Ex-Microsofter Rick Belluzzo Prefers Linux

keird writes "I'm sure you all remember Belluzzo being pushed out of Microsoft earlier this year. ComputerWorld has a short, but interesting interview with him where he talks about why his new employer, Quantum uses Linux in their appliances." From reading the interview, Belluzzo seems to be pretty amicable to whatever will get the job done, and in this case, it's Linux.

Comments

Make a Change :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

This makes for a bit of a change since a long time ago when he destroyed SGI by persuading them to drop MIPS and IRIX and move to Windows NT.

Re:Make a Change :-)

[BigBir3d]

What he tries to accomplish is based on where he works.

If he can only push a Microsoft product, then he will.

If he can evaluate each job and use what they specifically require, then he will.

No different than any of us. We do what we can when we can.

Re:Make a Change :-)

[ReelOddeeo]

What he tries to accomplish is based on where he works. If he can only push a Microsoft product, then he will.

Some of us actually have morals, ethics and values that don't change based on where we work.

It is enough for me, in my business, to be successful. I don't have any requirement that everyone else must also fail in order to measure my success by.

Let me put it differently with a hypothetical example...

Today, suppose I work for a church/charatible organization/etc. so I do good deeds. Tomorrow I get a job working for the mob, so I kill people.

What he tries to accomplish is based on where he works.

What I try to accomplish, helping people, or killing them, is based on where I work at the moment.

If he can only push a Microsoft product, then he will.

If I can only kill people today, then I will. (Or destroy other businesses, destroy competition, remove opportunity from an entire industry, etc.)

If someone can be so two-faced, then you probably shouldn't trust them. They probably have no genuine interest in your company if they work for you. Their interest changes at the whim of who they are whoring for at the moment.

Maybe it isn't this way with Rick Belluzzo, but on the face of it, but it is one plausible interpretation of the facts. So does this guy really prefer Linux?

Re:Make a Change :-)

[IndependentVik]

Here's a link from an old /. story about Belluzo's decision to move to NT. Here's the /. discussion on his resignation from SGI shortly thereafter.

Re:Make a Change :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of us actually have morals

This has nothing to do with morality - this is FUCKING TECHNOLOGY you nut. Technology is not a RELIGION. He's not two-faced because he didn't "stand up for what is Right" when he was at Microsoft. Guess what, when the director of IT comes to me and says MS only, I get pissed, but it's not IMMORAL for me to install Windows. The real reason I'm pissed is that we aren't choosing what's best, we're just blindly choosing Windows. Many times, Windows WOULD be the best solution - I just want to consently evaluate other solutions.

I can't believe that you are so intellectually NULL that you compare buying Windows to Killing. You, Sir, need some serious HELP.

Re:Make a Change :-)

[frotty]

I generally TALK LIKE THIS when something is CRUSHING MY BALLS randomly.

That aside,
You're off base just a bit.

Here comes the trusty ol' Nazi/Volkswagen story.

The Volkswagen itself: neutral, technology has no 'moral ramification' itself, without use

Being the scientist/engineer team who invented the Volkswagen for the Nazis: "EVIL." (by majoritiy's opinion, at least) They did it to help the Nazis win.

Let's get specific:

Windows itself: neutral, technology

The team behind windows: Possibly EVIL. They support, to be polite, a questionable agenda.

So, this guy might be proving to be a slut for his local master.

We 'should' all quit our jobs if we really have problems with what are employer is doing, unless we think that the power & resources gained by working with something we don't like will fix the harm done by helping the possibly evil entity out.

IE, it'd have been ok to have become a nazi and done things to HELP them if you eventually used that power & proximity to overthrow them.

from the looks of it, this guy is just soft-shoeing whatever minstrel show fetches the most $$$$$$

Re:Make a Change :-)

[ReelOddeeo]

compare buying Windows to Killing

I did not compare Windows to Killing. I merely used a higher contrast example of what my entire point was about. Not having any beliefs in anything. Doing whatever is profitable at the moment.

this is FUCKING TECHNOLOGY you nut
Technology is not a RELIGION
it's not IMMORAL for me to install Windows

I'm not the one yelling and screaming.

