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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?"
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.
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.
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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
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.
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.
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.
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!
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