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Former Windows Chief on Microsoft Vs. Open-Source
prostoalex writes "Brad Silverberg, former chief of Microsoft Windows division, who left the company in 1999, is being interviewed by the Milestone Group, on Microsoft specifically, and the software venture capital world in general (Silverberg is currently working as managing partner for Ignition Partners). He provides an interesting viewpoint on Microsoft's understanding of open source: 'I don't think they have figured that out yet, I think that is clear. They are struggling with not so much open source, per se, but rather they are no longer the low price solution. In the past Microsoft was the low cost solution and Microsoft was then competing and attacking expensive proprietary systems from below. Now for the first time the tables are turned and it's Microsoft that's being attacked from below by a lower price solution. Microsoft needs to figure out how it can demonstrate better TCO to justify its higher prices. Another aspect to that, which is an area I think Microsoft is also struggling with, which is when you are as successful and dominant as they are, how do you continue to foster that ecosystem? What really propelled Microsoft Windows success was an ecosystem that they created that allowed other people to benefit from your success. Actually your success was really a side effect or byproduct of their own success.'"
I don't think they have figured that out yet, I think that is clear. They are struggling with not so much open source, per se, but rather they are no longer the low price solution.
Was Microsoft *ever* the low price solution? I'm sure I'm not the only one who laughed at the whole "they haven't figure that out yet" part. They haven't figured *anything* out yet. That's why we got rid of the feudal system -- because government, on all levels (including corporate management) should be for the people, by the people. My point is that Microsoft, being ruled by King Gates, is behind the times while they are trying to be ahead of the times. They are a working paradox. Open Source is to Closed Source, as Hive Societies are to Kingdoms; one clearly is better than the other and I think we can all agree which one it is.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
There are damn few large businesses that can handle a large change, let alone a fundamental change. Those that survive change (GE, e.g.) are generally so massive that they can lose some divisions' whole business model and carry on.
"But all your emitter and collector are belong to me!"
Silverberg says, "In the past Microsoft was the low cost solution and Microsoft was then competing and attacking expensive proprietary systems from below."
In the realm of personal computers, I do not think this observation is accurate at all. Microsoft's approach was not to compete on price in the normal sense of the word. Rather, Microsoft's approach was to bundle applications with the operating system. Since these applications and utilities were thus already "paid for" (or included for "free" in people's minds), people had less incentive to buy competing applications, even though the competing applications were often better.
I think the distinction is important. If a particular application becomes popoular, Microsoft just rolls a copy of it into the OS, thereby gutting the market for that application. How many people buy Eudora anymore? Or Netscape? Or Trumpet Winsock? This is not the same thing as competing on price.
I think it case could be made that very few people actually benefited from Microsoft's success that weren't inside of Microsoft. Yeah sure, a few developers here and there who made some apps, but most of them were then bought up by Microsoft (see: Visio). I think Microsoft is struggling, because for the first time they're having to actually sell their software on its merits. The customer has real choices. They can use Open Office that costs them nothing, or they can spend alot of money on Microsoft Office. Microsoft has to convince those people who use 1% of their products functionality that the product is worth the cost. As free or low cost alternatives come of age, that argument gets harder.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
I am tired of reading about "total cost of ownership". It is a made-up concept
Any concept of the inner workings of a Fortune 500 company? i.e. what it means to have thousands upon thousands of non technical users who are now required to use a PC for their job 8 hours a day? Any idea on earth what it costs to support these people? (hint- these operatives may make as low as minimum wage, but the people supporting them certainly don't!)
Why Not? - Because they are no longer meeting all IT needs, in fact they are basically the problem. Security is more important today.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
This article is basically what people here on Slashdot have already said ad nauseum. Microsoft is struggling to compete with something free, and Microsoft is struggling to compete with itself. I already knew that from countless discussions on the subject beforehand.
If the kids are smart enough to know about linux.. theyre most certainly in the know enough to pass around a pirated copy of windows.
Let's not forget that Windows was also running on commodity hardware. In the early years, it wasn't "Windows" - it was Mac or PC. People were buying a platform with all the advantages of commodity hardware; price, selection, customization, etc. The PC platform had considerable draw from the market. It was able to provide value to customers that previous proprietary computing products lacked. And in the end, the commodity platform "won".
That's not to say Microsoft didn't do a good job with supporting developers. They did better than Apple in many ways. But in those days, that simply ensured that "Killer App Version 2.0" was available for the "PC" as well as other platforms.
The real success for Windows was in it's being the catalyst for commoditization of the hardware market. And then riding the ensuing wave.
Now we're facing a possible next wave in IT; commoditization of the OS. Microsoft would clearly have issues with this. And they would rather fight it than try and ride this one too (or at least not start paddling for it until the very last minute). It's interesting to see that one notable who was plowed under by the earlier wave is now trying to set up to ride this one; IBM.
As long as Windows continues to be preloaded on a majority of machines, Windows will continue to sell (duh) and some of their apps will continue to sell.
