Slashdot Mirror
Dave Stutz's Parting Advice To Microsoft
thasmudyan writes "Like probably many others I followed the recent link to Heise only to get a much more interesting story than the one about Mozilla/OpenOffice: Dave Stutz, an influencial guy at Microsoft, is resigning his position. He posted an open letter to his ex-employer and this rest of the world, explaining what MS is doing wrong in his opinion. I thought it made an interesting read, maybe Open Source projects should consider some of the key points (as MS seems to be too slow to adapt, it may be good time to move faster than 'the industry')." (Read this Slashdot post from 2001 to see an interesting interview with Stutz about "shared source" and .NET.)
Linux already has enough ground an influence to make Microsoft want a piece of that pie... They will try to do something 'innovative' with it, hoping to control that too. And as I read in a story a few months ago, they may just build the next Windows on Linux, but I doubt we will see something quite like that.
But what if M$ tries to get in the Linux market? Would you guys use it? I mean, is it about Linux to you guys or strictly OSS?
IMHO, I think that M$ will never be able to recover from these stigmata because M$ refuses to change. For example, I go to the University of Wisconsin Platteville and we aren't going to be able to renew our M$ contract for next year. Why? Because M$ has decided that the amount we paid a few years ago to renew is no longer sufficient even though we have not deployed any new software from them!
Another unfortunate side effect is that fact that the students who were able to purchase software at discounted educational prices are going to be hurt to discover that their licenses won't be valid any longer! So try explaining to a student who knows nothing about computers that the $30 he forked over for Office XP was just wasted.
"This food is problematic."
Microsoft actually happens to adapt to things very quickly at times, in comparison to organizations with their size and complexity. Some large corporations take years to adapt to the presence of a new product, a new strategy, or a new competitor. Microsoft has, in the past, made big changes in weeks.
Sure, a small development team may be able to change directions more quickly, but that's an apples-to-oranges comparison.
So, if MS really wants to adapt to something, they will, and they will do it quickly, and they will roll over anyone who tries to stand in their way. And, as far as I see, their current strategy is still making money and is still leading the software industry.
Just for concession's sake, though... the fact that the open source movement (or for that matter, Apple) has been able to live and thrive on the niche markets and margins of the software/hardware industries is a great credit to their tenacity and robustness. It's a difficult market out there...
"Any move towards cutting off alternatives by limiting interoperability or integration options would be fraught with danger, since it would enrage customers, "
He was spot on with this - they made MSN break Opera browsers and it sure pissed off a lot of people, (especially me).
I have a side question to any Yahoo staff here.
Your terms for being submitted to Yahoo Directory include the requirement that the site must work properly across different browsers.
You have MSN, msn uk etc. listed under Portals in the World Wide Web section.
Many of MSN portals still do not work properly in Opera. What procedure do you have in place for delisting those Microsoft sites that do not support different browser?
it seems unlikely I'd use it. Not necessarily because it was MS, although that would be part of it ( as someone who ran an all Windows shop for years they've damned well *earned* my distaste).
No, it would be because they did it on the Apple model. Take an open source core and heavily wrap it in a propriatary shell.
Odds are I wouldn't like the shell either, and would be just as constrained from changing it as I am in changing Windows now ( where I have to hack the executable binary just to change the label on the "start" button).
I've already rejected a pure Linux company's offering for similar reasons. That would be Lycoris. Why should I accept MS's?
KFG
Some parts of it were coherent and insightful, but he also said stuff like:
Unfortunately, network protocols have turned out to be a far better fit for this middleman role, and Microsoft, intent on propping up the PC franchise, has had to resist fully embracing the network integration model. This corporate case of denial has left a vacuum, of course, into which hardware companies, enterprises, and disgruntled Microsoft wannabes have poured huge quantities of often inferior, but nonetheless requirements-driven, open source software.
Huh? Open sourcers are "disgruntled Microsoft wannabes"? Most open source software was created because either
a) There WAS no such program, and someone needed it
b) There was a program, but it lacked certain features/was too expensive/the author just wanted to write a new one, etc
He clearly understands how big a force the Open Source community is becoming, and how it will affect Microsoft - but he doesn't seem to grasp the reasons. And his remedy was very vague to me. So, Microsoft should stop looking over their shoulder, and go with network apps instead of their OS... what network apps would those be? Yeah, if Microsoft doesn't change and roll with the punches, they surely will be going down. But I'm not sure their future lies in some fluffy concept of platform-independent "networked applications". I don't think we'll see a networked linux version of Office anytime soon, but it's good to know the ol' 800 pound gorilla is starting to get anxious.
really serves to show how out of touch with OSS he really is.
Naturally MS, and MS's employees, would be most aware of the OSS software specifically designed to make the switch easy for Windows users. This is also the software that the MS oriented computer press focuses on, and the software that new Linux users are most likely to come in contact with.
Just because the innovation is below your radar doesn't mean it's not there. Linux is now the OS of choice for those doing innovative work, particularly in the academic setting, most because it's the most viable OS for *doing* just such work. It's free, you have the source, and the right to dick with it all you want.
If he wants an example of something the OSS model has already produced he could start with the World Wide Frickin' Web.
KFG