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Platform Evangelism
An anonymous submitter writes "James Plamondon, a former Microsoft employee is writing a book on Technological Evangelism at Microsoft. He's posted the first chapter, "Evangelism is War."
Robert Scoble, a current Microsoft Evangelist doesn't like the metaphor, but Micah Alpern is concerned Microsoft could use similar strategies against Macromedia Flash."
What if tonight, the evangelism war could be over? Isn't that work coding for? Isn't...that...worth...debugging for?
Vonal Declosion
use whatever suits u the best. ;)
The biggest trick the devil pulled was letting lawyers become politicians so they can write the laws.
Wow where to begin?
Well, for a start, they're not SCO...
Consider, then, the 'Technical Architect,' and his grand scheme. Yikes. Probably closer to the mark than one would like.
Hate...MS....hate...Flash....must tolerate Flash.....must....*smoke drifts from ears*
"You know why you do not see me styling wit my homies? Because I have no homies!!" -Mojo Jojo
If MS were to use such strategies, would anyone be surprised?
MS has destroyed company after company that tried to work with them or cooperate with them. Adding MacroMedia to the list would be no surprise. In fact, if you can name a company that depends on MS to any significant extent, then I would add them to my list of "endangered companies". It takes them longer to get around to some than to others is all.
MS only thinks of technical evangelism as war if you idea of war is scorched earth that nobody can live on.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
There have been Macintosh evangelists for years, so don't worry, Microsoft isn't innovating.
Nothing from nowhere I'm no one at all
So...Microsoft is about to champion for the little guy in the war on spam. Check out this link at CNN.com.
Consider for a moment that Wired article on the downfall of SUN Microsystems. One recurring theme in the personality of McNealy, SUN's CEO, is his inability to cooperate with the competition and instead his insistence on turning competitors into enemies and market competition into war.
If MS does this (and they may indeed), this is merely business as usual among many of these corporations. Corporate America is not a day-care facility; companies can and do play hardball. The question is not "does MS want to help or hurt the competition" but rather "did MS engage in illegal anti-competitive practices which are bad for the consumer and bad for the market." I don't see you answering that question.
Wal-Mart destroyed the competition. And, yes, some say Wal-Mart is evil. But all they did is healthy, normal competition, no?
When did MS get into hard core porn?
Actually, Macromedia is a big enough (and incredibly well established) company that their destruction by Microsoft actually would be a big surprise. Macromedia already produces most of their products for Macintosh, as well as some of their product (barely functional ColdFusion server) for Linux. Microsoft would have to fight pretty hard to take Macromedia down.
The probability that someone is watching you is directly proportional to the stupidity of your actions.
"If MS were to use such strategies, would anyone be surprised?"
It's funny hearing this from the same place that thinks BSOD jokes are always +5, Funny. The Slashdot Community is nauseatingly evangelistic about Linux to the point of modding down people who don't join in with their pitchforks.
"Derp de derp."
But did you notice how none of the computers rebooted? That ought to silence people who say Windows isn't fault-tolerant!
Rimshot!
What OS defines me as a person?
Mozilla Firebird (Phoenix) has a "Flash click to play" extension. I used to not install the Flash plugin in a Mozilla browser and just switch to IE when I actually wanted flash, but now I get a blank box that says "flash click to play...". Sweet.
Does CrazyBrowser or Opera do something similar?
I remember during the Team OS/2 vs. ClubWin wars on USENET there was a drive within Microsoft to rename the position to "Technical Advocate". It failed because some product managers (not project managers) argued that "advocate" wasn't an agressive enough term. Sigh.
By and large though, Microsoft evangelists tend to be nice people (like Scoble, who used to organize the Fawcette industry conferences for a long time). Much different from sales drones and even most enterprise support reps.
Or so this evangelist hopes... In favor of SVG, an open XML W3C spec that doesn't require expensive tools to create. Mozilla sorta supports it now and should have much better support in the future. Even though SVG isn't terribly popular yet, I already see far far more database-driven content than I do with flash since XML is pretty easy to manipulate and generate.
I wonder if Microsoft understands how motivating it is when people to learn it regards them as pawns? In the last couple years Microsoft has succeeded in motivating me to develop software for the Palm OS, and now for OS X...
