should look to a partnership or acquisition with them if they seriously want to get into the game business.
@Scoble “I want to go back to the days when I had smart readers. Sigh.”
When you primarily or only respond to the idiots and allow anybody with any fake name to respond, what do you expect, Robert? You seem to love to stroke the trolls!
The truth seems to be that you’d rather have 100+ comments on a post with anonymous cowards propping your numbers than create any kind of civil commenting environment that would encourage more intelligent dialog and discussion.
Sad, but true.
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@121. That another self fulfilling prophecy. You speak to audiences of your peers. What was the make up of these audiences? Small business owners. SAHM?, SOHO’s, average Joe’s that don’t eat, sleep and drink the internet, or were they geeks? So, again I ask: when you say “we”, We WHO? Geeks?
Just because an online newspaper has an RSS feed doesn’t mean newsreaders are going mainstream. I know you’d like to believe that, but it’s just not the case. Stand on the corner in, oh, I dunno, Des Moines, IA and ask 20 random people if they use a newsreader. If you get a 60% “yes” response, I’ll conceded your point.
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@121. That another self fulfilling prophecy. You speak to audiences of your peers. What was the make up of these audiences? Small business owners. SAHM?, SOHO’s, average Joe’s that don’t eat, sleep and drink the internet, or were they geeks? So, again I ask: when you say “we”, We WHO? Geeks?
Just because an online newspaper has an RSS feed doesn’t mean newsreaders are going mainstream. I know you’d like to believe that, but it’s just not the case. Stand on the corner in, oh, I dunno, Des Moines, IA and ask 20 random people if they use a newsreader. If you get a 60% “yes” response, I’ll conceded your point.
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#151: some audiences (like in Phoenix) were small business owners. Others were bloggers or geeks.
But, what you miss is that normal society follows the geeks by just a few years.
In 1992 no one used email other than the geeks.
In 1994 no one used the Web other than the geeks.
In 1996 no one used IM other than the geeks.
I look at doubling effects rather than audience size.
Audience size is irrelevant. In 1977 no one used personal computers other than the geeks.
What matters is how fast does a usage pattern double.
RSS is doubling very quickly and quite consistently.
I remember audiences where only 1% said they used RSS. I don’t see those anymore.
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#151: some audiences (like in Phoenix) were small business owners. Others were bloggers or geeks.
But, what you miss is that normal society follows the geeks by just a few years.
In 1992 no one used email other than the geeks.
In 1994 no one used the Web other than the geeks.
In 1996 no one used IM other than the geeks.
I look at doubling effects rather than audience size.
Audience size is irrelevant. In 1977 no one used personal computers other than the geeks.
What matters is how fast does a usage pattern double.
RSS is doubling very quickly and quite consistently.
I remember audiences where only 1% said they used RSS. I don’t see those anymore.
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And Scoble, don’t get me wrong, I actually agree with some of the points you are making. But you tend to generalize too much. It wasn’t until later on in the comments that you clarified that you were referring to Microsoft’s internet business, which is an important distinction. But, you can’t pretend to represent the broad population in many of your statements, because you don’t. If I took your “BBC has RSS” example, I could use your same logic to conclude that because newspapers publish sports betting lines and that I talked to a lot of people at Las Vegas sports betting casinos, and listen to a lot of sports talk radio, that 60% of the population bets on sports.
So to that point, it would be interesting to see how many people that are “on the internet” use Google for anything more than their search functionality.
I agree with you and @129 on those points. Microsoft’s overall cultural DNA makes it almost incapable of shifting their thinking beyond the desktop. Now, if you are saying Microsoft will have the difficulty getting the same amount of adoption with their internet strategy that they did with their desktop OS and application strategy by using their current methods, I would agree. But using Google doodads as an example is sort of a stretch.
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And Scoble, don’t get me wrong, I actually agree with some of the points you are making. But you tend to generalize too much. It wasn’t until later on in the comments that you clarified that you were referring to Microsoft’s internet business, which is an important distinction. But, you can’t pretend to represent the broad population in many of your statements, because you don’t. If I took your “BBC has RSS” example, I could use your same logic to conclude that because newspapers publish sports betting lines and that I talked to a lot of people at Las Vegas sports betting casinos, and listen to a lot of sports talk radio, that 60% of the population bets on sports.
So to that point, it would be interesting to see how many people that are “on the internet” use Google for anything more than their search functionality.
I agree with you and @129 on those points. Microsoft’s overall cultural DNA makes it almost incapable of shifting their thinking beyond the desktop. Now, if you are saying Microsoft will have the difficulty getting the same amount of adoption with their internet strategy that they did with their desktop OS and application strategy by using their current methods, I would agree. But using Google doodads as an example is sort of a stretch.
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Robert,
Looks like your MSFT detox is coming along swimmingly. You never would have written anything like this, even a month after leaving the evil empire.
Congrats!
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Robert,
Looks like your MSFT detox is coming along swimmingly. You never would have written anything like this, even a month after leaving the evil empire.
Congrats!
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“It wasn’t until later on in the comments that you clarified that you were referring to Microsoft’s internet business, which is an important distinction.”
Exactly! That’s what I’ve been trying to say. If you’re talking only about the internet division, you are right, but if you’re trying to use this example to make a generalization about the company, I don’t think you are. Hope this clarifies my position. And TDavid, I am using my real name.
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“It wasn’t until later on in the comments that you clarified that you were referring to Microsoft’s internet business, which is an important distinction.”
Exactly! That’s what I’ve been trying to say. If you’re talking only about the internet division, you are right, but if you’re trying to use this example to make a generalization about the company, I don’t think you are. Hope this clarifies my position. And TDavid, I am using my real name.
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“What Robert said. Ditto.”
Robert said ‘mac is growing for the past 2 years’.What happened before that? till 2 years agao Windows was better than Mac and then it became bad?
Rather, why did it even lose the major share to windows?
Ah, of course, the myth that the Mac had monster market share or even majority market share. Just for fun, what do you think was the biggest market share the Mac ever had.
“Yeah, just look at the corporate adoption rate.”
See that link again. It says this adoption rate has been the norm for all windows releases. So this doesn’t mean VISTA is doomed.
Ah, but no one’s said it’s doomed. What it’s an example of is how Microsoft, after taking five years to come out with the followup to XP was unable to hit one out of the park. For all the hype Microsoft is trying to generate, Vista, along with everything else it’s doing, is just…okay. Not outstanding. Just okay.
Microsoft can’t live on okay, because while it is trying to beat the competition, the competition is trying to create great products and new ways of doing things. Microsoft is willingly accepting the position of *re*acting to everyone else. While you can stay in business a long time with “me too”, you never quite do anything outstanding with it.
Lastly, if you knew anything about the Xbox 360 LAUNCH you’d know it was not well into late March, early April following the launch the preceding Novemeber before Xbox 360 were readily available in stores, just as is happening now with the Wii. The Wii and PS3 both should be outselling the Xbox 360 right now. Also the Wii is at a much, much more favorable price point than both the PS3 and Xbox 360.
Again, the Xbox 360 has a huge lead, and according to *everyone*, an unstoppable online presence, better graphics, DVD player, HD-DVD options and all the rest. But with all that, the Wii is outselling the hell out of the Xbox 360, and the best reason you come up with is…the price point. Clue-LESS. I know hardcore Sony fans who are all a-twitter about the Wii, and could care less about the PS3. Price does not explain that.
And in case your ability to follow history is really impaired, the same thing happened with the PS2! People were complaining about Microsoft not being able to keep up with the demand, don’t you remember?
Again with the strawman. That still doesn’t explain why the 360 cannot outsell an old system like the PS2
RSS is doubling very quickly and quite consistently.
I remember audiences where only 1% said they used RSS. I don’t see those anymore.
The day I no longer needed a special RSS application, RSS became my prime way to read web sites. It’s a way to reduce a web site to the convenience of a mailing list. That has real value to everyone. Once a technology is commonly and invisibly available, then the common people use it. RSS is finally at that stage.
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“What Robert said. Ditto.”
Robert said ‘mac is growing for the past 2 years’.What happened before that? till 2 years agao Windows was better than Mac and then it became bad?
Rather, why did it even lose the major share to windows?
Ah, of course, the myth that the Mac had monster market share or even majority market share. Just for fun, what do you think was the biggest market share the Mac ever had.
“Yeah, just look at the corporate adoption rate.”
See that link again. It says this adoption rate has been the norm for all windows releases. So this doesn’t mean VISTA is doomed.
Ah, but no one’s said it’s doomed. What it’s an example of is how Microsoft, after taking five years to come out with the followup to XP was unable to hit one out of the park. For all the hype Microsoft is trying to generate, Vista, along with everything else it’s doing, is just…okay. Not outstanding. Just okay.
Microsoft can’t live on okay, because while it is trying to beat the competition, the competition is trying to create great products and new ways of doing things. Microsoft is willingly accepting the position of *re*acting to everyone else. While you can stay in business a long time with “me too”, you never quite do anything outstanding with it.
Lastly, if you knew anything about the Xbox 360 LAUNCH you’d know it was not well into late March, early April following the launch the preceding Novemeber before Xbox 360 were readily available in stores, just as is happening now with the Wii. The Wii and PS3 both should be outselling the Xbox 360 right now. Also the Wii is at a much, much more favorable price point than both the PS3 and Xbox 360.
Again, the Xbox 360 has a huge lead, and according to *everyone*, an unstoppable online presence, better graphics, DVD player, HD-DVD options and all the rest. But with all that, the Wii is outselling the hell out of the Xbox 360, and the best reason you come up with is…the price point. Clue-LESS. I know hardcore Sony fans who are all a-twitter about the Wii, and could care less about the PS3. Price does not explain that.
And in case your ability to follow history is really impaired, the same thing happened with the PS2! People were complaining about Microsoft not being able to keep up with the demand, don’t you remember?
Again with the strawman. That still doesn’t explain why the 360 cannot outsell an old system like the PS2
RSS is doubling very quickly and quite consistently.
I remember audiences where only 1% said they used RSS. I don’t see those anymore.
The day I no longer needed a special RSS application, RSS became my prime way to read web sites. It’s a way to reduce a web site to the convenience of a mailing list. That has real value to everyone. Once a technology is commonly and invisibly available, then the common people use it. RSS is finally at that stage.
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Robert,
I’ve been reading you since you made your name working for the hand you are now biting off (well, gnawing…). This post and the comments were really discouraging. Constructive criticism? You bash Microsoft for not *leading* in every area that their competitors excel in — completely ignoring that, as manufacturer of the dominant OS and business app platform, they have many priorities that have to be met before they can dabble in kitschy consumer web apps. How long do you think you would’ve had to wait for that Google Reader if they had to generate the OS that powers 95% of the world’s desktops instead of simply riding on top of it?
Surely, having worked there, you know this. Which makes this rant so incomprehensible.
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Robert,
I’ve been reading you since you made your name working for the hand you are now biting off (well, gnawing…). This post and the comments were really discouraging. Constructive criticism? You bash Microsoft for not *leading* in every area that their competitors excel in — completely ignoring that, as manufacturer of the dominant OS and business app platform, they have many priorities that have to be met before they can dabble in kitschy consumer web apps. How long do you think you would’ve had to wait for that Google Reader if they had to generate the OS that powers 95% of the world’s desktops instead of simply riding on top of it?
Surely, having worked there, you know this. Which makes this rant so incomprehensible.
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146 @ john,
“Ah, of course, the myth that the Mac had monster
market share or even majority market share. Just for fun, what do you think was the biggest market share the Mac ever had.”
I think we are having a disconnect here. I’ll recap
Robert said, a superior product will automatically result in increasing market share. I asked, if so, then assuming Mac has been superior to windows all along( i believe you strongly feel this is the case),why the current market share numbers the way they are?
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146 @ john,
“Ah, of course, the myth that the Mac had monster
market share or even majority market share. Just for fun, what do you think was the biggest market share the Mac ever had.”
I think we are having a disconnect here. I’ll recap
Robert said, a superior product will automatically result in increasing market share. I asked, if so, then assuming Mac has been superior to windows all along( i believe you strongly feel this is the case),why the current market share numbers the way they are?
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Rob,
Your comment “The MVPs might be easy to talk into doing some cheerleading but the rest of us are over that now. We’re looking for signs of leadership and so far we don’t see it” is offensive to me.
You and I have “known” each other, as much as people can know each other via the MVP Programme and the online world, for a good 8 years now.
I find it amazing that you, an ex-MVP who left the programme to be employed by MS as an Evangelist, can ascribe “cheerleading” behaviour to MVPs **as a whole** without blushing. You became a cheerleader, other MVPs have been cheerleaders (unfortunately) but as a whole MVPs don’t evangelise or cheerlead.. they kick MS up the ass to try and get things fixed. The Mondo Patch comes to mind, my work with MS to get rid of the Windows Live Messenger malware banner infiltration comes to mind, my work with MS during the Summit to get IE7 related errors in the Release Notes for Windows Server 2003 SP2 comes to mind. My kicking ass to try and get the shrink to fit fix out to the public as soon as possible (just released to QFE these past 24 hours or so) also comes to mind.
So, please do NOT lump all MVPs into a cheerleading group. It is untrue, unfair, and those of us you have known for years deserve better.
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Rob,
Your comment “The MVPs might be easy to talk into doing some cheerleading but the rest of us are over that now. We’re looking for signs of leadership and so far we don’t see it” is offensive to me.
You and I have “known” each other, as much as people can know each other via the MVP Programme and the online world, for a good 8 years now.
I find it amazing that you, an ex-MVP who left the programme to be employed by MS as an Evangelist, can ascribe “cheerleading” behaviour to MVPs **as a whole** without blushing. You became a cheerleader, other MVPs have been cheerleaders (unfortunately) but as a whole MVPs don’t evangelise or cheerlead.. they kick MS up the ass to try and get things fixed. The Mondo Patch comes to mind, my work with MS to get rid of the Windows Live Messenger malware banner infiltration comes to mind, my work with MS during the Summit to get IE7 related errors in the Release Notes for Windows Server 2003 SP2 comes to mind. My kicking ass to try and get the shrink to fit fix out to the public as soon as possible (just released to QFE these past 24 hours or so) also comes to mind.
So, please do NOT lump all MVPs into a cheerleading group. It is untrue, unfair, and those of us you have known for years deserve better.
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Sandi: I was just saying what I was seeing come through my feed reader. Maybe the MVP program should focus more on blogs than newsgroups that only a small percentage of the community reads.
The MVP program sure seemed a lot more cheerleaderish this time around with no specifics.
Seshadri: > I asked, if so, then assuming Mac has been superior to windows all along( i believe you strongly feel this is the case),why the current market share numbers the way they are?
Microsoft had the best mainstream OS and ecosystem from 1993 through 2002.
That ecosystem is under attack now.
Brian: I’m discouraged by people who assume that I made my name at Microsoft. I had more than 1,000 readers a day when I joined Microsoft. I planned conferences for programmers in the 1990s. I did a LOT BEFORE I was a Microsoft employee (and, was quoted in Time Magazine saying that Microsoft should split itself up BEFORE I was an employee).
I’ve been a pretty consistent critic of Microsoft’s that I tried to keep up even when I worked there (which is why I stood out).
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Sandi: I was just saying what I was seeing come through my feed reader. Maybe the MVP program should focus more on blogs than newsgroups that only a small percentage of the community reads.
The MVP program sure seemed a lot more cheerleaderish this time around with no specifics.
Seshadri: > I asked, if so, then assuming Mac has been superior to windows all along( i believe you strongly feel this is the case),why the current market share numbers the way they are?
Microsoft had the best mainstream OS and ecosystem from 1993 through 2002.
That ecosystem is under attack now.
Brian: I’m discouraged by people who assume that I made my name at Microsoft. I had more than 1,000 readers a day when I joined Microsoft. I planned conferences for programmers in the 1990s. I did a LOT BEFORE I was a Microsoft employee (and, was quoted in Time Magazine saying that Microsoft should split itself up BEFORE I was an employee).
I’ve been a pretty consistent critic of Microsoft’s that I tried to keep up even when I worked there (which is why I stood out).
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>You bash Microsoft for not *leading* in every area that their competitors excel in.
No. I am bashing Microsoft’s execs for saying they are going to win without demonstrating much leadership in Internet space.
Here’s another clue: what language does a winning company use? “We’re going to build a better service.”
Have you heard anything like that out of Microsoft’s mouths lately? Microsoft USED to say stuff like that, which is how they got such a dominant market position.
Now? It’s more “we’re gonna clone.” Er, sorry “we’re going to win.”
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>You bash Microsoft for not *leading* in every area that their competitors excel in.
No. I am bashing Microsoft’s execs for saying they are going to win without demonstrating much leadership in Internet space.
Here’s another clue: what language does a winning company use? “We’re going to build a better service.”
Have you heard anything like that out of Microsoft’s mouths lately? Microsoft USED to say stuff like that, which is how they got such a dominant market position.
Now? It’s more “we’re gonna clone.” Er, sorry “we’re going to win.”
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Rob: You say “Sandi: I was just saying what I was seeing come through my feed reader. Maybe the MVP program should focus more on blogs than newsgroups that only a small percentage of the community reads.
