Microsoft Loses Key Engineer to Google

galdur writes "Microsoft Watch reports Marc Lucovsky, one of Microsoft's key Windows architects has defected to Google. His confidence in Microsoft's ability to ship software seems to have waned, too. Some hypothesize Google working on an OS but in the wake of Google's inroads into Ajax tech applications (GMail, Suggest, Maps), I think Google may have other plans for the chief software architect for Microsoft's .Net My Services ("Hailstorm")" CT Many users are reporting 404s on the Microsoft Watch article, but its working fine for others. Hopefully they'll fix their server soon.

Comments

Blog entry is gone already?

[Eric Smith]

Anybody save a copy?

Re:Blog entry is gone already?

[Eric Smith]

Nevermind, now it works again. I wonder why Blogspot was previously telling me the page wasn't found.

Re:Blog entry is gone already?

[Anonymous Coward]

Saturday, February 12, 2005
Shipping Software
A few weeks ago I had lunch with the now famous "Mark Jen". I never knew Mark while we were at Microsoft, even though we both worked in the same group. Funny how large groups at Microsoft can get...

We had a great Google style lunch at a sunny table in Mountain View. I was too dense to notice that Mark was doing research for his blog. One thing he said got me thinking... Something that many have said over the years, that Microsoft "knows how to ship software".

Being a 16 year Microsoft veteran, a Distinguished Engineer, key architect and code writer for windows, architect of the largest source code control and build system ever attempted, I deeply believed that Microsoft knows how to ship software. We know how to build it, test it, localize it, manufacture it, charge lots of $$$ for it, etc.

Mark and I talked about this briefly at lunch that day, and I have been thinking about it from time to time since...

I am not sure I believe anymore, that Microsoft "knows how to ship software". When a Microsoft engineer fixes a minor defect, makes something faster or better, makes an API more functional and complete, how do they "ship" that software to me? I know the answer and so do you... The software sits in a source code control system for a minimum of two years (significantly longer for some of the early Longhorn code). At some point, the product that the fix is a part of will "ship" meaning that CD's will be pressed and delivered to customers and OEM's. In best case scenarios, the software will reach end users a few months after the Release To Manufacturing (RTM) date. In many cases, particularly for users working in large corporations, they won't see the software for a year or more post RTM...

Consider the .NET framework for a second. Suppose you wrote something innocent like a screen saver, written in C# based on the .NET framework. How would you as an ISV "ship your software"? You can't. Not unless you sign up to ship Microsoft's software as well. You see, the .NET Framework isn't widely deployed. It is present on a small fraction of machines in the world. Microsoft built the software, tested it, released it to manufacturing. They "shipped it", but it will take years for it to be deployed widely enough for you, the ISV to be able to take advantage of it. If you want to use .NET, you need to ship Microsoft's software for them. Isn't this an odd state of affairs? Microsoft is supposed to be the one that "knows how to ship software", but you are the one doing all the heavy lifting. You are the one that has to ship their software the last mile, install it on end user machines, ensure their machines still work after you perform this platform level surgery.

When an Amazon engineer fixes a minor defect, makes something faster or better, makes an API more functional and complete, how do they "ship" that software to me? What is the lag time between the engineer completing the work, and the software reaching its intended customers? A good friend of mine investigated a performance problem one morning, he saw an obvious defect and fixed it. His code was trivial, it was tested during the day, and rolled out that evening. By the next morning millions of users had benefited from his work. Not a single customer had to download a bag of bits, answer any silly questions, prove that they are not software thieves, reboot their computers, etc. The software was shipped to them, and they didn't have to lift a finger. Now that's what I call shipping software.

I would argue that Microsoft used to know how to ship software, but the world has changed... The companies that "know how to ship software" are the ones to watch. They have embraced the network, deeply understand the concept of "software as a service", and know how to deliver incredible value to their customers efficiently and quickly.
posted by Mark Lucovsky at 9:38 PM

18 Comments:
thomas woelfer said

Re:Blog entry is gone already?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thursday, March 03, 2005
Microsoft Loses Key Windows Architect to Google
By Mary Jo Foley

Mark Lucovsky, a former Microsoft distinguished engineer, has quietly abandoned the Redmond ship for one of Microsoft's archrivals.

One of Microsoft's key Windows architects has defected to Google. But at least so far, no one is talking about what Marc Lucovsky's new role will be at one of Microsoft's major rivals.
A 16-year Microsoft veteran, Lucovsky was one of a handful of "Distinguished Engineers" at Microsoft. He is credited as one of the core dozen engineers that came from Digital Equipment Corp. to Microsoft and built the Windows NT operating system. He was charged with building the Windows NT executive, kernel, Win32 run-time and other key elements of the operating system. NT was the precursor to Windows Server.

In 2000, Lucovsky was named the chief software architect for Microsoft's .Net My Services (code-named "Hailstorm") effort. .Net My Services never materialized in the form -- a set of personal Web services, hosted by Microsoft -- that Microsoft originally envisioned. Instead, the company has folded a number of the .Net My Services technologies into other Microsoft products.

Scripting.com's Dave Winer mentioned on his blog earlier this week that Lucovsky had defected to Google, with no further details.

Lucovsky "voluntarily left the company on 11/18/04," confirmed a Microsoft spokeswoman. "Obviously Microsoft can't comment on whether or not he now works for Google."

Google officials did not return calls requesting comments on Lucovsky.

Winer, like a number of industry watchers, are wagering that Google hired Lucovsky to help the search-engine king build an operating system.

But no one knows for sure. And even Lucovsky, whose newly minted blog lists Google as his employer, isn't saying what his new role at Google will entail.

Luckovsky isn't sparing harsh words for his former employer, however, pointing fingers at everything from Microsoft's difficulties in shipping software to its users on time, to its policy of requiring users to validate that they have non-pirated versions of Windows in order to obtain fixes and downloads.

In a blog posting dated February 12, Lucovsky railed against Microsoft for being unable to ship software.

"I am not sure I believe anymore, that Microsoft 'knows how to ship software,'" Lucovsky wrote.

"Microsoft is supposed to be the one that 'knows how to ship software,' but you (the end user) are the one doing all the heavy lifting. You are the one that has to ship their software the last mile, install it on end user machines, ensure their machines still work after you perform this platform level surgery," he continued.

"I would argue that Microsoft used to know how to ship software, but the world has changed... The companies that 'know how to ship software' are the ones to watch. They have embraced the network, deeply understand the concept of 'software as a service,' and know how to deliver incredible value to their customers efficiently and quickly," Lucovsky added.
Lucovsky wrote positively about Amazon.com's model for delivering new software bits to its customers.

When Amazon makes a fix to its software, "not a single customer had to download a bag of bits, answer any silly questions, prove that they are not software thieves, reboot their computers, etc. The software was shipped to them, and they didn't have to lift a finger. Now that's what I call shipping software," Lucovsky said.

Re:Blog entry is gone already?

[awful]

No, it's still there. It's his first blog post too. How's that, one post and he gets a slashdotting - not too shabby?

Re:Blog entry is gone already?

[Eric Smith]

The parent wasn't intended to be funny. I really did get an error from Blogspot the first two times I clicked on the link. Maybe it was the Slashdot effect.

Re:Blog entry is gone already?

[nacturation]

I think they used Ajax and scrubbed it clean.

Re:Blog entry is gone already?

[southpolesammy]

Buried in the comments to Marc's blog entry is this reply from Marcelo Lopez, Jr.:

I've come to believe that the ability to DELIVER software is INVERSELY proportional to the size of the company.

Now I'd rephrase that as proportional to the size of the product, not the company, but this comment is almost exactly on the mark. Windows has become so bloated, so patched, so susceptible to every ailment in the IT world, that it is almost impossible for Microsoft to get new updates to the customers because the amount of QA and UAT needed validate the new releases can delay product releases almost indefinitely. That they can release anything at all due to having to test for every single bug on the planet is amazing in and of itself.

Re:Blog entry is gone already?

[Anonymous Coward]

NT was the precursor to Windows Server.

What? NT is the the server, and workstation line, even today.

Re:Blog entry is gone already?

[Daengbo]

I know that it gets said a lot, but this is why I really like the concept of tools for specific tasks. They have nice, definable limits for testing.

Re:Blog entry is gone already?

[GraemeDonaldson]

NT was the precursor to Windows Server.

What? NT is the the server, and workstation line, even today.

Eh? Server 2003 and XP are grandchildren of NT. They are not NT itself.

Yes, NT was their precursor.

Re:Blog entry is gone already?

[mattspammail]

Who are the moderators on this?

That first post was "Funny"?!!!!

Moderator, kick yourself.

/., pleaserevoke remaining points for the stupid moderator who marked that first comment as "Funny".

The Bullet

[fembots]

It'll be interesting to see if there is any "Restriction of Trade" in the old contract.

And how useful is this Windows architect to Google if it is to come out with anything built by this guy? With the current silly-patent lawsuits happening every day, this might just give MS a bullet. What this guy "thought of" might have already been patented by MS, and in most cases, it doesn't matter if it's right or wrong.

Re:The Bullet

[slavemowgli]

True, but Google isn't a small startup without the financial/legal capabilities to defend itself anymore, either. Bullies always pick on the weakest - never those that, while still being smaller, might actually pose a challenge.

Re:The Bullet

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems to be a lot of traffic in terms of people moving in and out of Redmond. I figure that's nothing new but weren't there like 3 or 4 people from various game-worlds that moved over to MS to help create games for the NextBox?

So what does Google gain here? Brain matter. DotNet My Services...wasn't that the whole Passport thing to begin with? That went nowhere. Maybe Goog is trying to do the same but banking on their better community acceptance to make somethimg similar succeed where MS failed.

Re:The Bullet

[nodialtone]

Hmmm. Now all the developers are just standing around like "Jackasses" in a "Hailstorm".

Re:The Bullet

[shrewd]

true but i liken this more to a challange towards the alpha male's authority, not a bully in the playground, somehow i dont think microsoft will just let google alone because they are a challange.

