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Microsoft's Strategy Memos
jg21 writes "So Linux made it onto Steve Ballmer's radar screen at last? No mention last year, in his annual strategy memo, but this year there's sentence after sentence - summarized at LinuxWorld this morning - which means, I guess, that 50,000-plus more folks around the world now will be aware of open source...he sent it to everyone in the company! Interestingly, in his public-facing CEO memo, distributed the same day as the internal one, Ballmer in contrast mentions Linux just once. What is it that conjurers call this, ah yes - distraction strategy?"
I've run XP 2 years now, on two computers. Had the BSOD once, due to a bad driver. I'd say that's damn near fixed.
"If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living."
- Seneca
Seriously... Microsoft (and many big businesses) have a calm public face and a real internal "mission".
The only time the two meet is if it suits the Suits.
Rack up another halloween document, and lets worry about the more important task of getting Linux onto desktops and into homes.
"We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over." - Aneurin Bevan
"In this environment of lean budgets and concerns about Microsoft's attention to customers, noncommercial software such as Linux and OpenOffice is seen as an interesting, 'good enough' or 'free' alternative."
Sorry Steve, but that's now quite how it is. Linux and OpenOffice are seen as Stable, Secure, *Better* alternatives.
So what did cause it? Can I take a guess? One of your uses installed some dumb ass spyware and then decided to go on a deleting spree. I have never seen a seriously messed up machine that didn't come with some confession after hours of browbeating. These things don't happen on their own usually.
Typing on a W2K Thinkpad that is shutdown only on weekends and has never in 3 years gotten a single blue screen.
Well a good portion of the company is on Macs. In any case they've made it clear they wanted to break into the server market and have many campaigns to migrate from unix to windows. They've dug in for the long haul and any loss of market share, even for servers is going to be upsetting to them. Two of the four people on my team have linux workstations and I use freebsd.
:(){
Lets call this Zealot lie #212. Nothing forces people to upgrade. Some people CHOSE to upgrade. If what you claim was true I wouldn't have to keep supporting all these users running Windows 95 and (lord help me) 3.1. They have not upgraded because they have no need of the new features. As for MS being able to "shut you down anytime they wanted to if they felt like it", do you have ANYTHING to back that up? What can Microsoft do to make my Windows install stop working?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
While MS has improved it is still plagued with annoying problems. Several examples:
1. VPN clients using RRAS do not use the VPN provided DNS server instead opting for the DNS server configured for the ethernet interface (even if the VPN configuration specifies other DNS servers). My research on this issue shows that this is a common problem that has existed for quite some time. NOTE - This is not about handing out the correct DNS server...ipconfig shows the correct DNS server listed for the VPN connection. It's just not used for some reason. Thus internal hosts cannot be access via name because the ISP's DNS servers are being queried and they are not aware of internal hosts. If anyone can help me solve this I'd be grateful.
2. Often when I'm moving files I am told that one or more files is in use (I know there not). I can copy them to the share and then delete them but cannot move them directly.
3. Recently my network cable came loose and Windows 2000 Professional would not obtain a new IP address from the DHCP server without a reboot. Yes, I performed the release/renew switches for ipconfig.
While Windows has improved it still has so many annoying little glitches.
For a typical tech support call center in the US, the estimated cost is anywhere between 20 dollars (the "wham bam, thank you ma'am" calls) and hundreds (or thousands) of dollars for issues that actually take research and manpower to solve.
;^)
Off-topic comment: places like India *are* cheaper in regards to total cost-per-call. It's not nearly as cheap as everyone makes it out to be though, since "hidden" costs like having to build a telephone network in a third-world country from scratch are sometimes comveniently left out of the PowerPoint presentation during the cost-analysis meetings.
Back on-topic again: I don't know why the "center of gravity" thing is so important to Steve Ballmer. Truth be told, Microsoft is no better at being a center for Windows than IBM is for Unix (including Linux).
--- Journals are boring; Go to my web page instead
I know this is far too late in the discussion to get this modded up, but Bill Gates is no longer the world's richest man.
The founder of IKEA has overtaken him.
I disagree. I think they entirely did get to be that way by accident. It's an Accidental Empire, in fact.
Look at it this way. PCs came out in the 70s. They were hobbyist things, built by amateurs in their basements and garages. The big computing companies treated PCs with contempt. They didn't see the money to be made. So 2-person coops like Apple managed to make millions while nobody was noticing. Even when Apple made their first "big" PC - the Apple II - it was a small organisation but it still raked in billions.
IBM notices that money is being made in PCs, so they want a piece of the action, but they're still not "getting it". They don't understand that PCs are more than a fad, or a thing for a home hobbyist. They think the real money is in the corporate world (and it is) but they think the corporate model will always be mainframes + dumb terminals. Where do PCs fit in? Maybe small businesses, but surely that's all.
So the IBM PC is a neglected project. It gets limited time, limited budget, lesser designers, inferior managers, and so on. IBM didn't even put the effort into the IBM-PC they'd put into tape drives like the 3490. The PC was still a joke to them. They weren't serious about it.
So because IBM's not all that serious they're looking around to license a third party PC OS. Something cheap, already written, because almost certainly it'll be discarded in a year's time, right? That's what happens with all the other PC OSs back then. PCs have a short life time. Back then a PC was like a console today; you used it for a year or two then you bought a completely new one with new software. And IBM doesn't have enough in-house experience to write anything as small and featureless as a PC OS. They identify the 800lb gorilla of the day, CP/M, and try to get a license for that. But due to NDAs and one spooked wife of a CEO, that falls through.
Up until now we're running on facts, but now we're forced to speculate a bit. The manager of the IBM-PC project whinges to his boss that they can't license a PC OS from anybody. He probably even asks for money to fund an in-house project to write their own IBM-PC OS. The IBM CEO is on the same charity committee as Bill Gates mum (he is from a fairly wealthy family to begin with). The conversation probably drifts around to kids and Bill Gates mum mentions something about her son and his fledgling PC software company. Bingo. The IBM CEO asks to get in contact with Bill and this is where things get interesting.
Bill sees an opportunity and although he doesn't have a PC OS he knows where to get one in a hurry. He tells IBM that he can deliver and IBM is desperate (they're behind schedule and they still haven't secured a third party OS). IBM still isn't treating this project very seriously though, so they don't try and secure ownership of the PC OS. They just license the OS from Microsoft. That's the mistake. That's the accident right there. That's where IBM turned Microsoft from a miniscule company (smaller than Apple) into the world's largest and richest software company.
For some unfathomable reason the IBM-PC is wildly successful. Probably a mixture of reasons. It was the right time; PCs were rapidly being adopted by small to medium businesses. It was the right price; not too cheap so as to say "I'm a toy" but not too expensive so as to push customers towards Apple. It had IBM's name on it and all the excellent aspects of purchasing from IBM; worldwide support, plenty of addons, plenty of upgrade opportunities.
Bill Gates was lucky enough to be in the right place, at the right time, and had the right product (sort of). He was also lucky enough that the IBM-PC exploded in popularity and that IBM didn't foresee that happening and that the contract with IBM allowed Bill to continue selling MS-DOS. MS-DOS became th