Slashdot Mirror
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?"
Linux should take a page from microsoft on this one. They keep repeating over and over, they want ease of use! Everyone in the Linux community has been repeating that very same message!
Take from this article what you will, but be aware that if you try and provide many of the same services that microsoft is providing people won't have the arguement "but I need it to do this", and so, I must say, it should be fairly easy to set up a "central management Linux server" that can manage applications across a multitude of linux servers (That should be a key point in open-source!).
Just my own views.. Now please proceed to start bashing microsoft again..
Mod +5 Drunk
"There is always enthusiasm in our business for new concepts. So-called 'free software' is the latest new thing. We will rise to this challenge, and we will compete in a fair and responsible manner that puts our customers first. We will show that our approach offers better value, better security and better opportunity."
Because we all know Microsoft is well known and praised for their record of competeing in fair and responsible manners. Not to mention offering better value, security and opportunity.
There is a reason that they military considers XP "compromised the moment it leaves the box", and why high performance computing centers which need reliability and good cost/benefit rations never use Windows.
When I read these kind of pronouncements from Bill and Steve, what strikes me is how much they still don't seem to "get it".
They talk about "free software" as is it was equivalent to, say, shareware. What they don't seem to understand is that the cost of it has nothing to do with its success, nor is it the principal reason it is a threat to Microsoft.
Personally I'm glad they don't get it. It means they are more likely to make strategic mistakes that could be their downfall.
Somehow I don't think Open Source is a new concept to MS employees. I think it's pretty likely that they would be asked about it by their family members who might have heard about it on the net or from their coworkers, or whomever. I know if I had a relative who worked for MS I'd probably be interested to know their level of Linux/Open Source awareness...
This can be a good thing, for sure. One company goes out of business, but the whole thing isn't ruined. But there are true downsides to Linux; everything has its flaws. The thing that impressed me about this is that there are really no ``bad'' quotes here. Ballmer says that Linux is just the next new thing, a potential flash-in-the-pan (which, personally, I think may be right, if we aren't lucky)--and that Microsoft must win by responsibly offering a better product and better customer care.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
So he suggesting that Microsoft's investment in the "health and growth of noncommercial software" and their "innovating in critical areas like engineering, manageability, compatibility and security" was a very good thing.
:)
In what sick and twisted world is it bad that we don't have a single body innovating in those critical areas?
As far as I can see, having multiple groups, whose interest isn't only in making money, or "maximising shareholder value" is a very very good thing for *everybody*. Bring on the competition I say. Innovation can't (shouldn't?) be bought or paid for, it's driven by need, and if everyone is able and allowed to innovate, we *all* benefit.
And the investing in the health and growth of non-commercial software? Pleeeeeeeeease.
He's grasping at straws
"IBM's endorsement of Linux has added credibility and an illusion of support and accountability, although the reality is there is no 'center of gravity,' or central body, ......"
Funny how MonkeyBoy even feels the need to spin some FUD internally.
Why is it an "illusion" of support? You pay IBM for support, IBM provides you support. Where's the illusion?
As for a center of gravity... I guess no one has told MonkeyBoy the good news about OSDL.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
"... consistent innovation requires coordination across many technology components. In the event of needed enhancements or fixes, the Linux development community, no matter how well intentioned, simply cannot advance Linux the way we can - and must - innovate in Windows."
An interesting point, although I think it's only valid on the desktop, where coherence of application behaviour is a very important requirement.
Windows built its market share by being easy to use and (kind of) consistent in its UI. Every time MS launches some new Windows or Office version, you see all these new small-to-large applications popping up, reusing MS's components and copying its UI. There's many bad UIs out there, but overall copying MSs designs leads to a more coherent user experience on the desktop.
If you notice, MS's "innovations" have always been about setting "standards" but offering them in a way that will only work in Windows. (check an earlier story from today).
Linux offers, in general, software that is more efficient and more secure. I believe the great next innovation needed by Linux to actually leap ahead of Windows is to integrate its desktop technologies better.
My favorite quote was this one: ...noncommercial software such as Linux and OpenOffice is seen as an interesting, 'good enough' or 'free' alternative.