Re:The Bullet

[michrech]

*cough*STAC Electronics*cough* (Their HDD Compression software)
*cough*Corel*cough* (WordPerfect anyone?)
*cough*IBM*cough* (What did they do to OS/2 again?)

I am SURE there are others. Those weren't, for their time, "small" companies with no money to defend themselv's.

Re:The Bullet

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but the law is a bit more tuned to the intellectual properties issues these days (for good or bad) - remember that back then, system intrusion was punishable only as "theft of electricity".

Re:The Bullet

[Anonymous Coward]

In the case of IBM and Corel, they blew their shitty products away with better alternatives.

They did screw over Stac, but Stac pretty much was a defenseless small company. Anyway, that had nothing to do with patents. (If anything, it was NDA violation by Microsoft.)

Re:The Bullet

[ArbitraryConstant]

People that are good at designing robust, orthogonal, extensible APIs are few and far between. If that's what Google wants to do with him, they can get their money's worth and more without ever touching any Microsoft IP.

Re:The Bullet

[MosesJones]

I had the pleasure of meeting with another ex-microsoft person last year who went to Google. And I have to say that what he demo'ed was uber-cool. Certainly nothing like an operating system, but a great 80% rule solution.

Now given that most people live in the browser, the firefox guy is at Google, the creator of IE is at Google, and now a .NET services guy is at Google...

Now if only this uber-cool stuff was available on mobile devices and could cope with disconnected working.

Re:The Bullet

[EddWo]

It's interesting you should say that.

I was reading "Showstopper!", the story of the creation of NT, a few weeks ago. It looks like Lucovsky was one of the original seven engineers that followed Cutler to Microsoft from Digital.

According to the book there was a standoff on their first day, as they all refused to sign the employment contract because it contained a 'paragraph 10' that specified that on leaving Microsoft they would not be allowed to work at a competitor for at least a year.
They reasoned that if their contracts with Digital had such a stipulation, then Microsoft could not have hired them away so easily. It only seemed fair that Microsoft could not impose that restriction on them either. In the end Cutler complained, and with the cooperation of Microsoft's lawyers that paragraph was removed from the contracts before they all signed.

That doesn't mean Lucovsky was still working under the same contract in 2004 as he started with in 1989, but its an interesting question.

Re:The Bullet

[tesloni]

Hmmm...

What if he was a Trojan horse?

Maybe Billy gives him proposition to infect Google with MS ideas and to prepare for a google's takeover by him...

Remember of old Ericsson software stuff which was been great Unix based, until some of MS high stuff was hired by Ericsson... After that they can't recover from MS intrusion...

Re:The Bullet

[gahzinia]

What about sco / ibm?

Re:The Bullet

[cduffy]

In the case of IBM and Corel, they blew their shitty products away with better alternatives.

There was much, much more going on there -- perhaps you're unfamiliar with Microsoft's involvement in OS/2?

Re:The Bullet

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the product that was sold as OS/2 or the original OS/2 that became Windows NT?

I assumed he meant the former, but in neither case was there an IP attack on IBM. As people pointed out in the case of SCO, if you're planning to stay in the technology business you _can't_ get in a patent war with IBM -- it's impossible not to infringe on them.

Re:The Bullet

[dmccarty]

It'll be interesting to see if there is any "Restriction of Trade" in the old contract.

I just finished reading Showstopper, the story about the creation of Windows NT. IIRC, Lucovsky originally came to Microsoft with about a dozen or so former Digital employees. But instead of a nice honeymoon period, the first thing that happened was a showdown over MS's no-compete clause in their contract. After a legal standoff that lasted most the day, MS relented and the employees were allowed to start working without agreeing to that clause.

Some other interesting tidbits about Lucovsky, from the book:

Many people felt that Lucovsky was a jerk. He was hard to manage but showed the pep and initiative that every team needs. Even more valuable, Lucovsky sought to understand how the many pieces of NT interacted as a system. [...] Lucovsky had a rare ability to learn the intricate details of his own pieces and at the same time clearly see how all the pieces fit together.

At Cutlers behest, Mark Lucovsky, the team's most versatile programmer, filled the gap. He tracked check-ins on a white board in his office and managed the now twice-weekly builds. Before each build he compiled a list of proposed changes, then spoke with each code writer about the rationale for the change and its affect on the stability of NT. Lucovsky's opinions carried weight; he probably understood the mosaic of NT better than anyone else, including Cutler. And he didn't tiptoe around fellow code writers but battered their egos with criticism. "If Lucovsky didn't write it, everything is a piece of shit," said one colleague.

And for those of you who would make cracks about NT or its children, 2K and Win server, please read the book or know what you're talking about before you pipe up. Sure, MS gets a lot of things wrong, and I'm no MS apologist, but name one other company/organization that has released a world-class, brand new OS in the last decade that runs most of the world's servers and computers. Cutler, Felton, Kimura, Whitmer, Abrash, Lucovsky and a host of others I'm probably forgetting. If those names don't mean anythign to you then you don't know some of the best software engineers alive. From an engineering standpoint, NT was a damned fine achievement.

Re:The Bullet

[SirSnapperHead]

wow.
I guess Google didn't have the advantage of reading this interesting post before poaching a key microsoft engineer.
well, you know, 20/20 vision is hindsight, or something. Maybe Google realises now what a mistake they made, after reading this +5 interesting post.
Thank God for Slashdot Mods, or what would I be thinking!

Re:The Bullet

[andreyw]

NT is an achievement, but Cutler is the real jerk, considering that Digital's death partly rests on his shoulders (and Digital's shitty marketing practices, but I digress.)

Re:The Bullet

[Anonymous Coward]

Forgive me, but Matt Felton doesn't belong in that crowd. Yes, he owned the MS-DOS subsystem, but... Don't get me wrong, Matt's awesome, but...

On the other hand, you missed Lou Perazzoli, Steve Wood, and Chuck Lenzmeier, and Darryl Havens who were more directly responsible for NT's success.

Re:The Bullet

[Razzak]

Google's in California, and California's employment laws are much more lenient. I believe any wages earned cannot be forfeited and you're free to work at any competitor. That's why many executives have non-compete severances packages, so that they don't get their severance package if they "compete." Thus motivation not to compete. Severance packages are not earned until the non-compete agreement has been fulfilled.

Re:The Bullet

[Anonymous Coward]

*cough* SCO

Re:The Bullet

[zonker]

yeah and maybe this guy can keep his freakin' mouth shut and not blab about everything he's doing all day long on the web... maybe he'll make it past a month! ;p

Re:The Bullet

[hughk]

The NT Kernel design was well engineered. Unfortunately Microsoft started compromising this when they decided to include the GDI into the kernel. It wasn't the only new kernel in recent times and in reality.

The problem is whilst the kernel is clean, there is a lot of crap around it that compromise integrity.

Re:The Bullet

[fritz1968]

Bullies always pick on the weakest

hmmm... I think someone should have explained this to SCO a few years ago.

Re:The Bullet

[CaptainZapp]

You forgot the good burgers from Sybase Inc. that got creamed out of SQL Server and into a software firm mediocre in terms of relevance when they wanted to go the SMP path. This is despite the fact that they technically still have excellent offerings in the enterprise database and - middleware market.

To be fair, the creaming was sweetened with significant money, but I still regard them as a candidate for Microsofts famous kiss of death [TM] list.

Re:The Bullet

[Anonymous Coward]

I think its more that bullies pick on whom appears weakest; and they're not always correct.

Linux and its supports obviously looked scattered and weak to SCO: after all, what mishmash of coders with sporadic mainstream support could withstand a righteous assault by a unified company with Microsoft support?

Then there's that whole issue of delusions and reality altering substance abuse that I suspect went on there as well...

Re:The Bullet

[sysadmn]

Damn, I saw that movie.

I wonder

[Ravenscall]

How many Shadowrunners it took to pull off that one.

Re:I wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

Hah! MS campus _is_ up in the Redmond Barrens after all, right near Seattle ;)

Re:I wonder

[AceCaseOR]

Usually it takes a group of four to six. However, considering where they were running, it would take a team as good as Sally Tsung's to pull it off. There must have been some serious nuyen behind this one.

Re:I wonder

[killtheOSSnazis]

why would it not be ethical?? I am sure he was employed at will.. adn could leave microsoft at any time for any reason, just as they could terminate at any time without any reason... Why would you question the ethics involved?? Why does anyone question ethics involved with someone taking a better job anyways??

Re:I wonder

[Knightfall]

OK, head count ... me, side-show elf-Bob, rigger at the wheel, the mark, wait ... oh hell, who left the damn troll behind again? I swear if we get caught going back for him AGAIN he looses his cut of the money. Why did we put a troll on this team again??? Oh yeah, he sat on Bill.

Re:I wonder

[BorgCopyeditor]

Please! You're humor is killing me! No maas!

Re:I wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

Now see... I like Shadowrun as much as the next guy, but you're a complete fucking moron.

Congratulations, dude.

Re:I wonder

[Louie's Demise]

...guarded by an Awakened Cockatrice and Hell hound.
Good thing my di-coat combat axe is back from the fixer...

Re:I wonder

[Knightfall]

Hmmm, I'm just kidding around on a Friday afternoon. You on the other hand don't evenhave the balls to put your name behind your ass-munch comment. Good work, your momma must be proud. Just to make sure, climb out of the basement and go ask her.

Is it ethical?

[Virtual Karma]

I sometimes wonder if it is ethical to attract the employees of a rival organization (maybe by offering better perks)

Re:Is it ethical?

[josh2112]

It's not Ethical, it's Business!

Re:Is it ethical?

[Eternally optimistic]

I'm sure this gentlemen acquired enough ethics at Microsoft, so this will not be an issue.

Re:Is it ethical?

[geoffspear]

Yes. Competing with your competitors is perfectly ethical.

That's like asking if it's ethical for there to be more than 1 company on the planet.

Re:Is it ethical?