The MVP program sure seemed a lot more cheerleaderish this time around with no specifics.”
You’re basing your assumption on what you are seeing through your feed reader? Without talking to MVPs? Jeez Rob, you of all people should know how skewed an impression can be created by online snippets, depending on who/what you read.
Sandi &c.
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Rob: You say “Sandi: I was just saying what I was seeing come through my feed reader. Maybe the MVP program should focus more on blogs than newsgroups that only a small percentage of the community reads.
The MVP program sure seemed a lot more cheerleaderish this time around with no specifics.”
You’re basing your assumption on what you are seeing through your feed reader? Without talking to MVPs? Jeez Rob, you of all people should know how skewed an impression can be created by online snippets, depending on who/what you read.
Sandi &c.
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Sandi:
What gets online is reality to most people. It’s what bloggers have to work with. I have lots of MVPs who read me. If my facts are wrong, I’m sure they’ll point it out (and, you seem to be the first, which is totally shocking to tell the truth — it’s almost like the group agrees that they were cheerleading).
Just look at the comments above that people think Microsoft is doing well. Talk to people on the ground who work there and very few are happy with how things are going.
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Sandi:
What gets online is reality to most people. It’s what bloggers have to work with. I have lots of MVPs who read me. If my facts are wrong, I’m sure they’ll point it out (and, you seem to be the first, which is totally shocking to tell the truth — it’s almost like the group agrees that they were cheerleading).
Just look at the comments above that people think Microsoft is doing well. Talk to people on the ground who work there and very few are happy with how things are going.
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Robert said, a superior product will automatically result in increasing market share. I asked, if so, then assuming Mac has been superior to windows all along( i believe you strongly feel this is the case),why the current market share numbers the way they are?
Define “superior” in an objective way then. Market share is not just about technical superiority. If it were, then Sun, IBM, and Digital would rule the roost.
Microsoft had the best mainstream OS and ecosystem from 1993 through 2002.
Not at all. What they had was the best team of dealmakers, and could bullshit you blind about NT. Remember that the people in charge now were in the trenches in that timeframe, and remember very keenly the empty promises Microsoft kept making about Windows. That memory is not being replaced well.
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Robert said, a superior product will automatically result in increasing market share. I asked, if so, then assuming Mac has been superior to windows all along( i believe you strongly feel this is the case),why the current market share numbers the way they are?
Define “superior” in an objective way then. Market share is not just about technical superiority. If it were, then Sun, IBM, and Digital would rule the roost.
Microsoft had the best mainstream OS and ecosystem from 1993 through 2002.
Not at all. What they had was the best team of dealmakers, and could bullshit you blind about NT. Remember that the people in charge now were in the trenches in that timeframe, and remember very keenly the empty promises Microsoft kept making about Windows. That memory is not being replaced well.
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“Not at all.”
This was what i was looking for. So both you (John) and I dont think market share is the indicator of a product’s quality. But Robert thinks it is so in case of Google Vs Live.
“I’m sure they’ll point it out (and, you seem to be the first, which is totally shocking to tell the truth ”
You are resorting to this reasoning a lot. Extend this a bit more. When somebody calls you an hypocrite in these comments section – nobody except you defend it. Does that mean its true?
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“Not at all.”
This was what i was looking for. So both you (John) and I dont think market share is the indicator of a product’s quality. But Robert thinks it is so in case of Google Vs Live.
“I’m sure they’ll point it out (and, you seem to be the first, which is totally shocking to tell the truth ”
You are resorting to this reasoning a lot. Extend this a bit more. When somebody calls you an hypocrite in these comments section – nobody except you defend it. Does that mean its true?
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John: interesting how we have different memories of the 1990s. I remember using Macs and crashing every hour with QuarkXpress (and I can back that up — I kept pointing it out to Steve Sloan and Steve Broback) and NT 4.0 wouldn’t go down for weeks.
OS/2? No apps. NeXT? No apps and way too expensive (and too futuristic for most people — Steve didn’t have a floppy drive, back when everyone still used floppies).
What else was there for PCs in the mid-90s that was an OS that had a shot? I don’t remember anything to consider seriously.
Windows 95 came out and it was a lot more stable than Mac (I was beta testing Adobe Acrobat on both) and had a lot more apps. Game over.
Until Steve Jobs came back.
But, that’s what’s fun about talking with you, we both see the world so differently.
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John: interesting how we have different memories of the 1990s. I remember using Macs and crashing every hour with QuarkXpress (and I can back that up — I kept pointing it out to Steve Sloan and Steve Broback) and NT 4.0 wouldn’t go down for weeks.
OS/2? No apps. NeXT? No apps and way too expensive (and too futuristic for most people — Steve didn’t have a floppy drive, back when everyone still used floppies).
What else was there for PCs in the mid-90s that was an OS that had a shot? I don’t remember anything to consider seriously.
Windows 95 came out and it was a lot more stable than Mac (I was beta testing Adobe Acrobat on both) and had a lot more apps. Game over.
Until Steve Jobs came back.
But, that’s what’s fun about talking with you, we both see the world so differently.
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>So both you (John) and I dont think market share is the indicator of a product’s quality. But Robert thinks it is so in case of Google Vs Live.
Windows is a better business OS than Macs cause it runs more business apps. The problem is you can’t judge an OS alone. You’ve got to judge ecosystems against each other. THAT is what’s reflected in market share.
And, yes, market share does go up and down as a product (and associated ecosystem) gets better. Macs are going up significantly lately.
>Extend this a bit more. When somebody calls you an hypocrite in these comments section – nobody except you defend it.
That’s not true. Except where I deserve it.
Most people I talk with who like my blog (I met a lot at recent conferences) hate my comment area and just stay out. I’ve gotten repeated requests to moderate my comment areas and block guys like you and John out. But, I believe in free speech.
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>So both you (John) and I dont think market share is the indicator of a product’s quality. But Robert thinks it is so in case of Google Vs Live.
Windows is a better business OS than Macs cause it runs more business apps. The problem is you can’t judge an OS alone. You’ve got to judge ecosystems against each other. THAT is what’s reflected in market share.
And, yes, market share does go up and down as a product (and associated ecosystem) gets better. Macs are going up significantly lately.
>Extend this a bit more. When somebody calls you an hypocrite in these comments section – nobody except you defend it.
That’s not true. Except where I deserve it.
Most people I talk with who like my blog (I met a lot at recent conferences) hate my comment area and just stay out. I’ve gotten repeated requests to moderate my comment areas and block guys like you and John out. But, I believe in free speech.
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[Rob]: “What gets online is reality to most people. It’s what bloggers have to work with. [/Rob]
I don’t know if you’re using that sentence as an excuse for what you wrote, but it’s a bullshit standard when applied to you – I thought you were not so naive as to base your judgments on a few online articles. I hold *you* to a much higher standard than “most people”.
[Rob] I have lots of MVPs who read me. If my facts are wrong, I’m sure they’ll point it out (and, you seem to be the first, which is totally shocking to tell the truth — it’s almost like the group agrees that they were cheerleading).”[/Rob]
Silence does not equate agreement, so please do not try to hint that it is so.
First you are wrong if you assume your blog is of such high importance that MVPs will read it in the midst of all the time sapping activities of a Summit, and travel from same to home (especially with so many MVPs travelling internationally or stranded in Seattle unable to get to the east coast because of the bad weather) and catching up on everything else that gets put aside during the summit, and second by assuming that the MVPs who *have* managed to read your blog by now will believe that they will be able to make a difference by responding to you and will therefore post to disagree.
Why did I respond? I’m responding because I know you personally and I thought I could get you to see how what you wrote about MVPs is wrong. If you’re justifying your statement about MVPs by saying that “what gets online is reality to most people” when you have a connection and contact with MVPs far deeper than just what is online and you therefore should simply know better, than I don’t think I can get you to see what harm you do by spreading such misinformation, not to mention get you to understand the personal hurt you can inflicted on those MVPs that you know personally (as distinct to a tenuous “I read his blog” connection).
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[Rob]: “What gets online is reality to most people. It’s what bloggers have to work with. [/Rob]
I don’t know if you’re using that sentence as an excuse for what you wrote, but it’s a bullshit standard when applied to you – I thought you were not so naive as to base your judgments on a few online articles. I hold *you* to a much higher standard than “most people”.
[Rob] I have lots of MVPs who read me. If my facts are wrong, I’m sure they’ll point it out (and, you seem to be the first, which is totally shocking to tell the truth — it’s almost like the group agrees that they were cheerleading).”[/Rob]
Silence does not equate agreement, so please do not try to hint that it is so.
First you are wrong if you assume your blog is of such high importance that MVPs will read it in the midst of all the time sapping activities of a Summit, and travel from same to home (especially with so many MVPs travelling internationally or stranded in Seattle unable to get to the east coast because of the bad weather) and catching up on everything else that gets put aside during the summit, and second by assuming that the MVPs who *have* managed to read your blog by now will believe that they will be able to make a difference by responding to you and will therefore post to disagree.
Why did I respond? I’m responding because I know you personally and I thought I could get you to see how what you wrote about MVPs is wrong. If you’re justifying your statement about MVPs by saying that “what gets online is reality to most people” when you have a connection and contact with MVPs far deeper than just what is online and you therefore should simply know better, than I don’t think I can get you to see what harm you do by spreading such misinformation, not to mention get you to understand the personal hurt you can inflicted on those MVPs that you know personally (as distinct to a tenuous “I read his blog” connection).
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>Silence does not equate agreement, so please do not try to hint that it is so.
Actually, that is ABSOLUTELY NOT TRUE and anyone who deals with the Internet better realize that silence DOES equate agreement.
Any PR professor will tell you the same.
>First you are wrong if you assume your blog is of such high importance that MVPs will read it in the midst of all the time sapping activities of a Summit
I got several other notes from MVPs who DID agree with me. So, I know it got around (and it got on several MVP blogs and it’s pointed to on Mini-Microsoft, so I’m getting a lot of traffic from Microsofties).
So far you’re the only MVP to show up here and disagree with the thesis here. And, even you haven’t really argued with the thesis, just the broad brush.
OK, broad brush is bad.
Oh, and I didn’t say I didn’t talk with any MVPs. I talk with MVPs all the time. Many of my perceptions are influenced by what I hear in those conversations.
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>Silence does not equate agreement, so please do not try to hint that it is so.
Actually, that is ABSOLUTELY NOT TRUE and anyone who deals with the Internet better realize that silence DOES equate agreement.
Any PR professor will tell you the same.
>First you are wrong if you assume your blog is of such high importance that MVPs will read it in the midst of all the time sapping activities of a Summit
I got several other notes from MVPs who DID agree with me. So, I know it got around (and it got on several MVP blogs and it’s pointed to on Mini-Microsoft, so I’m getting a lot of traffic from Microsofties).
So far you’re the only MVP to show up here and disagree with the thesis here. And, even you haven’t really argued with the thesis, just the broad brush.
OK, broad brush is bad.
Oh, and I didn’t say I didn’t talk with any MVPs. I talk with MVPs all the time. Many of my perceptions are influenced by what I hear in those conversations.
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>understand the personal hurt you can inflicted on those MVPs that you know personally (as distinct to a tenuous “I read his blog” connection).
I’m sorry about that, but it would have been more effective to post a list of URLs where MVPs reported from the MVP Summit that demonstrated your point of view.
Do you have any?
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>understand the personal hurt you can inflicted on those MVPs that you know personally (as distinct to a tenuous “I read his blog” connection).
I’m sorry about that, but it would have been more effective to post a list of URLs where MVPs reported from the MVP Summit that demonstrated your point of view.
Do you have any?
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“I’ve gotten repeated requests to moderate my comment areas and block guys like you ”
YOu don’t have to ‘moderate’. Just an one liner on these sections and i will stop. (For the record, i have never said said anything personal or offensive. I have only countered whatever i felt was incorrect/incomplete. Even in the previous comment – i didnt call you an hypocrite – i was using it to illustrate my point)
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“I’ve gotten repeated requests to moderate my comment areas and block guys like you ”
YOu don’t have to ‘moderate’. Just an one liner on these sections and i will stop. (For the record, i have never said said anything personal or offensive. I have only countered whatever i felt was incorrect/incomplete. Even in the previous comment – i didnt call you an hypocrite – i was using it to illustrate my point)
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Seshadri: I’m just passing along what people tell me when they meet me one-to-one. TDavid even said the same thing today in my comments.
It’s not about you, though. MOstly about LayZ and Coulter and John Welch. They see those commenters as insufferable and inable to demonstrate a world view other than “anti-Scoble.” Which, I guess, if you are here, gets old after a while. 🙂
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Seshadri: I’m just passing along what people tell me when they meet me one-to-one. TDavid even said the same thing today in my comments.
It’s not about you, though. MOstly about LayZ and Coulter and John Welch. They see those commenters as insufferable and inable to demonstrate a world view other than “anti-Scoble.” Which, I guess, if you are here, gets old after a while. 🙂
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@172, But that’s where the core fun is. How else would a post about ‘Palo Alto notaries’ end up with 172 comments?
(Is this the post with highest comments ever?)
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@172, But that’s where the core fun is. How else would a post about ‘Palo Alto notaries’ end up with 172 comments?
(Is this the post with highest comments ever?)
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Seshadri: nope, I’ve had posts with about 1,000 comments. (The one on four sounds of Vista).
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Seshadri: nope, I’ve had posts with about 1,000 comments. (The one on four sounds of Vista).
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Actually, Google Blog Search has tons of MVP Summit posts. http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl=en&q=%22MVP+Summit%22&ie=UTF-8&scoring=d
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Actually, Google Blog Search has tons of MVP Summit posts. http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl=en&q=%22MVP+Summit%22&ie=UTF-8&scoring=d
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“Sandi:
What gets online is reality to most people. It’s what bloggers have to work with. I have lots of MVPs who read me. If my facts are wrong, I’m sure they’ll point it out (and, you seem to be the first, which is totally shocking to tell the truth — it’s almost like the group agrees that they were cheerleading).”
Who’s most people? How many people are “most people” when there’s a lot of folks that don’t read blogs. And when you say “it’s almost like the group agrees”…what group? Not all MVPs blog, nor read blogs, nor read your blog. Who are they?
In reality the “blog world” out here is one or two folks making real comments and everyone just piggybacks.
Furthermore, The MVP summit isn’t a venue for disclosure as an NDA event. What you saw through your blogroll is a filtered view period. You remember non disclosure and how the MVP summit was covered by that? So expecting some sort of revelation is downright silly from that event.
What I see around the blogosphere is tulip bulbs and koolaid. My reality is that I bought a Microsoft operating system on a Dell laptop and Office 2007. I’ve get to pay a dime for applications from Google. Well I guess I did as they were loaded up on the laptop and I uninstalled them already.
Want to hear reality? The reality of Vista is that it proves that old dogs have to learn new tricks and we’re fighting it tooth and nail … Office 2007 makes people want it once they get over the learning curve and I’m ripping out Google Desktop because I don’t appreciate the revenue sharing deals that Intuit and Dell are making without my approval.
What’s reality isn’t just the view from the Blogosphere.
Reality is that real people just want things to work. And blogging and bloggers are not the real world.
I blog. But there’s a lot of people out in the real world that don’t care that I do, nor need to care.
In the grand scheme of life, bloggers aren’t as important as we think we are.
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“Sandi:
What gets online is reality to most people. It’s what bloggers have to work with. I have lots of MVPs who read me. If my facts are wrong, I’m sure they’ll point it out (and, you seem to be the first, which is totally shocking to tell the truth — it’s almost like the group agrees that they were cheerleading).”
Who’s most people? How many people are “most people” when there’s a lot of folks that don’t read blogs. And when you say “it’s almost like the group agrees”…what group? Not all MVPs blog, nor read blogs, nor read your blog. Who are they?
In reality the “blog world” out here is one or two folks making real comments and everyone just piggybacks.
Furthermore, The MVP summit isn’t a venue for disclosure as an NDA event. What you saw through your blogroll is a filtered view period. You remember non disclosure and how the MVP summit was covered by that? So expecting some sort of revelation is downright silly from that event.
What I see around the blogosphere is tulip bulbs and koolaid. My reality is that I bought a Microsoft operating system on a Dell laptop and Office 2007. I’ve get to pay a dime for applications from Google. Well I guess I did as they were loaded up on the laptop and I uninstalled them already.
Want to hear reality? The reality of Vista is that it proves that old dogs have to learn new tricks and we’re fighting it tooth and nail … Office 2007 makes people want it once they get over the learning curve and I’m ripping out Google Desktop because I don’t appreciate the revenue sharing deals that Intuit and Dell are making without my approval.
What’s reality isn’t just the view from the Blogosphere.
Reality is that real people just want things to work. And blogging and bloggers are not the real world.
I blog. But there’s a lot of people out in the real world that don’t care that I do, nor need to care.
In the grand scheme of life, bloggers aren’t as important as we think we are.
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[Rob]I’m sorry about that, but it would have been more effective to post a list of URLs where MVPs reported from the MVP Summit that demonstrated your point of view.