The facts about what Microsoft has done speak for themselves to anyone who has been around longer than the dot-com boom. We're talking about a company that has been convicted of criminal conduct and upheld on appeal. This is NOT about technology. This is about people and ethics.

I have these conversations with a coworker of mine who defends Microsoft no matter how indefensible the particular point may be at the moment. Is there no limit to how people should conduct themselves in pursuit of profit? Is there no low too low? A company that will sign a contract that stipulates in writing that they will not alter certian api's, and then turn right around and violate the very letter (not just spirit) of that contract in order to kill Java.

This is a company that blatently rips off disk compression technology and bundles it into DOS, and is later called on it. Settle or pay a fine. Either way it's still the cheapest technology they ever stole. In the end, a profitable venture, so it must be okay.

You're right about one thing. This is not about technology. This is about people and their behavior. <insert silly name calling and insults here> That is the whole point of the thread beginning with the top level post. Finally, you said nothing that disputes my remarks about people, which was the entire substance of my post.

In case the point is lost on you, I'll repeat it, but without charged examples such as killing. Some of us have ethics, morals and values. If I work for company XX, who makes product xx, and then promote xx as being the best solution, I would not then go work for YY who makes product yy which is a direct competitor of xx, and then trumpet yy as being the best. One or both of my statements concerning xx and yy must therefore be a lie. Black and white. Some of us see conduct in terms of right and wrong, not profit or less profit. This was the entirety of my point.

An alternative hypothesis, but not one that seems warranted by the actual interview article, would be that a person became enlightened that xx was not the best and that yy was.

Re:Make a Change :-)

[ghjm]

How do you talk when someone is crushing your balls in a deterministically ordered sequence?

-Graham

Re:Make a Change :-)

[Chris Johnson]

Actually, that would be Porsche :)

What happened there was more complicated: Ferdinand Porsche had always been hot for a 'people's car', way before Hitler. He came up with the Volkswagen design for personal reasons, because it was the car he most wanted to build, the coolest thing he could think of.

Hitler was hot to industrialize Germany- very few people owned cars, and he wanted to build roads, get lots of Germans into cars, basically modernize the country. This too was a personal reason- German industrialists did not always believe Hitler when he wanted 'cheap people's' this and that, but they learned the hard way.

Porsche had to bid for the contract to be the one to build the 'people's car' and he did it by selling Hitler on the Volkswagen design with an amazing half-jargon half-layman spiel which basically convinced Hitler that the future VW was a brilliant, unorthodox, superior design (which it was, as they learned when trying to improve it later)

Having secured Hitler's support, Porsche then totally ignored everything in politics and got back to his work- this would be the moral lapse, even though he did not actively support the Nazis. Things would happen, like Porsche getting a letter saying "The Fuehrer wishes the greatest German auto designer to become a German citizen" and shrugging and saying (translated) "Well, I suppose nothing can be done about it- see that this is taken care of" and ignoring politics again. Passive support and failing to resist in any way.

Hitler never got any Volkswagens built for the German people- the plant was bombed and the economy collapsed. The VW plant fell into the hands of the British, whose opinion of the matter was, "this is a great car, these are great workers and designers who aren't responsible for the sins of their leaders, this plant belongs to the German people and we are here to see that it is returned to them, and flourishes". With their determined support, the first VWs started coming out in spite of terrible supply shortages, technical problems (like shattering torsion bars in the suspensions) were solved, and the story of the VW was underway no thanks to Hitler (it wasn't his idea, it was Porsche's, it just played into his populist tendencies)

I have this very neat book, 'Small Wonder', about it all...

First Intelligent Post

[CastrTroy]

Wow, Linux is being used in a product that Windows isn't even targeted towards. I don't think that Microsoft cares too much if linux is used in these types of devices. Especially when they still own 95% of the desktop market.

Re:First Intelligent Post

[gazbo]

Also, the bit that was cunningly not mentioned in the excerpt:

I don't think Linux is going to be successful as a desktop replacement. But Linux is going to surround new appliances...

Exactly what the more rational and less rabid of us have said all along. Linux has its place, which for most people is not the desktop.

Re:First Intelligent Post

[ergo98]

Wow, Linux is being used in a product that Windows isn't even targeted towards.