On another note...
Ha! I remember a sentence in 'Undocumented DOS' so many years ago: "Your product may be a DLL in the next version of Windows." So the developers are finally wising up, eh? About fucking time.TCO, Total Cost of Ownership, isn't bogus - it's just a different/newer way of looking at how much an asset "really" costs someone. It might be used in some FUD that some software (or any other) companies put out to try and get people to buy their product, but it doesn't have to apply just to software and/or computers.
You could apply a TCO formula to just about everything. For example, the "TCO" of my car includes:
- How much I paid for it,
- How much insurance costs me,
- What the gas mileage is (how much gas costs me),
- How many people can it hold (how "efficient" is it?),
- How many other uses does it have that would cost me money to get otherwise (like towing), and
- other factors that I'm sure I'm forgetting right now.
One definition of TCO found on the web is (and there are a few):
"The life cycle cost view of an asset, which includes acquisition, setup, support, ongoing maintenance, service and all operating expenses. It focuses attention on the sum of all costs of owning an asset, as opposed to the initial or vendor cost, and is useful in outsourcing decisions."
(From The Bridgefield Group)
I was in the park the other day wondering why frisbees get bigger and bigger the closer they get - and then it hit me.
You still need input variables to your model, and as the model is a simplification in itself, you need to be extremely careful how you interpret the output.
I'm not saying that models have no value, but if the model tells you exactly what the gold price is going to be in 30 days time (for example), you need to know what the uncertainty is... which means we are back to probabilities and statistics.
A good way to use models is to perturb the inputs slightly and see how your outputs diverge. This is classic chaos theory. If a small change in input doesn't change the output, your model is stable.
Its relation to reality is another thing entirely. I've seen beautiful models that produce beautiful, stable, consistent but utterly meaningless results.
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
Yeah, but most kids these days are interested in computers for one reason: games. And as long as all games will be released on the windows platform (including cracked versons of Windows XP), kids will keep on using windows.
I respect your opinion on the matter, and for many people it does make a great deal of sense, but I see it differently.
I use OSS/Free Software when it's the best tool for the job. Right now I'm using Opera on Windows XP, but my servers run Linux.
OSS being cheaper($$$) than propriatary software is just one aspect of it being better in certain situations. As much as is possible, I leave my religion and politics out of my professional life.
For RMS and the like Free Software could be called a religion, the belief that Free Software is always better can be argued for convincingly. But ideology isn't a good way to convert new users.
People don't like being preached at. Standing on a soapbox browbeating people will get you fewer converts.
To me, this is never a battle driven by competition leading to lower prices. Rather, it has always been the ideologies involved.
I think that people like you, and people like me can and should work together on this. Lower prices is what prompted me to get my feet wet, so to speak, and that lead me to learn more about the OSS/Free Software philosophy. Use the lower price advantage to get people interested. Once they begin to listen to what you have to say, you can share the ideology without seeming like you're preaching or browbeating them.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Even here, the situation is improving, from a Linux point of view. Look at UT2004 and Doom 3. Two of the big releases this year, and one has Linux binaries (and even an install script) on the same CDs as the windows version, and the other is promising Linux binaries to download. Linux gaming is going mainstream. Slowly, but it's happening.
another problem is that MS funded TCO studies do not accurately anticipate downtime caused by malware or virus outbreaks. windows may be the winner in some studies, but statistics on paper can't guarantee a lower TCO in real life. If MS wants to be more credible, they should conduct a research on average downtime and estimate of financial damages caused by malware/virus last 6 months. My guess is that the world biggest marketing company won't do.
I believe you are incorrect. Both Netscape and Java were deadly competitors to Microsoft and, by their philosophy, nothing was to be spared in crushing these companies.
Netscape presented the vision of making the operating system irrelevant. Let's look at two of the most popular software products of the last few years: Google and Amazon. Yes, these are software products and each is completely platform agnostic. When I use Google or Amazon on Linux running Firefox, I get the exact same user experience as I get on Windows using IE. If this trend had continued, with the browser and its associated control of the user interface firmly in the hands of Netscape, Microsoft's monopoly position as the operating system of choice would have been lost.
Java was a danger due to a similar argument. Windows is popular because the most popular applications run on it. If Java delivered on its promise of platform independence, a whole new class of killer applications could have arose that were independant of the operating system. Microsoft would then no longer be the operating system of choice. Worse, it would not be the choice for the developers making new killer apps.
Killing Netscape and Java were not paranoid manoevers, they were carefully considered and rational defenses of one of Microsoft's two core strengths, the Operating System. Combined with the other strength: Office, Microsoft presents a huge barrier to entry for anyone attempting to wrest monopoly control over desktop computers from Microsoft.
The problem for Microsoft is they took out the companies, not the ideas. By the time they noticed, the idea of a universal browser was too well entrenched to go away. They have not yet succeeded in converting the Internet to a Microsoft only product (despite the best efforts of ActiveX and IIS).
