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Ballmer, Gates on Microsoft's Future
RoadFever writes: "At the Microsoft shareholders meeting, CEO Ballmer acknowledged they may have a popularity bug. "We understand, based upon the fact that our industry didn't rally to support us, that we need to change the way we interact and relate to our industry," Ballmer said.
There's a summary article in the Seattle Times and more stuff on the Microsoft investor relations page.
Will words translate to action? Well, the company might want to start by toning down the habit of taking credit for every innovation: "Really, the reason you see open source there at all is because we came in and said there should be a platform that's identical with millions and millions of machines," Gates said." The question-and-answer session near the end of the meeting has the most juicy quotes.
So wat he's saying is that the mass adoption of their inflexible software has driven people to create open products that will meet their needs, or am I misinterpreting him ? ;)
"Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity" -Alvy Ray Smith
Like they haven't already killed off a lot of competitors, knifed in the back a lot of partners, and set their sights on other industries, which BTW could be customers of partners and competitors? The problem with being an 357.142851428 Kg. gorilla is, you can sit anywhere you like, but after you've done so, who's willing to be their friend and stick their neck out for you? Even some things PR can't fix.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
"Second, we know we need to continue to focus in on our relationship with our customers. This is an area where we need to be ever vigilant. Certainly, as Bill talked about, we have opportunities for improvement in security, in virus protection, in the way we license and sell our products, and the reminders on that are always in front of us." --Steve Ballmer
I think this pretty much sums up a lot of what is wrong with Microsoft:
1) Security
2) The way they license and sell products.
At least they are realizing that market opinion is starting to go against them, and are trying to change this. I don't love Microsoft, but if they started to change their licensing tactics, I would be more inclined to buy their products.
How very droll.
ENDUT! HOCH HECH!
Companies that pay dividends are essentially saying "we can't think of anything better to do with this cash we've generated
Well, afaik MS can't think of anything better either. They're just sitting on a mountain of cash. So, if they're not going to do anything better with it then the investors should get it. An investor only invests to make money. MS is no longer on the rapid upward growth they were. That's not a bad reflection on them, they've just become "big." They're a big, extablished company, and their stock price is going to reflect that from now on. I'd wager the days of its valuaton doubling every 18 months or so are GONE. So, if I've got $$$ in MS, and their growth is at a pedestrian level (and thus their stock price) AND they're just sitting on a mountain of cash, then they better a) use that cash to rekindle double digit growth (which at their size ain't going to last too long anyway) or b) start handing it over.
This is so funny. These guys really don't get it at all, do they? Dangerous for them.
In the pre-software vision is that there would be no jobs in the software industry, there would be no testers, no engineers, no taxes paid, or anything of that notion.
Well Bill, all of those things can still exist under an open source model, but it's a different model to yours. Can't you see that?
If there's a key learning for us, we can't have free software,
So, Steve, you're saying you're older and wiser than IBM? Than HP? Than Compaq, Sun, Dell, Intel and all the other companies that are contributing to the Open Source community and releaseing code under the GPL? I think not. They get it, you don't.
It's still in the early phases, but we are massively mobilizing to try to stimulate communities, support communities, and really, if you will, borrow one from their playbook.
Can anyone point me to any evidence of this? Really? I've honestly tried to find it. Are there disussion boards where developers can openly discuss Microsoft technologies, and MS engineers will chip in with comments? I've looked for that, couldn't find it.
The clock is ticking Steve, Bill. Let me spell it out for you: YOU DON'T GET IT! If you don't get it soon, you're going to slowly die. Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.
Microsoft has had a significant hand in creating a common PC platform, and their biggest "contribution" came first.
That contribution? Convincing IBM to license PC-DOS on a non-exclusive basis. That left Microsoft free to sell MS-DOS to clone makers.
With the same OS available, only the BIOS needed cloning in order to produce IBM compatible machines.
No noble intentions, but a very powerful coup.
we came in and said there should be a platform that's identical with millions and millions of machines, and the bios of that should be open to everybody to use
I kind of see what BG is saying here, that the free software movement couldn't have taken off without open, commodity hardware. This is wrong. The free software movement, as it came out of RMS and the MIT AI lab was a direct response to proprietary, closed hardware and software. The free software movement grew out of the tradition of open access to software and tools on very non-standard mini computer hardware.
In the early 80s when the FSF was founded, it was not clear yet that the IBM PC would be such a dominant force in the computing world. Commodity home machines aren't even mentioned in RMS's initial announcement. In fact, he is talking about replacing the system on very expensive, practically custom built machines, which were only found in universities and big businesses.
Sure, the pervasiveness of computing has been a major boost for free software, but this is a base rate issue (i.e., there are x free software users out of n*x computer users).
XP has one of the easiest installations I've ever seen, and no distribution of Linux has ever succesfully installed on my box!
Are you sure you don't have it backwards? For me installing Mandrake 8.1 or RedHat 7.2 is like a warm and pleasant dream. I honestly believe a total Linux newbie could manage it.
When I protestingly installed XP on a friend's machine last week (me: "I don't wanna touch Windows, I'm a Linux geek!" him: "But I want it *professionally* installed!") I was floored by the requisite 3 reboots and by major portions of the install being in text mode. It brought back a dusty old memory of installing NT4 before I discovered the Goodness of the Penguin.
No modern Linux distro would be caught with such a clunky setup. It would *immediately* be flamed for being too hard to install. I think it is time to have the "Linux is hard to install" FUD declared obsolete. Anyone who can install XP can certainly install a current Linux distro.
Take a gander at this excerpt: (emphasis added)
Sounds like ol' Billy has seen his doom coming, and it's the GPL!
