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.)

Comments

Re:Microsoft cannot innovate

[DickBreath]

Microsoft has never invented anything.

Methinks you have your facts wrong. Let me give you a little bit of history.

First Microsoft invented BASIC. This led to the microcomputer, which we all know is great.

Then Microsoft invented the operating system, first embodied in the form of MS-DOS.

Then in MS-DOS 2.0, Microsoft invented the hierarchical file system. (PC Magazine said so back in 1982 on the front cover for cryin' out loud!)

Then Microsoft invented the graphical user interface, which we all agree is a better way to use a computer.

Next, Microsoft invented multimedia.

Then, in perhaps what was their greatest accomplishment yet, Microsoft invented the Internet, which we all agree is great.

Microsoft then invented the database server MS-SQL. This is so slamming popular that all other databases slammed Microsoft by copying the product name as the language they use.

If it wern't for Microsoft, we wouldn't have antivirus software and the tremendous business that those companies bring to our economy.

Because of Microsoft, computers continue to be ever faster.

Microsoft brought us wonderful things such as Windows 2000, based on a kernel and hardware abstraction layer.


You need to stop spreading falsehoods about Microsoft's lack of innovation. The history of this industry is just littered with examples of the things Microsoft has done. And things they are trying to do: PDA's, Game Consoles, consumer electronics.

Microsoft has spent the last year working hard to fix all their security problems. This effort continues in the form of Palladium.

Microsoft's most recent innovation is Shared Source.

Now that we're in the 21st century, who knows what wonderous things await us that Microsoft will invent next. The future is very bright indeed.