Building a better Java is not an answer. At some point, the competitors would catch up to a standard such as a language, then how could Microsoft compete? Add features? To Sun's language?
And what happens when someone reimplements 80% of Office in Java? And suppose this new version runs just as nicely on Windows as, say, Mac? What's to keep people on Windows then?
No, these companies had to die. Nothing else would defend Microsoft's monopoly. That they attacked these companies is unfortunate, but part of our system of business. That they did so by exploiting their monopoly position is illegal and should have got them more severly punished.
These words have server a lot of people well and it should serve MS well to.
;)or whatever they want to name it and linux (The kernel that rules the x86 ;)). :(), misc apps.
:D.
As many here have said, Linux won't go away.
So if MS can't make Linux go away they should simply become like IBM. With there power they could really influence the Open Source community in any direction they want.
The first step is to port Office to linux(it's already working on mac os X, so that wouldn't be to hard to port). Then you make a killer GUI that will smash Apple's aqua to bits and finaly stopping all those switchers from the x86.
The important thing is to keep people on the x86 with office, Space GUI(space is cold and dark you know , gotta keep there old image
Then when they are the employers of 90% of the linux kernel coders (which they surely will be).
Now they have the power to control the way linux moves.
Becuse they employ the mayority of the kernel and surely most of the developers to X and all the other important liberaries.
Now they can optimize the whole system for there killer GUI, office, smb(Don't remember the real name of the protocol
And they can become the biggest distro
Ofcourse they have to do this slowly, phase out windows first in the server area then in the coperate area and last the homes.
They have to understand that there kernel is CRAP and would cost more money to develop to a better kernel then linux then to use the linux kernel.
Remember, there are som really great minds employed by MS. They just need to let them lose.
God,root what's the difference? I read slashdot, there for I errr... am stupid?
One doesn't need to ignore administration costs to see that Windows is more expensive. In fact, it HELPS to include administration costs, provided the study doesn't lie about them. One Windows admin is typically cheaper than one linux admin, this is true. But Linux doesn't need as much admin time as Windows, so it doesn't have the same servers-to-admins ratio.
Here's the real truth of TCO:
If the business is not computer-related, and thus the people in the company are not computer literate and shouldn't be expected to become computer literate, then Windows has lower TCO because it lets you do the simple things simply. If the business is computer-related, or large enough that it is expected to grow some in-house expertise, then Windows has higher TCO because it ONLY lets you do the simple things simply, at the expense of making the complex things really painful to deal with.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Say what you will about Windows as an operating system, but the application development toolchain is really, really slick.
I admit that I have less experience with Microsoft's tools than I do with with the Linux ones. However, I was fairly unimpressed with what I saw. Perhaps I'm missing something -- I'd love to be enlightened, as I see a number of MS people talking about how great the MS development environment is, but it seems to, well, kind of suck to me.
* The build configuration manager in Visual Studio is not very good. You create a new build (I think the defaults in a new project are "Debug" and "Release"), but if you want to maintain several configurations (Build, Release, non-GUI, etc), it gets to be a pain in the ass, and you have to copy options around from configuration to configuration. GNU make is much more flexible.
* A number of people seem to like the editor. I'll concede that it has a reasonably nice interface for completion, but I use xemacs as my editor, and Visual Studio really does not compare, now that I have xemacs set up *just* so. xemacs has similar completion (though without the argument descriptions and with an indexing pass) via etags.
* I've gotten errors/warnings during compilation from VS that I've found unclear before. I will concede that this may just a matter of the fact that I am very familiar with gcc and know its warnings well.
* VS apparently has a debugger that lets you modify code at the source level while debugging (that's one heck of a hack). Haven't played with it, but a few people have spoken of it positively, so I'll fly with it there.
* As GNU make runs, it prints out all the commands that it is executing. If a build step fails, you can see exactly what command was executing and what previous commands did. I've had times when Visual Studio said something like "Tool Command Failed", and I was reduced to commentin out lines in the pre- or post- build environment until the errors changed to determine what was going wrong.
* VS creates a ton of temporary and other files when you create projects. That's a little annoying.
* Pre-.NET version of VS use pseudo-text project files (.dsw). They *look* like text files, but VS cannot handle alternate line terminators on them. This is a pain when checking files into a CVS repository.
* I've had VS crash on me a during builds or other activity fair number of times. I haven't had gcc, GNU make, or xemacs crash on me in a long time.
* Free or bundled-with-VS diagnostic tools on Windows are relatively poor. I've cobbled together a set of tools that I generally use on Windows (filemon, regmon, Dependency Walker), but they don't really compare to the excellent free diagnostic software available for Linux.
* RAD tools -- I'm not a big fan of the Access or other RAD tool interfaces in Microsoft's development tools, but then I don't like glade and friends much either, so I can't really call out either.
I dunno. I'm just curious as to what I'm missing that people think is so fantastic.
May we never see th