Take a good hard look at that rambling morass of a quote, and you see the strategy (and the enormous depth of self-delusion) that will be driving Microsoft forward. Free-as-in-Beer, Good! Free-as-in-Speech, Bad!
In Bill's world, Free Software is fine as a toy, an interim solution, and educational tool, but it takes a company to turn it into something useful! Nothing good ever comes out of the commons!
Except, of course, the "Microsoft Commons". Funny, when was the last time community work became part of Microsoft, except by force?
And gee, where have we seen this attitude before?
How about in the actions of every tin-pot political dictator who tried to buy off the goodwill of his oppressed subjects with free goodies! The barbarians are howling at the Gates, and Bill is offering Microsoft's shareholders bread and circuses!
Funny thing Bill, those dictators don't have much of a track record....
Stallman (for all his faults and foibles) is the Martin Luther of the information age, and bill is the Pope. Quick - who can name the Pope who was in service when Luther nailed his manifesto to the door of the cathedral?
Me neither.
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Actually its worse than that. That bit about paying taxes is trying to throw a line to politicians to change the law so that GPL is no longer legally binding on Microsoft; that way they can extend and embrace Linux, charge as much as they do for Windows, and sack lots of their development staff...
Of course there's the inconvenient fact that they would end up paying less taxes that way... but perhaps your average politician won't notice.
I've always disliked Gates, but here he is so unbelievably slimy.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"I think that Microsoft HAS been the seminal power behind open source in a very strange and obscure way. So yes, Microsoft IS the reason that Open Source as a movement is able to compete today. People will disagree with me saying "Look at GNU. It is designed to be a UNIX killer, not a Windows killer. Look at Linux's effect on UNIX. It is not about Windows at all!"
However, let us look at the economics for a moment. Microsoft is a company with very little technical innovation but one world-shattering contribution-- the introduction of a multi-vendor OS manufacturer. This really does not seem like much but it really is. Microsoft's contribution really HAS resulted in lower prices for the consumer because they were able to help more companies sell their products hence spreading more of the cost of development around rather than letting it land on a comparitively few customers. This has allowed many more people to use computers because they can now afford to do so.
The ubiquity of the computer which really IS Microsoft's legacy is the driving factor of Open Source and Free Software because it allows a much greater number of developers to work on projects. Open Source has an economy of scale too. Would Linux have existed if Linus had not been able to afford a 386?
BUT: Open source then takes Microsoft's edge and makes it sustainable. It is a market innovation which beats Microsoft's market innovation. In this war, Microsoft cannot win.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
It occurs to me that maybe he should run for public office. His debate skills are most impressive. But then he'd probably find some way to oust the Chancellor, hunt down all the Jedi, and disband the Imperial Senate. (Can't you just see Ballmer jumping up and down in Vader's outfit? Tee hee hee.)
Let me start out, really the reason that you see open source there at all is because we came in and said there should be a platform that's identical with millions and millions of machines,
This is laughably wrong. RMS made the GPL and the Free Software movement in the early 80s, when Gates was still piddling around with DOS and saying that 640K should be enough for anybody. The actual movement started even earlier; the concept of open source predated commercial software.
In fact, there's a very virtuous cycle where people do free things, some people find that adequate, sometimes companies will take that work and turn it into commercial products, those companies will hire people, pay taxes. And so you see the free software and the commercial software existing together. There is a particular approach that breaks the cycle called the GPL
Gates apparently doesn't know what a "cycle" is. A cycle, by definition, has to link back up again with its origins, in this case, free software. Microsoft breaks the cycle by incorporating open source code into, for example, its TCP/IP stack. The GPL restores the cycle by requiring developers to give their changes back to the community.
In the pre-software vision is that there would be no jobs in the software industry, there would be no testers, no engineers, no taxes paid, or anything of that notion.
Tell that to Red Hat.
Here's a telling quote from Ballmer:
If there's a key learning for us, we can't have free software, it's kind of inconsistent with the goals of most people in the room.
In other words, Microsoft is against freedom in software. Remember, we're talking free speech, not free beer. So all this stuff about "Freedom to Innovate" is nothing more than a thinly veiled apologetic for Microsoft's business practices.
The perfect example of this is how Microsoft hijacked the TCP/IP stack from BSD. However, I argue that this is a good thing. If they just take the code verbatim, then it most likely is going to be very compatible with everything else, unless they specifically go out of their way to break compatability. Notice that Microsoft is not planning to introduce a new .TCP/IP#, their use of the BSD code has shifted the issue to other things. They won't release any improvements back to the community, but they won't go out of their way to break a working system either.
Take the primary example used by most people against the BSD licence, that of Microsoft `stealing' an entire BSD system (whether FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, or whatever) and releasing it as their operating system. I argue that this would be a good thing, both for Microsoft and for everybody else, although I seriously doubt that it would ever happen. A few people who work on the BSD stuff would be annoyed, but most would not mind, only the Linux crowd would raise a real stink about it. Think about it: Apple is doing it (MacOS-X) and all that is going to do is help the BSD software community. Sure, OS-X has a lot of unnecessary differences from any standard BSD, but nothing that isn't just a matter of minor re-configuration, small shell scripts, and carefully placed symbolic links. If Microsoft were to release Windows-X, or MS-BSD, or whatever stupid name their marketing division thought up, while they would make a lot of stupid changes just to be different, it would still fundamentally be a BSD system at its heart, and that would be a good thing for Microsoft, a good thing for the purchasers of Microsoft software, and a good thing for the BSD community.
The BSD license is not about insuring that oh-so-evil Bill Gates finally gets his company destroyed. It is not about insuring that I can read the source code to every single piece of software on the planet. It is not about world domination. It is about insuring that quality, compatible systems exist everywhere.
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