Do you have any?[/Rob]
Why? You’ve already said your broad brush approach was bad, so just what is it that we you want demonstrated?
As far as I know (I’m not going to read through the entire history of comments) you posted *one* blog link that you use to justify your stance of MVPs as cheerleaders and referred to “several” MVPs who have apparently agreed with you via email (I assume they are agreeing about MVPs being cheerleaders which is not that surprising – after all I said the same thing, but *I* said it without slamming the label on *all* MVPs).
Just how many blog entries etc do you think would be sufficient to support the contention that my point holds sway, considering we have no idea what “several” equates to? Heck, we’re on even terms with just my one response to this blog. In fact, if I blog in addition to Susan’s blog entry “Real World” then I’m actually one up on you 🙂
I’ve also got “several” emails that were less than flattering about your statement, so we’ll call ourselves even on that score too.
Be that as it may, you’ve acknowledged that your broad brush statement was bad. That’s enough for me, for now.
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[Rob]I’m sorry about that, but it would have been more effective to post a list of URLs where MVPs reported from the MVP Summit that demonstrated your point of view.
Do you have any?[/Rob]
Why? You’ve already said your broad brush approach was bad, so just what is it that we you want demonstrated?
As far as I know (I’m not going to read through the entire history of comments) you posted *one* blog link that you use to justify your stance of MVPs as cheerleaders and referred to “several” MVPs who have apparently agreed with you via email (I assume they are agreeing about MVPs being cheerleaders which is not that surprising – after all I said the same thing, but *I* said it without slamming the label on *all* MVPs).
Just how many blog entries etc do you think would be sufficient to support the contention that my point holds sway, considering we have no idea what “several” equates to? Heck, we’re on even terms with just my one response to this blog. In fact, if I blog in addition to Susan’s blog entry “Real World” then I’m actually one up on you 🙂
I’ve also got “several” emails that were less than flattering about your statement, so we’ll call ourselves even on that score too.
Be that as it may, you’ve acknowledged that your broad brush statement was bad. That’s enough for me, for now.
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@171: “For the record, i have never said said anything personal or offensive.”
In fact, one can argue that some of Scoble’s comments are personal and offensive.
I like to read your blog and usually stay out of the discussion part but it’s fun to see what the comments section turns into when you mention, “Apple”, “Google”, and “Microsoft” in the same article.
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@171: “For the record, i have never said said anything personal or offensive.”
In fact, one can argue that some of Scoble’s comments are personal and offensive.
I like to read your blog and usually stay out of the discussion part but it’s fun to see what the comments section turns into when you mention, “Apple”, “Google”, and “Microsoft” in the same article.
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Sandi: cool, glad we cleared that up.
Susan: bloggers are just “spitters” that send info around word-of-mouth networks. They get quoted a lot cause of their audiences. They are influential in that they tell other people what they think and often have large audiences that make them influentials.
Most people around me don’t care about my blog. But they do see stuff in the newspaper or on TV or that got told to them by THEIR friends that WERE influenced by blogs.
You made me laugh about this one: >>I’m ripping out Google Desktop because I don’t appreciate the revenue sharing deals that Intuit and Dell are making without my approval.
That sounds like an “anything but Microsoft” person back around 2000 (Microsoft used to make lots of wacky deals with Dell back then before the DOJ lawsuit and it used to piss off lots of influentials to the point that they pushed the DOJ to go for an anti-trust lawsuit).
As for Vista: talk to Buzz Bruggeman about that one. He’s found a bug that has been acknowledged by Microsoft but hasn’t hit the blogs (er, newspapers) yet. It will, though, cause it causes nasty stuff to happen after hybernating.
I’m glad I said most people should wait six months for Vista to be really tested out by the marketplace before upgrading.
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Sandi: cool, glad we cleared that up.
Susan: bloggers are just “spitters” that send info around word-of-mouth networks. They get quoted a lot cause of their audiences. They are influential in that they tell other people what they think and often have large audiences that make them influentials.
Most people around me don’t care about my blog. But they do see stuff in the newspaper or on TV or that got told to them by THEIR friends that WERE influenced by blogs.
You made me laugh about this one: >>I’m ripping out Google Desktop because I don’t appreciate the revenue sharing deals that Intuit and Dell are making without my approval.
That sounds like an “anything but Microsoft” person back around 2000 (Microsoft used to make lots of wacky deals with Dell back then before the DOJ lawsuit and it used to piss off lots of influentials to the point that they pushed the DOJ to go for an anti-trust lawsuit).
As for Vista: talk to Buzz Bruggeman about that one. He’s found a bug that has been acknowledged by Microsoft but hasn’t hit the blogs (er, newspapers) yet. It will, though, cause it causes nasty stuff to happen after hybernating.
I’m glad I said most people should wait six months for Vista to be really tested out by the marketplace before upgrading.
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>In fact, one can argue that some of Scoble’s comments are personal and offensive.
I like getting into the mudpit as much as anyone. But, generally I try not to use ad hominem attacks against anyone.
Some of my comments aren’t really thought out well. How can you tell those ones? Cause they don’t work and get derided quickly.
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>In fact, one can argue that some of Scoble’s comments are personal and offensive.
I like getting into the mudpit as much as anyone. But, generally I try not to use ad hominem attacks against anyone.
Some of my comments aren’t really thought out well. How can you tell those ones? Cause they don’t work and get derided quickly.
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Robert, thanks for responding and giving me “a clue’ 😉 I didn’t mean to diminish your contribution prior to MS, but your audience increased greatly because of them. The tone was a bit harsh — doesn’t look good to slam former employers like that, even with the best of intentions.
I agree that MS execs have to walk the walk or shut up until something ships (and someone needs to throw a muzzle on Ballmer — he does more damage to their rep every time he opens his mouth than Google R&D could do in a year…). That’s why I look to Ozzie going forward. He doesn’t talk trash.
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Robert, thanks for responding and giving me “a clue’ 😉 I didn’t mean to diminish your contribution prior to MS, but your audience increased greatly because of them. The tone was a bit harsh — doesn’t look good to slam former employers like that, even with the best of intentions.
I agree that MS execs have to walk the walk or shut up until something ships (and someone needs to throw a muzzle on Ballmer — he does more damage to their rep every time he opens his mouth than Google R&D could do in a year…). That’s why I look to Ozzie going forward. He doesn’t talk trash.
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Brian: I slammed Microsoft often when I was there.
My traffic has more than doubled since I left Microsoft, by the way.
Ozzie is trying to take Microsoft in a new direction: bring out stuff AFTER it’s done. I wonder if he can last at Microsoft, though. The culture is against him.
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Brian: I slammed Microsoft often when I was there.
My traffic has more than doubled since I left Microsoft, by the way.
Ozzie is trying to take Microsoft in a new direction: bring out stuff AFTER it’s done. I wonder if he can last at Microsoft, though. The culture is against him.
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Robert, send Buzz to the newsgroups for help.. and not blogs. Where hard core MVPs who don’t read blogs nor blog while they are at the summit are.
The “blogging” MVPs are just one part of the MVP community and to merely gauge the “feel” of the “group” does a disservice to the over 2,800 folks that have different voices. (I say that loosely as well as there are differing views and opinions).
We’re not all good MVPs. We’re not all bad MVPs. There are some that shouldn’t be MVPs. There are folks that should be MVPs and are. And it sure not fun sometimes being one when former MVPs gauge the entire group from the “blogging” ones when not all of us blog.
But the good ones will continue on helping folks regardless of the title, the grouping, the whatever. I certainly don’t do what I do just for the title. I do it because it makes me learn and grow.
BTW I don’t know Buzz as he’s never been in my newsgroups/communities but it sounds like it may be this:
The Windows desktop may stop updating correctly after a Windows Vista-based computer has been running for a long time:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=932406
Call for a hotfix (it’s a free call)… in the USA 1-800-936-4900. If he has issues, give him my email address and I can help him out.
For the record, I don’t appreciate it when Microsoft shoves down Service packs unannounced on patch Tuesday, I don’t appreciate it when Java, Yahoo, Intuit or any other number of vendors including Micrsoft shove down software that I didn’t ask for inside their software. This isn’t “anything but Microsoft”, this is “tell me what you are shoving on my desktop that I now have to patch for”.
Normal people don’t upgrade.
Normal people buy their OS on computers that come with Google desktop.
Normal people don’t read blogs.
And businesss sure don’t install anything …whether Google, or whatever overnight. We test and make sure it solves a business need. I would hope that major businesses of the world wouldn’t make a key investment decision because of something they read on a wordpress page but that they actually did a bit of their homework and research.
One can hope anyway. Blogging gets eyeballs.
It shouldn’t be the determination of the final decision. And if it is.. our entire world needs to step back and do proper due diligence.
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Robert, send Buzz to the newsgroups for help.. and not blogs. Where hard core MVPs who don’t read blogs nor blog while they are at the summit are.
The “blogging” MVPs are just one part of the MVP community and to merely gauge the “feel” of the “group” does a disservice to the over 2,800 folks that have different voices. (I say that loosely as well as there are differing views and opinions).
We’re not all good MVPs. We’re not all bad MVPs. There are some that shouldn’t be MVPs. There are folks that should be MVPs and are. And it sure not fun sometimes being one when former MVPs gauge the entire group from the “blogging” ones when not all of us blog.
But the good ones will continue on helping folks regardless of the title, the grouping, the whatever. I certainly don’t do what I do just for the title. I do it because it makes me learn and grow.
BTW I don’t know Buzz as he’s never been in my newsgroups/communities but it sounds like it may be this:
The Windows desktop may stop updating correctly after a Windows Vista-based computer has been running for a long time:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=932406
Call for a hotfix (it’s a free call)… in the USA 1-800-936-4900. If he has issues, give him my email address and I can help him out.
For the record, I don’t appreciate it when Microsoft shoves down Service packs unannounced on patch Tuesday, I don’t appreciate it when Java, Yahoo, Intuit or any other number of vendors including Micrsoft shove down software that I didn’t ask for inside their software. This isn’t “anything but Microsoft”, this is “tell me what you are shoving on my desktop that I now have to patch for”.
Normal people don’t upgrade.
Normal people buy their OS on computers that come with Google desktop.
Normal people don’t read blogs.
And businesss sure don’t install anything …whether Google, or whatever overnight. We test and make sure it solves a business need. I would hope that major businesses of the world wouldn’t make a key investment decision because of something they read on a wordpress page but that they actually did a bit of their homework and research.
One can hope anyway. Blogging gets eyeballs.
It shouldn’t be the determination of the final decision. And if it is.. our entire world needs to step back and do proper due diligence.
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@@172- Or to put it another way: “I much prefer a community of sycophants if I had my way”
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@@172- Or to put it another way: “I much prefer a community of sycophants if I had my way”
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What Robert points out here is the same issue I have with all software vendors. Do they listen too much to the geeks?
Are they getting feedback from the RIGHT people?
Sometimes I don’t think they are. “Influencers” (and I use that loosely) are not normal folks. And are we/they really influencing the normal people?
I’m not convinced that bloggers should be so religiously seen as the “in crowd” to watch.
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What Robert points out here is the same issue I have with all software vendors. Do they listen too much to the geeks?
Are they getting feedback from the RIGHT people?
Sometimes I don’t think they are. “Influencers” (and I use that loosely) are not normal folks. And are we/they really influencing the normal people?
I’m not convinced that bloggers should be so religiously seen as the “in crowd” to watch.
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Susan: you misunderstood me. Buzz already has better contacts inside Microsoft than most MVPs. So do I. He’s being helped by Microsoft folks on the IE team who are aware of this particular bug and are working on it — why would he need to deal with an intermediary when he already has contacts inside of Microsoft?
I use the word “influencer” to mean anyone who tells other people about something. Bloggers are just easy-to-study influencers. And, thanks to Google (er, Live.com) bloggers have bigger audiences than other kinds of influencers, which makes them more likely to get ideas around the word of mouth networks faster.
Normal people, as you call them, DO use Google. What do they find for most problems? Bloggers helping out. They might not even realize they are reading a blogger, but it’s Google that’s bringing the traffic.
This is what the MVP program doesn’t understand (and most MVPs don’t grok). Most Google searches won’t bring you to newsgroups, but rather will bring you to Web forums and blogs.
The “in crowd?” That’s all over on Second Life or Twitter anyway now.
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Susan: you misunderstood me. Buzz already has better contacts inside Microsoft than most MVPs. So do I. He’s being helped by Microsoft folks on the IE team who are aware of this particular bug and are working on it — why would he need to deal with an intermediary when he already has contacts inside of Microsoft?
I use the word “influencer” to mean anyone who tells other people about something. Bloggers are just easy-to-study influencers. And, thanks to Google (er, Live.com) bloggers have bigger audiences than other kinds of influencers, which makes them more likely to get ideas around the word of mouth networks faster.
Normal people, as you call them, DO use Google. What do they find for most problems? Bloggers helping out. They might not even realize they are reading a blogger, but it’s Google that’s bringing the traffic.
This is what the MVP program doesn’t understand (and most MVPs don’t grok). Most Google searches won’t bring you to newsgroups, but rather will bring you to Web forums and blogs.
The “in crowd?” That’s all over on Second Life or Twitter anyway now.
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“Heck, Microsoft closed down the Internet Explorer team for about five years and most people didn’t even notice.”
This should go down to internet history. AJAX is born thank to this 5 peaceful years. And this also explains why Microsoft is falling off the Internet trail. They pay no attention to the web.
This is a good waking call for Microsoft. And you Robert is very good at shouting out loud.
Good point on warning Ozzie. He may end up going home to Kansas before he gets to see the Oz. Can he become the Wizard? We do want Microsoft around so Bill Gates can save the world.
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“Heck, Microsoft closed down the Internet Explorer team for about five years and most people didn’t even notice.”
This should go down to internet history. AJAX is born thank to this 5 peaceful years. And this also explains why Microsoft is falling off the Internet trail. They pay no attention to the web.
This is a good waking call for Microsoft. And you Robert is very good at shouting out loud.
Good point on warning Ozzie. He may end up going home to Kansas before he gets to see the Oz. Can he become the Wizard? We do want Microsoft around so Bill Gates can save the world.
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Google groups Robert.
I search on google and I find myself heading over to google groups where answers are.
Because quite frankly web searching without being targeted ends up with a whole bunch of unfinished threads with no resolutions. I generally don’t find that single voice blogs giving me consistent solid tech advice for current products. They give me buzz for future stuff that may or may not occur. Or perhaps a blend of tech support and current stuff, but it’s only one person’s view and voice. A blog is not the proper venue for a tech support incident. I’m sorry but I don’t find my core tech support on blogs… and believe me I blog. I bubble up my tech content from other sources and filter it out so that the blog can be a tech source.
I make my blog to have tech content and be a filing cabinet from all the other resources I see. But it’s not in watching one blogger or getting answers from a blog, it’s from those larger community resources.
And Robert, there you go again with that “MVP program” again lumping the entire thing/all participants into one basket. Given that you aren’t in the program anymore, nor at Microsoft, I don’t think you are in a position to know what the program understands, nor what MVPs grok. Have you talked to all of them? I haven’t talked to you in a long while.
On the one hand you are saying bloggers are the only “it” crowd, but then saying the bloggers at the summit didn’t post anything you wanted to link to so they are not. So what is it?
For the record I help admin and host a bunch of mvp bloggers on a joint site. That doesn’t mean that I believe that the joint blog site I help run is the best venue for seeing the bigger picture of the real world. It’s not.
There’s connections and then there is support. I don’t know what connections Buzz has but you know what I’ll take support ones over Dev any ol’ day. Support work in the now. Dev are already onto the next thing.
Why do I offer to help Buzz? Just because. Because that’s what I do for all the people that aren’t the Buzz’s in the world. Because the vast majority of computer users aren’t Buzz. Don’t have the connections and go to a web forum or newsgroup for help. I’m not here to cheerlead but to help.
For the record when I help, find that Google Group searches give me much better answers than a Google search. It’s too “buckshot” approach on plain web search and even the gang in our SBS community complain about it. Google isn’t good enough anymore. We need more targeted searching. Blog searching comes back with bogus results. All of us in the real world are beginning to complain that the lack of information we use to have is turning into information overload and we can’t find the good information anymore. We need it filtered and targeted.
Besides, what webforums ARE newsgroups.. it’s the same content just a different way to navigate.
I blog, I newsgroup, I web forum. But a blog is a single person’s voice. It does not replicate the same experience as looking over a web forum and seeing trends. And the sooner you and the rest of the industry “grok” that a blogger is a single voice and not a trend, not a group, the more I’ll stop worrying about this industry. Because right now we’re listening too much to the single voices out here.
There’s still folks that see the value in looking at more than one forum… http://www.edbott.com/weblog/?p=1628 and I’m one of those people that think that if you just get your input from one place, you may not see that bigger picture.
And Second Life and Twitter, that’s the incrowd for you… that’s not necessarily the incrowd for all.
But getting back to the original point of this… it’s about looking at the larger view and right now you are still apparently have this view that nothing but the blogosphere needs to be watched for trends and that all MVPs that you care to pay attention to do nothing but cheerlead.