Ironic, because it has always been Microsoft's strategy to get a piece of software on the market early, that is, when it's just "good enough," and worry about bug fixes, features, and ease of use two or three releases down the line.
Hoist by their own petard?
My favorite quote: "...in critical areas like engineering, manageability, compatibility and security". In every Total Cost of Ownership study funded my M$, they forget to build into the cost of recovery from hackers/virus/trojan destroying your Windows box. I'm speaking from personal experience, of course. I'm not sure they really get it!
SPAM solution made easy: 1 spammer, 5 cords of rope, 5 hourses, and fireworks. Be creative.
I just recieved this memo from "Steve" is this the memo paragraph in question?
We are working with partners to make it possible for Microsoft
customers to manage UNIX, Linux and Mac computers in conjunction with Systems
Management Server 2003, and to manage hardware devices such as desktops
and servers through solutions that update hardware-based software
components using the same familiar interfaces that an administrator would
use to update software applications.
*end of paragraph*
This seems friendly enough to me. They plan to "work" with Linux. That is a new strategy!
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
Mindshare is everything.
I know when I let someone 'rent space' in my head, it effectively distracts me and reduces my ability to focus solely and completely on what I should be doing. Perhaps this will have the same effect on a corporate entity as it does me personally.
Well, forgive me for being obtuse, but if all the jobs are going to India, and you are an American, I fail to see where taking on extensive additional financial obligations is a long term survival strategy.
To me that sounds more like a splendid strategy for ending up standing a street corner surrounded by your stuff without even your repossessed car to live in.
In troubled times there is safty and advantage to be had by everyone in the pooling of skills and resources.
Ohana.
Unless, of course, you're an asshole.
KFG
I read an article (source unknown, passed on from a co-worker) yesterday that ranked tech support from 7 major laptop manufacturers. The asked each company 3 questions (posed as regular users), each of which was answered by a different tech. IBM was ranked the worst in this case, as they basically said: "we don't do software support, call Microsoft."
As much as that's enough to get a poor tech support rating, I believe it's what all major companies should do. Concentrate on the hardware, and let MS support their own software. Maybe if MS dealt with more of the regular users of their software, certain things would get fixed faster.
It would be interesting to see the ratio of support calls to major companies broken down into hardware vs. software problems. My money says upwards of 80% of the calls are windows related (not always windows fault, but windows related). That's a huge amount of money for a company to spend, when in essence, their product is working fine.
Just my $0.02 CDN
-Ben
You are lucky - I installed XP on an older machine and have been unable to get XP, any patch or service pack level, to run for even 12 hours without a BSOD. I'm sure if you by a new machine and install the latest drivers everything works fine, but in typical fashion, Microsoft cares not about older hardware and requires a hardware upgrade to use XP without a hitch (the web is repleat with reports of problems after people upgrade machines to XP from relatively stable machines running W2K). There are still bugs in windows that have been there since 95 - of particular note is a bug with modal windows and window hierarchies more than 2 layers deep - Windows has not been able to properly handle this when it has worked in X11 since at least R4.
There is always enthusiasm in our business for new concepts. So-called 'free software' is the latest new thing.
It's only been around since the 1960's.
In the event of needed enhancements or fixes, the Linux development community, no matter how well intentioned, simply cannot advance Linux the way we can - and must - innovate in Windows.
Microsoft's constant "advancements" are actually on reason I don't like Windows that much. UNIX did a pretty good job 30 years ago, and it still does.
I am playing devils advocate here but why, in every press release of companies who migrate to Linux, do they only mention licencing costs?
I have never seen a press release from a company who has said "we moved to linux on the desktop because its better", normally its "we moved to linux on the desktop because of concerns about the pricing of Microsoft licences".
ps. Note to mods hovering over the -1: Definition of devils advocate is worth reading first.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
Whoo boy, is that a loaded statement.
Or maybe ol' Steve has realized to keep his damn mouth shut on these "all internal" memos because they have been publicly humiliated by them in the past. They know enough about PR to spread FUD in their "internal" memos now. Because they know they can't stop them from being leaked.
FACT: Microsoft plays dirty, and has since day one.