Well that isn't entirely fair: Microsoft has made embedded operating systems for embedded and/or appliance markets for a while (at least four years), to mixed success. Personally I think they'll succeed eventually: Already PocketPC PDAs, a vision that was originally called bloated and overpowered, are absolutely storming the market (and the new ultra-low cost Dell ones pretty much ring the bell or doom for Palm and friend).

Re:First Intelligent Post

[saskboy]

It think you are onto something. The reason Linux is disapointing many, is because people say it is ready for home desktop use, and it is not as easy to install or configure as Windows is.

Everyone is so desperate for a Windows substitute that doesn't BSOD and run email worms, that we are willing to praise even lackluster software that makes us pull out our teeth.

Re:First Intelligent Post

[doodleboy]

Exactly what the more rational and less rabid of us have said all along. Linux has its place, which for most people is not the desktop.

Well, I'm pretty sure I'm not rabid or irrational. But I still think linux will eventually take over, even on the desktop.

Why? Because most end users are cheap. Imho they don't care what operating system they're using, as long as they can get it to do what they need: writing, finances, websurfing, etc. Free software is rapidly improving, and it'll soon be (if it isn't already) usable enough that even Aunt Betty will balk at paying hundreds of dollars extra for Windows and Office. Especially once she realizes that without the expense of these two fifty cent CDs, she can get a computer that will do everything she needs for a measly couple of hundred bucks.

Corporations looking to cut costs will lead the charge. But eventually all non-specialized software will be commoditized and general users will not pay big dollars for it. Imho.

Re:First Intelligent Post

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Because most end users are cheap.

This is a common misconception. If most end users were cheap, they'd build their own computers from parts instead of buying a Gateway or a Dell or a what-have-you.

Most end users are impatient and lazy. (Not in the derogative sense; I, too, am impatient and lazy, and chances are you are too.) They run Windows or Mac OS for the same reason that they buy their computers pre-assembled: because they can get up and running faster and with less work.

Linux is not easy to use (making it unappealing to the lazy), and what's worse it's not easy to learn (making it unappealing to the impatient). Giant changes would have to happen before Linux could become any of those things. The people who work on Linux have no motivation to make those giant changes. So I don't see it happening.

I think there's one scenario in which Linux could become a viable desktop alternative. A large and profitable company could adopt Linux, base a business plan on it, and make the necessary changes to make it easy to use and easy to learn. The company would have to be large and profitable because Linux would require a great deal of work to get where it needs to be, and the company would have to be able to survive spending a fortune on Linux for a few years while they do what they need to do.

There's one big thing, I think, that will prevent this from happening: the GPL. Any company that does any proprietary work on Linux will be forced to give its source code away to anybody who asks for it, making it impossible for that company to have a competitive edge in the marketplace. That takes the wind out of the old business plan.

Of course, Apple already did exactly this. They just based their OS on FreeBSD instead of Linux. So the idea is sound; it's just that in GPL-land, there's no possibility of commercial motivation, which means no reason to invest the necessary time and work.

Server operating systems, naturally, don't have to be easy to use or to learn at all. That's why companies like IBM and SGI are shipping big servers that are built from the ground up to run Linux: they only have to make a few changes to the OS to get it to do what their customers need, and their competitive advantage is the hardware, so releasing the source code of their OS is no big deal to them.

Re:First Intelligent Post

[Micah]

*sigh* ... this is starting to get tiring.

If most end users were cheap, they'd build their own computers from parts instead of buying a Gateway or a Dell or a what-have-you.

Until you remember that Gateway/Dell get volume discounts and can build a box cheaper than you can.

Linux is not easy to use (making it unappealing to the lazy), and what's worse it's not easy to learn (making it unappealing to the impatient). Giant changes would have to happen before Linux could become any of those things.

Complete BS. Linux is *not* inherently more difficult or harder to learn than Windows. It's a bit different, but not harder. OK, *some* things are harder in most current distributions, but no "big change" needs to happen in Linux. Areas where Linux might still be harder are dropping like flies.

The people who work on Linux have no motivation to make those giant changes. So I don't see it happening.

What "giant changes"? And sure they do. Do you know how many people are involved in KDE, Gnome, Gnucash, Mozilla, OpenOffice.org, various open source games? They all want to see Linux, or at least Open Source, succeed on the desktop, and are putting in tremendous effort.