That’s your view, Robert. I find that looking at more than just the blogosphere gives me a much bigger picture.
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Google groups Robert.
I search on google and I find myself heading over to google groups where answers are.
Because quite frankly web searching without being targeted ends up with a whole bunch of unfinished threads with no resolutions. I generally don’t find that single voice blogs giving me consistent solid tech advice for current products. They give me buzz for future stuff that may or may not occur. Or perhaps a blend of tech support and current stuff, but it’s only one person’s view and voice. A blog is not the proper venue for a tech support incident. I’m sorry but I don’t find my core tech support on blogs… and believe me I blog. I bubble up my tech content from other sources and filter it out so that the blog can be a tech source.
I make my blog to have tech content and be a filing cabinet from all the other resources I see. But it’s not in watching one blogger or getting answers from a blog, it’s from those larger community resources.
And Robert, there you go again with that “MVP program” again lumping the entire thing/all participants into one basket. Given that you aren’t in the program anymore, nor at Microsoft, I don’t think you are in a position to know what the program understands, nor what MVPs grok. Have you talked to all of them? I haven’t talked to you in a long while.
On the one hand you are saying bloggers are the only “it” crowd, but then saying the bloggers at the summit didn’t post anything you wanted to link to so they are not. So what is it?
For the record I help admin and host a bunch of mvp bloggers on a joint site. That doesn’t mean that I believe that the joint blog site I help run is the best venue for seeing the bigger picture of the real world. It’s not.
There’s connections and then there is support. I don’t know what connections Buzz has but you know what I’ll take support ones over Dev any ol’ day. Support work in the now. Dev are already onto the next thing.
Why do I offer to help Buzz? Just because. Because that’s what I do for all the people that aren’t the Buzz’s in the world. Because the vast majority of computer users aren’t Buzz. Don’t have the connections and go to a web forum or newsgroup for help. I’m not here to cheerlead but to help.
For the record when I help, find that Google Group searches give me much better answers than a Google search. It’s too “buckshot” approach on plain web search and even the gang in our SBS community complain about it. Google isn’t good enough anymore. We need more targeted searching. Blog searching comes back with bogus results. All of us in the real world are beginning to complain that the lack of information we use to have is turning into information overload and we can’t find the good information anymore. We need it filtered and targeted.
Besides, what webforums ARE newsgroups.. it’s the same content just a different way to navigate.
I blog, I newsgroup, I web forum. But a blog is a single person’s voice. It does not replicate the same experience as looking over a web forum and seeing trends. And the sooner you and the rest of the industry “grok” that a blogger is a single voice and not a trend, not a group, the more I’ll stop worrying about this industry. Because right now we’re listening too much to the single voices out here.
There’s still folks that see the value in looking at more than one forum… http://www.edbott.com/weblog/?p=1628 and I’m one of those people that think that if you just get your input from one place, you may not see that bigger picture.
And Second Life and Twitter, that’s the incrowd for you… that’s not necessarily the incrowd for all.
But getting back to the original point of this… it’s about looking at the larger view and right now you are still apparently have this view that nothing but the blogosphere needs to be watched for trends and that all MVPs that you care to pay attention to do nothing but cheerlead.
That’s your view, Robert. I find that looking at more than just the blogosphere gives me a much bigger picture.
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I have read Robert’s post on a list of Microsoft’s innovations and I think this must be must read for all Microsoft people and think up new groundbreaking stuff.
Read :
http://mediavidea.blogspot.com/2007/03/microsoft-vill-plateau-for-while-and.html
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I have read Robert’s post on a list of Microsoft’s innovations and I think this must be must read for all Microsoft people and think up new groundbreaking stuff.
Read :
http://mediavidea.blogspot.com/2007/03/microsoft-vill-plateau-for-while-and.html
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John: interesting how we have different memories of the 1990s. I remember using Macs and crashing every hour with QuarkXpress (and I can back that up — I kept pointing it out to Steve Sloan and Steve Broback) and NT 4.0 wouldn’t go down for weeks.
But we already established that you’re not anything close to a network person. I’d have LOVED to have seen the configs on these machines. Somehow, I think your extension march was a wonder to behold.
Actually, that is ABSOLUTELY NOT TRUE and anyone who deals with the Internet better realize that silence DOES equate agreement.
No, silence only equates apathy. Either assumption is incorrect, and an attempt to manufacture a conclusion. The plural of speculation is not data.
Any PR professor will tell you the same.
Their job is teaching you how to spin results from insufficient data. Not exactly what I’d call a reliable source.
It’s not about you, though. MOstly about LayZ and Coulter and John Welch. They see those commenters as insufferable and inable to demonstrate a world view other than “anti-Scoble.” Which, I guess, if you are here, gets old after a while.
Wah. The world is not here to agree with anyone. People who only want yes-men in their world are clueless in the extreme.
Office 2007 makes people want it once they get over the learning curve and I’m ripping out Google Desktop because I don’t appreciate the revenue sharing deals that Intuit and Dell are making without my approval.
To the corporate world, Office 2007 is nothing more than a new file format and a training pain in the ass. There’s no compelling reason to mass upgrade, or even allow it in the building. Hell, Microsoft can’t even keep the UI consistent in the suite. Outlook 2007 is a nice example of this.
“Heck, Microsoft closed down the Internet Explorer team for about five years and most people didn’t even notice.”
This should go down to internet history. AJAX is born thank to this 5 peaceful years. And this also explains why Microsoft is falling off the Internet trail. They pay no attention to the web.
The MORE important part of that was the fact that the IE team was shut down in a fit of “FINE, YOU ALL HATE US, WE’LL JUST TAKE OUR BALLS AND GO HOME”. It was shut down in the same manner of an emo teen throwing a hissy and slamming the door to his room. Lame.
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John: interesting how we have different memories of the 1990s. I remember using Macs and crashing every hour with QuarkXpress (and I can back that up — I kept pointing it out to Steve Sloan and Steve Broback) and NT 4.0 wouldn’t go down for weeks.
But we already established that you’re not anything close to a network person. I’d have LOVED to have seen the configs on these machines. Somehow, I think your extension march was a wonder to behold.
Actually, that is ABSOLUTELY NOT TRUE and anyone who deals with the Internet better realize that silence DOES equate agreement.
No, silence only equates apathy. Either assumption is incorrect, and an attempt to manufacture a conclusion. The plural of speculation is not data.
Any PR professor will tell you the same.
Their job is teaching you how to spin results from insufficient data. Not exactly what I’d call a reliable source.
It’s not about you, though. MOstly about LayZ and Coulter and John Welch. They see those commenters as insufferable and inable to demonstrate a world view other than “anti-Scoble.” Which, I guess, if you are here, gets old after a while.
Wah. The world is not here to agree with anyone. People who only want yes-men in their world are clueless in the extreme.
Office 2007 makes people want it once they get over the learning curve and I’m ripping out Google Desktop because I don’t appreciate the revenue sharing deals that Intuit and Dell are making without my approval.
To the corporate world, Office 2007 is nothing more than a new file format and a training pain in the ass. There’s no compelling reason to mass upgrade, or even allow it in the building. Hell, Microsoft can’t even keep the UI consistent in the suite. Outlook 2007 is a nice example of this.
“Heck, Microsoft closed down the Internet Explorer team for about five years and most people didn’t even notice.”
This should go down to internet history. AJAX is born thank to this 5 peaceful years. And this also explains why Microsoft is falling off the Internet trail. They pay no attention to the web.
The MORE important part of that was the fact that the IE team was shut down in a fit of “FINE, YOU ALL HATE US, WE’LL JUST TAKE OUR BALLS AND GO HOME”. It was shut down in the same manner of an emo teen throwing a hissy and slamming the door to his room. Lame.
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BUT:
Microsoft did not say “we’re in it to win”
http://liveside.net/blogs/opinion/archive/2007/03/18/on-winning-windows-live-and-a-new-world-order.aspx
One of our writers, Matthew Weyer, posted about that enthusiasm, and what appeared to be a quoted statement from the Summit. Well that didn’t go over too well. Matthew issued a clarification in a comment:
A correction note to everyone, Microsoft did not say “we’re in it to win”, and even if they did, I would not be able to disclose discussions since they’re under NDA. However, I can say that the “feeling” I got from Microsoft is “we’re in it to win” as in a sense of commitment, nothing more. As I said in the beginning of the post, I cannot say anything about what we did or didn’t see. I did go, but that’s all I’ll admit too.
The point of this post was to convey a positive feeling I took back from Microsoft. I think a little bit of positiveness about Microsoft would be nice for a change.
@Matthew
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BUT:
Microsoft did not say “we’re in it to win”
http://liveside.net/blogs/opinion/archive/2007/03/18/on-winning-windows-live-and-a-new-world-order.aspx
One of our writers, Matthew Weyer, posted about that enthusiasm, and what appeared to be a quoted statement from the Summit. Well that didn’t go over too well. Matthew issued a clarification in a comment:
A correction note to everyone, Microsoft did not say “we’re in it to win”, and even if they did, I would not be able to disclose discussions since they’re under NDA. However, I can say that the “feeling” I got from Microsoft is “we’re in it to win” as in a sense of commitment, nothing more. As I said in the beginning of the post, I cannot say anything about what we did or didn’t see. I did go, but that’s all I’ll admit too.
The point of this post was to convey a positive feeling I took back from Microsoft. I think a little bit of positiveness about Microsoft would be nice for a change.
@Matthew
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#191, TanNg: well, that attitude certainly matches what I heard executives saying internally at Microsoft. Steve Ballmer never says he’s in it to build a great user experience or build the best Internet services in the industry. That attitude has rubbed off on the culture inside Microsoft. That’s why what Matthew originally wrote resonated.
And, maybe it’s time for Microsoft to stop holding secret meetings with customers where they get them all hyped up about futuristic things that probably won’t ship for years.
It was an MVP Summit meeting where I got hyped up about Longhorn (with prototypes that never shipped). That was a major mistake. That meeting was what caused the hype.
Oh, and by paying MVPs way, and giving out lots of goodies (I saw some MVPs admit that they got free Tablet PCs by going), everyone is unwilling to say anything anti-Microsoft because you want to get invited next year.
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#191, TanNg: well, that attitude certainly matches what I heard executives saying internally at Microsoft. Steve Ballmer never says he’s in it to build a great user experience or build the best Internet services in the industry. That attitude has rubbed off on the culture inside Microsoft. That’s why what Matthew originally wrote resonated.
And, maybe it’s time for Microsoft to stop holding secret meetings with customers where they get them all hyped up about futuristic things that probably won’t ship for years.
It was an MVP Summit meeting where I got hyped up about Longhorn (with prototypes that never shipped). That was a major mistake. That meeting was what caused the hype.
Oh, and by paying MVPs way, and giving out lots of goodies (I saw some MVPs admit that they got free Tablet PCs by going), everyone is unwilling to say anything anti-Microsoft because you want to get invited next year.
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Susan: I’ve done thousands of Google searches (at Google.com) and I’ve rarely come across an answer on Google Groups integrated there.
What you don’t realize is most people have no idea about Google Groups. Only geeks and nerds know that.
I disagree with you about finding answers on Google, by the way. Throw an error message into Google and the answer usually comes right back.
Ask it for a driver. Answer comes right back.
Ask it how to do something in code? Answer usually comes right back (and if it doesn’t, most coders know how to get the answer from Krugle, or Google Groups, like you said).
The problem for Google is most people have no idea about the other services Google provides. To them the world IS google.com.
Which is why blogs are so influential.
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Susan: I’ve done thousands of Google searches (at Google.com) and I’ve rarely come across an answer on Google Groups integrated there.
What you don’t realize is most people have no idea about Google Groups. Only geeks and nerds know that.
I disagree with you about finding answers on Google, by the way. Throw an error message into Google and the answer usually comes right back.
Ask it for a driver. Answer comes right back.
Ask it how to do something in code? Answer usually comes right back (and if it doesn’t, most coders know how to get the answer from Krugle, or Google Groups, like you said).
The problem for Google is most people have no idea about the other services Google provides. To them the world IS google.com.
Which is why blogs are so influential.
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This is complete crap.. go through your previous posts here and channel9 and see what you have been saying so far..
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This is complete crap.. go through your previous posts here and channel9 and see what you have been saying so far..
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Straight googling gives you information overflow now.. to the point where I just had someone join a yahoolistserve to ask the questions and get the answers directly because google isn’t working anymore. It’s too much feedback from google.
The Microsoft.public. newsgroups are now exposed as webforums too. You hit the same thing as newsgroups by the way.
When you google, you don’t just hit blog real estate. You hit web sites, web forums, you name it. Blogs are one voice. Man I HOPE people aren’t listening to one voice if that voice is not fully informed.
You said earlier the MVP program doesn’t get it? Well SeanO is blogging and twittering http://communitygrouptherapy.com/2007/03/12/are-you-curious-enough-to-be-a-web-20-leader/ so maybe there’s hope ‘eh?
And Robert… this part of your post was so wrong it wasn’t funny:
“Oh, and by paying MVPs way, and giving out lots of goodies (I saw some MVPs admit that they got free Tablet PCs by going), everyone is unwilling to say anything anti-Microsoft because you want to get invited next year.”
Oh Robert…oh please.
Let’s do the full disclosure shall we as to what in the MVP world gets paid?
What was paid for the summit? The hotel room. Oh yeah the $9.99 a day internet connection. Everyone flew up there on their own dime. The teams do not pay for airfare these days. As far as handing out Tablet pcs to MVPs they only went, I heard to Tablet MVPs and are HOW many Tablet MVPs out of the 2,800 MVPs? They sound like the only group that got “ooh ahh” stuff.. Talk about brush stroke Robert. Do I remember that you got a tablet by being a MVP or am I too way overgeneralizing and forgetting?
I flew up the weekend before on my own dime, stayed in a hotel on my own time and flew back before the summit so I could meet up with the community folk from around the world. And then on patch Tuesday I yelled at Microsoft for not telling us that SP2 was coming down. I blogged about it dude. Go google on that?
There is no “everyone”. And you need to realize that blogs are not effective feedback channels and SOMETIMES that feedback is better served in a more productive manner by sending emails to people that we have contact with then sticking a rant on a web billboard.
Dude, you have no idea how much feedback I do that never even goes near my blog. My blog is a filtered outword facing feedback. The real and true feedback is typically in more private conversations.
Do not insult me and the others that spent hard earned money going to the summit by taking that brush stroke and painting it as you are doing. And for most of them going to Redmond is not why they do it. It’s a reason to get together with the folks with a commonality of helping computer users.
My blog? Has no advertising, no link to a book. And I foot the bill for the web space. Microsoft has never offered to pay for it nor would I accept repayment to ensure that it is MY voice.
In my accounting world, Robert, blogs aren’t yet there as a key influencer. Of the 100 most influential Accounting practitioners (oh and lets name drop while I’m at it … I’m one of those 100) there are VERY few bloggers in that list. Again, the tech world is not everything.
And that’s still my concern. Blogs should not be the only input and data point that a firm should look at. They are single voices.
Right now I’m concerned that way too many companies are listening too much to these single voices.
That concerns me.
Dude, you really disappointed me here.
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Straight googling gives you information overflow now.. to the point where I just had someone join a yahoolistserve to ask the questions and get the answers directly because google isn’t working anymore. It’s too much feedback from google.
The Microsoft.public. newsgroups are now exposed as webforums too. You hit the same thing as newsgroups by the way.
When you google, you don’t just hit blog real estate. You hit web sites, web forums, you name it. Blogs are one voice. Man I HOPE people aren’t listening to one voice if that voice is not fully informed.
You said earlier the MVP program doesn’t get it? Well SeanO is blogging and twittering http://communitygrouptherapy.com/2007/03/12/are-you-curious-enough-to-be-a-web-20-leader/ so maybe there’s hope ‘eh?
And Robert… this part of your post was so wrong it wasn’t funny:
“Oh, and by paying MVPs way, and giving out lots of goodies (I saw some MVPs admit that they got free Tablet PCs by going), everyone is unwilling to say anything anti-Microsoft because you want to get invited next year.”
Oh Robert…oh please.
Let’s do the full disclosure shall we as to what in the MVP world gets paid?
What was paid for the summit? The hotel room. Oh yeah the $9.99 a day internet connection. Everyone flew up there on their own dime. The teams do not pay for airfare these days. As far as handing out Tablet pcs to MVPs they only went, I heard to Tablet MVPs and are HOW many Tablet MVPs out of the 2,800 MVPs? They sound like the only group that got “ooh ahh” stuff.. Talk about brush stroke Robert. Do I remember that you got a tablet by being a MVP or am I too way overgeneralizing and forgetting?
I flew up the weekend before on my own dime, stayed in a hotel on my own time and flew back before the summit so I could meet up with the community folk from around the world. And then on patch Tuesday I yelled at Microsoft for not telling us that SP2 was coming down. I blogged about it dude. Go google on that?
There is no “everyone”. And you need to realize that blogs are not effective feedback channels and SOMETIMES that feedback is better served in a more productive manner by sending emails to people that we have contact with then sticking a rant on a web billboard.
