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Gates Tries to Explain .Net
AdamBa writes "Speaking to financial analysts and reporters, Bill Gates admitted that .NET hadn't caught on as quickly
as he had hoped. The headline ('Gates admits .NET a "misstep"') is a bit misleading; he doesn't think all of .NET was a misstep, just the My Services part (aka Hailstorm). He also said that labelling the current generation of enterprise products as .NET might have been 'premature.' Summary: Microsoft got too excited about locking in users via Hailstorm and botched the overall .NET message." There's also a Reuters report and a NYTimes story on the same subject, which includes the interesting line: "Microsoft also warned today that the era of "open computing," the free exchange of digital information that has defined the personal computer industry, is ending." It isn't clear if Microsoft is talking about something happening beyond their control, or if they're boasting about ending it.
I think when developers talk about .NET, we're talking about the .NET framework. Which does have many wonderful features and improvements to the languages (C#, VB.NET is a big improvement over VB 6.0), the ease of making web services. It's much easier to manipulate XML than in previous versions. In the developer community (at least the ones that make money by programming on the Windows platform) it is slowly gaining popularity and many web sites have converted over to ASP.NET.
.NET, I think they are referring to the nebulous cloud of "web services" that Microsoft has alluded to, "Hailstorm", ".NET My Services", etc... Those still seem to be up in the air and not many people see the need for them.
When the general public thinks about
I don't think I'd pay Microsoft for a subscription to Word.NET when I can just keep using MS Word 2000 or OpenOffice 1.0, or AbiWord. I don't want to store my credit card info in my Passport (or liberty alliance or any other online identity service) account. Heck, I want the people in the checkout lane to ASK to see my ID when I hand them a credit card, I certainly don't want to hand over all the info that a thief needs to charge things to my credit card.
"For a successful technology, honesty must take precedence over public relations for nature cannot be fooled." -Feynman
- Gates also acknowledged that confusion still reigns about
.NET's very definition.
Good -- they understand one problem. People can perhaps point to the CLR and assoicated libraries, but- On Wednesday, he hammered home a new definition: "software to connect information, people, systems and services."
Unfortunately, this definition doesn't help at all. Pretty much all internet-based software does this.Don't we hear this story every few years, but with a different product's name? Before that it was Windows XP, and before that it was "Chicago/Windows 4.0/Win95" and before that it was DOS 6 and before that it was ...
According to MSFT, the 'Promised Land of Computing' has always been waiting for us in their home just over the next ridge.
There are two main potential .NET targets: .NET .NET application.
.NET environment to their PCs... Microsoft is most likely going to have to force people-- which may not be popular.
.NET language, chances are you aren't very motivated to switch paradigms. .NET the fact is java has been here for quite a while and has a good following. I have yet to meet a serious java developer who has any interest in .NET .NET has to earn the industry's trust-- not an easy hill to climb these days. .NET is in convincing CEOs that they aren't further limiting their licensing choices and options in order to adopt something they just don't need-- at least not yet. The wait-and-see approach is a tried and true paradigm with respect to version 1.0 software from Microsoft.
1. Companies who have not yet started to deploy solutions using J2EE or Java and are trying to decide which to use: Java or
2. Companies who have a need for some software that is only as a
I won't address issues involving getting companies to deploy the
a1. If you already have a substantial investment in software written in anything but a
a1. Regardless of how you view
a1. Regardless of all the claims Microsoft makes about C#/.NET maturity, nobody in their right mind is going to bet the company on a new MS platform just because the pay-for-plundits say it's sexy.
a2. There is little imperative to adopt something for which there are no major none-Microsoft commercial offerings.
a2. Either way, I suspect difficult part of the sell for
Personally, I find it hard to get excited about something from a company whose major call to fame these days is the latest way it is reaming its customers.
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
"There's also a Reuters report and a NYTimes story on the same subject, which includes the interesting line: "Microsoft also warned today that the era of "open computing," the free exchange of digital information that has defined the personal computer industry, is ending." It isn't clear if Microsoft is talking about something happening beyond their control, or if they're boasting about ending it."
It seems clear enough to me. Microsoft and the entertainment industry are in bed together. Both have something to gain from DRM.