Agreed, same with Norton's and McAffee now that MS wants their share of the pie. Since, they own the browser, they can simply bundle Flash out of existence. It won't happen overnight (see Real for example) but it will happen. The only life line available for these companies is to focus and push Linux adoption. If and when Linux gets 25% of the desktop market, the monopoly will break. The sad truth is that most companies in this situation do not adopt an offensive stance but rather adopt a defensive posture aimed at maintaining their piece of the pie. That defensive posture served Corel and Borland well in any case. When you strike a deal with the devil you should know that payback will eventually come around.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
I worked as an evangelist for Novell, and, while I think Mr. Plamondon makes some good points, I agree with Micah Alpern that war analogies aren't necessarily the right ones. Also, I would think Mr. Plamondon would be more marketing-savvy than to refer to people that are helping him as "pawns". Chess analogy or not, it's not exactly a postitive signal to be sending out to people doing your work for you. :)
One very good point he makes is the idea of empowering other people to create materials about the technology you are evangelizing. It was amazing to me that I could get a lot of high quality help out of people for just a little public recognition, or some free software, or a nice gadget. People like to feel like they are helping with things that they feel passionately about. Heck, that's one of the reasons why the Linux movement has done so well, since just about anyone can dive in and start contributing in some way.
The problem I always experienced was from internal groups who were afraid of losing control of the corporate image. For example, we talked a lot about providing open forums and community sites for end users and consultants to share their solutions. This ended up being a series of communities we called CoolSolutions. But the actual code and solutions that people wrote went through a gauntlet of legal and marketing people, and it really wasn't an "open" community, it was all carefully screened.
The book "The Cluetrain Manifesto" talks a lot about these issues with large companies afraid to give up control. I think the right thing to do is for companies to loosly try to encourage an "ecosystem" around their technologies that then becomes self supporting. In this sense, they are practicing biomimicry in the form of crop diversity. You could think of internal PR and marketing departments as monocrops that are very susceptible to a single bad link, such as a sucky chief marketing officer. Diversity is good, and a product evangelism is one role that can encourage corporate "crop" diversity.
As an aside, I'm currently looking for a job. So if anyone in management read this and said, "product evangelists? I've gotta get me one of those!", then you can get to my resume here. or e-mail me at twid @ projectjellybean.com. I don't smell, I brush my teeth several times a day, I have no open oozing wounds, and I'm great fun at parties.
- "When you want something with all your heart, the entire universe conspires to give it to you" -Paulo Coelho
Right, because we all know this type of thing is never done by companies like Apple, Borland, IBM, Sun, Cisco, etc. Or (heavens forbid) people who advocate open source software. At least company wars are fought in level fields - the "good vs. evil" mentality that permeates most open source zealots is downright cynical and pathetic at best.
(btw, spare me the "m$ is a monopoly so teh [sic] rules are difrereent [sic] with them" line)
is to open up your client software. That way you get your code ported to more platforms than you can count... for free.
It's difficult for a company that only really supports one platform to compete against s/w that's in widespread use everywhere.
Opening up netscape five years earlier would have killed IE before it even got started. Real may understand this now, I wonder if Macromedia does yet.
Is it me.. or are people generally lazy? I should develop the LazyAssOS that does everything for you... you just watch as it does your work for you, like a matrix screen-saver. I *know* the Automated Homework Generator is on the cusp of reality.
The biggest trick the devil pulled was letting lawyers become politicians so they can write the laws.
1. "This is another part of the evil plan by an evil company to use its evil monopoly for world domination."
2. "This is not new. Apple/BSD/ has done this for years. Another example of M$ just copying others and having no innovation."
3. "This is the end. As soon as customers hear about this, they will en masse migrate away and Bill will be a pauper by next year."
4. "(-1, Troll) Look, this is another example of how the great lord Bill is making things better for all of us!"
Mmmm.. Donuts
for a second i thought we where going to have a non-Microsoft bashing day, thank goodness this story came up, i was beginning to worry about our reputation.
if(story.indexOf("microsoft")!=-1){cursingMsCom
I don't get it. The sole reason Macromedia is the size it is, is simply because Windows has no option to permanently refuse a web download.
In the old days, when you hit a site that has flash content, and you don't have it installed, it would try to install Flash. The dialog box has no option to permanently refuse Flash, so sooner or later everybody just gives in.
This policy allowed Macr to reach critical mass. Now brosers ship with Flash. Now you're telling me Microsoft is against Macr?
From the article: An unconscious decision is ideal, from the platform vendorâ(TM)s perspective. When ISVs support a Microsoft platform without even realizing that they have made a decision, and rejected any alternatives, then we have truly won that platform battle.
The truth - the almost sinister truth - of that statement grips me at my soul.