[Doctor Crumb]

Of course it's ethical to attract employees with better perks. This is capitalism; an employee is free to pursue the highest 'bid' for their talents, provided they're not breaking any existing contracts. Big companies like MS have anti-competitive clauses in their contracts to prevent defections; they also offer good benefits packages on their own. If google managed to trump that, then good on them!

Re:Is it ethical?

[The-Perl-CD-Bookshel]

Wow, your name is no lie, you certaintly are "Eternally Optimistic!"

Re:Is it ethical?

[NerdConspiracy]

Why on earth not. It's called labor market

Re:Is it ethical?

[Anonymous Coward]

MS does it without blinking

Back during the peak of the bubble, MS hired one of two key personel from a promising Silicon valley startup. Started by doubling his salary, etc. Went up to 1 million, and the guy took off.

Then MS went after the second guy. The victimized company matched dollar for dollar until MS blew the doors of with a ridiculous 4 million dollar bonus AND he didn't have to work for a year.

Who could refuse that? The programmer apologized and took off.

The company was dead in the water.

MS didn't get these guys to have them work. They got these guys to kill that company.

Now, I don't know if it google's action was ethical, but at least MS finally got a taste of their own medicine.

Re:Is it ethical?

[Jherek Carnelian]

I sometimes wonder if it is ethical to attract the employees of a rival organization (maybe by offering better perks)

Poaching may or may not be ethical.

But,"turnabout is fair play," or in other cliche, "what's good for the goose is good for gander."

See: Borland Brain Drain Continues

Re:Is it ethical?

[northcat]

Of course not. But no one seems to care about ethics.

Re:Is it ethical?

[Spy der Mann]

Let me answer with a question.

Is it ethical to forbid your employees to work for your competitors if they ever leave?

In Mexico there is this case. The largest TV company in the country, Televisa, had this "shunning" clause on the contract, saying that all artist that left the company were forbidden to make TV appearances in competition's broadcasts.

Due to this fear, all the people were "loyal" to the company. They had no choice, it was the only major TV company.

And we ALL know Microsoft is a monopoly. Don't give them more ideas, please.

Re:Is it ethical?

[MikeCapone]

I sometimes wonder if it is ethical to attract the employees of a rival organization (maybe by offering better perks)

Hmm, isn't it what Microsoft does all the time (attracting them.. but also just buying out their competitors).

Besides, it's not like after you've worked somewhere you must refrain from ever again working anywhere else ever. Contracts usually have no-competition clauses, but they have to be limited to reasonable demands. Google will just use Marc in ways that don't go agains the clause..

Re:Is it ethical?

[EmbeddedJanitor]

No. The point is not on the company competeing, but whether it is ethical for an employee to up sticks and go to a competitor to help do something competitive.

Given that MS has an history of using any tool available to get their way, you can be sure the ethics card will be played.

Re:Is it ethical?

[gremlins]

I don't think that really could happen at Microsoft. Although they are big there are alot of companies out there that can compete against them for hiring. If they where to add a clause like that into their contact I would belive it would cause them to gain very loyal workers but the best and the brightest will never go for it and just get a job at another company for just as much money. So Microsoft will get tons of idiots who will never leave.

On second thought this is a great idea!!!

Re:Is it ethical?

[DickBreath]

I sometimes wonder if it is ethical to attract the employees of a rival organization (maybe by offering better perks)

At the present time, in the US, we do not practice slavery.

Unfortunantly for giant corporations like Microsoft, employees are free to move between jobs. No doubt, this problem will be corrected in time. Perhaps some enterprising corporation will see this particular employee loss as incentive to begin the process of correcting this problem in our society.

Re:Is it ethical?

[cmstremi]

Ethical doesn't matter. NDA's and Non-Compete Agreements matter.

As a developer, if I want to change jobs I have to consider openings that may compete a little. They're the ones I'm most qualified for/have the most experience with. That's my bread and butter.

Same goes with other types of work. When I was young, I delivered pizza for Hungry Howies. At one point, I left and delivered for Cottage Inn. An easy job to take because I knew how deliver a pizza and knew my way around the delivery area. That's how it works.

Re:Is it ethical?

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone has apparently either forgotten or is just plain ignorant of the many instances of theft of Intellectual property which Microsoft has been sued for and found liable(guilty) of as well as the fact that the company has been found by the courts to be using their monopoly power to unlawfully restrict trade.

Somebody needs to get their head out of their behind and actually start paying attention.

Re:Is it ethical?

[FecesFlingingRhesus]

Google does not care about ethics. I have been trying to tell everyone that Google is the Microsoft with a friendly face; they are a saber toothed puppy dog. Their evil knows no bounds and this is just one more piece to their diabolical puzzle for world information domination it is far more ambitious than anything bill could have ever conceived. Hence this guy going to join them. Expect to see more and more Microsoft employees leaving as Google discloses there true nature to them to get them to join allegiance. Look at my post here and here for more info.

Re:Is it ethical?

[Money for Nothin']

Why not? It's competition. If Alice offers Bob a better deal than Charlie, then why shouldn't Bob leave and take Alice's offer if Bob thinks it suits him better than his current job working for Charlie?

There's not even a shred of ethical dilemma here.

The simple economic fact is that Microsoft didn't compete hard enough to keep that developer, and now he's gone -- too bad, tough shit to MSFT, and now Google is one (presumably) very-competent architect richer, at the expense of probably six-figures a year in salary and benefits from Google. But Google believes he's worth it, so they're happy; Marc Lucovsky is happier at Google, else he wouldn't have jumped ship, and MSFT - well, who knows whether they care or not.

Perhaps MSFT cares - perhaps they valued Lucovsky enough to keep him at the conditions of his previous employ, but clearly they didn't value him enough to keep him at newer, higher conditions which in Lucovsky's mind beat the conditions of working at Google. And perhaps MSFT doesn't care at all; that they think they can get along just fine without him - we don't know, and probably won't know for a long time, if ever.

In the end, this is a nice example of labor economics benefiting the laborer (Lucovsky), by his playing a game of wage/benefits/happiness shopping, and "buying" the package Google offered while "selling" the package MSFT was providing. Again, there is not even a *shred* of ethical dilemma here...

If I can't convince you on the sheer fundamental economics of the situation (in which case, please try Econ101 sometime), can I at least get you on a "Microsoft is evil, so it's good that quality developers are jumping ship" argument? ;-)

Re:Is it ethical?

[wheelbarrow]

Yes it is. All of these employee to employer associations are voluntary for both parties. An employer can offer someone a job and that person is totally free to accept it or not based on whatever criteria they want.

Does anyone think it should be any other way?

Re:Is it ethical?

[Jeremi]

Unfortunantly for giant corporations like Microsoft, employees are free to move between jobs. No doubt, this problem will be corrected in time. Perhaps some enterprising corporation will see this particular employee loss as incentive to begin the process of correcting this problem in our society.

Don't worry, the solution is already here: hire foreigners with H-1B visas. That way, if they quit working for your company, they get deported back to their home country. It's like slavery, except better because you don't have to feed and house them yourself.

Re:Is it ethical?

[geoffspear]

Grandparent poster asked if it was ethical to attract your competitors' employees. Of course it is.

As for leaving one company to go to a competitor, I see no problem with that. It's not like corporations have loyalty to their employees and guarantee a job until retirement. Why should employees have the loyalty to stay with an employer until the employer decides the employee is no longer wanted? Is someone morally bound to stay with one company that they're not happy at if the only companies who would pay the same or better money for their skill set happen to be competitors?

Now, certainly to give trade secrets from your former employer to your new employer would be unethical and most likely illegal, but an employer can not reasonably claim that all of their employee's knowledge and skills can be classified as trade secrets.

I'd hope the people at Google are smart enough not to hire someone away because they hope to steal some future Microsoft product. But regardless of what you think of Microsoft, you have to admit they employ some smart people, and Google wants smart people. Are they supposed to find smart people with no prior experience in software development and teach them how to program?

Re:Is it ethical?

[offpath3]

Wow, your name is no lie, you certaintly are a "Feces Flinging Rhesus".

Re:Is it ethical?

[nonicenamesleft]

If Alice offers Bob a better deal than Charlie, then why shouldn't Bob leave and take Alice's offer

Agreed. Alice is anyday a better deal than Charlie, unless Bob is a friggin faggot.

Re:Is it ethical?

[CaptainZapp]

Excellent analyis.

I would wager though, that the attraction of his new job must not necessarily be in financial benefits. Of course this is a pure out of my ass speculation and I'm sure he's sallaried hansomly.

Case in point: One of the top managers of SwissRe left her certainly extremely comfortable position to become chairwoman of the Swiss WWF office. I'm pretty sure that she didn't even make 25% of her old benefits there.

Motivation is not always measured in money.

Re:Is it ethical?

[Anonymous Coward]

15 years ago, a company called my boss and yelled at him because he had hired one of their employees. "We don't do that in our line of business", they said.
They even claimed to have an agreement about it with the company next door to us...
My boss was stunned at first, but told those feudal SOB's to go fuck themselves, 'cause he sure as hell didn't have an agreement with them... ];->

Re:Is it ethical?

[Anonymous Coward]

What kind of ignorant moron are you?
You're probably one of those flower hugging budhist twats.

I've got news for you buddy: the meek shall not inherit the earth.

Google OS

[danielrm26]

This is big. As the parent touched on, the possibility of "Google OS" is definitely real. It would be utterly non-trivial, to be sure, but if anyone can pull it off, it's Google. Between their cooperation with the Firefox project and now the acquisition of a key Microsoft architect, the sky is the limit for this group.

Re:Google OS

[Kimos]

I'd be happy to see a Google OS. The only thing that worries me is how long will it be before the company becomes evil? Hopefully adding a key MS architect doesn't taint them.

Re:Google OS

[Otter]

Given that the guy doesn't seem to have been doing core OS work at Microsoft, I don't see any reason to conclude that he must be (or probably will be) working doing such work at Google. Beyond "Dave Winer says so", which I don't rate any higher than "My Rice Krispies said so".

Google seems to love to hire Smart Guys -- I'd guess his hiring falls under that heading.