This is nothing new. This internal memo clearly shows that they consider Linux and other non-commercial software to be a threat. Just because the language is leak-friendly doesn't mean that there are no dirty tactics in the works. I'll go with the overwhelming odds and say that they are probably trying to figure out how to be total bastards to preserve their monopoly.
I used to think I might be paranoid, but I am starting to believe that I am not. Which saddens me, I wish I was just paranoid.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
For a company with 500+ employees, it makes a little difference whether you deploy Linux + OpenOffice + IBM Global Services or Windows + MSOffice + Ms Support. Pricewise the enterprise agreements are about the same.
I don't think so, about the "little difference" anyway. I've worked for both larger and smaller companies as desktop, applications and server support for the last six years. I've never called for support from Mircosoft ever. Everything has always been handled in house. I have paid lots of licensing fees for servers, applications, and such. If we were to switch to Linux products, I would have to spend more time learning about and fixing Linux problems which is paid for by my salary but our overall costs would go down due to no need for licensing.
Applications support is a little different as we do pay the (server) application company support but they handle the OS of the server it runs on also and thus are the only ones to pay and call MS. Thus, I expect these applications to start switching over to Linux in the next five to ten years as there will be no licensing fees but support from the OS vendor will be the same. Not to mention that their coders would then be able to inspect the OS code to look for problems with their applications rather than be depenant on MS.
I do agree with most of what you said; but the reason Gates, et. al. were able to "dominate the Big Guy" was by moving into an expanding area. Small cheap computers were a new frontier, rapidly expanding into new areas. None of the "Big Guys" understood the potential of the PC; IBM itself could have easily dominated the scene by creating their own OS for the hardware they produced. Had they recognized the potential for the PC, they wouldn't have given Mrs. Gates favorite boy a contract for the OS.
Right now, there is very little new territory, and Microsoft refuses the make the same mistakes IBM made. They *almost* made a mistake with the internet; I was quite sure they had fucked up when Mr. Gates described the Internet as a passing fad, but a year later they did a complete turn-around (which prompted a second edition of his book that talked a bit more glowingly of the 'net).
The embedded market *might* be the next frontier, as smaller faster computers fill niches that people didn't even see before (sound familiar?), but I don't expect a clean fight.
There are two scenarios for Free software dominating the big guys. The first is by attrition; that is the route we are taking now. Slowly, Linux is gaining more market share. At this rate, in about 15 years, we'll have a decent market share.
The other is by catastrophe. Microsoft may fuck up so badly they are booted out of the desktop. Personally, I think it should have been done several years ago, what with the shoddy security that allows any desktop machine to transform into a spamming wonder simply by opening an email attachment.
Until the rest of the world agrees with me, though, I fear it's going to be the long. slow, dangerous route.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
We will rise to this challenge, and we will compete in a fair and responsible manner that puts our customers first.
Coming, as it does, after disclosures that SCO and Baystar were both manipulated by Microsoft to mount and support a questionable legal attack on Linux, this statement is hilarious!
Same old lies here; move along.
"In the event of needed enhancements or fixes, the Linux development community, no matter how well intentioned, simply cannot advance Linux the way we can - and must - innovate in Windows."
Two Words: Tabbed Browsing (like I'm doing right now)
I have to wonder: Does Stevie actually write/believe this shit or is it handed to him by the mindless drones in Marketing?
"Klaatu, verada, necktie!" -Ash
There are FOUR reasons I run MSFT at home on one of my machines...
Adobe Premiere
Adobe After Effects
Cool Edit
DVDLab
all four have no equlivaent in linux. Nothing NADA. there is no video editing app that exists for linux that is anything like or powerful as Premiere... and that is sad because Premiere is considered a toy on the Video editing Biz. After Effects... NOTHING AT ALL CoolEdit.. Sorry, I've tried the linux apps.. I tried really damn hard. Until these developers drop their affinity for every shiny lib out there it's pretty darn useless to someone that doesnt want a music/audio ONLY workstation. JACK and ALSA integration sucks giant brown bananas.
DVDLab. there is absolutely nothing under linux for DVD menu and ISO fabrication. no I dont want to spend 6 weeks hand writing text files, I want DVDLab alike or Scenarist alike tools.