The trick is that folks think they're making a choice to purchase a merely single item, be it a CD, and DVD, a software package, a computer, a vehicle, or a politician (with a vote or literally with a breifcase of money). The reson this is a trick is that by making that choice, the purchaser endorses the entire chain of policies and events that bring that product to the shelf. You're literally saying, "whatever happened to get this product in my hot little hands, it's okay by me because the price is right.
Until I read that line above, I hadn't thought of the entire hegemony that lurked behind a price sticker with the kind of laser precision that the author used to word it. And I always thought I was a reasonably self-aware guy. HOLY SHIT. His side won, and I didn't even realize I was in a battle.
I'm making that line my sig. Nothing woke me up with quite the same jolt that it did. Maybe I'm just dumber than I thought I am. Is it just me?
GMFTatsujin
> Even Linux Zealot switched to using macs
:
There's a typo, it should be
"Even Linux Zealot switched to using Emacs"
Votez ecolo : Chiez dans l'urne !
SWF is an open file format; while the Flash application itself may not be open source, its ultimate product can be read and produced by open source applications.
This gives Flash, or at least the SWF format, some serious leverage.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
Davo -- Free speech, free software, AND free beer.
To paraphrase the Dixie Chicks, I'm ashamed to be from the same country as these folks. In the kind of country I'd wish to live in, people would have PERSONAL HONOR and would INSTANTLY RESIGN when they first become aware their company was pursuing a policy like this. They'd quickly get a reputation as assholes and crooks, and people wouldn't want to deal with them. It even says -- explicitly -- that the motivation for this behavior is not just money, but very large amounts of money. They are not just greedy; they are deliberately making the decision to sacrifice the common good for their own selfish ends.
What makes me really sad is not that there are a few evil people in the world. What makes me sad is that this is socially acceptable here in the U.S. Enough people have bought into the capitalistic bullshit lie of winning at any cost that these people may have a relatively low level of awareness that what they are doing is morally wrong. Worse, two people that I can think of who I otherwise respect as honorable men -- my dad and the pastor of my church -- both think that Microsoft has a bold vision that is to be emulated and/or has done lots of good for the country overall. I can't help but conclude, since these are genuinely good men otherwise, that their culture has fed them a lie.
Apparently deliberately-antisocial corporate greed is OK and it's OK to use anti-competitive practices to crush your enemies instead of competing fairly by making a good product. And apparently I'm the only one in the US who thinks otherwise.
OK, I know I've said nothing new here. I'm done venting. For now.
From the footnotes: ...
*snip*
[2] Recently, our competitors have added âoepoliticalâ to this list. Political actions result in law, which is backed up by force. They may come to regret educating us of the power of political means. */snip*
I guess this means that MS has decided to start playing the political game wich it's own panache now. I believe the recent settlement with the government is only outcome #1 we'll see from this new activity. I wouldn't be surprised if they had some legislation brewing that would grant them some type of legalized monopoly. After all, if he who pays the piper calls the tune MS is in a position to control the Congressional Playlist for many years to come
-A.M.
Pimpin' all the Karma Hoes!
I've seen hundreds of database driven Flash sites. It's fairly simple to do.
I agree that Flash is evil, but that doesn't justify skewing facts.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
- If someone assume user has software X for their business then software X is a platform.
- If software X is a platform, then it is a competitor.
- Defeating a competitor is making sure it gets no share of the business.
The rest is a brief overview of how they proceed. Basically they don't do the job themselves. They convince others, especially software developpers, to do it for them. This works best when the others are not aware of the alternatives and consequences of their choices. When they get enough people working their way, a critical mass is achieved and Microsoft's platform becomes an unavoidable standard.This is extremely efficient because of the number of people they can get working for their goal without having them on the payroll.
The power of this article is not in the novelty of the story, it is in illuminating how the whole thing works.
yes, windows outshines Linux in that it supports more commercial hardware and that most companies only make drivers for windows.
By commercial hardware, I assume you mean components and peripherals which are compatible with what we know as the "IBM PC". In terms of platforms supported, I think you will find that Linux runs on a far greater variety than does Microsoft Windows. Think SPARC, Alpha, PowerPC, ARM, MIPS...
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
Note that the previous poster pointed out that they have crushed companies that tried to *cooperate* with them, not just competitors (Wal-Mart generally doesn't do that). Also note the difficulties MS has had with their smart-phone producer of the week and EA. I assume the executives of those companies aren't dirty linux hippies.