Re:Google OS

[gimpynerd]

That seems to be a distinct if somewhat distant possibility. Google has slowly been on the rise for the past years. There would be no end of support for this type of venture considering the anti-Microsoft sentiment. Google might receive help from Linux as well, extending the relationship started witht he FireFox project.

Re:Google OS

[Tibor the Hun]

I don't think that the limit is the sky. I think the limit is the fact that Microsoft OS is installed on over 90% of world's desktops.
Even Apple is struggling agains Windows and they already have a superior desktop OS, and penetration in audio/video and design markets.
Heck, look at even Linux. It's free, it's useable, it's secure. And it took Linux a long time to be considered a viable desktop alternative.

I like Google's services, but I don't think they could pull off a profitable OS.

Re:Google OS

[slavemowgli]

Apart from what others have already said, I think you're missing one key question here: why would Google actually *want* to create their own OS? The dot-com bubble days of "we'll do it just because we can" are over; these days, (most) companies will only do things if they reasonably expect to make money with it.

Furthermore, Google's main expertise is in the field of searching, and so far, literally ALL of its products services have been based around that. Where would an operating system fit in there?

Re:Google OS

[Anonymous Coward]

snap, crackle, google os!

Re:Google OS

[Anonymous Custard]

why would Google actually *want* to create their own OS?

They created their own OS (highly highly customized distribution), and thus can do what no other companies can. They created a create targeted advertisement system and have licensed it to other businesses with great success - Google Ads are all over the place. So the concept of turning an internal utility into a sellable product isn't foreign to google at all. I'd be surprised if they didn't try to make some extra money on their OS investment.

Furthermore, Google's main expertise is in the field of searching, and so far, literally ALL of its products services have been based around that. Where would an operating system fit in there?

A heck of a lot goes on behind the scenes, including marketing, advertising, javascript, xml/xhtml, etc. Searching is just what you see. Google's "searching" expertise involves being good at many things.

Re:Google OS

[fbjon]

Microsoft crackled, he snapped, Google popped him. The Rice Krispies have spoken!

Re:Google OS

[Iscariot_]

The immediate goal is not profit, but growth of a "potential". Right now that 90% number you mentioned is getting in a lot of people's way. Reduce that deskop % and you increase your chance to sell your own plus apps to sit on top of it.

Think Xbox. The goal of the xbox was not profit. It was to reduce the % of market-share owned by the PS2 (and to some extent GameCube) so that the Xbox 2 would have a larger profitability margin and have a wider selection of games (meaming Microsoft intends to actually make $$ on the hardware this time).

Re:Google OS

[songofthephoenix]

I highly doubt Google are going to create an OS. They are already in a position of profit. What I do see is Google expanding their online presence into other area's i.e.

Google Chat

Google IM

Google portal

Google hosting

Google Forum's

A Google version of .Net Passport

Google WAP and mobile device services (which would make sense if you take into account the recent push for technology in this area).

They are definately in a position to do such thing's without placing too much effort into other area's of the I.T world. I can not see Google creating an OS, licensing that goes with it, HCL's etc etc.

Re:Google OS

[Foofoobar]

Well I doubt they will go with an OS all there own but what MIGHT happen is a proprietary file system.

Though most likely, you get a .NET developer to develop apps for the Windows desktop. I've been watching Monster up here in Seattle and they have been trying to recruit Windows testers and other stuff so it only makes sense that they are trying to put out apps for Windows.

Re:Google OS

[Auckerman]

Where would an operating system fit in there?

Google already sells search appliances. Perhaps this is a market they want to tap into further. Operating systems are not just for playing video games on.

Re:Google OS

[Rinikusu]

Hrm.

Filesystem?

I'm thinking like old BeOS's DB-style filesystem with searchable metatags, etc.

I really don't know how they would pull it off, but...

Re:Google OS

[camcorder]

The thing is, biggest obstacle any new OS will encounter is the porting of some key applications. Linux usage is low, not because it's inferior, because lots of key applications don't run on it. Like Macromedia applications, Adobe applications (apart from acrobat reader) and of course Games. Google can do nothing about this.

Re:Google OS

[Anonymous Coward]

Even Apple is struggling agains Windows and they already have a superior desktop OS

If you define "struggling" as "making millions of dollars" then yeah. They are struggling.

And it took Linux a long time to be considered a viable desktop alternative.

It still isn't. KDE is "Microsoft Windows without the evil", only with fewer features, fewer drivers, and no good office suites available. Gnome is even worse.

The Linux desktop environment is a Windows copy running on top of a UNIX copy. The only thing compelling about it is that it's open source, which makes it the perfect geek toy, but certainly won't get many "regular" folks interested in it.

Re:Google OS

[Anonymous Coward]

How could he make Google evil?! Is he in charge of ANY business operations? NO. End of story. One man couldn't make their software evil, either.

Re:Google OS

[0racle]

no end of support for this type of venture considering the anti-Microsoft sentiment
Which is, of course, the reason everyone is switching to Apples now. Hmmm wait a minute, theres something not quite right here.

Re:Google OS

[Tibor the Hun]

Sure, maybe they could put it out and together with Linux and Apple erode some of Microsoft's dominance.

However, it seems to me that the payoff would not be so great in the end. The consumer would just say: "Why would I pay 300 bucks for a GoogleOS, when I can get Windows for 150?"
No matter what Google offers, Microsoft can undercut it.

And in the end, Google is for the most part OS independant. Their focus is on using the Web, what could they possibly gain by having the control of the hardware on a user's PC? This way Microsoft has to deal with all the drivers and security issues, Google just rides for free on top of it.

Re:Google OS

[pixelgeek]

-- As the parent touched on, the possibility of "Google OS" is definitely real.

Given that his blog entry complains about the problems of shipping code when working on something like an OS as opposed to a web application or set of web services I frankly doubt that he will be then going to google to work on an OS.

Re:Google OS

[SunFan]

I'm not so sure. It seems to me operating systems are something you can't even charge money for, now. I only paid for Red Hat and OpenBSD in the past by choice for warm fuzzies, but, really, I never had to lay out a dime for them. I've paid for Solaris in the past, but I recently downloaded 5 CDs for Solaris 10 for no cost. The only widely-used operating systems people pay money for are Windows and Mac OS X (sure there are others, but can I download a mainframe OS onto my PC). They pay for Windows for a lack of any choice, and they pay for Mac OS because it is an entry into a lot of cool stuff.

So, I guess Google would either have to offer people no choice (unlikely with no monopoly status), or be so damn cool that people take notice (did that work for Be?).

Re:Google OS

[twiddlingbits]

I wonder if they made him take the silly tests and go through 14 interviews and 3 or 4 call back rounds like they have done to many "normal" smart-guy candidates. Maybe he just walked in and asked for a job, after all he is an "top notch MS Architect" which means he walks on water.

Re:Google OS

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop trolling. Gnome and KDE are both better than windows, as numerous studies have found.

Re:Google OS

[fupeg]

So this guy complains about how Microsoft's inability to "ship" .NET to everybody when compared to how a service like Amazon ships software, and you really think he wants to write an OS for Google? To this guy, there's already an OS out there: TCP/IP, HTML, and Ecma/JavaScript.

Re:Google OS

[alnjmshntr]

Well it's not that non-trivial. There are many oses out there that have come and gone over the years.

The real problem is getting people to start making applications for your os so it becomes attractive to the end-user. that's the critical mass.

Unless they are going to build a windows-compatible os?

Re:Google OS

[DocDendrite]

Google is not putting out an OS.

Re:Google OS

[XLawyer]

But Google has a secret plan:

1. Create new OS.

2. ???

3. PROFIT!

Re:Google OS

[ArbitraryConstant]

I seriously doubt they're interested in an OS as we know it.

More likely they want a framework for network applications to be available on the client side with more fidelity than you can get on a web browser. That's exactly the sort of thing Google would do.

Building on Firefox to do this is a pretty easy way to get where they want. Javascript is a very clumsy way to put code on the client side, while Java applets tend to push too much of the logic onto the client side and the sandbox they live in disconnects them from the browser too much.

My guess is that they want a middle ground -- much more powerful than Javascript, but without the restrictions of Java applets. Simply customizing Firefox is a very quick way to get there. They can create any scripting language they want with any API they want, and it will be available to every platform that runs Firefox instantly. That's what I call deploying software.

Think about that. You know those 1U Google search appliances they sell? Imagine one of those hosting your application, with much more advanced client side scripting than any browser can do now, an API on the server to make it easy and convenient for developers to make it go, and working perfectly on every computer in the company no matter what OS, version, patch level, etc.

That's exactly what the guy was talking about. Deploying software.

Re:Google OS

[miffo.swe]

Think about it for a minute.

What if google makes a bunch of swell services that are server centric? All computing is made on google servers and the user is just presented with a web interface like for eg. cgiirc.blitzed.org. I think thats whats going on, extending the google concept of clean easy interfaces to other services like IM and stuff.

Things like theese makes it easier to later on make another OS since they pull code away from the client into the servers. I dont think Microsoft likes that, not one tiny bit...expecielly since theyve lost the battle of the web long ago.

Re:Google OS

[DarkSarin]

Maybe, maybe not. It doesn't matter much.

The real possibility is not an OS, but a windows abstraction layer for linux (ala WINE) that really works. Would it violate his NDA? Probably, but that's his choice, and probably (in this scenario) underwritten by Google. Would I do it? Not likely, but I can't say for sure. It depends on their side of the contract, how the terms are written, etc.

Are NDA's truly enforceable? (As in, what is the guy's compensation for adherence beyond the term of his employment? OR, does the law allow for this type of contract?)

Who knows? IANAL, so I don't.

Re:Google OS

[BasilBrush]

Lots of people are moving to Macs.

Re:Google OS

[capt.mellow]

I'm with you on that. If anything, I think they're hoping to get his input on how to hook the desktop search et. al. into Windows more efficiently.

But who knows? I'm all for an os-agnostic suite of web apps, even a browser-based desktop. That holy grail's been chased for years now. Google's in a better position to do it right, moreso than all previous attempts by others.