Linux Video editing is crap and has been for 5 years. Cinerella stinks, MainActor is utter crap, and Kino is for little kids making a home movie. also without effects tools like After Effects or Boris Red you are STILL stuck with wintel or having to get a MAC and kiss flip off the entire intel world.
I guess that is my answer. Serious Art or Media work is to NOT be done on an intel based computer.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
While the noncommercial model may lead to many flavors of software...
Oh come on Steve, you achieve that magnificently with Windows. Your huge range of different versions of Visual Basics and Basic languages for Office for example, requiring major code re-writes between versions of Access. While we wer migrating to VB6, you teased us with VB.Net along with the delights of yet another rewrite of code. The API changes between Windows 95 and ME, between NT 3.51 and 4.0 kept us highly amused and on our toes. The huge range of networking protocols you forced us through while the poor non-commercial people stuck with boring old reliable NFS. We played along with Windows for Workgroups and NETBIOS for years, then as we were getting used to Domains under NT you switched over to Active Directory. We though we knew what HTML was supposed to do until you showed us how you knew better with Internet Explorer. Now you want to change it all yet again with Longhorn.
Now I know what you mean by 'innovation': repeatedly re-inventing the wheel and forcing us to pay for it.
I think the OP's point was that IBM might take offense at their support service being called "an illusion", what with it being a core part of their business and all.
While cost is definitely an issue with the average consumer, security and trustworthiness aren't even secondary. The SSL bug you mention was never even noticed by 99.9% of users.
"Black & Decker makes the best toaster, therefore all other appliance companies are worthless!"
Hamster
From the article: "We will rise to this challenge, and we will compete in a fair and responsible manner that puts our customers first. We will show that our approach offers better value, better security and better opportunity."
Link at the bottom of the page: BREAKING NEWS: Microsoft *Was* Matchmaker Between BayStar & SCO
This is one area that open source and Linux need a little work in. We have a lot of really great coders, but we are lacking in the diversity of people who actually know various fields very well. A perfect example can be taken from the Windows world itself circa 1994. Back then, I was an audio engineer coming from the Macintosh world. I was beginning to look at the PC as a possible option. What I found after a lot of research was that there were many limitations within Windows 3.1 to multimedia and audio in particular. A few PC based friends of mine were making recommendations that I look at the Turtle beach products, Zefiro accoustics (for hardware), S.A.W. and the like. I wound up trying quite a few of them and settled on Cakewalk Pro Audio. It worked, as well as you could expect a Windows based audio/MIDI sequencer to work, at that time. These days, things on the Windows platform have improved tremendously. Sure, they aren't Macs and still don't work as well as Macs for professional audio, but they work about 98% as well.
What happened? Microsoft was dragged kicking and screaming into accepting the fact that not everyone looks at a computer as a "business tool". For some of us, a computer is a creative tool, which is as far away from business as you can get. Artists are a pretty small market, but they can be a lucrative one. And that's what made Microsoft pay attention. They actually got creative types (real artists and musicians) together with engineers and made *some* of the needed changes to the OS to improve the multimedia subsystem. Again, the Mac is MUCH better at this than Windows, but the disparity isn't as big now.
Unfortunately, in the Linux world, we still have mostly coders who like to play at being "artists" on the weekends. This is NOT a slam. I would qualify that I'm an artist who likes to play at being a "coder" during the week. What's needed are more people who can bridge the gap between the coders and the people who use the applications. This is something that most coders are loathe to accept. "Let the user dictate how the app works!? Nonsense!!" It ain't pretty, but there are some key areas of knowledge that coders just don't have the expertise in. And this applies to more fields than just art. How many coders truthfully say that they can understand and relate to the needs of their users in a very intimate way in the following fields/careers:
1. Accounting
2. Law (IANAL anyone?)
3. Playwriter
4. Journalist
5. Librarian
The point? A computer is no longer a "business tool", it's a "life tool" and needs to be viewed as such when applications and the OS are being designed. This is the point that Ballmer made in his own hamfisted way of "us vs. them". The reality is that the open source/free software community needs to include more than just coders in the development cycle.