Dude, you have no idea how much feedback I do that never even goes near my blog. My blog is a filtered outword facing feedback. The real and true feedback is typically in more private conversations.
Do not insult me and the others that spent hard earned money going to the summit by taking that brush stroke and painting it as you are doing. And for most of them going to Redmond is not why they do it. It’s a reason to get together with the folks with a commonality of helping computer users.
My blog? Has no advertising, no link to a book. And I foot the bill for the web space. Microsoft has never offered to pay for it nor would I accept repayment to ensure that it is MY voice.
In my accounting world, Robert, blogs aren’t yet there as a key influencer. Of the 100 most influential Accounting practitioners (oh and lets name drop while I’m at it … I’m one of those 100) there are VERY few bloggers in that list. Again, the tech world is not everything.
And that’s still my concern. Blogs should not be the only input and data point that a firm should look at. They are single voices.
Right now I’m concerned that way too many companies are listening too much to these single voices.
That concerns me.
Dude, you really disappointed me here.
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VR: what’s your point?
I say lots of things about Microsoft. Some right. Some wrong. Some nice. Some nasty.
But I reserve my right to say something different tomorrow than I said today.
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VR: what’s your point?
I say lots of things about Microsoft. Some right. Some wrong. Some nice. Some nasty.
But I reserve my right to say something different tomorrow than I said today.
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>Do I remember that you got a tablet by being a MVP or am I too way overgeneralizing and forgetting?
Nope. Never got free hardware when I was an MVP.
I didn’t know that MVPs didn’t get airfare covered this year.
I didn’t say blogs were the ONLY thing that showed up in Google. But they certainly show up often and high.
Blogging is coming to other fields big time. Why? SEO’s are bringing it to other industries. I’m seeing a ton of Accounting blogs. Watch for more.
http://www.google.com/search?q=Accounting+blog&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
Businesses have always listened to single voices. Just ask consultants whether they mind that.
I know Microsoft listens to consultants a lot more than they listen to anyone on the street too (and even MVPs).
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>Do I remember that you got a tablet by being a MVP or am I too way overgeneralizing and forgetting?
Nope. Never got free hardware when I was an MVP.
I didn’t know that MVPs didn’t get airfare covered this year.
I didn’t say blogs were the ONLY thing that showed up in Google. But they certainly show up often and high.
Blogging is coming to other fields big time. Why? SEO’s are bringing it to other industries. I’m seeing a ton of Accounting blogs. Watch for more.
http://www.google.com/search?q=Accounting+blog&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
Businesses have always listened to single voices. Just ask consultants whether they mind that.
I know Microsoft listens to consultants a lot more than they listen to anyone on the street too (and even MVPs).
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As a USA based MVP I’ve NEVER gotten my airfare covered. Ever. It’s always been on my dime. And this year overseas folks didn’t get any sort of help or stipend and yet they still came.
But the accountants are listenting to them…. They are blogging for other bloggers. The vast number of CPAs in the trenches don’t look at blogs. Right now they are just talking to each other and not talking to the trenches.
And consultants consult…they don’t do.
Don’t get me started on that either.
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As a USA based MVP I’ve NEVER gotten my airfare covered. Ever. It’s always been on my dime. And this year overseas folks didn’t get any sort of help or stipend and yet they still came.
But the accountants are listenting to them…. They are blogging for other bloggers. The vast number of CPAs in the trenches don’t look at blogs. Right now they are just talking to each other and not talking to the trenches.
And consultants consult…they don’t do.
Don’t get me started on that either.
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But the accountants are listenting to them
(messed that up)
Should be “But the accountants aren’t listenting to them”
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But the accountants are listenting to them
(messed that up)
Should be “But the accountants aren’t listenting to them”
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When I look at Apple’s forced migratons (6080×0 –> PowerPC; OS 9 –> UNIX; Moto/IBM to Intel; Jukebox –> music store –> video store –> living room entertainment hub) what I see is discipline.
In other words, setting aside the formidable technological hurdles, I see clear evidence of a company that (regardless of its comparative size, corporate complexity etc.) is able to coherently focus its attention on a goal and carry it out with a unified, simplified effort.
When the iPod was introduced, Apple “bundled it” with the EXISTING iTunes application, rather than doing what every other maker of a peripheral does (namely, write a new application for that purpose). Any other company tech I can think of would probably have made shiny new “iTunes software” and it would be your problem to deal with migrating your music library or doing whatever you wanted to do.
That these are abstract software systems that communicate with each other but they map out to concrete-and-steel buildings and groups of people who correspond directly to those abstract components and communicate effectively.
Everybody’s got their own brilliant theories about why Apple does well. (My own favorite nonsensical ones are “brilliant marketing” and “religious fans,” as if every damn street and mall and bus and train in the world was filled with white headphones because of “marketing.” Nobody can market that well! It’s impossible. The iPod actually is the proverbial better mousetrap.)
But I digress. I only claim to have one salient point here: that Apple (and probably Google, but I’m not familiar enough with their systems to feel comfortable weighing in) seems to have a consistent and coherent overall planning architecture that forces a disciplined approach to problem solving. Their “dogfooding” (iTunes store runs on WebObjects etc.) is just one part of this approach.
With Apple, the customer gets the sense of a bunch of people working together to proceed in a sensible, logical manner, avoiding the clusterfucks that come from bad inter-corporate communication and undisciplined project management.
I’ve worked several places where two groups at opposite ends of the company were doing very, very similar things and yet were not in contact with each other or were not communicating effectively, so the “equasion never reduces” and the redundancies and complexities silt up the products.
It’s quite clear (from using Office or Windows) that Microsoft cannot coordinate itself the way I’m describing. Over and over again, the Microsoft
approach seems to be to have dozens and dozens of slightly different versions of the same thing, all going at once, all superceding and overcorrecting each other, with the patches and last-minute-fixes painfully visible, all smoothed over beneath an intrusive and decorative corporate shellac that’s supposed to fool me into thinking that I’m using integrated solutions.
I don’t think Steve Jobs is the Messiah or anything; I’m just pointing out what I see, which in my opinion is fairly obvious: Apple’s engineers are all on the same page, which translates directly into a smooth and simplified user experience. I’m not making a tech point; I’m making a “corporate discipline” point.
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When I look at Apple’s forced migratons (6080×0 –> PowerPC; OS 9 –> UNIX; Moto/IBM to Intel; Jukebox –> music store –> video store –> living room entertainment hub) what I see is discipline.
In other words, setting aside the formidable technological hurdles, I see clear evidence of a company that (regardless of its comparative size, corporate complexity etc.) is able to coherently focus its attention on a goal and carry it out with a unified, simplified effort.
When the iPod was introduced, Apple “bundled it” with the EXISTING iTunes application, rather than doing what every other maker of a peripheral does (namely, write a new application for that purpose). Any other company tech I can think of would probably have made shiny new “iTunes software” and it would be your problem to deal with migrating your music library or doing whatever you wanted to do.
That these are abstract software systems that communicate with each other but they map out to concrete-and-steel buildings and groups of people who correspond directly to those abstract components and communicate effectively.
Everybody’s got their own brilliant theories about why Apple does well. (My own favorite nonsensical ones are “brilliant marketing” and “religious fans,” as if every damn street and mall and bus and train in the world was filled with white headphones because of “marketing.” Nobody can market that well! It’s impossible. The iPod actually is the proverbial better mousetrap.)
But I digress. I only claim to have one salient point here: that Apple (and probably Google, but I’m not familiar enough with their systems to feel comfortable weighing in) seems to have a consistent and coherent overall planning architecture that forces a disciplined approach to problem solving. Their “dogfooding” (iTunes store runs on WebObjects etc.) is just one part of this approach.
With Apple, the customer gets the sense of a bunch of people working together to proceed in a sensible, logical manner, avoiding the clusterfucks that come from bad inter-corporate communication and undisciplined project management.
I’ve worked several places where two groups at opposite ends of the company were doing very, very similar things and yet were not in contact with each other or were not communicating effectively, so the “equasion never reduces” and the redundancies and complexities silt up the products.
It’s quite clear (from using Office or Windows) that Microsoft cannot coordinate itself the way I’m describing. Over and over again, the Microsoft
approach seems to be to have dozens and dozens of slightly different versions of the same thing, all going at once, all superceding and overcorrecting each other, with the patches and last-minute-fixes painfully visible, all smoothed over beneath an intrusive and decorative corporate shellac that’s supposed to fool me into thinking that I’m using integrated solutions.
I don’t think Steve Jobs is the Messiah or anything; I’m just pointing out what I see, which in my opinion is fairly obvious: Apple’s engineers are all on the same page, which translates directly into a smooth and simplified user experience. I’m not making a tech point; I’m making a “corporate discipline” point.
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“Apple’s engineers are all on the same page, which translates directly into a smooth and simplified user experience. I’m not making a tech point; I’m making a “corporate discipline” point.”
Bet they don’t ship with Google desktop either….
..and Jordon ..yup the OEM experience will be the death of Microsoft.
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“Apple’s engineers are all on the same page, which translates directly into a smooth and simplified user experience. I’m not making a tech point; I’m making a “corporate discipline” point.”
Bet they don’t ship with Google desktop either….
..and Jordon ..yup the OEM experience will be the death of Microsoft.
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It’s Jordan with an a. Basketball player, river, country, almond, Back Street Boy, department store, Great Gatsby character…all with an a.
Sorry; pet peeve. 🙂
But thanks. To be fair, Apple did cut a deal with Google, which is why the Google search is built right into Apple’s Safari browser.
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It’s Jordan with an a. Basketball player, river, country, almond, Back Street Boy, department store, Great Gatsby character…all with an a.
Sorry; pet peeve. 🙂
But thanks. To be fair, Apple did cut a deal with Google, which is why the Google search is built right into Apple’s Safari browser.
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Sorry Jordan.
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/01/144222
Figures.
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Sorry Jordan.
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/01/144222
Figures.
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“..and Jordon ..yup the OEM experience will be the death of Microsoft.”
Interesting.
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“..and Jordon ..yup the OEM experience will be the death of Microsoft.”
Interesting.
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Susan: you’re trying to tell me that Accountants don’t use Google.com? Amazing that you believe that.
It’s not that they are looking for blogs. They are looking for information on accounting. And blogs show up VERY high in Google because Google’s main algorithms are about LINKING!!!
Google Groups messages don’t get linked to very often, which is why they rarely show up. But blogs get linked to all the time. Particularly ones that show how to do something. Or, give reviews of software.
Which is why blogs are influential.
Ever wonder why the MVP leadership is doing a blog? I don’t. They just took three years to see the data.
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Susan: you’re trying to tell me that Accountants don’t use Google.com? Amazing that you believe that.
It’s not that they are looking for blogs. They are looking for information on accounting. And blogs show up VERY high in Google because Google’s main algorithms are about LINKING!!!
Google Groups messages don’t get linked to very often, which is why they rarely show up. But blogs get linked to all the time. Particularly ones that show how to do something. Or, give reviews of software.
Which is why blogs are influential.
Ever wonder why the MVP leadership is doing a blog? I don’t. They just took three years to see the data.
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Oh, and to those who think I’m only nasty to Microsoft do a Google search for “Demo of the year” and see what comes up. Here, I’ll do it for you:
http://www.google.com/search?q=Demo+of+the+Year&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
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Oh, and to those who think I’m only nasty to Microsoft do a Google search for “Demo of the year” and see what comes up. Here, I’ll do it for you:
http://www.google.com/search?q=Demo+of+the+Year&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
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They don’t for hard core tax research.
Where’s the googles on how to input tax info in Lacerte or CCH? Not there.
Are there community places like Intuit’s Quicbooks community .. but that’s generic accounting and not the CPA industry.
I said Robert that Accountants don’t follow blogs. And when we do research it’s on CCH tax research or asking folks on listserves.
Google does not give good enough answers for my industry. It’s not targeted enough.
The good stuff in my accounting world is behind a “gated community” and Google doesn’t touch that stuff.
And the MVP leadership understands that blogs are just ONE influencer channel. Sean’s been web posting and interacting for many years.
In my own SBS community we’re starting to become a gated commmunity.. and google again, doesn’t touch that.
Google doesn’t search everything.
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They don’t for hard core tax research.
Where’s the googles on how to input tax info in Lacerte or CCH? Not there.
Are there community places like Intuit’s Quicbooks community .. but that’s generic accounting and not the CPA industry.
I said Robert that Accountants don’t follow blogs. And when we do research it’s on CCH tax research or asking folks on listserves.
Google does not give good enough answers for my industry. It’s not targeted enough.
The good stuff in my accounting world is behind a “gated community” and Google doesn’t touch that stuff.
And the MVP leadership understands that blogs are just ONE influencer channel. Sean’s been web posting and interacting for many years.
In my own SBS community we’re starting to become a gated commmunity.. and google again, doesn’t touch that.
Google doesn’t search everything.
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Don’t you get it, Mr. Scoble? MSFT is not a technology company. There is nothing to sigh about. It’s demise would be of almost no consequence besides dynamizing the PC software market.
MSFT is a ruthless twisted law firm that got its hands on an operating system at an opportune moment in history and figured out how to murder the competition through customer intimidation and restrictive contracts and, finally and most importantly, how to tie up the boot loader and exclude all other OS developers. SEE:
http://www.birdhouse.org/beos/byte/30-bootloader/
You sound as if you actually expect MS to suddenly find religion about software engineering, product development and customer service late in midlife – or early in its maturity. Get real. You might as well expect a 60 year old drug addict to quit the junk and take up training for Olympic speed skating.
It ain’t going to happen. The junkie will keep lying to himself and end up face down in a gutter in some remote industrial park, trying to make a connection that won’t show, finally drowning in his own vomit. MSFT in its Internet plays will keep trying to play market-manipulating angles, (restrictive tie-in deals that chain people closer to Windows) and making thinly veiled threats about intellectual property, chuckling to themselves all the while that they’ll ‘get’ everyone locked in again like they did the OS and then the Internet will be theirs to abuse for whatever amount of money they can imagine harvesting from it and the sorry suckers who depend on it.
From the company’s perspective, the world is just a collection of fools and pushovers waiting to lied to or slapped into a corner and made to do what MSFT wants them to do. You worked there. You should know this as well as anyone. On the Internet, however, there’s no ‘boot loader’ equivalent to lock in customers and no way for them to create a critical dependency MSFT can use to abuse their customers into submission.
Without any mechanism to enforce its will and placed at the mercy of the marketplace, MSFT is completely at sea, a ship of pariahs with no port to take them, sharks in the water, polar bears floating by on icebergs, gazing hungrily at easy prey aboard who can do nothing to protect themselves but throw bags of money overboard and set them alight, pretending to hold off attackers that will ultimately consume them.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of guys.
Zeke
PS Tell MSFT to hire a veterinarian to give Ballmer a distemper shot. Kid’s a total psycho and embarrassment to MSFT.
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Don’t you get it, Mr. Scoble? MSFT is not a technology company. There is nothing to sigh about. It’s demise would be of almost no consequence besides dynamizing the PC software market.
MSFT is a ruthless twisted law firm that got its hands on an operating system at an opportune moment in history and figured out how to murder the competition through customer intimidation and restrictive contracts and, finally and most importantly, how to tie up the boot loader and exclude all other OS developers. SEE:
http://www.birdhouse.org/beos/byte/30-bootloader/
You sound as if you actually expect MS to suddenly find religion about software engineering, product development and customer service late in midlife – or early in its maturity. Get real. You might as well expect a 60 year old drug addict to quit the junk and take up training for Olympic speed skating.
It ain’t going to happen. The junkie will keep lying to himself and end up face down in a gutter in some remote industrial park, trying to make a connection that won’t show, finally drowning in his own vomit. MSFT in its Internet plays will keep trying to play market-manipulating angles, (restrictive tie-in deals that chain people closer to Windows) and making thinly veiled threats about intellectual property, chuckling to themselves all the while that they’ll ‘get’ everyone locked in again like they did the OS and then the Internet will be theirs to abuse for whatever amount of money they can imagine harvesting from it and the sorry suckers who depend on it.
From the company’s perspective, the world is just a collection of fools and pushovers waiting to lied to or slapped into a corner and made to do what MSFT wants them to do. You worked there. You should know this as well as anyone. On the Internet, however, there’s no ‘boot loader’ equivalent to lock in customers and no way for them to create a critical dependency MSFT can use to abuse their customers into submission.
Without any mechanism to enforce its will and placed at the mercy of the marketplace, MSFT is completely at sea, a ship of pariahs with no port to take them, sharks in the water, polar bears floating by on icebergs, gazing hungrily at easy prey aboard who can do nothing to protect themselves but throw bags of money overboard and set them alight, pretending to hold off attackers that will ultimately consume them.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of guys.
Zeke
PS Tell MSFT to hire a veterinarian to give Ballmer a distemper shot. Kid’s a total psycho and embarrassment to MSFT.
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Zeke,
*sniff* (weeps) Brilliant!
A bit vitriolic but so were Thomas Jefferson and Howard Beale.
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Zeke,
*sniff* (weeps) Brilliant!
A bit vitriolic but so were Thomas Jefferson and Howard Beale.