Re:Google OS

[EddWo]

Lucovsky was one of the original core designers of NT, specifically he created the Win32 API as the primary API personality of the system.

There can't be many people who know more about Windows than he does, if Google wanted to create a Windows compatible system he would be a good person to have on their side.

Re:Google OS

[commodoresloat]

I don't think that the limit is the sky. I think the limit is the fact that Microsoft OS is installed on over 90% of world's desktops.

Yes, but look at the default Desktop background.

The limit is the sky.

Re:Google OS

[Anonymous Coward]

1: Kill yourself
2: ???
3: Profit!

Re:Google OS

[biglig2]

To me, the real OS that is going to replace everything is called the browser, and who better than Google to make that happen?

I mean, what do people actually do with a client PC that you couldn't, in theory, do with a browser and some plug-ins?

You can read news, e-mail, IM, blog, phone, listen to streaming audio and video, look at a recipie database, access an ERP or CRM system, upload the pictures from your digital camera, configure a firewall.

What if Google introduced a GWord that let you do basic word processing and store the documents in your gmail account? And a GSheet? GQuicken? (privacy nuts would freak, of course) GCalendar with a way to sync with a mobile phone? (SMS messages perhaps? Or would your always on 3G phone just access gcalendar.google.com/pda and beep when the alarms are due?)

Google are ideally placed to keep expanding this until Windows, Linux, OSX, etc. become irrelevant except for a handful of specialised tasks. Everything is in a browser; wireless is everywhere; and your computer becomes a phone handset or a TV/PVR or a imac style intelligent screen in it or a tablet or a seat in an internet cafe or a thing between PDA and tablet the size of a thin paperback novel.

I read somewhere something that gave me pause for thought. When electricity was new, companies had electricity departments and electricity managers and chief electricity officers and so on. Nowadays that sounds silly, electricity just works. Won't computing go the same way?

Re:Google OS

[starwed]

Google Chat
Google IM

I'd been wondering about this recently. Now that they have gmail, a messaging service is one of the few things that they lack that AOL/MSN/Yahoo posess. And its something that people (lots of normal, nongeeky people) actually use.

Something based on jabber would be interesting. I can't figure out how they'd make money off it, but google seems to be good at that. :)

Re:Google OS

[CaptainCarrot]

Apple: You're comparing apples (heh) and oranges. Apple is a hardware company, Mircosoft is a software company. You want Apple's OS, you have to buy Apple's hardware. MS doesn't have that hurdle to shoveling its schlock.

Linux took a long time to become a viable desktop alternative. It arguably is now. In the meantime it's done a nifty job of penetrating the server market.

All the same, I'm not so sure about a GoogleOS. GoogleDesktopEnvironment maybe, which would just be another way to deliver services, but there's a whole lot more to an OS than that and I just don't see Google heading in that direction.

Re:Google OS

[bushidocoder]

There won't be a commercial Google OS - Consumers who jump off the Microsoft boat are moving to Apple, and Google simply isn't a position to beat Apple at their own game. More reasonable is to expect that Google has a whole slew of OS developers to squeeze every ounce of performance out of their 100,000 machine search cluster, and to implement customized OS level clustering.

That said, I'm not so sure that losing MarkL is that big of a deal. He hasn't been working on the NT team for a while. As was mentioned in the article, he was the chief software architect on Hailstorm. Hailstorm is dead - MS axed a substantial slice of the Passport team and is abandoning the technology. I suspect that Google is in a better position to continue the construction of a centralized web authentication system, and MarkL wanted to see the vision he had over the past 3-4 years come to fruition.

Re:Google OS

[gmajor]

That sounds exactly like either WebTV or the Network Computer. And how will Google make this specialized architecture work where others (Microsoft, Oracle, and many more) have failed?

Re:Google OS

[kryocore]

They will likely keep it really simple and have all the processing happen at Google. Your OS will just display the information that came from Google.

Re:Google OS

[diegocgteleline.es]

# Google Chat # Google IM
Same thing

# Google portal
Google news?

# Google hosting
They've recently adquired the capacity of sellling domains, it has sense

# Google Forum's
Don't reinvent the wheel. Google news fits perfectly - it works somewhat like gmail, it's great, everyone could use it.

# A Google version of .Net Passport
Already there, called "Google account"

Re:Google OS

[Tibor the Hun]

Sure, that sounds like a dream come true in the terms of usability, but you know what the first question is that comes to mind to anyone who might want to migrate: "does it run MS Office?", "does it run Quicken", "Deerhunt"!?

It would be great for you and me, but Google would have a hard time getting it through the masses.

(But here's hoping they try!)

Re:Google OS

[bushidocoder]

I'm amazed at how people have have misinterpreted this news. Sure MarkL was a higher level engineer on the NT team, but lets be honest - most senior engineers at MS through the 90s worked in platform services or Office.

What's much more interested is that he was chief engineer on Hailstorm (MS Passport) for the past 5 years. Given Googles service spread and the fact that MS axed the Passport team, its much more likely he moved to Google to continue his vision of a centralized web authentication system.

If I was going to make wild predictions out of this announcement, I'd say Google is going to try a run around the Liberty Alliance and establish themselves as Passport with a more friendly face. Of course, just about everyone was predicting they would start working towards this months ago, so its just reinforcement.

Re:Google OS

[HangingChad]

The dot-com bubble days of "we'll do it just because we can" are over; these days, (most) companies will only do things if they reasonably expect to make money with it.

I wouldn't try pushing Google into a pedictable little corporate box. If they think they've got a reason to do it, they'll do it and the bean counters can go pound sand.

Re:Google OS

[OldManAndTheC]

I highly doubt Google are going to create an OS. They are already in a position of profit.

Also, where is the value? Who cares about your desktop, icons, etc in the web-centric world? Today's computer users sit down at their PC and open up a web browser to do what they need. As more services are made available on the web, the need for desktop apps will decline. Why pay money to the OS vendor when the perceived value is on the Internet?

Re:Google OS

[Anonymous Coward]

"Outperforms/put out of business its competition. So that users don't have a good, real, or viable alternative. Hmmm... search engines that approach Google in speed/usefulness, anyone? Right now, only for searches in specialized areas, I'd say. So: - check "
Yahoo and MSN search. Uncheck.

Re:Google OS

[afxgrin]

Please, We already know from previous articles that Google has more money then they can handle at this point. Also they no longer need to make their own OS. All they need to do is take one that already exists, one that their familiar with, and already has lots of industry backing.

If customizing heavily a preexisting Linux will do the trick, then why not? They've already done their own in-house customization of Red Hat, why not take this a step further?

Apple has basically done the same thing, but they took it a step further with some preexisting experience from NeXT.

Google is -the- top brand right now. I feel they may ride the investment capital as far as they can and make sure they provide value to their share holders. If they can leverage the OS market, that gives them access to every PC running GoogleOS.

Or maybe I've become delusional thinking that Linux will eventually take over everything. (make that Google) Hey, maybe this is Google's way of silencing all those nerds who are worried about Google going "evil".

Re:Google OS

[hutchy]

Flash runs on my Suse 9.1. In fact better than on winblows latest and greatest.

Re:Google OS

[chris_mahan]

No, but the windows platform could be relegated to gaming computer, in which case it would directly compete against... the xbox!

Re:Google OS

[Anonymous Coward]

To me, the real OS that is going to replace everything is called the browser, and who better than Google to make that happen?

Netscape. Oh wait, Microsoft illegally sabotaged Netscape.

Sun. Oh wait, Microsoft illegally sabotaged Java.

Good luck Google.

Re:Google OS

[INeededALogin]

I mean, what do people actually do with a client PC that you couldn't, in theory, do with a browser and some plug-ins?

Google is already moving away from the "web browser for everything" towards desktop based apps. Hence, the globe searching software(can't remember the name), the photo thing, the desktop search thing(that interfaces with the web), etc... A browser is suitable for some things, but anything written within a plugin is ultimately bound by the limitations of the browser and is tied directly to competing with other plugins/threads within that browser for CPU time before even making it to the OS.

Also, lets not forget about latency and good design. The response on anything should be as close to instant as possible. Browser's inherently have latency built into them, whether it is the loading of some page, or the clicking of one page to the next. This is also a reason that the Java GUI struggles so much is because it always feels so sluggish to use.

Re:Google OS

[SCVirus]

Just think, they can threaten OEMs to remove there results from google, if they don't offer GoogleOS. Seriously, a large percentage of users will google for 'dell' instead of trying 'dell.com' (i've seen people google for dell.com, go figure).

Re:Google OS

[Anonymous Coward]

The OS is the browser. Marc Andreessen was right. In fact it's his browser's grandchildren that are making it happen.

The browser still needs a little more lifting power. Good vector graphics, better forms processing, etc. But it's happening.

Re:Google OS

[drxray]

Hey, great! Does this mean I could run bittorrent(/emule/irc dcc server) on google's machines instead of mine? Download it when it's done... Seeding would no longer be a chore :)

Re:Google OS

[jericho4.0]

I don't know what studies have found, but I know several people who got fed up with windows and have moved to Linux. Download an image, burn, reboot, there ya go.

Re:Google OS

[drxray]

"I mean, what do people actually do with a client PC that you couldn't, in theory, do with a browser and some plug-ins?"

Uh, games? Video at a higher bitrate than your net connection?
There's certainly a great number of tasks that work better as a local app, even if they don't actually have to be local.
I suspect that by the time we're living in your infinite-bandwidth-everywhere utopia we'll have come up with some other things to do with full-fat computers that won't work so well with thin clients...if we'd all switched to thin clients in 1999 would we have Skype?

Re:Google OS

[karthik_r085]

Google may not build a new OS, but there is a higher probability of Google Linux distro coming out. BTW, check this out: http://www.cheaphostingdirectory.com/content-15.ht ml

Re:Google OS

[16K Ram Pack]

I think that ultimately it's where things are heading. If not now, then in 3, 5 or 10 years. It's going to happen. It's just the simple solution.

There are a few reasons why it may work where it didn't before.

