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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.'"
Microsoft is likely to agressively start publishing TCO comparisons in various media outlets. Like all statistics, TCO numbers can be fudged too, but most customers will still believe whatever numbers are pushed to them. Open Source folks need to go out there also and start publishing their cost ownership numbers, with real life examples.
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How would you challenge TCO being a real thing? Evidence please. Most companies still have a bottom-line to account for; heck, even families do. TCO revolves around money. That's not made up, I'm afraid.
That is certainly true, but there's also a pscyhological dynamic as well. In the past (up until 1995) to some degree Microsoft was seen in two ways - the underdog (compared to the still-seen-as-evil IBM) and the platform of geeky freeware tinkerers. You used to have entire cottage industries that catered to the nerd contingent (eg JPSoft) of people who would sit at home
and -on thier dos computers- see what they could contruct on their own and how they could push the performance of their 386sx computers.
So, not only does Microsoft suffer from signifigantly higher TCO, but they also have lost any sort of "outsider" aka geek cred that they may have had pre-1995.
I believe that this, along with the ill-will from Microsoft's more famous stumblings (eg, crushing netscape) have gone a long way to erode any kind of good will that computer users may have once had for them.
Actually, the reverse is true. By and large over the last 11 years -starting with the assimilation of disk compression and one or two symantec technologies- Microsoft has built their success on the successful deployment of third party technologies. The pattern has typically been that a signifigant technology will get a small foothold on the windows platform, and then when it starts to look promising, MS will either buy it out (in the case of many of its' office products) or clone it and make the original redundant (as was the case with netscape).
So, yes, they 'allowed' other players to grow on their platform, but I think it was more a matter of fattening them up for the kill!
Microsoft, the (one time) king of software, believes it's own BS. The fact of the matter is, whatever the kids (high school and college) use is where the industry is going. Forget TCO and stuff like this. Back in the days of Windows 3.1, you could easily make the installation disks, and give them to your school mates and buddies, and so all the local kids had a copy. Sure, Apple was in the schools, but kids couldn't afford Apple (Macintosh) OS, so people stayed with Microsoft. Well, hello XP and such, where each and every user has to register.. kids can't get their hands on it and pass it around and such anymore. Enter Linux... :)
In my opinion, Linux is going to win because kids can get it cheap, College students can get it cheap, and it is the kids that drives the next wave of OS's, not the price or TCO.
I beleive I work for a company where MS is choosen because they are the low-price player.
Microsoft has expanded into many markets that they didn't need to. There is nothing wrong with that, and it is even pragmatic, but it is not conducive toward encouraging others to prosper with you. The truth is that Microsoft has merely allowed others to live. It's easier to let Adobe exist than to build a competitor to Photoshop, but Microsoft has the resources to do it.
Look at how with Longhorn they're systematically attacking Macromedia by going after Flash and Shockwave. They're already trying to demolish Dreamweaver and if they take out Flash, Shockwave and Dreamweaver then Macromedia will be at best a shadow of its former self.
The problem with Microsoft's attitude of "only the paranoid survive" is that it causes companies to see competitors where they don't really exist. Netscape didn't compete with Microsoft and a business agreement with Netscape probably would have worked better. Same thing with Java. Microsoft should have worked hard to be "the best Java platform provider, period." If Microsoft did that then no one would want to run Java on any OS other than Windows because anything else would be second rate.
The only thing Microsoft needs now is an answer to IBM Global Services. Unfortunately they're too busy attacking the trees to realize that the forest is moving in to kill them. Linux is just a few trees in the greater non-Microsoft forest that IBM GS is the vanguard of. The stronger they get, the weaker Microsoft's position gets, and IBM is playing hardball with Microsoft here.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
Was Microsoft *ever* the low price solution?
Yes, they were.
Back in the 1980's when they were first coming out.
The new standard IBM PC with MS-DOS was a low price solution compared to the alternative of mainframe applications.
Now, however, as hardward costs have continued to plummet, the market really wants the established technology to fade into an open standard with insignificant cost.
The IT decision makers are asking themselves the hard questions like:
Rewrapping Windows with added new features to justify charging for it can only go so far. It's actually come a long way for MS, but arguably their "innovation in the OS" theme has been pushing the bounds of the credible for a while."Provided by the management for your protection."
I think that MSFT has in fact figured this out, and that's why they devote so much technology and marketing talent into Windows as a development platform.
Say what you will about Windows as an operating system, but the application development toolchain is really, really slick.
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.
If MSFT really wanted to latch on to the future they would buy Yahoo, Google or Ebay. The era of anyone really caring that much about a document editor (enough tp pay gobs of cash for it) are over.