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I really wasn’t going to comment. Honestly? I wasn’t going to read through 200+ comments either. But this thread was like watching a car crash in slow motion. So when I made it to comment #193…
It was an MVP Summit meeting where I got hyped up about Longhorn (with prototypes that never shipped). That was a major mistake. That meeting was what caused the hype.
Robert! Remember me? I was repeatedly critical of you back in 2004, even some of 2005. You told me that I needed to attend PDC ’03 because I would otherwise lose my job to somebody in India!
That period of time (early 2004) was when I let my Microsoft certification lapse because I – while thankful for what it did to my career – simply wasn’t using it anymore. I had moved on to SAP. And on a personal note I bought my last Windows PC about a year before… and moved on to OS X.
Back to the above quote. I could be an ass and laugh at how you’ve changed since you left MS. But no… I commend you for finally undertanding what I had been complaining about.
The constant upgrades. The empty promises. The INEXCUSABLE 5 year semi-retirement of MSIE. The decision to stop supporting VB6.
Hey, at least they finally put out a more secure OS. It throws a popup at you every 2 minutes, but it’s more secure.
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I really wasn’t going to comment. Honestly? I wasn’t going to read through 200+ comments either. But this thread was like watching a car crash in slow motion. So when I made it to comment #193…
It was an MVP Summit meeting where I got hyped up about Longhorn (with prototypes that never shipped). That was a major mistake. That meeting was what caused the hype.
Robert! Remember me? I was repeatedly critical of you back in 2004, even some of 2005. You told me that I needed to attend PDC ’03 because I would otherwise lose my job to somebody in India!
That period of time (early 2004) was when I let my Microsoft certification lapse because I – while thankful for what it did to my career – simply wasn’t using it anymore. I had moved on to SAP. And on a personal note I bought my last Windows PC about a year before… and moved on to OS X.
Back to the above quote. I could be an ass and laugh at how you’ve changed since you left MS. But no… I commend you for finally undertanding what I had been complaining about.
The constant upgrades. The empty promises. The INEXCUSABLE 5 year semi-retirement of MSIE. The decision to stop supporting VB6.
Hey, at least they finally put out a more secure OS. It throws a popup at you every 2 minutes, but it’s more secure.
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Jordan,
Hey, man, thanks. Sometimes, ya know, da truth hits home and the words just appear. I’d never thunk I’d be compared to Jefferson and Beale, though. Thanks.
Mr Scoble, can I put a title on my essay? I don’t know how in WordPress blog software. I want to call it:
“Don’t Cry for Them, Mr Scoble” which you can sing to the melody of the chorus of Evita because I have a terrible singing voice.
Zeke
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Jordan,
Hey, man, thanks. Sometimes, ya know, da truth hits home and the words just appear. I’d never thunk I’d be compared to Jefferson and Beale, though. Thanks.
Mr Scoble, can I put a title on my essay? I don’t know how in WordPress blog software. I want to call it:
“Don’t Cry for Them, Mr Scoble” which you can sing to the melody of the chorus of Evita because I have a terrible singing voice.
Zeke
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@216 – I have a terrible singing voice
and a terrible rational thinking ability too…
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@216 – I have a terrible singing voice
and a terrible rational thinking ability too…
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#213: The constant upgrades. The empty promises. The INEXCUSABLE 5 year semi-retirement of MSIE. The decision to stop supporting VB6.
This is the trouble of a big company with too many products. They can decide to drop the support of an OS, or even a browser. Going forward, let’s not pump any bugs into the browser even if you decide not to support it. We reserve our right to send the Singing telegram on our theme song “We’re All In This Together”!
#216: “Don’t Cry for Them, Mr Scoble” which you can sing to the melody of the chorus of Evita because I have a terrible singing voice.
This will make an interesting show. PodTech is coming up with their Entertainment Division on http://www.nationalbanana.com. Robert can lead the singing part. It will draw a lot of advertisement and sponsorship. Possiblely it may lead to a nomination for a singing award, possible singing career.
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#213: The constant upgrades. The empty promises. The INEXCUSABLE 5 year semi-retirement of MSIE. The decision to stop supporting VB6.
This is the trouble of a big company with too many products. They can decide to drop the support of an OS, or even a browser. Going forward, let’s not pump any bugs into the browser even if you decide not to support it. We reserve our right to send the Singing telegram on our theme song “We’re All In This Together”!
#216: “Don’t Cry for Them, Mr Scoble” which you can sing to the melody of the chorus of Evita because I have a terrible singing voice.
This will make an interesting show. PodTech is coming up with their Entertainment Division on http://www.nationalbanana.com. Robert can lead the singing part. It will draw a lot of advertisement and sponsorship. Possiblely it may lead to a nomination for a singing award, possible singing career.
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It has been more than a decade since the Internet exploded and Microsoft can’t seem to do anything right in this space. Obviously, it’s not just google; lots of other companies are constantly innovating. Microsoft has been much more successful in almost all the other key areas they have invested in. What gives at when it comes to the net?
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How MSFT can ‘win’ in a few easy steps.
1) Stop renaming products randomly (Hotmail -> MSN Mail -> MSN Hotmail -> Windows Live Mail)
2) Make embeded version of SQL Server 2005 and use it for products where the bits are kept with data for
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It has been more than a decade since the Internet exploded and Microsoft can’t seem to do anything right in this space. Obviously, it’s not just google; lots of other companies are constantly innovating. Microsoft has been much more successful in almost all the other key areas they have invested in. What gives at when it comes to the net?
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How MSFT can ‘win’ in a few easy steps.
1) Stop renaming products randomly (Hotmail -> MSN Mail -> MSN Hotmail -> Windows Live Mail)
2) Make embeded version of SQL Server 2005 and use it for products where the bits are kept with data for
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Also get a mail service that actually receives mail without bouncing good mail silently. Hotmail is a piece of shit, half of the time it will silently drop e-mail from custom domains. Google never does that, that’s why GMail is far better, it simply works; it also has more space but I think a bare minimum for a mail service is that it doesn’t drop e-mail especially silently. Hotmail is a piece of shit, to improve it, make it actually use one of the spam lists, and not some POS internal system that can’t be checked, updated, and maintained by the public.
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Also get a mail service that actually receives mail without bouncing good mail silently. Hotmail is a piece of shit, half of the time it will silently drop e-mail from custom domains. Google never does that, that’s why GMail is far better, it simply works; it also has more space but I think a bare minimum for a mail service is that it doesn’t drop e-mail especially silently. Hotmail is a piece of shit, to improve it, make it actually use one of the spam lists, and not some POS internal system that can’t be checked, updated, and maintained by the public.
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Robert: re “Oh, and by paying MVPs way, and giving out lots of goodies (I saw some MVPs admit that they got free Tablet PCs by going), everyone is unwilling to say anything anti-Microsoft because you want to get invited next year.”
Damn it Robert, you’re doing the “everyone” thing again (what happened to realising that a broad brush is wrong?) and once again you go too far. I paid $3,500 out of my own pocket just in air fares to attend the summit, hundreds of dollars in taxi fares and for my own internet access in the hotel – another $50. MS paid for my hotel room – yay them.
Not only that, MS has *never* paid my multi thousand dollar airfare to attend a Summit in the USA – not once – never.
My goodies? half a dozen t.shirts, a copy of Expression Web designer, and a handful of $5 trinkets. That’s it. Oh yeah, that *really* stacks up well at over $4,000 personal expenditure on my part.
How *dare* you suggest that I, as part of the global “anyone” am “unwilling to say anything anti-Microsoft because [I] want to get invited next year”.
You really do not get it.
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Robert: re “Oh, and by paying MVPs way, and giving out lots of goodies (I saw some MVPs admit that they got free Tablet PCs by going), everyone is unwilling to say anything anti-Microsoft because you want to get invited next year.”
Damn it Robert, you’re doing the “everyone” thing again (what happened to realising that a broad brush is wrong?) and once again you go too far. I paid $3,500 out of my own pocket just in air fares to attend the summit, hundreds of dollars in taxi fares and for my own internet access in the hotel – another $50. MS paid for my hotel room – yay them.
Not only that, MS has *never* paid my multi thousand dollar airfare to attend a Summit in the USA – not once – never.
My goodies? half a dozen t.shirts, a copy of Expression Web designer, and a handful of $5 trinkets. That’s it. Oh yeah, that *really* stacks up well at over $4,000 personal expenditure on my part.
How *dare* you suggest that I, as part of the global “anyone” am “unwilling to say anything anti-Microsoft because [I] want to get invited next year”.
You really do not get it.
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Funny, when I go search for “Robert” on google, it’s either Robert the Bruce, Robert the Second of Scotland that is, or Robert aka Wobert, the poodle in “Meet the Feebles”. Comes of having different priorities, I suppose.
And as far as Microsoft goes, it’s not bleeding red ink – yet. But SteveB seems to be focused on defining his mouth as a shoe, and inserting his foot whenever he’s offered the chance. The closest analogy with Microsoft is of course, Pan Am. They were for all intents and purposes, fit and obnoxiously healthy in the early nineties, and then all of a sudden, they just weren’t there any more.
Is Pan Am the _new_ Microsoft?
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Funny, when I go search for “Robert” on google, it’s either Robert the Bruce, Robert the Second of Scotland that is, or Robert aka Wobert, the poodle in “Meet the Feebles”. Comes of having different priorities, I suppose.
And as far as Microsoft goes, it’s not bleeding red ink – yet. But SteveB seems to be focused on defining his mouth as a shoe, and inserting his foot whenever he’s offered the chance. The closest analogy with Microsoft is of course, Pan Am. They were for all intents and purposes, fit and obnoxiously healthy in the early nineties, and then all of a sudden, they just weren’t there any more.
Is Pan Am the _new_ Microsoft?
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229 – you obviously did not suffer through Pan Am in the 80s…I did just about every month on some international flight …or Microsoft in the last decade …financial statements are trailing indicators. Consumers are far ahead of investors in sensing problems…as I say repeatedly say –
True North is on Main street not Wall Street
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229 – you obviously did not suffer through Pan Am in the 80s…I did just about every month on some international flight …or Microsoft in the last decade …financial statements are trailing indicators. Consumers are far ahead of investors in sensing problems…as I say repeatedly say –
True North is on Main street not Wall Street
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Well, for many companies and orgaisations, it is not a matter how Microsoft scores on “the internet” and wether or not their search engines “sucks”.
In many cases, the true value for these companies are how Microsoft and their partners come up with solutions that have true, meaningful value to their business activities.
And deliver solutions, that is what Microsoft does indeed. I don’t think that Microsoft vs. Google this and that is so important.
/M
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Well, for many companies and orgaisations, it is not a matter how Microsoft scores on “the internet” and wether or not their search engines “sucks”.
In many cases, the true value for these companies are how Microsoft and their partners come up with solutions that have true, meaningful value to their business activities.
And deliver solutions, that is what Microsoft does indeed. I don’t think that Microsoft vs. Google this and that is so important.
/M
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Still waiting on sitemap support in Live.com after many inexplicable months…
If Live.com is so great, then why did they let Google and Yahoo beat them so badly on this?
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Still waiting on sitemap support in Live.com after many inexplicable months…
If Live.com is so great, then why did they let Google and Yahoo beat them so badly on this?
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My guess is that MS wants to develop it’s own web-application stack– XAML etc. on Vista clients; MS-designed SOAP protocols; .NET apps running on Windows servers.
Google and friends are getting there first because they’re using already-deployed technology: HTML, Flash, Javascript in any browser on the client; HTTP requests to get data; whatever kind of apps you want (Java, C, C++, Perl, Python, Ruby) running on Linux servers.
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My guess is that MS wants to develop it’s own web-application stack– XAML etc. on Vista clients; MS-designed SOAP protocols; .NET apps running on Windows servers.
Google and friends are getting there first because they’re using already-deployed technology: HTML, Flash, Javascript in any browser on the client; HTTP requests to get data; whatever kind of apps you want (Java, C, C++, Perl, Python, Ruby) running on Linux servers.
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Bascially, MS is “innovating” a whole lot, but it wants to innovate the whole solution, and all the innovation is staying within its R&D walls.
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Bascially, MS is “innovating” a whole lot, but it wants to innovate the whole solution, and all the innovation is staying within its R&D walls.
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Reed,
Exactly. If it doesn’t help manipulate the customer, tie him to Windows and support the MSFT hold-the-customers’- arms and nail-his-feet-to-the-floor marketing model, it is rejected. Which means MSFT has to invest years in trying to come up with its own crap to upset the development of usable technology already in the field and in organizing its own patented MSFT Hostageware.
The marketing phrase ‘Where Do You Want to Go Today’ always made me break out laughing. It’s so obvious that what MSFT really means is, “Where the F*** Do You Think You Are Going?”
It’s like Hannibal Lecter asking, ‘May I Serve You?’
Zeke
My guess is that MS wants to develop it’s own web-application stack– XAML etc. on Vista clients; MS-designed SOAP protocols; .NET apps running on Windows servers.
Google and friends are getting there first because they’re using already-deployed technology: HTML, Flash, Javascript in any browser on the client; HTTP requests to get data; whatever kind of apps you want (Java, C, C++, Perl, Python, Ruby) running on Linux servers.
Comment by Reed — March 19, 2007 @ 7:27 am
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Reed,
Exactly. If it doesn’t help manipulate the customer, tie him to Windows and support the MSFT hold-the-customers’- arms and nail-his-feet-to-the-floor marketing model, it is rejected. Which means MSFT has to invest years in trying to come up with its own crap to upset the development of usable technology already in the field and in organizing its own patented MSFT Hostageware.
The marketing phrase ‘Where Do You Want to Go Today’ always made me break out laughing. It’s so obvious that what MSFT really means is, “Where the F*** Do You Think You Are Going?”
It’s like Hannibal Lecter asking, ‘May I Serve You?’
Zeke
My guess is that MS wants to develop it’s own web-application stack– XAML etc. on Vista clients; MS-designed SOAP protocols; .NET apps running on Windows servers.
Google and friends are getting there first because they’re using already-deployed technology: HTML, Flash, Javascript in any browser on the client; HTTP requests to get data; whatever kind of apps you want (Java, C, C++, Perl, Python, Ruby) running on Linux servers.
Comment by Reed — March 19, 2007 @ 7:27 am
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“Ever wonder why Live.com is slower than Google? Hint: it’s cause Google is out executing Microsoft in the datacenter.”
Why is Google faster.
1) Multiple data centers shipping data to users locally.
2) All layer 2 back to the main data center (Gig-E feeds) via dark fiber.
Average deployment between data centers is about 20k worth of servers.
That is why thy are fast.
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“Ever wonder why Live.com is slower than Google? Hint: it’s cause Google is out executing Microsoft in the datacenter.”
Why is Google faster.
1) Multiple data centers shipping data to users locally.
2) All layer 2 back to the main data center (Gig-E feeds) via dark fiber.
Average deployment between data centers is about 20k worth of servers.
That is why thy are fast.
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@223. “What gives at when it comes to the net?”
It’s pretty simple, I think. It’s not shrink-wrapped software so they can’t figure out how to monetize it.
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@223. “What gives at when it comes to the net?”
It’s pretty simple, I think. It’s not shrink-wrapped software so they can’t figure out how to monetize it.
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Wow Bob,
I thought you liked Microsoft?
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Wow Bob,
I thought you liked Microsoft?
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“Ship a better search, a better advertising system than Google, a better hosting service than Amazon, a better cross-platform Web development ecosystem than Adobe…”
Uh…
Remember Bill Gates in “Pirates of Silicon Valley”?
Better. Doesn’t. Matter.
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“Ship a better search, a better advertising system than Google, a better hosting service than Amazon, a better cross-platform Web development ecosystem than Adobe…”
Uh…
Remember Bill Gates in “Pirates of Silicon Valley”?
Better. Doesn’t. Matter.
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Hmmm…you were at Microsoft…saw these “sucky” issues…leave Microsoft….and now tell the world what’s wrong. Why did you try to fix them or at lease influence them? What a big tough guy! You’re lame.
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Hmmm…you were at Microsoft…saw these “sucky” issues…leave Microsoft….and now tell the world what’s wrong. Why did you try to fix them or at lease influence them? What a big tough guy! You’re lame.
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scoble, you are an a-hole. you remembered me of those anti-vista spam from apple. R
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scoble, you are an a-hole. you remembered me of those anti-vista spam from apple. R
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Hate#246: I did try to fix them. Over and over and over again. But the problems inside Microsoft are bigger than me. Billionaires need to solve them.
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Hate#246: I did try to fix them. Over and over and over again. But the problems inside Microsoft are bigger than me. Billionaires need to solve them.
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“maybe they ARE looking for me when they type Robert. PC World named me one of the most important people on the Internet. So did Forbes.”
——————-
OMG.
This blog just “jumped the shark” for me.
Unsubscribed.
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“maybe they ARE looking for me when they type Robert. PC World named me one of the most important people on the Internet. So did Forbes.”
——————-
OMG.
This blog just “jumped the shark” for me.
Unsubscribed.
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What’s this talk of Live being slower than Google? I’ve not noticed that. And I’m much more satisfied with Live search’s results than Google’s (but Yahoo has better results than both).