1. A lot of the users on the web are not geeks like they were during Oracle's plan. People could admin their own machines. The internet has many people who aren't capable in that way. They are the people shopping or booking holidays. They are people who are probably using their PCs far more for connecting to web sites than anything else.

2. Viruses/Spyware etc have gone through the roof. People would rather maintain their own stuff.

3. Mobile devices. Better to have your data on a store than have it on multiple copies.

4. Familiarity and ubiquity of web. In the oracle times, people were still using a lot of desktop stuff that's now on the web. Think how much and how many people already use the web to get information, where in 1998 they probably had Encarta and used Autoroute.

5. More connectivity in and outside of businesses. Want to share a document with a supplier? In 1998, a lot of businesses I knew didn't want to go near the idea of their PCs being connected to the net. They had separate machines not connected to the main network.

Re:Google OS

[Tough Love]

I think the limit is the fact that Microsoft OS is installed on over 90% of world's desktops

Remember when Microsoft was installed on over 95% of the world's desktops?

Re:Google OS

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Apple is not a hardware company!
Apple is not a software company!

It's a computer company.

Re:Google OS

[16K Ram Pack]

I don't think they care less about the OS, as long as it can reach their services.

The next big battle in computing is software as service vs software on PC. I bet it's a battle that Microsoft doesn't want to deal with, but I have little doubt that it's the direction that everything will go.

There's already things like CRM solutions on the web. A lot of software has been or is getting beat by the web (route planners, encyclopedias, movie lookups). If someone made a project management tool like MS Project, but which you could rent and manage the whole thing via the web, people would start shifting to it in huge numbers. If Google made a calendar to work with Gmail, I'm sure that people would start uninstalling Outlook.

The web is simple. No software, no installs, less chances of viruses, more choice of clients. Get your data whereever you want. You just need the bandwidth and servers (both of which are getting cheaper and cheaper).

Re:Google OS

[16K Ram Pack]

I agree.

I know business people who are already renting "services" via the web. CRM software for one. If you are a 3-4 person office, the cost of getting a server and software installed and configured can be quite a dent. If you can rent the service for a few hundred dollars a year, it's cheaper. You know the software is getting maintained and updated centrally, so no patching at your end. It will run on more reliable hardware. It will get backed up. They can get their data anywhere on the road.

I already do it with route planners. I have a legit copy of Autoroute, but it's uninstalled. The reason is that I know that Michelin will be up-to-date with roads, when I use it, it will be patched to the best level, and new features can be added simply. It also means that I don't have a chunk of my hard drive with it on. It's just a service I use.

I think word processing and drawing packages will be the last to go, and people may keep them on their hard drives. But things like project management tools would be excellent as web based - set up a project via the browser, staff input their progress via the browser, clients can monitor progress via the browser. As a PM I'd love that.

Re:Google OS

[mbrod]

That is one of the first things I thought of when trying Gmail. It was a clean and effecient interface. A properly designed server centric OS could really do well. Server centric office suite would be a great start.

I log onto about 5 different computers each day and I would much rather have most of my settings and files centralized.

You make open office all Firefox compatible modules or extensions to make them enhanced web apps that work with the browser. Integrate Gmail into that a bit maybe or just leave it as is, it is pretty dang good just as it is. Then you have an online office suite you can use from any computer you want.

Re:Google OS

[wozza96]

Present tense. as in "it is taking linux a long time to be ready for the desktop"

Re:Google OS

[cpghost]

since they pull code away from the client into the servers.

If that's true, it would be the renaissance of thin clients and we'll see more low-power, fanless and silent CPUs out there.

Re:Google OS

[bryam]

Oh yes! but is Linux. Look at the final of the page.

Re:Google OS

[antirename]

My windows box IS my gaming box! I also use it for... hmm... not much anymore, now that I think about it. Ok, I use it for MS Office too. Maybe I'll do some more tinkering with Wine and fix that this weekend.

Re:Google OS

[Fred_A]

I think they already use a custom filesystem on their machines. I'm not sure it would be very useful outside of their specific application though.

Re:Google OS

[Farmer Tim]

When electricity was new, companies had electricity departments and electricity managers and chief electricity officers and so on. Nowadays that sounds silly, electricity just works. Won't computing go the same way? Ask Apple.

Re:Google OS

[zwei2stein]

# Google portal

- They already have full spectrum of portal services (news, email, forums ...)

# Google hosting

- Google cache anyone?

# Google Forum's

- ever seen new google groups?

# A Google version of .Net Passport

- all services (gmail, groups ...) are under one account now.

Re:Google OS

[biglig2]

Ah, but I play games on my XBox, and watch video on my PVR.

You have a good point though, long term predictions in the tech industry are always dodgy...

As that EFF Grokster document pointed out, the internet is meant to be peer to peer, all this client server nonsense is just a temporary arrangement to cope with underpowered PCs and slow links.

Re:Google OS

[biglig2]

Exactly my point. Since I got wireless broadband at home, it has made such a difference. Why buy autoroute, when Michelin or www.theaa.com does everything it could?

Drawing would be hard, I agree. But I would trust google to keep my personal docs in my gmail account; heh, a simple interface to LaTeX and a way to generate PDFs (so I can print) would be perfect.

Re:Google OS

[biglig2]

They are the people who make the ipods, aren't they, do they do computers too?

Re:Google OS

[Anonymous Coward]

When did a browser and some plug-ins become capable of replacing device drivers, scheduling processes, processing interrupts, managing filesystems, or all of the other hardware management handled by the OS? There's an awful lot of things going on behind the scenes in your PC that the browser couldn't function without.

Re:Google OS

[EnderWiggnz]

so, if this is the renaissance, when was the first big-time for thin clients?

Re:Google OS

[EnderWiggnz]

you can ignore the inherent crappiness of a hierarchical filesystem with a good-enough search technology.

Re:Google OS

[*SECADM]

Mainframes and vt100. Servers and X terminals.

The world goes in circles.

Re:Google OS

[EnderWiggnz]

but i thought that nobody would want to give up control over their own machine, and data?

Re:Google OS

[miffo.swe]

I think i didnt explain myself clear enough.

I think that more applications will be delivered by standard protocols like http/html and not by things that needs clients like Java, .Net and the likes.

Theese things are perfect for thin clients since you can run a local browser as the only interface.

Imagine the freedom of having your company running truly independant software? Change clients anyday and just continue working.

The biggest expense today when moving to linux from Windows isnt the cost of linux, its the cost of making your apps working on another platform that costs the bucks. If you make sure having an open applications framework the migration cost is near zero. Thats is really frightening to Microsoft since everyone can live without Windows but not many can live without their inhouse applications that is tied to Windows.

Bottom line is this:

Whenever you get a new system make sure as hell its truly platform independant. Never ever lock yourself into Java or .Net or anything you cant control yourself.

Mirror

[Broke Mirror]

http://mark-lucovsky.blogspot.com.nyud.net:8090/20 05/02/shipping-software.html

Re:Mirror

[ackthpt]

Thanks for the mirror.

As someone who deveopes in .net I hear Mark's second-guessing 'microsoft ships software' I wondered deeply why the hell they didn't bundle the .net framework with XP.

Re:Mirror

[Wiseleo]

It is in fact bundled with XP and 2003 Server. :-)

How long have we been waiting for longhorn?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, I think I will see it in 2007...

careful Google

[Anonymous Coward]

Marc Lucovsky, one of Microsoft's key Windows architects has defected to Google

Marc could be a double agent! Large scale industrial sabotage alert!

Heh...

[the_skywise]

Buck Fill...

Man, what'd they use to call it when Microsoft did it to their competitors... There was an actual term associated with it when they'd drive up to their competition in Limo's and try to hire away their best staff for million dollar salaries... (like they did to Borland)

And I end with a quote from Oliver of Bloom County:
"Hackers don't handle obsolescence well."

Re:Heh...

[Yaa 101]

And now we call it Fuck Bill...

Coral Link

[deadmongrel]

I can get to the page without any problem. Perhaps this might work for those who can't http://www.microsoft-watch.com.nyud.net:8090/artic le2/0,1995,1772125,00.asp

Re:Coral Link

[Anonymous Coward]

"This blog is very poorly done. Your spelling, punctuation, and grammar are all substandard. Even as a technologically-minded person, you have to pay attention to how you communicate, because that is just as important as the ideas you are trying to get acros?"

Who's the bigger loser those with a blog or those who leave comments because of grammar and syntax errors?

Re:Coral Link

[graffix_jones]

Funny, even the pop-up's are mirrored. :D

The end of Windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure this is very similar when a key architect from Novell who created Borland Pascal, defected to Microsoft so that they could create MS Money which ended up dominating the accounting software field in the 32-bit arena.

I hope that Microsoft does not see this as Google trying to appropriate insider-knowledge so they can created a FreeBSD-based variant of Windows that supports Win32 API and DirectX because that could have a serious impact in their corporate market share.

Perhaps if MS didn't overwork their staff (read any horror stories of MS driving their coders to exhaustion for NHL Madden 2005 on the XBOX) they retain the talent.

As it is, I feel that Google has gained a valuable resource into their fold and may be able to provide intellisense or similar functionality in their searches.

Which is nice.

Re:The end of Windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't that EA that was overworking the game coders?

Re:The end of Windows?

[hanshotfirst]

"...MS Money which ended up dominating the accounting software field in the 32-bit arena."

Hardly dominating. They only started focusing on MS Money when their attempt to buy Intuit/Quicken failed.

Seems to me Quicken would still be considered the big dog... Quicken Interchange Format is ubiquitous. What is MS Money's interchange format?

If you are just looking at installed base, that is different than usage base, since MS did the "give away MS money for free" gimmick like they did with IE. It didn't kill Quicken the way it killed pay-per-license Netscape.

Re:The end of Windows?

[-kertrats-]

Yes, Madden NHL. That's where the season went! He ate it!

Re:The end of Windows?

[Bodhammer]

QIF is dead

Customers bemoan changes in Quicken 2005

Re:The end of Windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought they hired the Delphi architect to create C#, not Money.