Don't drop the soap, Tommy!
The SWF specification.
I'm fairly sure there's an open source viewer and some open source creation tools. I've read about some on-the-fly generated SWF like for charts and graphs. The links should on the site somewhere.
This is one of those things I'll figure I'll get around to playing with someday.
Saturday Night, Redmond Washington. Microsoft Exec: Yes!! Amen! I feel his spirit in me!! You know who I'm talking about. Who'm I talking about?? Microsoft employees: Bill! Exec: Say it again!! MS Drones: BILL!! Exec: Amen, Brothers and Sisters, Amen. Tonight I'm gonna preach from the book of Market Strategies. Chapter 6, Verse 12 Exec: And I saw, and behold a white Aeron chair and he that sat on him had the code; and a laywers was given unto him: and he went forth to conquer. Then cried he upon me, and spake unto me, saying, Behold, ye Leviathian of blue, shall use my code no longer, for have violated the oath set upon thee, and shall hence forth give unto repentance of 3 billion coins of silver...
My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...
The tone of the "first chapter" linked is astonishingly rude. It seems like the thinking were from a mindscape of cubic boulders splatted murky red with blood, not unlike the ending levels of original Doom. If this speaks of mentality inside Microsoft, that company definitely is the temple (and on this millennia, the memorial) of the idea of self-justificating greed of the 1980's. And in the networked (in social and organizational sense) world of today, it is quite alone waving that ugly flag.
Microsoft will be truly lost, not by getting bankrupt or marginalized or anything, but by simply being left as one of the group of players on the software field. That is the loss of its central philosophy, that there could "only be one". Is it not so?
--
On totally other news, it is imminent now that free software will prevail, and must start to prepare to deliver its promise. A lot of infrastructure must be invented in order to best utilize the power of shared development. Just think of all of those organizations from Münich and Turku to the enlightened countries of South America, asking for preparation, development and upkeep of their systems... It can be left to happen, or it can be planned for.
I think, therefore thoughts exist. Ego is just an impression.
did MS engage in illegal anti-competitive practices which are bad for the consumer and bad for the market." I don't see you answering that question.
They have been convicted of doing just that. Everybody knows that.
What they and others do is far beyond competition, much less 'healthy' or 'normal.'
They're coasting on the fact that once you achieve a certain critical mass, you get god-mode in the system. For individuals that condition tends not to last, as they either get booted from their company once things get big, or the novelty wears off and they decide to try it all over again. But for corporations, that's a sustainable state, which turns them into fiscal black holes that swallow everything visible to them.
I've always thought that communism looked good on paper, but just doesn't scale well beyond a few thousand people. So are we seeing a similar limitation with capitalism? Or is Wally World really just so clearly superior to anything else with a cash register?
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
Things are changing quite a lot in the Mac community. With Mac OS X, there are a lot of fairly new Mac users who aren't necessarily wedded to every dot and comma of the old OS. I'm one, for example. (I hope you wouldn't find me pompous, elitist, or arrogant, but that's not for me to judge :) I've fairly broad experience of platforms before 'going Mac' a couple of year ago; there's a lot I love about current Macs (and just a few things I hate). I'm happy to talk about the good stuff, because I find that a lot of PC users simply don't know that things can be different. (That probably doesn't apply to many Slashdotters, of course.) But I try to be honest rather than rabid about it.
I don't know how representative I am of current Mac users, but I suspect that the closed-minded arrogant ones are a smaller proportion than they were 2 or 3 years ago.
(Oh, and what's wrong with being elitist, anyway? When you know just how good things can be, doesn't having to use crap give you pain, whether it's Windows software, web sites, browsers, closed-source software, proprietary data formats, low-quality audio, or whatever? We can all get rabid about something...)
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
First: Remember that the best defence is a good offense..
.net stuff - it's still m$ 0wned)
Developer-specific:
Open Source should make sure to set de-facto standards - release early, release often.
Define your data formats in something well-known like csv, sexp or xml so other open source programs can make use of them. Better yet, use a relational database backend with a public schema of views. It'll make most development easier, and all MS's best products do that, anyway. It's great (very convenient) for business use, and easy given the existence of postgres,mysql, sapdb sqllite, etc, etc.
At the same time, don't get too hung up on data format standards - MS has shown that so long as your next version reads them, that's good enough, your next version doesn't have to use the same data format as its native format, so long as it can read the old format.