Microsoft:
1980: "Every house should have its own MS OS home-computer"
1990: "Every house should have its own MS OS home-computer, and every company should have our server system"
2000: "Every house should have its own MS OS home-computer, every company should have our server system, and every large-scale company should replace their existing UNIX systems with our stuff"
Linux:
2000: "Every company have our server system, and every large-scale company are replacing their existing UNIX systems with our stuff. Now how about this thought: Shouldnt every house have its own Linux home-computer?"
Linux is allready there at all levels, except for the average home-computer.
No, just more servers sold! Look we already replaced 2 entire racks this year, not 1 server came with a preinstalled OS.
...by doing what Apple did: Build your wimpy OS on top of something strong, like BSD, Linux, or some other flavor of *NIX.
I keep saying this and I am surprised that MS is not going that route somehow. I thought for sure that this Longhorn project would be some sort of MS implementation of *NIX. (Not Xenix).
We all know MS can do it if they wanted. We also know they like to copy Apple (Look at WIN 95)....it makes so much sense, from MS' perspective, I cannot fathom why MS doesn't build it's next version of Windows on top of BSD, Linux, or some other *NIX variant.
Maybe there is a project of this type already out there, but I've never seen it.
We could come up with a list of criteria to compare like:
Anyone have any additional items?
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Not really, samba actually does file and print using their own protocols.
It's faster and scales better than the Microsoft implementations by all accounts.
Alot of the theories of samba requiring so much more administration assume dancing through firehoops to get directory services.
First directory services are severly overrated, and second their only benefit is reduced administration. If you must roll your own dancing through firehoops solution to get them, they aren't worth it. And since alot of these companies are coming from nt 4 to begin with, it's just out and out ridiculous.
Even without samba though, cups printing is equally easy, and from a technical standpoint, far superior to anything MS offers. So we are really talking about filesharing.
Either way though, novell will be resolving the directory services issue and extra overhead required to set everything up to begin with. So once it enters the market, there will be a much more tangible initial cost savings as well as the long term admin costs (or lack thereof).
I think the bottom line is that Microsoft originally suceeded on it's merits, making (or buying) better software that filled a niche. The problem is that in the last 5 years, Microsoft has been relying on its momentum... Selling products by being the almost the only OEM OS software (barring Mac), bundling software with Windows to lock down a market (IE, Outlook Express, and slowly but surely, Windows Media Player), and resorting to compatability gimics (Office). Microsoft got so big they were able to use their momentum and ignore the software to a large extent. And now with other, better solution such as Firefox, Linux, OpenOffice, etc, Microsoft is starting to slip. They have to go back to doing what got them up there in the first place. After all, that's what Apple did. The lost momentum and were unable to coast on their previous success so they made OS X and focused on design/styling and now the much anticipated "Death of Apple(TM)" seems a long way away.
I worked in the server division for a tier 1 hardware company for 8 years. I thought that TCO was a gimic that the marketing group came up with to justify our higher hardware costs.
If I were in a shop with 5 servers that never failed, I might agree with your viewpoint.
I now work in an environment that has servers in the 10's of thousands. TCO is VERY real.
Ballpark numbers, a server that costs me $10k to purchase, may cost me $1k a month to run, not counting bandwidth. That $1k a month cost inludes power, cooling, admin overhead, tech overhead, etc.
Over the four year life of the server, that means that 20% of the servers cost was in aquisition, and the server costs me $50,000 over the lifetime of the server. I am more interested in saving that back end cost of $40,000 than I am in the $10k. Knock $1k off that server price, not interested. Making sure that my techs never have to go out to the floor to change a part in 4 years, you have my attention.
I would expect anyone who works in a large IT organization should know this. I am suprised by the amount of folks that do not.
Apple Macintosh shipped in 1984. Microsoft Windows was announced in 1983 but Windows 1.0 shipped in 1985.
Certainly Raskin begun the work on the Macintosh (and the GUI that the Lisa too then inherited) many years prior to 1984, but Apple didn't announce until the machine was ready to ship. (And it's much a matter of taste whether Win 1.0 ever was "ready to ship"...)
The Look & Feel lawsuit was Apple suing Microsoft, not the other way around...
Consider also Joe, the manager of the mega-corp IT department, who licenses and maintains 10,000 desktops. MS is again arguably a low-cost winner, again, especially considering the simple ROI factors.
Do the ROI figures include worm/virus/spyware cleanup?
You make the mistake of thinking you can educate the fundamental stupidity out of people. You can't.