Your larger point is true. Microsoft is notorious for direct dialing top engineers from the competitors and throwing money and titles at them. See: David Cutler.

Re:The end of Windows?

[tevenson]

NHL stands for the National Hockey League.

Madden 2005 is a NFL branded football game.

Microsoft hasn't released a game recreating either sport with the '05 moniker and will not.

You should spend more time reading ESPN.com and IGN.com instead of /.

Re:The end of Windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

so that they could create MS Money which ended up dominating the accounting software field in the 32-bit arena.

Last time I checked, the accounting software field is dominated by Quicken.

(looks again)

Yep. Still on top.

WTF is "MS Money"?

Re:The end of Windows?

[m_c_rose]

I would say its most like when Marc Lucovsky left DEC and took his knowledge of VMS to Microsoft to write what became NT, do you think it was a coincidence that it ran on the Alpha chip.

In response to MS overworking their employees I would guess someone this high up the chain is only overworked when he chooses to be.

404s?

[Anonymous Coward]

Many users are reporting 404s on the Microsoft Watch article, but its working fine for others. Hopefully they'll fix their server soon.

Yeah, they're on the top of the frontpage of slashdot -- how dare they not have their server responding flawlessly?

GooOS

[Virtual Karma]

I'm telling you man.. this is all about GooOS Link: http://virtualkarma.blogspot.com/2005/02/is-google -planning-gooos.html

Re:GooOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Get your facts straight.

1. Google toolbar already has Google computing initiative. http://toolbar.google.com/dc/offerdc.html "The Google Compute feature of the Google Toolbar shouldn't affect your regular computing activities and you can easily disable it at any time for any reason."

So what? It's Folding@Home. Nothing at all to do with OSes.

2. Rob Pike (a prominent OS researcher) might be hired to maintain the internal Google Cluster which boasts of the Google Filesystem. His project the 9 Grid is [Snip; Not posting the whole thing]

Rob Pike is at Google for his distributed computing knowledge; Not his OS knowledge. That, and because he's Rob Pike. Further, 9grid isn't Rob Pike's project. It is mainly the work of Ron Minnich who works at LANL. Moreover, 9grid isn't an application or a "grid OS" as your little article implies. 9grid is the use of Plan 9, the OS. "Porting it" to other operating systems isn't possible as it is an OS.

All that "wealth of research of google into the OS market" is papers done by people before they were at Google. It's Google's means of getting investments and more developers. Nothing to do with building an OS.

But what I would like to believe is Google is planning its foray into desktops with a Grid like system based on the browser where the file system and all other OS resources are going to be distributed.

You've shown nothing to indicate this.

In other news from the future

[Anonymous Coward]

Google announces multiple security vulnerabilities in its software.

owned

[demon411]

google is owning ms

Re:owned

[demon411]

sorry was obligitory google vs ms comment

Re:owned

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it wasn't.

Predictions of Doom

[aspx]

I can't wait to hear all the predictions of how this is the end of Microsoft. Relax folks, a key M$ guy just got a better offer, that's all. If Google does build an operating system, they will have to face the same problem that has held up everyone else: critical mass.

Re:Predictions of Doom

[Anonymous Coward]

i bet there are millions of Windoze users that find BSD & Linux a little too difficult, OS-X too expensive, and wish there was another x86 that was user friendly...

maybe something like a BSD based OS-X clone built for X86

just my $00.02

Re:Predictions of Doom

[Golias]

I can't wait to hear all the predictions of how this is the end of Microsoft. Relax folks...

Ooo! Does this mean we can start calling Microsoft "beleagured"?

What fun! It's like FUD Karma!

"Hmmm... I suppose you could go with an Exchange Server, but I hear Google plans to come up with a new OS which will probably drive Microsoft out of business, and then what kind of support will you be left with? Let me show you some Open Source alternatives for your mail server which you know you can depend on..."

Re:Predictions of Doom

[Anonymousse Custard]

I wonder what would happen if everyone who hit google with IE got a big "Your browser is insecure, would you like us to send you a copy of Gooooglebrowser (i.e. Firefox) to use instead?" Maybe add in a "you can get more content with our browser" and such to suck people away from IE. I doubt they would do this, but it is interesting to think about.

Re:Predictions of Doom

[toddbu]

Back in the "good old days" when Netscape was the #1 browser, there was a term called "mind share" that BillG and others used to refer to the acceptance level that a company had within an industry. What has been killing Microsoft since the late 1990's is that it believes that its key market is corporations, but as we've all seen with Red Hat's near-abandonment of their user base is that corporations aren't the people that you really need to keep happy. You always have to please the end user, and the whole point of the blog is that the Web allows developers to interact directly with the end user without having to deal with internal bureaucracies and IT departments.

In some ways this the same evolution that we saw when moving from mainframes to PCs. When PCs weren't on the IT radar then you could do virtually anything you wanted, including upgrade the OS when you thought that it was worthwhile to do so. The problem that IT departments realized was that they were being squeezed out by the PC crowd so they started instituting controls which prevented the rapid upgrade cycle. This was good for the paid professionals that wanted to keep their jobs, but bad for the end user who just wanted a fix for the problem.

Microsoft's problem isn't so much that it can't ship software. Microsoft's problem is that it has the wrong target audience and an outdated delivery model. Microsoft was right to be nervous of the concept of the browser becoming the OS, and while it hasn't happened yet it appears that we're currently headed in that direction. I work for an ASP because I think that it's where the future is.

Let's face it, end users don't care about technology. They just want stuff that works. You can either stuff everything you'd ever want into a bloated box like Microsoft is doing today, or you can have a super-scalable solution where my web browser connects to servers that serve up specialized solutions. I may not get everything that I need, but at lot of small ASPs are going to be more responsive to their customers than large monolithic corporations like Microsoft. And they don't necessarily have to have "critical mass" to do so.

Re:Predictions of Doom

[Anonymous Coward]

Guy wrote hailstorm. I wonder if google is going to come out with a hailstorm type product(database of personal information). Its seems only logical, they have the best searching technologies. If they do, will the slashbotters accept it? We all know how hyprocritical slashbotters are when it comes to privacy, drm or any other important issues affecting the net. Its only good if tivo,apple or google does it. Slashbotter's have already accepted apple's drm and if google comes out with hailstorm type product, they'll accept a database of all your personal information.

Re:Predictions of Doom

[Anonymous Coward]

The real prediction of doom is against Google. In the end, they'll overreach, try to be all things to all people and evenutally pop like a big balloon just like AOL. Remember them?

Re:Predictions of Doom

[RoLi]

If Google does build an operating system, they will have to face the same problem that has held up everyone else: critical mass.

True.

However unlike in the 90's with Linux there exists an OS that runs on (almost) all hardware and runs a lot of software.

Actually Linux would be perfect for a lot of non-gaming Windows users, the only thing deeply missing is good marketing. And Google could solve that.

If they build an OS, which I really doubt....

Re:Predictions of Doom

[Rimbo]

I agree that we're not going to see the "end of Microsoft." Microsoft can do their best possible impersonation of Skylab for twenty years straight and never hit bottom.

Part of succeeding in business is having the right people, and one of the right people just left Microsoft. By itself, it doesn't mean much. Compiled with certain other events, eyebrows which have already begun a Science Officer Spock ascent hitch yet another millimeter; eyebrows that haven't give a twitch.

It's not the end of Microsoft, but these tidbits portend the end of Microsoft's dominance.

Re:Predictions of Doom

[Money for Nothin']

Ooo! Does this mean we can start calling Microsoft "beleagured"?

"It is official; Slashdot confirms: Windows is dying"

One more crippling bombshell hit the already-beleagured Windows community when Microsoft-Watch.com confirmed that Windows mindshare has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1% of all lead developers..."

Google News

[solomonrex]

1. They already have their own OS that is specialized to be super reliable for their cluster (read the other Google news item from today). They even refer to it as 'Google OS'. It's really just a specialized Red Hat based kernel (according to the news).

2. This guy made a point of explaining in his blog (when it was up) that Microsoft doesn't ship software, and he admires that Amazon ships software immediately, via the web. Google would obviously appeal to him for this reason.

Re:Google News

[Tibor the Hun]

I'm sure they didn't develop a UI from scratch just so they can run it with their cluster controlling OS

There are major differences between a desktop OS and a super reliable cluster OS. That is why Linux is a perfectly acceptable OS for clustering, but not so much for the desktop. You don't think that they're loading all the USB, audio, video, modem, NIC drivers or a dozen different CODECs every time a cluster node gets booted up?

Re:Google News

[Anonymous Coward]

oh good fucking lord, like you'd know whats necessary for a fucking desktop system.

Re:Google News

[Ticklemonster]

Pfft, Redhat (nor anything else Linux for that matter) isn't an OS. It's a command line wrapped in a UI. A CLUI! koff koff.

Dangit, I'm gonna get slammed again!

Re:Google News

[drsquare]

This guy made a point of explaining in his blog (when it was up) that Microsoft doesn't ship software, and he admires that Amazon ships software immediately, via the web.

I think that's an unfair comparison. As far as I'm aware, Amazon doesn't ship software, it's a web-site. Changes to their software involve changing the single installation on their website, they don't have to get hundreds of millions of people to change their own computer.

On the Google OS note, I think this would be great, the world is crying out for a decent alternative to Windows. OSX only runs on expensive specialist hardware, and Linux is well, imagine a man with each limb tied to a horse, and each horse pulling in a different direction. Linux is that man, the horses are the OSS development community. A Google OS could cut all the horses but one, and the horse would be pulling in a single direction, and would get somewhere.

What's the penalty for that crime?

[Anonymous Coward]

He was charged with building the Windows NT executive, kernel, Win32 run-time and other key elements of the operating system. NT was the precursor to Windows Server.

Seems like 20 to life might be appropriate for this bit of malfeasance.

How long?

[06metzp]

I hate to think about it, but how long will it be before Google is the all-encompassing monster monopoly that starts to put out crappy products?

Re:How long?

[Ciderx]

How long until Google puts out crappy products? I take it you haven't used Google Desktop Search?