Is your project working on a multitrack audio editor? Then get some professional audio engineers to review your project and make suggestions. In exchange for their expertise, maybe you can offer to set up a system with your application. Are you starting to work on a new application to batch process graphics for print? Then open your project up to non-coders with professional print backgrounds who can tell you if your project is useful or not.
This doesn't have to be the "free-for-all" nightmare that most coders envision. You can restrict what kind of non-coder gets to participate in the development cycle based on their experience in the field and how many useful contributions they have made after a period of time. You will also need to let more people like me into the development cycle.
Un-news
I work in a small to medium Windows-centric office environment. I wouldn't go so far as to say OpenOffice is *BETTER* as a blanket statement. In fact, Office 2k3 has some pretty darn amazing features. But it is interesting that any time one of my co-workers has a problem with a corrupt Excel document, that the mere act of opening it in OpenOffice Spreadsheet, and saving it without modification will not only suddenly make the file work again about 90% of the time, but usually cuts the file size in half to boot!
This comment is fully compliant with RFC 527.
Microsoft calls NT a microkernel, but it's not. It is closer to a layered client/server model. Also, the kernel proper is different than kernel mode. If anything, NT has too many things running kernel mode. Since NT4, most of win32 runs in kernel mode (win32k.sys).
l for more information. (and the whole website)
Disk access running in user mode? Let's say you open a text file with notepad. Notepad calls CreateFile from win32 in kernel32.dll, in user mode. Win32 translates CreateFile into the native function NtCreateFile (ntdll.dll). All NtCreateFile does in user mode is load that function ID into a CPU register and raise a software interrupt. After that, everything is in kernel mode. Software interrupts for system calls are handled by KiSystemService (in ntoskrnl.exe). The corresponding entry for NtCreateFile in KiSystemServiceTable translates to ZwCreateFile. After that, the filesystem driver takes over.(Same thing with reading/writing).
Overall, applications are on top, then win32 (or some other subsystem), then the native api (ntdll), then in kernel mode the minidrivers, executive services, low level drivers, the kernel itself, and the HAL at the bottom.
See http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/info/ntdll.shtm
While you raise an interesting point, it does not support your position. Rather, it tends to support the "mindshare is everything" argument.
:-)
Consider: Apple fell to as little as 3% marketshare, and probably has no more than 5% right now. If it were not for Apple's powerful mindshare, they would likely not even exist today. How many companies can you think of, that, if driven down to only 3% marketshare and seeming to have no great product on the immediate horizon, would still be able to maintain a powerful base of utterly loyal customers who would see them through until the company got back on its feet. Then the company brings back the former CEO, gets some decent new product out the door, and is back on its feet and increasing marketshare.
If Microsoft is someday driven to 3% marketshare as a result of Linux and Apple eating its lunch (I'm not saying it's likely they'll go to that level, just for example), do you think that the remaining 3% of MS users would so fervently love Microsoft that they would refuse to switch to either Mac or Linux because they think MS products are so great that there simply is no alternative? I doubt it. There may be a few people like that, but Bill and Steve's families aren't big enough to keep Microsoft afloat by themselves
WRT positive momentum, Apple has that. You might have heard of the iPod and OS X? OS X helped tremendously to save Apple, not only because it's good but because it proved that after failed attempts to do so in the past, they could finally get a replacement for the aging MacOS out the door. Now the iPod and iTunes are bringing Apple not just a lot of mindshare, but real sales and marketshare, too. Do you think a person who buys an iPod and is a first-time Apple buyer might not consider a Mac for his/her next computer if they love their iPod?
I'm even thinking possibly buying a Mac for my next notebook, and I was a DOS user, then a Desqview user, then a Windows user (starting with 3.0; I had Windows 286 and Windows 386, but they were so bad they were pretty much useless), and later became a Linux and FreeBSD user. I've never owned an Apple product, don't have an MP3 player and would probably never buy an iPod, but I may well buy a PowerBook or iBook next year.
That's how Apple translates mindshare to marketshare. Like many people, I once wrote them off as roadkill, now I'm considering buying one of their products for the first time ever.