The entertainment industry can stop music and movie pirating, take away our fair use rights and set the stage for a future market. That market being the sale of digital video and music which will be streamed directly to hardware. It is important to the entertainment industry that we are not allowed to record the digital data because once recorded we, as individuals, could illegally swap the files with others. Obviously, that would greatly reduce the incentive to pay again and again for the privilege of having the entertainment industry stream it to us. So say good-by to your fair use rights.
Microsoft has a lot to gain here also, on an entirely different front. They are fighting for their Corporate lives against a foe unlike any they have had to deal with before. Linux can not be made to go bankrupt, it cannot be sued into oblivion and it is steadily gaining popularity. How can Microsoft deal with this specter of doom? They must use any weapon available to them.
1. FUD. Yep, good ol' fear, uncertainty and doubt has always helped Microsoft in the past. It hasn't worked very well against Linux because their FUD has been too transparent. People just weren't buying it. They need a more complex strategy.
2. The Law. Make open source illegal. Hmmm... I'm sure they thought about that one... but how?
How about using FUD, a grain of truth to paint open source users as pirates, thieves and other assorted forms of lower life. Then join together with the entertainment industry to buy a senator like say.... SENATOR HOLLINGS FROM SC. And have him draft legislation that will ram DRM down our throats.
One all hardware is DRM enabled, only the entertainment industries bed partner will be allowed to receive digital data that will be streamed by this industry. Microsoft will do it's part to ensure that as few applications as possible will be allowed to run on Linux and have access to this new market. Definitely not open source. Thus they prevent competition. Typical strategy for Microsoft. Being afraid of competition they don't go head to head unless they can ensure themselves an advantage.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Unfortunatly, this is how the IT industry works (or has worked). I guess all marketing departments do this to an extent, but IT is really the worst.
A. Promise the moon, to be delivered within two years
B. Spend 6 months talking about the Moon, but never really getting into details beyond buzzwords.
B2. If new and interesting technology comes along within those 6 months claim the Moon will contain it as well
C. Come out with alpha software (Moon v.1 Preview) that has little functionality built in but looks nice
D. Slip schedule ('We're adding new and exciting features')
E..Y Wait
Z. Deliver something that could quite possibly be useful and innovative, but deliveres about 1/10th of the orig. promise.
Shouldn't the company care about its customers' vision?
.NET, by announcing iCal and iSync last week at MacWorld. Those two programs allow users of Mac OS X Jaguar to connect their PDAs, cell phones and desktop PIM software to a single database and publish them on the Internet, connect with the calendars of others, and resolve conflicts between the two.
Some columnist recently pointed out that Apple achieved in one stroke everything MS is trying to achieve with
In other words, while Microsoft spent two years talking about Web services and technologies, Apple quietly went about actually building them into a program its users will want to use. MS has been announcing and releasing software for other people to build these Web applications, but Apple decided to lead by example instead.
No doubt the next release of Windows will include similar features, and of course they'll be more widely used than Apple's. But just think what might be happening right now if Microsoft had spent as much time creating Web applications for Windows XP as they did promoting them.
If a person could synchronize their PocketPC to their MSN account and Outlook at the same time, then reconcile with all their coworkers' calendars and documents, without having to do anything more than press a button, Microsoft wouldn't need subscriptions to sell the next version of Office or Windows. Instead they settled for getting halfway there so that they could sell more copies of Exchange Server and keep PocketPCs as expensive as humanly possible.
There are successes in that business, but Microsoft isn't one of them. PeopleSoft, Oracle, SAP, EDS, and Automatic Data Processing are the successful players. They're big, vertically integrated companies that build and service what they sell. They're not value-added resellers, and they don't usually work through value-added resellers.
Microsoft's model, that you download something, pay for it forever, and don't bother them much, isn't how it's done. The big service providers provide real service; they are in the business of outsourcing corporate support functions, not pushing software.
"Microsoft also warned today that the era of "open computing," the free exchange of digital information that has defined the personal computer industry, is ending." It isn't clear if Microsoft is talking about something happening beyond their control, or if they're boasting about ending it.
Nothing new. Bill Redux: I remember hearing of an episode from back when GEM and Windows were still battling it out - at a conference panel where Bill and Gary Kildall were members, and Gary was going on about OSs, and how there'd be plenty of ways to run your computer. Bill grabbed a microphone and interrupted, with a clarification to the effect that "No, there will be one way to operate your computers. One. (uncomforatble silence) You may continue."
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."