There's one big thing, I think, that will prevent this from happening: the GPL. Any company that does any proprietary work on Linux will be forced to give its source code away to anybody who asks for it, making it impossible for that company to have a competitive edge in the marketplace. That takes the wind out of the old business plan.

You're assuming that they'll have to modify the kernel or other GPL software. That is unnecessary. You can make all sorts of changes to the Linux environment without doing that. And although I agree that companies putting effort into making Linux easier is useful, it is by no means the only way that Linux on the desktop could take off.

Re:First Intelligent Post

[IamTheRealMike]

Actually, I'd say most users are cheap AND lazy. If they can get something as good as what they've got, for less, they'll go for it.

I think there's one scenario in which Linux could become a viable desktop alternative.

And why exactly does a big company have to do this? KDE and GNOME are building all we need to make an easy to use desktop. They are being helped by companies, and of course people like the guys at Xandros bring it all together and make it a cohesive whole, but the idea that after all that's been achieved, of course only a big powerful corp can make Linux workable on the desktop is ludicrous.

Never forget we're in this mess in the first place because big and powerful corps don't throw money into the black whole that is OS development. Not even Apple - if they didn't sell hardware with huge margins, OS X wouldn't even exist, and they're finding it hard going as it is.

There's one big thing, I think, that will prevent this from happening: the GPL

How many times does this have to be thrashed out on slashdot? It's worse than the "X is slow" thing - look at Xandros: XFM is entirely proprietary, yet they do not violate the GPL, and they still give code back to the community. The idea that the GPL makes something uncommercialisable should have disappeared 5 years ago, but still it persists, despite the existence of companies who've been around for years and make money out of free software.

Of course, Apple already did exactly this. They just based their OS on FreeBSD instead of Linux. So the idea is sound; it's just that in GPL-land, there's no possibility of commercial motivation, which means no reason to invest the necessary time and work.

Please, this is just pure FUD. IBM, RedHat, SuSE, Xandros, Sun, TiVO, Sharp etc are not basing their products on Linux because their top execs are all high on crack.

This whole post is just a total troll. Every point has counter examples. It rolls the Linux Desktop up with the BSD vs GPL, along with a healthy dollop of FUD as well.

Rocket Rick

[sql*kitten]

I'm sure you all remember Belluzzo being pushed out of Microsoft earlier this year. ComputerWorld has a short, but interesting interview with him where he talks about why his new employer, Quantum uses Linux in their appliances." From reading the interview, Belluzzo seems to be pretty amicable to whatever will get the job done, and in this case, it's Linux.

"Rocket" Rick Belluzzo is also the man responsible for SGI's disastrous attempt to drop IRIX and MIPS in favour of x86 workstations running Windows NT. He also dropped the uber-groovy SGI cube logo for the lame "sgi". His "reward" for almost destroying a competitor was a cushy job at Microsoft. SGI have yet to recover and it's by no means certain that they will.

Does Linux really need supporters like this?

Re:Rocket Rick

[Ed Avis]

The 'going forward'-ometer registers a worryingly high reading on this article. Don't employ this man.

Re:Rocket Rick

[GroovBird]

Yeah well, you're forgetting this guy.

Dave

Re:Rocket Rick

[Twirlip of the Mists]

The architecture was pretty exciting, and they were even capable of running IRIX as an opt-out...

I think you're thinking of the O2. The O2 was SGI's lowest-end MIPS workstation. It was always available for under $10,000 in the base configuration, and I think the lowest-end models dipped down toward $5,000.

But the NT boxes were completely different. They had Intel processors in them, and could not run IRIX. But they had a really proprietary architecture, which meant they could only run a special built of NT 4.0. That basically put SGI in the service pack business, which was a major distraction for them. Their next-generation NT workstations were designed to run out-of-the-box Windows, and they worked very well. No better than anybody else's, of course, and for considerably more money. But I had one under my desk for about two years, and I never had a complaint about it.

Not on Linux for long

[tomk]

In the interview he states:

Do you think Linux will be an obstacle to an effective partnership between Quantum and Microsoft? If Microsoft gives us a better idea and a better alternative, we could change.