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What’s this talk of Live being slower than Google? I’ve not noticed that. And I’m much more satisfied with Live search’s results than Google’s (but Yahoo has better results than both).
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Robert knows me, the rest of you probably don’t: I’m an evangelist at Microsoft (Robert and I used to be office neighbors…hi, Robert!)
ok, on with the commentary: Yup. Google is kicking our ass in search. Google is kicking our ass in damn near every space that we compete in. But their game consoles suck (so far :-). All joking aside, Ballmer’s quoted comments bother me too. So I decided to articulate some thoughts here. It’s all extemporaneous, so take it with a grain of salt.
I think Microsoft’s inability to out-innovate Google is defined by three things:
1) Engineering mindset. As you point out, Robert, Google uses cheap hardware and leverages the rest of the stack with internal work that is focused on their objectives. Google developers are empowered to create in a charming “primordial ooze” of creativity. We get to deal with 4-7 layers of “Program Management”
2) Lack of “legacy”. Whether this be a customer-mandated compatability in Windows Vista so that their Windows 3.1 application works, or some type of (ethical) business practice blocked because of consent decree or government regulations (or business organizations — the Zune doesn’t suck because we thought it would be a good idea to make a sucky personal music player, it sucks [IMHO] because we wanted to have a good “business partnership” with the music industry): Microsoft has about a billion albatrosses (albatroi? abla…aw, hell, you get it) around their collective necks. You’re welcome to discount this, but I’ve seen it in EVERY org I’ve been in. Our future will continue to be haunted by the sins of our past.
3) Confusing and/or competing “visions”. Microsoft culture grew up on the concept of competing products and objectives, the philosophy being that the market would choose the successor. This culture has resulted in several incidents where competing teams created solutions that confused customers, developers, and the press. Sometimes simultaneously. This problem continues today, and can often be found in products that appear complementary, but absolutely won’t work together (or the solution feel like a hack). Look at Windows Vista DWM/Windows Presentation Foundation/and DirectX as an example. I don’t see this culture changing. Ever. But I damn sure wish it would. Add on top of that the fact that our senior executives have to somehow tie together this loose array of 7-100 different product areas (depending on who you talk to), and they have their OWN agendas as well. Fun.
So why do I still work at Microsoft, instead of just quitting and working for Google (or somewhere else)?
1) I continue to feel that my job does good things for good people. I’m passionate about what I do and the product I promote to people (Hint: That would be neither Office nor Windows :-). I guess if I stop feeling that way, I’ll give Vic Gundotra or Carter Maslan a phone call now that they’ve gone to Google.
2) I somehow believe the Microsoft culture will change in a significant way in the near future. Then again, I’ve thought that for too long now. Feel free to accuse me of rampant optimism.
3) We have an ENORMOUS supply of passionate developers that are engaged in different technologies, doing really cool things (check out some of the videos on channel9.msdn.com, Robert’s old job). We’re just as capable of making the “next cool thing” as Google is, and we provide tools to help our 3rd parties do the same.
David “LetsKillDave” Weller
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Robert knows me, the rest of you probably don’t: I’m an evangelist at Microsoft (Robert and I used to be office neighbors…hi, Robert!)
ok, on with the commentary: Yup. Google is kicking our ass in search. Google is kicking our ass in damn near every space that we compete in. But their game consoles suck (so far :-). All joking aside, Ballmer’s quoted comments bother me too. So I decided to articulate some thoughts here. It’s all extemporaneous, so take it with a grain of salt.
I think Microsoft’s inability to out-innovate Google is defined by three things:
1) Engineering mindset. As you point out, Robert, Google uses cheap hardware and leverages the rest of the stack with internal work that is focused on their objectives. Google developers are empowered to create in a charming “primordial ooze” of creativity. We get to deal with 4-7 layers of “Program Management”
2) Lack of “legacy”. Whether this be a customer-mandated compatability in Windows Vista so that their Windows 3.1 application works, or some type of (ethical) business practice blocked because of consent decree or government regulations (or business organizations — the Zune doesn’t suck because we thought it would be a good idea to make a sucky personal music player, it sucks [IMHO] because we wanted to have a good “business partnership” with the music industry): Microsoft has about a billion albatrosses (albatroi? abla…aw, hell, you get it) around their collective necks. You’re welcome to discount this, but I’ve seen it in EVERY org I’ve been in. Our future will continue to be haunted by the sins of our past.
3) Confusing and/or competing “visions”. Microsoft culture grew up on the concept of competing products and objectives, the philosophy being that the market would choose the successor. This culture has resulted in several incidents where competing teams created solutions that confused customers, developers, and the press. Sometimes simultaneously. This problem continues today, and can often be found in products that appear complementary, but absolutely won’t work together (or the solution feel like a hack). Look at Windows Vista DWM/Windows Presentation Foundation/and DirectX as an example. I don’t see this culture changing. Ever. But I damn sure wish it would. Add on top of that the fact that our senior executives have to somehow tie together this loose array of 7-100 different product areas (depending on who you talk to), and they have their OWN agendas as well. Fun.
So why do I still work at Microsoft, instead of just quitting and working for Google (or somewhere else)?
1) I continue to feel that my job does good things for good people. I’m passionate about what I do and the product I promote to people (Hint: That would be neither Office nor Windows :-). I guess if I stop feeling that way, I’ll give Vic Gundotra or Carter Maslan a phone call now that they’ve gone to Google.
2) I somehow believe the Microsoft culture will change in a significant way in the near future. Then again, I’ve thought that for too long now. Feel free to accuse me of rampant optimism.
3) We have an ENORMOUS supply of passionate developers that are engaged in different technologies, doing really cool things (check out some of the videos on channel9.msdn.com, Robert’s old job). We’re just as capable of making the “next cool thing” as Google is, and we provide tools to help our 3rd parties do the same.
David “LetsKillDave” Weller
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@192
Wait, so Microsoft never even said, “We’re in it to win”? Then what’s the point of this blog entry in the first place (other than Scoble scoring brownie points with the “I hate Microsoft” crowd and engaging in the most shameful (and yet shameless) public narcisism I’ve seen in a long time with this “Forbes loves me” garbage)?
Oh, and Scoble, why don’t you respond to post 192? You seem to let it go, not even bothering to alter your blog entry to reflect that Microsoft did not say what you claim they did?
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@192
Wait, so Microsoft never even said, “We’re in it to win”? Then what’s the point of this blog entry in the first place (other than Scoble scoring brownie points with the “I hate Microsoft” crowd and engaging in the most shameful (and yet shameless) public narcisism I’ve seen in a long time with this “Forbes loves me” garbage)?
Oh, and Scoble, why don’t you respond to post 192? You seem to let it go, not even bothering to alter your blog entry to reflect that Microsoft did not say what you claim they did?
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@248, So… you weren’t as influencial as an MS blogger as people made you out to be? I thought blogging solved everything.
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@248, So… you weren’t as influencial as an MS blogger as people made you out to be? I thought blogging solved everything.
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@251 by David Weller
Sounds like Microsoft is a bunch of independent competing companies. We were told that this is what the public *wanted*. They wanted Microsoft split up in to competing entities and this would allow the best tech to emerge. But I guess they really do want monolithic companies to run everything.
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@251 by David Weller
Sounds like Microsoft is a bunch of independent competing companies. We were told that this is what the public *wanted*. They wanted Microsoft split up in to competing entities and this would allow the best tech to emerge. But I guess they really do want monolithic companies to run everything.
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“Brian: I’m discouraged by people who assume that I made my name at Microsoft. I had more than 1,000 readers a day when I joined Microsoft. I planned conferences for programmers in the 1990s. I did a LOT BEFORE I was a Microsoft employee (and, was quoted in Time Magazine saying that Microsoft should split itself up BEFORE I was an employee).
”
—
LOL
Robert, when you were at MS, your blog carried some weight *because* you were at MS. Now, you are just another self-appointed know-it-all blogger (that in reality knows very little), and the only reason, the ONLY reason you get much of a following at all is because you were at MS. Believe me, your blog, objectively speaking, sucks badly. The writing is horrible, the topics are repetitive in the extreme, the layout is barebones. If not for your MS history, you’d have veryl little following at all.
Sorry, but you are NOT Plato, Aristotle, or Socrotese. You’re nothing more than a blogger using your MS-history to give your word psuedo-gravitas. That’s it! Get over yourself, please.
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“Brian: I’m discouraged by people who assume that I made my name at Microsoft. I had more than 1,000 readers a day when I joined Microsoft. I planned conferences for programmers in the 1990s. I did a LOT BEFORE I was a Microsoft employee (and, was quoted in Time Magazine saying that Microsoft should split itself up BEFORE I was an employee).
”
—
LOL
Robert, when you were at MS, your blog carried some weight *because* you were at MS. Now, you are just another self-appointed know-it-all blogger (that in reality knows very little), and the only reason, the ONLY reason you get much of a following at all is because you were at MS. Believe me, your blog, objectively speaking, sucks badly. The writing is horrible, the topics are repetitive in the extreme, the layout is barebones. If not for your MS history, you’d have veryl little following at all.
Sorry, but you are NOT Plato, Aristotle, or Socrotese. You’re nothing more than a blogger using your MS-history to give your word psuedo-gravitas. That’s it! Get over yourself, please.
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@ Dave 251,
Makes a great deal of sense. I respectfully refer you back to my earlier comment 202, where I’m struggling to make a similar point in a more convoluted fashion.
The venn diagram of the company and the venn diagram of Windows are fundamentally interrelated; formal systemic errors in one cause errors in the other.
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@ Dave 251,
Makes a great deal of sense. I respectfully refer you back to my earlier comment 202, where I’m struggling to make a similar point in a more convoluted fashion.
The venn diagram of the company and the venn diagram of Windows are fundamentally interrelated; formal systemic errors in one cause errors in the other.
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Robert: “maybe they ARE looking for me when they type Robert. PC World named me one of the most important people on the Internet. So did Forbes.”
Mike: Every once in a while, the ego shines on through the rants 🙂
////////
“Every once in a while”? Scoble aggrandizes himself in nearly every one of his blogs.
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Robert: “maybe they ARE looking for me when they type Robert. PC World named me one of the most important people on the Internet. So did Forbes.”
Mike: Every once in a while, the ego shines on through the rants 🙂
////////
“Every once in a while”? Scoble aggrandizes himself in nearly every one of his blogs.
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#252: Microsoft talks about “winning” all the time. Here’s Steve Ballmer talking about winning in his interview with me. http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=85529
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#252: Microsoft talks about “winning” all the time. Here’s Steve Ballmer talking about winning in his interview with me. http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=85529
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Mr Weller,
These are exactly the kinds of hooks that cults used to keep people locked into place:
1 – The mission is essential for advancing humanity
2 – Taking all this abuse will be worthwhile, because the institution is finally reforming and can do its best work
3 – The members are passionate and therefore righteous and I am among them
Read Churches That Abuse or really any accepted work on cult mind control. Get out of there. At some level, you know you want to escape.
Zeke
1) I continue to feel that my job does good things for good people. I’m passionate about what I do and the product I promote to people
2) I somehow believe the Microsoft culture will change in a significant way in the near future. Then again, I’ve thought that for too long now. Feel free to accuse me of rampant optimism.
3) We have an ENORMOUS supply of passionate developers that are engaged in different technologies, doing really cool things
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Mr Weller,
These are exactly the kinds of hooks that cults used to keep people locked into place:
1 – The mission is essential for advancing humanity
2 – Taking all this abuse will be worthwhile, because the institution is finally reforming and can do its best work
3 – The members are passionate and therefore righteous and I am among them
Read Churches That Abuse or really any accepted work on cult mind control. Get out of there. At some level, you know you want to escape.
Zeke
1) I continue to feel that my job does good things for good people. I’m passionate about what I do and the product I promote to people
2) I somehow believe the Microsoft culture will change in a significant way in the near future. Then again, I’ve thought that for too long now. Feel free to accuse me of rampant optimism.
3) We have an ENORMOUS supply of passionate developers that are engaged in different technologies, doing really cool things
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Microsoft priorities?
Making Bill Gates rich.
That’s it. Period. Full stop.
Anything that doesn’t do that – like security, reliability, common sense – goes by the wayside.
Look at the latest spin by Microsoft – Vista security holes are supposed to be rated down because Vista has more security features than XP!
Oh, please.
Then they roll out another Microsoft blogger with a comparison of security vulnerabilities between OS’s (using the same crap criteria that has been discredited a thousand times in the past). Guess who comes out on top?
Why? Because Vista is going nowhere and OneCare is eating people’s Outlook emails, that’s why. So the spin machine rolls into action immediately.
Let me clue you people in.
ANYBODY at Microsoft who is allowed to talk to the public is a LIAR. ANYBODY. EVERYBODY.
(Except that guy last week who described OneCare as “missing bits and pieces” and “should not have been released” – and he’s undoubtedly on the unemployment line this week.)
Microsoft does not sell software. It sells LIES.
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Microsoft priorities?
Making Bill Gates rich.
That’s it. Period. Full stop.
Anything that doesn’t do that – like security, reliability, common sense – goes by the wayside.
Look at the latest spin by Microsoft – Vista security holes are supposed to be rated down because Vista has more security features than XP!
Oh, please.
Then they roll out another Microsoft blogger with a comparison of security vulnerabilities between OS’s (using the same crap criteria that has been discredited a thousand times in the past). Guess who comes out on top?
Why? Because Vista is going nowhere and OneCare is eating people’s Outlook emails, that’s why. So the spin machine rolls into action immediately.
Let me clue you people in.
ANYBODY at Microsoft who is allowed to talk to the public is a LIAR. ANYBODY. EVERYBODY.
(Except that guy last week who described OneCare as “missing bits and pieces” and “should not have been released” – and he’s undoubtedly on the unemployment line this week.)
Microsoft does not sell software. It sells LIES.
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Really the bottom line for Microsoft is this; They are the once great giant who didnt change with the times. They havent completely ignored the security issue BUT what can they do, insecurity is built in to the OS because of its base. Nothing to fix there. You either put up with it or you switch to a Mac.
Which leads me to my second point, people are leaving MS in droves for Apple’s Mac. Why? Because it just makes sense. I mean its a no-brainer. These Macs don’t and HAVENT ever gotten viruses, they dont get spyware, malware, they dont stop woring for no reason like PCs dod, they are just a stable, very beautiful way to do your computing.
This is a common story in the world of business. Companies that fail to see where things are going fall away and become footnotes of the progression of their market. Its happened before, and trust me, it WILL happen again. Why ANYONE would use a Microsoft based computer is trylu beyond me. I mean WHY would you want to do something the hard way? Since Macs swicthed to Intel, they are as compatiable for Windows and Windows based programs as a true pc would be. There zero reason NOT to swicth to a mac and HUNDREDS of reasons to get the hell away from an insecure, unstable, and very expensive OS like Windows.
Do yourself a favour, buy a Mac and you will wonder why the hell you didnt do it sooner. Much sooner. I know I did.
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Really the bottom line for Microsoft is this; They are the once great giant who didnt change with the times. They havent completely ignored the security issue BUT what can they do, insecurity is built in to the OS because of its base. Nothing to fix there. You either put up with it or you switch to a Mac.
Which leads me to my second point, people are leaving MS in droves for Apple’s Mac. Why? Because it just makes sense. I mean its a no-brainer. These Macs don’t and HAVENT ever gotten viruses, they dont get spyware, malware, they dont stop woring for no reason like PCs dod, they are just a stable, very beautiful way to do your computing.
This is a common story in the world of business. Companies that fail to see where things are going fall away and become footnotes of the progression of their market. Its happened before, and trust me, it WILL happen again. Why ANYONE would use a Microsoft based computer is trylu beyond me. I mean WHY would you want to do something the hard way? Since Macs swicthed to Intel, they are as compatiable for Windows and Windows based programs as a true pc would be. There zero reason NOT to swicth to a mac and HUNDREDS of reasons to get the hell away from an insecure, unstable, and very expensive OS like Windows.
Do yourself a favour, buy a Mac and you will wonder why the hell you didnt do it sooner. Much sooner. I know I did.
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All this talk of Google being the next Microsoft is rubbish. They are nowhere near becoming this. It’s obvious. Just look at their market capitalizations. Google is valued at a much higher P/E and once it misses forecasted earnings, it’s going to fall like a ton of bricks. It doesn’t even have the potential to grow to Microsoft’s size. It’s a one dimensional business in a very competitive environment.
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All this talk of Google being the next Microsoft is rubbish. They are nowhere near becoming this. It’s obvious. Just look at their market capitalizations. Google is valued at a much higher P/E and once it misses forecasted earnings, it’s going to fall like a ton of bricks. It doesn’t even have the potential to grow to Microsoft’s size. It’s a one dimensional business in a very competitive environment.
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@103: You simply do not get it. Online gaming? Where is the fun in that. How does blowing up or shooting your opponents online provide healthy enjoyment and social interaction?
I think Nintendo “gets it”. They understand that gaming is not about how fancy your games are or having the most FPS on an online network. Gaming is about having fun and that you can have the most fun by playing against your friends in the same living room.