MS has shown that what matters is to get a product out there, capturing mindshare - once a user has psychologically committed to your product, they'll probably stick with it, even if your next version is a ground-up rewrite so that it actually works. And if you release for windows, code to libSDL+OpenGL for games, and use cygwin, qt or gtk for utilities. NEVER use the Win32/.net directly API for new applications, even via WINE or Mono - that's one of the "proprietary standards" the chapter excerpt talks about (don't beleive the ECMA-standardisation
For general evangelism to non-technical audiences
Make sure that your desktop runs a window manager with a really snazzy theme and some flashy applications (xmms...) when anyone drops by. Current Linux WMs can outclass WinXP in flashiness stakes. Contrary to popular opinions, consistency doesn't seem to matter a great deal - if the program is flashy enough, it might be a consistency nightmare, but will impress the yokels (don't call them yokels). It doesn't hurt to have a speech synthesis program e.g. festival going to read the subject lines of incoming mails, or some other geek-gimmick. Appearance is everything to the non-geek (and geekiness is domain-specific, a DIY geek who sees straight through gimmicky power tools won't necessarily see through flashy computer GUI gimmicks)
Try not to get all philisophical on I.P. issues. Stick to "you have the right to change it or ask/pay someone other than the original manufacturer to change it for you. Like taking your car to a garage.". Anything more complex doesn't work for MS, it won't work for you. Yes, you may think I.P. is an absurdity. But most people are keyword-scanners. The message they'll get is that you're "anti-property". Yes, information is non-scarce and therefore you should't mindlessly apply scarcity-based property laws to it, yes, the very idea of information as property runs counter to the scientific method, but boring them by droning on about it won't help (I just droned on about it, and you damn-near switched-off, didn't you?)
Choice of masters is not freedom.
* Independent software vendors (ISVs[4]) assume the presence of Windows on the consumerâ(TM)s PC.
vs.An electric toaster supports the American electricity standard if
* Its plug can fit into the American-standard electrical outlet, and...
How can anybody seriously compare this kind of free-to-implement, non-trade-secret, properly documented standard with what MS does?
Standards organisations define standards, companies implement them. That way you get this thing called competition that's quite popular with economists.
The web is about content, not design. The web should be available to all browsers, including Opera, Links, Mozilla, w3m, Internet Explorer, netrik, Konqueror and so on.
It's not the box that should meet sepcs, it's the webpage. It's about seperating content from presentation.
Flash is a great medium, but has nothing to do on the web.
Micah Alpern raises some good points about MS's attention to vector based ui's. I think though that he's completely offbase when saying that Macromedia's announcement of Royal will ilicit any response from Redmond.
Flash won't be a threat to Microsoft as a "full platform". The primary reason is that Macromedia is great at marketing their products - but architecutally their product line lacks consistancy of vision and execution. Flash for example has, over the past three versions proved time and time again that it lacks a reliable, and easy to use programming environment, an absolute necessity for building truly sophisticated ui's and functionality.
Don't get me wrong - there is some amazing flash work out there. Kudo's to the design/developers that were able to produce such things. The road to such accomplishments however is frought with errors, head scratching and mysteries.
This is primarily because Macromedia seems to think that it's OK to produce API level functions that don't behave as expected so long as they are documented. See Macromedia 'Technotes' for further ammo er info. I think somewhere along the way someone at Macromedia misread "Test and Deploy" as "Deploy and Test". Most have to do with I/O such as load movie, getUrl, and loadVariables. Solid multi source I/O is an absolute necessity for building fully featured "rich client" applications. JavaScript is also not an acceptable language for building real applications. Especailly Macromedia's implementation which has a very loose object based approach to dealing with items in the movie. Flash is also slow. On machines who are not as "swift" as their high speed grand children - high complexity movies are sluggish and don't respond well.
What this all comes down to is the fact that from a technology perspective, Macromedia lacks a coherent architecture for accomplishing complex tasks that will be required to build "Royale" and there is a good chance that developers first taste of Royale will be a bitter one.
Well, I would like to elaborate on a particular comment:
So evolution, and capitalism, is to some degree self-defeating; once a competitor reaches the point where he can eliminate the game that led to his success, he can, in essence, kick away the ladders and burn the bridges to his success so that no others can approach his position.
The problem of capitalism is that it is based on tracking money. Money is the only metric. But it is not the one that evaluates the status of humanity very well. It seems that a lot of people think that capitalism is 'natural' to humanity, since it has been very successful in developing our capabilities. However, it seems the world is heading towards rule by corporation. And I really don't think that is better for everyone.