I'd say it's pretty likely that MS will use a carrot-and-stick approach to force him onto Windows. Quantum is looking for a big deal with MS and with a high-profile ex-microsoftie singing the praises of the competition, I'll bet there's a threat that the deal will fall through: that's the stick. MS will probably also offer Quantum a much-discounted price on embedded Windows NT: that's the carrot.

In the end, Quantum will do whatever they need to do to help their bottom line. (not that I blame them.) If the deal with MS is worth more than the cost of Windows licenses, they'll be on Windows before you know it.

Malda!

[HaloZero]

Aren't you supposed to be on your honeymoon? GET OFF THE COMPUTER, MAN! :-P

Exactly

[rgraham]

From reading the interview, Belluzzo seems to be pretty amicable to whatever will get the job done, and in this case, it's Linux.

Yes, use what will get the job done. People (pro-MS/anti-Linux, anti-MS/pro-MS, repeat for Solaris, Mac, BSD...) get so blinded by their allegence to one type of technology they don't realize or refuse to accept that there might be something better out there for a given use. Sitting on my desk right now I have machines running Win2k, OSX and RedHat 7.1 all of which I use for different tasks. Could I use just one OS for all my tasks? Sure, but I perfer to use what works best in a given situation.

Microsoft's Style

[Mephie]

If you're familiar with Microsoft's culture, my style is very different from Microsoft's style... I'm less confrontational. I'm more win-win, working with people, working with partners. People outside the company liked working with me.

How's that for a candid look inside MS's culture? The guy likes to work with people, likes to talk to people and doesn't explode in an irrational fit when someone says "Linux." No wonder he didn't fit in.

Does this mean we will see commercials like this?

[one9nine]

"I'm Rick Belluzzo and I'm the former president and chief operating officer of Microsoft Corp."

www.linux.com/switch

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US;

[matthew.thompson]

Visiting www.quantum.com currently gives me:

[Close Window]

We have determined that your Web browser and/or computer's operating system may not support the navigation system of Quantum.com. We recommend that you either upgrade your Web browser to the most recent version or use our site map to browse our site.

Thank you,

--- The Quantum Web Team ---

If that's Quantum's support of alternatives to Microsoft I'm severely disappointed.

Re:You're mistaken.

[ergo98]

Palm, Handspring and Sony control 81.1% of the market. Compaq, Casio, and Dell (newcomer) combined, control 12.6% of the market.

Firstly, Dell's PDAs just came out and lowered the bar to even or lower than Palms (for a much, much more feature rich system). Secondly, your numbers are a tad out of date (not really that surprizing). Here we can see that PocketPC currently has 30% of all sales (the "market", if you will), versus compared to 48% for Palm. A tad different from your numbers. This was before Dell virtually halved the price of a PocketPC PDA.

Secondly, the "bloated and more expensive" is an outdated argument as well. Firstly something like the Toshiba e310 or e740 represent among the smallest PDAs available, yet they offer tremendous power. Dell's new PDAs, starting at $199, offer incredible value. And what's with the "proprietary" nonsense, Palm fanboy? And Palm ISN'T? Oh, right, proprietary=Microsoft in Slashdot speak.

Not far enought back

[WindBourne]

Rick started at HP and at point ordered 350K engines from canon. He then later went to canon and apologized to the workers who were being laid off. For that screw-up, HP promoted him to being in charge of HP' desktop computers, where he merged the unix desktop and desktop system together. He managed to kill the Unix desktop, while saying that he would build it up. When his division was headed down, he went to SGI, where he did his best to destroy irix and SGI. He left MS when their numbers are starting down (yes profits are up, but numbers are down). Now, he is at Quantum, where he has sold off half the company, and it was running Linux. MS is knocking on the door. Guess which road rick will go down? I predict that Quantum will be gone in about 2 years or less.

Is he already in negotiations for his next job?

[marian]

This is the same guy who became CEO of SGI and was in negotiations with MS almost the entire time he was there, then gave no notice to SGI when he quit.

This is the same guy who supposedly told the SGI board of directors that "It's too hard to be CEO of SGI" after running the company into the ground in an amazingly short period of time.

This is the same guy who "helped" SGI lose a significant part of their already niche market by forcing the company to switch platforms away from what they did best.

I wonder how much MS is paying him for what he's doing now? But I'm not bitter.