I have to say that the most fun I had playing any game was this past New Year’s Eve at Christine’s (girl next door). There was a decent sized group that stayed past midnight playing Cranium (a Canadian board game which combines trivial pursuit, charades and win-lose-or-draw). What made it fun was the social interaction. You cannot get that sort of game with online gaming.
If there was console that I would buy for just a console, it would be the Wii as my first choice. The PS3 looks attractive as a Bluray player that happens to be a console as well.
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@103: You simply do not get it. Online gaming? Where is the fun in that. How does blowing up or shooting your opponents online provide healthy enjoyment and social interaction?
I think Nintendo “gets it”. They understand that gaming is not about how fancy your games are or having the most FPS on an online network. Gaming is about having fun and that you can have the most fun by playing against your friends in the same living room.
I have to say that the most fun I had playing any game was this past New Year’s Eve at Christine’s (girl next door). There was a decent sized group that stayed past midnight playing Cranium (a Canadian board game which combines trivial pursuit, charades and win-lose-or-draw). What made it fun was the social interaction. You cannot get that sort of game with online gaming.
If there was console that I would buy for just a console, it would be the Wii as my first choice. The PS3 looks attractive as a Bluray player that happens to be a console as well.
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Microsoft is what Ma-Bell was. (We are talking worldwide now and then just the USA).
The problem?
How to cut up Microsoft, before it is devoured.
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Microsoft is what Ma-Bell was. (We are talking worldwide now and then just the USA).
The problem?
How to cut up Microsoft, before it is devoured.
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The only reason people enjoy video games on PCs is that using PCs makes them so crazed with hatred, rage and genocidal fervor that they can only express it by chasing mutants through mazes and hatcheting them to death.
People who use Macs putter away doing their stuff.
People who use PCs curse at the computers all day, screaming themselves hoarse at the blue screens, aborts, random freezes, spontaneous reboots and non-stop screw ups. By lunchtime, they just want to pull out someone’s arm and beat them to death with the wet end.
That’s where the video game industry game from. Next week, I’ll explain house paint industry.
Zeke
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The only reason people enjoy video games on PCs is that using PCs makes them so crazed with hatred, rage and genocidal fervor that they can only express it by chasing mutants through mazes and hatcheting them to death.
People who use Macs putter away doing their stuff.
People who use PCs curse at the computers all day, screaming themselves hoarse at the blue screens, aborts, random freezes, spontaneous reboots and non-stop screw ups. By lunchtime, they just want to pull out someone’s arm and beat them to death with the wet end.
That’s where the video game industry game from. Next week, I’ll explain house paint industry.
Zeke
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First, a qualification. I am an MVP and I was at the Summit, though not at any of the Live presentations, so I can’t vouch for any of the remarks made there.
But I do question why anybody considers that Microsoft’s statement that they are “in it to win” is any kind of new information, or anything that anyone would get upset over. Microsoft is always in everything it does “to win.” So is Apple, Google, Yahoo, Nike, Coca Cola and the lady that runs the souvenier shop down by the beach. Every business is. And the primary goal of every publicly owned company is to maximize return to the shareholders. Microsoft has been good at that over the years, as have most of the other companies at various periods of time.
Microsoft has rarely gotten the definitive product out the door on the first try. Or often even the second, third or later tries. But they also rarely abandon products. They keep pushing and improving and gaining ground until they have won. And then they keep pushing some more. There’s nothing new here, nor anything new in their assertion that they will win, no matter what the category the remark is made about.
And Scoble is correct. Microsoft does not have a winning product in Internet Search. Nor have they ever. But they haven’t given up working on it. And they have the money and the power to keep working on it, even if it stays in third place for several more years.
For what it’s worth, the MVP’s aren’t an easy bunch to “talk into doing some cheerleading” and Scoble knows that. They’ve been bitching about Microsoft’s Search for a decade…
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First, a qualification. I am an MVP and I was at the Summit, though not at any of the Live presentations, so I can’t vouch for any of the remarks made there.
But I do question why anybody considers that Microsoft’s statement that they are “in it to win” is any kind of new information, or anything that anyone would get upset over. Microsoft is always in everything it does “to win.” So is Apple, Google, Yahoo, Nike, Coca Cola and the lady that runs the souvenier shop down by the beach. Every business is. And the primary goal of every publicly owned company is to maximize return to the shareholders. Microsoft has been good at that over the years, as have most of the other companies at various periods of time.
Microsoft has rarely gotten the definitive product out the door on the first try. Or often even the second, third or later tries. But they also rarely abandon products. They keep pushing and improving and gaining ground until they have won. And then they keep pushing some more. There’s nothing new here, nor anything new in their assertion that they will win, no matter what the category the remark is made about.
And Scoble is correct. Microsoft does not have a winning product in Internet Search. Nor have they ever. But they haven’t given up working on it. And they have the money and the power to keep working on it, even if it stays in third place for several more years.
For what it’s worth, the MVP’s aren’t an easy bunch to “talk into doing some cheerleading” and Scoble knows that. They’ve been bitching about Microsoft’s Search for a decade…
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So refreshing to hear you say this. A Microsoft contractor, working at an ivy league institution, was pimping the “Live” search krap to the rest of us in the room, and even though MS products usually make me barf I thought I’d at least give it a try. I typed in five addresses. It basically was 1 for 5. Two of the others it couldn’t even find, which were basically normal addresses. I was appalled, then realized how typical that was, compared to Google earth, which of course rocks. When I mentioned how kraptastic it was, he said MS’s plan was to outspend Google on it so everyone would use it. Which brought me right back to my usual posture re: MS, of wanting to hurl. Just like Word Perfect. Don’t bother to BUILD the better product, just try to crush the competition through a business strategy instead. And then to boast about how great krap is? Seriously appalling. Why is it so hard to just spend the money on building something EXCELLENT? Then maybe it could sell ITSELF. Sigh.
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So refreshing to hear you say this. A Microsoft contractor, working at an ivy league institution, was pimping the “Live” search krap to the rest of us in the room, and even though MS products usually make me barf I thought I’d at least give it a try. I typed in five addresses. It basically was 1 for 5. Two of the others it couldn’t even find, which were basically normal addresses. I was appalled, then realized how typical that was, compared to Google earth, which of course rocks. When I mentioned how kraptastic it was, he said MS’s plan was to outspend Google on it so everyone would use it. Which brought me right back to my usual posture re: MS, of wanting to hurl. Just like Word Perfect. Don’t bother to BUILD the better product, just try to crush the competition through a business strategy instead. And then to boast about how great krap is? Seriously appalling. Why is it so hard to just spend the money on building something EXCELLENT? Then maybe it could sell ITSELF. Sigh.
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Arguments do not make people use products, or buy them.
But personal conviction does.
Personally, I don’t see anything replacing Microsoft Office, warts and all- on my desktop/ laptop for at least a couple of years, including free for download software and free hosted services.
Jay, from Bangalore
http://ideaburger.blogspot.com
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Arguments do not make people use products, or buy them.
But personal conviction does.
Personally, I don’t see anything replacing Microsoft Office, warts and all- on my desktop/ laptop for at least a couple of years, including free for download software and free hosted services.
Jay, from Bangalore
http://ideaburger.blogspot.com
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I certainly hope Google is going to move ahead of Microsoft in the long run. If it’s not the technology advance everybody is touting – I am betting on people skills.
Just recently Google has been named the best place to work in America – out of thousands others. Where is Microsoft there? What is the ratio between disgruntled Microsoft employees and Google employees? In the end – either you like it or not – is the people who make or break it.
Google has a better staff retention coeficient than Microsoft and I hope they will continue having it.
It will take some time but Google will become what Microsoft was a while back – the “go to” company – the one any bright person wants to work for.
Then Microsoft will face the dinosaur’s fate – crushed by its own weight.
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I certainly hope Google is going to move ahead of Microsoft in the long run. If it’s not the technology advance everybody is touting – I am betting on people skills.
Just recently Google has been named the best place to work in America – out of thousands others. Where is Microsoft there? What is the ratio between disgruntled Microsoft employees and Google employees? In the end – either you like it or not – is the people who make or break it.
Google has a better staff retention coeficient than Microsoft and I hope they will continue having it.
It will take some time but Google will become what Microsoft was a while back – the “go to” company – the one any bright person wants to work for.
Then Microsoft will face the dinosaur’s fate – crushed by its own weight.
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“Why is it so hard to just spend the money on building something EXCELLENT?”
Well, that’s the real trick, isn’t it? (As H. Solo once said.) It’s hard because, well, it’s hard, but it’s made even harder if the corporate culture can’t tell the difference between actual systemic thinking and sales thinking.
Marketing/Sales people are defined by their ability to answer a single question: “On a level playing field, with no difference between brands of soap, how can I make consumers prefer mine?”
Even the actual characteristics of the product — its features, strengths, weaknesses, capabilities, drawbacks, are considered a sub-set of its saleability quotient. Marcus Aurelius said to ask of each thing, what is its nature; what is its purpose. Sales people do not think this way. They ask of each thing, how can I persuade somebody (or force somebody, or bribe somebody) into buying this?
You can sell soap this way, or perfume, or music, or even cars. But you can’t do it with software because software is the most abstract product there is, and the true “nature and purpose” of the tool reveals itself too easily.
Balmer probably thinks that Google and Live Search are the same. He thinks he’s getting screwed by somebody else’s better marketing; this is how a soap manufacturer thinks. You can hear it in their whining about Apple: it’s all “marketing,” as if people choose iPod over Zune as frivolously as they choose Tide over Bold.
Back in the 1970s and 1980s, this kind of thinking was (obviously) effective for Microsoft because nobody knew any better. DOS? PS/2? Who cares? I just want my spreadsheet! But times have changed, and today’s customers won’t fall for this “Wow starts now” crap.
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“Why is it so hard to just spend the money on building something EXCELLENT?”
Well, that’s the real trick, isn’t it? (As H. Solo once said.) It’s hard because, well, it’s hard, but it’s made even harder if the corporate culture can’t tell the difference between actual systemic thinking and sales thinking.
Marketing/Sales people are defined by their ability to answer a single question: “On a level playing field, with no difference between brands of soap, how can I make consumers prefer mine?”
Even the actual characteristics of the product — its features, strengths, weaknesses, capabilities, drawbacks, are considered a sub-set of its saleability quotient. Marcus Aurelius said to ask of each thing, what is its nature; what is its purpose. Sales people do not think this way. They ask of each thing, how can I persuade somebody (or force somebody, or bribe somebody) into buying this?
You can sell soap this way, or perfume, or music, or even cars. But you can’t do it with software because software is the most abstract product there is, and the true “nature and purpose” of the tool reveals itself too easily.
Balmer probably thinks that Google and Live Search are the same. He thinks he’s getting screwed by somebody else’s better marketing; this is how a soap manufacturer thinks. You can hear it in their whining about Apple: it’s all “marketing,” as if people choose iPod over Zune as frivolously as they choose Tide over Bold.
Back in the 1970s and 1980s, this kind of thinking was (obviously) effective for Microsoft because nobody knew any better. DOS? PS/2? Who cares? I just want my spreadsheet! But times have changed, and today’s customers won’t fall for this “Wow starts now” crap.
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Robert,
Do you seriously link *popularity* directly to *credibility*? They are two very distinct things, and as you point out in almost each of your blog posts, you might be the former.
I used to read your blog when you started blogging, many years ago, and there were some interesting points. However, I unsubscribed about two / three years ago, I don’t even recall exactly when, (long before you left Microsoft) because I just didn’t find your popular opinion valuable (to me, personally) anymore.
MVP’s are mostly technical guys & gals, and MVP status is *completely* linked to community activity, and renewable annually. (You should know that!) Because of the nature of MVP’s, I think you might find that far less MVP’s are interested in your ramblings than you like to believe.
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Robert,
Do you seriously link *popularity* directly to *credibility*? They are two very distinct things, and as you point out in almost each of your blog posts, you might be the former.
I used to read your blog when you started blogging, many years ago, and there were some interesting points. However, I unsubscribed about two / three years ago, I don’t even recall exactly when, (long before you left Microsoft) because I just didn’t find your popular opinion valuable (to me, personally) anymore.
MVP’s are mostly technical guys & gals, and MVP status is *completely* linked to community activity, and renewable annually. (You should know that!) Because of the nature of MVP’s, I think you might find that far less MVP’s are interested in your ramblings than you like to believe.
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@268 “Why is it so hard to just spend the money on building something EXCELLENT? Then maybe it could sell ITSELF. Sigh.”
While it’s certainly easy to apply that to Microsoft and you would be right, it doesn’t work that way in anything. If things worked that way there would be no need for ANY company to have a marketing department. Excellent products don’t always end up being the best sellers. Is a Toyota Camry the best car? Is McDonald’s the best hamburger? Is WalMart the best department store?
Not only do you have to build a good product, you have to figure out how to sell it (even if you selling model means strong arming OEM’s). Rail against Microsoft all you want..they certainly have it coming…but you can’t deny the fact they know how to market.
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@268 “Why is it so hard to just spend the money on building something EXCELLENT? Then maybe it could sell ITSELF. Sigh.”
While it’s certainly easy to apply that to Microsoft and you would be right, it doesn’t work that way in anything. If things worked that way there would be no need for ANY company to have a marketing department. Excellent products don’t always end up being the best sellers. Is a Toyota Camry the best car? Is McDonald’s the best hamburger? Is WalMart the best department store?
Not only do you have to build a good product, you have to figure out how to sell it (even if you selling model means strong arming OEM’s). Rail against Microsoft all you want..they certainly have it coming…but you can’t deny the fact they know how to market.
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“Real artists ship”
[Steve Jobs]
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“Real artists ship”
[Steve Jobs]
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As an ex-microsoftie all I can say is sing it brother and sing it loud.
What’d I do after Microsoft? A web 2.0 video RSS system. Could I have done something this cool at MS? Never, and that’s the shame. MS has good people and ideas but no ability to execute other than in the staid biz app world it first found success in.
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As an ex-microsoftie all I can say is sing it brother and sing it loud.
What’d I do after Microsoft? A web 2.0 video RSS system. Could I have done something this cool at MS? Never, and that’s the shame. MS has good people and ideas but no ability to execute other than in the staid biz app world it first found success in.
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This guy just wants publicity. All bloggers at some point “Jump the Shark” this is joke. Google never ships a product everything is always “BETA”. Gmail has been in “BETA” for 2 years. At least the Microsoft guys take a shot at sending out real software. I am tired of this BS all software is the same, some sucks some don’t. If you don’t like it don’t buy it or use it.
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This guy just wants publicity. All bloggers at some point “Jump the Shark” this is joke. Google never ships a product everything is always “BETA”. Gmail has been in “BETA” for 2 years. At least the Microsoft guys take a shot at sending out real software. I am tired of this BS all software is the same, some sucks some don’t. If you don’t like it don’t buy it or use it.
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Google never ships a product everything is always “BETA”. Gmail has been in “BETA” for 2 years. At least the Microsoft guys take a shot at sending out real software.
Microsoft has NEVER shipped software that wasn’t beta. Vista still isn’t in a state where it should have been RTM, and they’ve had three quarters of a year to patch it.
Atleast Google is being honest about it.
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Google never ships a product everything is always “BETA”. Gmail has been in “BETA” for 2 years. At least the Microsoft guys take a shot at sending out real software.
Microsoft has NEVER shipped software that wasn’t beta. Vista still isn’t in a state where it should have been RTM, and they’ve had three quarters of a year to patch it.
Atleast Google is being honest about it.
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SOme more reason why Microsoft blows. MS has introduce a new technology to compete with Adobe Flash/Air called Silverlight 2.0/MFP. The only problem is, if you are a VB programmer, MS cares little about you jumping in at the onset of this technology for the sake of your livlihood. MS is only providing tutorials/webcasts/videos for C# programmers. This irratates me because it gives C# programmers an edge of VB in the marketplace. I have decided to quit MS and move over to Adobe and larn Action Script. I have long been fed up wit MS showing favortism to C# programmers and treating us VB programmers as bastard step-children.
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SOme more reason why Microsoft blows. MS has introduce a new technology to compete with Adobe Flash/Air called Silverlight 2.0/MFP. The only problem is, if you are a VB programmer, MS cares little about you jumping in at the onset of this technology for the sake of your livlihood. MS is only providing tutorials/webcasts/videos for C# programmers. This irratates me because it gives C# programmers an edge of VB in the marketplace. I have decided to quit MS and move over to Adobe and larn Action Script. I have long been fed up wit MS showing favortism to C# programmers and treating us VB programmers as bastard step-children.
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The live.com Search Engine SUCKS!
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The live.com Search Engine SUCKS!
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You may heed your own advice Scoble. I can recall many times you hyping Microsoft stuff before it was shipped. Including search. This post makes me wonder how much of your previous posts were marketing bulls**t and how much was real. and how much I can trust your opinion going forward…
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You may heed your own advice Scoble. I can recall many times you hyping Microsoft stuff before it was shipped. Including search. This post makes me wonder how much of your previous posts were marketing bulls**t and how much was real. and how much I can trust your opinion going forward…
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