No, I don't trust in god. He'll have to pay up front, like everybody else.
It hasn't been that for years. The web is anything a person with server space wants it to be.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
First off, to call this a war is an insult to all the people that have fought and died in a real war; but I will humor the analogy.
.Net
Microsoft is starting to loose a lot of key battles. The can't compete with Linux simply because of the price. People are cheap and if they can get something for free and it works ok, they will live with it. I honestly believe that this is part of the reason that the Macintosh isn't nearly as competitive as WinTel.
First will be governments switching over to it, then schools,charitable organizations and point of sale type businesses. After that is done then you will see surrounding businesses that work with those HUGE clients being forced to switch. Once that is done and Linux/Open Source has a 25-30% desktop market share the war is over. No development company will want to exclude 25-30% of the market and then ROME falls quickly.
Some of the key battles that I see now that Microsoft isn't winning.
1. Handhelds
2. Phones
3. Java v.s.
4. Getting current user base to upgrade past NT 4.0
5. PS2 vs Xbox.
6. Databases, Oracle, IBM, SQL Server, MySQL, PostGreSQL
In my opinion Microsoft seems a lot like IBM of the early 80's. The are doing a lot of things, and flat out own one key marketplace, but they don't do anything well.
Now there are some things that could dramatically slow this down.
1. Death of Linus.
2. IBM to offer it's own Linux and try and seize control of the kernel.
3. For some reason Java flounders.
Anyway, the way I see it the next 10 years will actually be fun!
The more I learn about science, the more my faith in God increases.
Don't confuse negative moderation with disagreement. Many pro-MS comments get modded down not because they are pro-MS, but because they are poorly founded and/or lack basic logic.
I'm a Linux user myself, and I've modded down my share of pro-MS comments, but on the basis that they either 1) have no clue what they're talking about, or 2) are highly logic impaired. I'm talking about basic logic, not judgements on opinions.
There are many pro-MS comments that I agree with. Unlike some of the zealots (most who will get over it, eventually), I understand that Windows has its place and advocate Windows to anyone who doesn't:
1) Dislike Microsoft solutions
2) Want to explore their computer
3) Want to configure everything in detail
~Dalcius
Rome wasn't burnt in a day.
"This book focuses on technical evangelism as it was practiced at Microsoft from 1990 through 2000. In this decade, we may have lost a few skirmishes, but we won every battle. As a direct result, Microsoft built its annual profits from an impressive XXX to an astounding XXX. Microsoft stock made its founders, investors, and employees rich. In its many platform battles along the way, we crushed competing platforms consistently, ruthlessly, and systematically."
Proof that if you are a self centered A-hole and want to start a company you should surround yourself with other self centered a-holes too.
Evangelism is a great word for the Microsoft phenomena. They ask you to believe without any proof, in fact in spite of proof to the contrary, that they advanced technology during the 80's and 90's.
The PC phenomena, in spite of a good start has set computing back at least 10 years. Almost all of the innovations brought to us via the PC have come in spite of Microsoft not because of it. Even so, there is so much re-invention of wheels going on. From protected memory spaces, multitasking, asynchronous I/O devices, it all had to be re-invented for the PC and more specifically, for Windows, when all of the concepts had been invented, and refined on mainframes years earlier.
We've turned into a society of publishers with no time to read. We can't get customer support for our flaked out computing infrastructure because everyone is too busy working on their blog to man the help-desk.
If Microsoft doesn't change, the combination of true Enterprise computing, Open Source, and Internationalism is going to cause Microsoft to lose skirmish, battle and war. What Microsoft needs not is not evangelists, bit strategists. And this time, rather than strategizing only on how to "crush the competition", maybe they should try strategizing on how to do something good for the world or at least a value-add for their customers. In the process they may allow their company to continue to survive.
By the way, this doesn't look like a very good book. Sounds like the kid in the bubble trying to tell you how the world works, excpcept he hasn't even bothered to look up what the XXX number are yet. Astonding!
That's so typical of MS employees. They can say the most astonishing things, and somehow link it all back to "doing what's best for the customer", Kevin Bacon style. They collectively tell themselves, and therefore believe, that they are there to serve the customer, and that they are the best because they do what the customer needs and wants.
The reality is far, far different of course. It's rare (but not unheard of) for one of their employees to make the mental leap between the hordes of people who hate them, and the idea that maybe they are actually working exclusively for the profit of their shareholders and executives as opposed to "making the world a better place through technology".