Some more info about Quantum

[Outland Traveller]

I just looked at a Quantum Guardian 4400 NAS device recently.

It's a 1U rackmount system with four IDE drives, a custom motherboard that sports a 1Ghz PIII and two onboard gigabit ethernet controllers, usb, a serial port, and two onboard promise IDE controllers.

The NAS boots linux (a 2.4.18 variant) off of some kind of flash chip and then uses linux's software raid and LVM to manage the drives. The drives are formatted using the XFS filesystem

You use a small self-contained java application to initially set the IP address, and thereafter you can use a web browser to administer it. It has features up the ying-yang, including various backup options, automated updates, failover, load balancing, and synchronizing with peer NAS devices. It supports a full suite of filesharing protocols and has quota support, access control, etc.

You can even enable an SSHD server and log in, although I haven't been able to find the root password yet. I don't know if quantum will provide it willingly or if you will have to aquire it yourself.

I benchmarked it's NFS performance against similar configurations we've built in house and it is well optimized for latency and bandwidth in the ranges allowed by gigabit ethernet. In particular there were no lengthy pauses that we sometimes see on ext3-based systems.

I was impressed with how well they were able to polish the box and make it appear that so many different, complex filesharing subsystems and features were seemlessly integrated.

Yet another person who fails to understand the GPL

[Jimithing DMB]

Apple certainly could have used the Linux kernel and much of the GNU software rather than BSD. Which by the way, you are incorrect in stating that it was based on FreeBSD. Only with the newest darwin release (used by OS 10.2) is it actually based on FreeBSD code. Previously it was based on a much older branch of BSD and Apple brought in some features from FreeBSD.

In any case, the point is that if Apple had used Linux and GNU then they would have to release their modifications to GNU utilities and Linux under the GPL rather than taking BSD licensed code, modifying it, and releasing the changes under the more restrictive APSL. They would still have been completely free to run their own windowserver and other proprietary software on top of Linux.

What exactly is it about the GPL that seems to just scare the shit out of most commercial developers? Please quit spreading FUD about how we should all make our code "free in the truest sense of the word" under a BSD license. The arguments have been gone over several times, and the only thing I've ever gotten out of them is that as a free software developer I'm supposed to be a charity to everyone in the world. Sorry, that's not how it works for me-- I expect in return for showing you some of my code that you show me some of yours.

Why oh why does this idea continue?

[UncleRage]

Sorry, I know this is way off topic... but I've gotta get this off my chest.

Why do so many people hype the idea of Linux on the desktop? Linux has survived (and grown for nearly 12 years) simply by appealing to a niche market of computer enthusiats who didn't want to play ball w/ the big guys.

In those (nearly) 12 years, non-enthusiasts have seen that they could put this particular product to use as a development/admin/server tool. Meanwhile, the enthusiasts have continued to tinker, modify and play w/ their "toy" (I do not use the term "toy" in a derogative sense!) to the point that it has become an alternative to computing standards (i.e. Windows/Mac OS).

But, that does not mean that the burden of responsibility to change YOUR feelings of computer use falls into the hands of the Linux development community.

If you don't like the way Windows works -- contact Microsoft. If you think that the Mac OS is too/not enough something or another -- contact Apple. Vote w/ your credit cards. Don't demand that Linux eradicate your unhappiness with whatever system you've chosen to use in the past. It 'aint gonna happen.

Look, in the long term, 12 years is an awfully small amount of time for a hobby project to become what it is today: A very robust operating system w/ practical applications for software development, systems administration and networking solutions. It also happens to make a damn fine desktop for someone willing to put the time and energy into it. But it's completely unfair to expect the hard working development community (who rarely sees any compensation -- other than kudos from their colleagues) to create a perfect desktop environment for every technophobe on the planet.

If you want the perfect Linux Desktop solution -- Take the time to learn to do it; that's the beauty of Linux. If you don't have the inclination to do that, then hire a (team of) Linux developers to design one for you. Otherwise, sit back and enjoy the show.

Computers should be useful. Using computers should be fun. Linux is useful and fun. Where's the problem?

----

Re:Why oh why does this idea continue?

[jmorris42]

Because the smart ones among us know that if we can't get a critical mass of users in the next couple of years the game is over. Microsoft IS going to try closing the platform which means we won't be able to 'free ride' on the commodity hardware market which built up around DOS/Windows. If we don't have enough users willing to fork over hard currency to keep the Taiwainese and Chinese board makers going we are all hosed.

Re:Linux: scream-inducing at Microsoft

[Chris Johnson]

Actually, this is more of a glimpse into why Belluzzo is a more adaptable businessman than anyone at Microsoft, apparently. It seems he has the capacity to negotiate and build relationships. That's valuable, and it also seems like Microsoft thoroughly lack this quality.

It's like, if you don't do what Microsoft wants, on some level they will throw a fit- their basic response is screaming and ranting like a two-year old. They are not in the slightest bit interested about why you might want something non-Microsoft- not on an emotional level- their only real interest is in making you behave according to what they want, and you are to succeed and thrive on THEIR terms and in the way they expect. This is limiting.

Belluzzo seems more inclined to be inquisitive- more likely to figure out what a customer's real terms are. That does not mean that he has more clout or power than Microsoft, because Microsoft's approach is geared to a straight power struggle in which they can generally win by sheer force. Belluzzo is more likely to win people's loyalty, and build relationships.

It's rather telling that the qualities of building loyalty and relationships are sorely devalued in modern-day corporate capitalism: in fact, the way things work today, Belluzzo's skills are 'worthless'. Yet at the same time this same value system is producing a self-destructive downward spiral of reduced functionality (see the thread on worsening consumer electronics!) which is unstoppable under the corporate capitalist 'rules', and to a point will continue to be rewarded just as, to a point, the dot-com excess was rewarded.

Belluzzo apparently adheres to an older school- one that has difficulty competing in the winner-take-everything corporate capitalist arena, but which has hidden advantages.

Basically, this is the guy who winds up with all your customers- when you push the profit motive too far and slip up. You can go corporate Darwinist and produce junk and rig the market so there's no choice and get yourself in an IBM-like position where you're the only option, but all this really does is starve potential competitors of the ability to thrive with largish marketshares. Instead they become like Apple, thriving with a splinter. When you slip up, or your contempt for your customers becomes too great, guys like Belluzzo are there building loyalties and relationships and they are positioned to capitalize on your mistakes.

The next guy who comes around leveraging the market and jumping up and down on tables screaming when he doesn't get his way- that guy might well grab those customers away from Belluzzo again. But not for long- only until he too screws up.

Point taken.

[UncleRage]

It's possible I haven't really considered the larger picture here. After reading your post -- and taking looking around (from a different view point), I suppose I can see what you're talking about.

Of course, I also view it from a slightly different point anyhow (running YDL on PPC) -- so I don't often pay heavy attention to the angst of the x86 world. Maybe I should open my eyes once in awhile, eh?

*Opens eyes for the first time*

OMG! Bill Gates is a dick!

----

Rick Belluzzo, the companies assassin

[Alex Belits]

Rick Belluzzo at different time was a head, and had destroyed Silicon Graphics/SGI and HP. Then he went to Microsoft, did nothing of value but was paid a giant amount of money as a "loan" that was promptly "forgiven", and Rick himself was gently kicked out when the "loan" story became widely publicized.

Both HP and SGI were Microsoft's major indirect competitors -- they were producing large servers along with Sun and IBM, and now neither HP nor SGI have a working servers division, their native architectures are abandoned, their servers are not anymore significant players anywhere. SGI also was a direct competitor to Microsoft in workstation business, now workstations are no longer produced, after a major fiasco with an attempt to produce a Windows-based workstation using SGI technology. Also I am not sure what role Rick Belluzzo played with selling SGI patents and software to Microsoft that is now being used to prevent the development of OpenGL, and leave Microsoft at the controls of pretty much everything 3D.

All this looks like he either was Microsoft's puppet from the very beginning, or that he is clueless moron who can't make a single business decision without being influenced by Microsoft. Since at Microsoft he did precisely nothing, "loan" looks suspiciously like a payoff for this shining example of service that he did for Microsoft while being a trojan horse in other companies.

I have no idea what mentally deficient people can place him into a CEO position anywhere -- and I should better steer away from anything that Quantum will produce under the management of this crook.