Re:How long?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or Google Groups 2. I hear Picasa is bad too.

Re:How long?

[UnknowingFool]

Too late. Have you seen this?

Re:How long?

[06metzp]

Picasa is okay, I had a lot of photos scattered all over my hard drive and it helped me collect them. The instant redeye is handy even though I use Photoshop for most image editing... so it's nothing stellar but not completely useless either.

[/offtopic]

You may have heard of Mark...

[jaylee7877]

He wrote the famous memo that claimed 63,000 bugs in Windows 2000 gold. Evidently his discontempt for Microsoft's software practices has been boiling for some time. Hope he does well at Google.

Re:You may have heard of Mark...

[stud9920]

his discontempt ? So he actually admired their practices ?

Re:You may have heard of Mark...

[jaylee7877]

errr... discontent. It sounded right in my head, I promise, but then a lot of things sound right in my head until my mouth speaks them...

Re:You may have heard of Mark...

[rifftide]

And if their bug tracking tool hadn't been a 16-bit app, they might've reported even more bugs.

Re:You may have heard of Mark...

[Dun Malg]

errr... discontent. It sounded right in my head, I promise, but then a lot of things sound right in my head until my mouth speaks them...

Even if "discontempt" isn't actually a word, it should be.

Re:You may have heard of Mark...

[Greyfox]

Hope he does better than the LAST employee Microsoft lost to Google...

Re:You may have heard of Mark...

[OldManAndTheC]

Even if "discontempt" isn't actually a word, it should be.

Oh no it shouldn't.

Before this newborn word draws breath, let us strangle it in its crib, as we should have done for "normalcy", "incent", and "misunderestimate".

Re:You may have heard of Mark...

[synaptik]

Before this newborn word draws breath, let us strangle it in its crib, as we should have done for "normalcy", "incent", and "misunderestimate".

Now see here, young man... 'Misunderestimate' is a perfectly cromulent word. :)=

Re:You may have heard of Mark...

[jerryasher]

You bastard! I knew it wasn't a word, and yet.... Yet you still sent me to google it to prove it.

Err! I am very antidiscontempted with you.

Re:You may have heard of Mark...

[OldManAndTheC]

Now see here, young man... 'Misunderestimate' is a perfectly cromulent word. :)=

'Cromulent.' Er, yes. Right. Thank you for embiggening my vocabulary!

Re:You may have heard of Mark...

[drsmithy]

He wrote the famous memo that claimed 63,000 bugs in Windows 2000 gold.

Yeah, but imagine the count for Linux if spelling errors were considered "bugs" like they were in that report... :)

Re:You may have heard of Mark...

[mislinux]

If a President of the US coined a word, then you have to give it due credit.

Warren G. Harding won the election of 1920 by a landslide on the promise of a "return to normalcy"--which, for Republicans in the 1920s, meant a return to big business.

or was it...

It was not (contrary to popular opinion)coined by President Warren G Harding. It is a British English word of considerable antiquity.

Either way...big business = microsoft...

Re:You may have heard of Mark...

[OldManAndTheC]

If a President of the US coined a word, then you have to give it due credit.

If a President were to think of a new word after due thought and consideration, I would credit it. However, if a President were to blurt out a malformed, ugly, dissonant utterance that merely resembles a word (but isn't one) then I reserve the right to lampoon it and him mercilessly. Not that we are speaking of anyone in particular.

It ["normalcy"] was not (contrary to popular opinion)coined by President Warren G Harding. It is a British English word of considerable antiquity.

I am chastened to find that you are correct, although according to Random House it was coined in 1857, which is not so ancient in my book. I object more to its odd construction and sound though, than to its association with Harding, who was famously bad with words, having also brought "bloviate" into common parlance.

No discussion of Harding would be complete without H.L. Mencken's description of him:

"He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash."

Maybe "nucular" ain't so bad after all :)

You know it's bad when...

[Khyber]

Even the Borg themselves can't keep ahold of their own collective.

All your drones are belong to Google.

Re:You know it's bad when...

[Swamii]

Or maybe Google is conforming into it's own version of the Borg...

Re:You know it's bad when...

[Khyber]

I doubt they're making their own version of the Borg. The Borg were mindless drones controlled by one, just like Microsoft. Google has at least more than half a brain.

AJAX...

[drew]

can we please ditch this acronym? it was lame last week when whats-his-name had to write a big article about this cool new technology (which has been around in one form or another since at least 1998), it's still lame now, and it will continue to be lame in the future...

Re:AJAX...

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen to that!

Re:AJAX...

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen to that!

Don't you mean: ATT!

Re:AJAX...

[recursiv]

How do you propose we refer to it then?

We certainly are going to refer to it as an increasing number of applications see the light of day. It is certainly better than having to say 'client side javascript engine using CSS and DHTML to affect visible changes and asynchronously using http requests to handle data transfers without loading new pages'.

Re:AJAX...

[Anonymous Coward]

Double amen to that! Aside being really really lame, every other product under the sun is called Ajax.

Re:AJAX...

[Peejeh]

This tech is commonly known as "remote scripting".

AJAX is a confusing term since remove scripting doesn't have to use XML (what the X in AJAX stands for surprisingly) infact JSON would be a much better format.

Re:AJAX...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention that:

A) "Ajax" is some lame marketing name assigned to something everyone had been doing for years in the first place.

B) GMail/Suggest/Etc don't do their stuff with/over XML.

Stop perpetuating crap, people.

Adaptive Path Did Not Invent This Technology!

The battle has already been lost, however. del.icio.us has already gained a prominent "ajax" tag. Shows how easy it is to brainwash the masses.

Re:AJAX...

[Anonymous Coward]

No kidding, maybe if I invent a term next week and then referr to it the week after, I'll be cool also.

Re:AJAX...

[Arleo]

Ajax is the number one footbal team in The Netherlands. It has a history of almost 105 years. From all the Dutch football clubs it has won the most cups, including the Champions League and the World Cup for club teams. It's the first hit that comes up at google. Says enough. Nothing lame about that.

Re:AJAX...

[drew]

i wasn't saying it was a lame name (i actually like it), just a stupid acronym for a web technology that doesn't (imo) need a flashy buzzword compliant acronym.

Re:AJAX...

[drew]

call it whatever you want. why does every new (or not so new as the case may be) software devlopment need a flashy buzzword compliant acronym? at my current job most people just call it content buffering (after contentBuffer, the library we use to do the server interaction)

i don't see any reason why you would ever have to call it by a name when speaking to anyone who you are not working on the project with anyway. if you give it a flashy acronym name, you'll just have dumb clients asking "will this site have AJAX" (even for pages where it makes no sense) because they read the term it in a trade rag or somesuch.

Non-competes non-enforceable in California

[winkydink]

So that part is moot.

Re:Non-competes non-enforceable in California

[WindBourne]

In fact, they unenforeable in most states in the west. Only back east, do they carry any validity.

Re:Non-competes non-enforceable in California

[emtechs]

The enforcability isn't the main issue. In Mass you cannot prevent someone from working in their profession so I don't know of any Non-competes that have held up in court. I do however know of many companies that withdrew employment offers rather than go through the cost and hassle of a court case.

Re:Non-competes non-enforceable in California

[Lux]

I've asked a lawyer about this. If you agree to a legal venue in a contract, that is binding. The stock MS contract does specify WA as a venue, so if they come after someone who is working in CA, he has to fly up to WA to defend himself in a WA court, subject to WA non-compete laws.

Re:Non-competes non-enforceable in California

[Fulcrum of Evil]

I've asked a lawyer about this. If you agree to a legal venue in a contract, that is binding. The stock MS contract does specify WA as a venue, so if they come after someone who is working in CA, he has to fly up to WA to defend himself in a WA court, subject to WA non-compete laws.

I'd like to see if this extends to stuff like the California non-compete invalidation. You basically have a contract that is conflicting with a state's employment law. I've never heard of something like this before, and if it were this easy, wouldn't more people do it?

Re:Non-competes non-enforceable in California

[Svartalf]

I've always understood that while you can state venue, you can't enforce the same if it interferes with an individual's right to work within a state that doesn't accept those contracts. Basically speaking, while you COULD sue them in WA, they'd have to answer to the same sort of suit in Texas brought against them.

Typically, they won't bother with the non-compete clauses when you're in a state that prohibits them and holds right to work over all else- it's much, much more expensive than it's ever worth to them to keep an employee working for a competitor.

Lucovsky is a great guy...

[Karpe]

One of the most interesting and complete descriptions of the history of the Windows NT family of OSes I've seen was this PowerPoint presentation by Lucovsky.

Re:Lucovsky is a great guy...

[Thinman]

Ha ha, this explain many things, on page 17 of the presentation he describe the build machine: Complete build time is 8 hours on 4 way PIII Xeon 550 with 50Gb disk and 512k RAM...

Only 512k RAM!!!! well this is like something BG told us long time ago, the 640k limit....

for clarification...

[The-Perl-CD-Bookshel]

A 16-year Microsoft veteran, Lucovsky was one of a handful of "Distinguished Engineers" at Microsoft. He is credited as one of the core dozen engineers that came from Digital Equipment Corp. to Microsoft and built the Windows NT operating system. He was charged with building the Windows NT executive, kernel, Win32 run-time and other key elements of the operating system. NT was the precursor to Windows Server.

Windows NT: thank god he's not from the Darkside of the Force...

Re:for clarification...

[idlake]

Windows NT: thank god he's not from the Darkside of the Force...

Well, as opposed to Satan, I suppose he may then be just Phil, the prince of insufficient light, ruler of Heck.

Re:for clarification...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, Satan wrote Windows ME.

Great

[motox]

Now google will start crashing too.

Re:Great

[Anonymous Coward]

Blue Screen Of Dhtml?

Of course it is

[NYTrojan]

it is how businesses work. Microsoft has made a living doing this. Ken Lobb went to Microsoft from Nintendo to help the XBOX. Heck, Microsoft buys COMPANYS to prevent them from working with rival organizations (See Rare).

Yeah...

[GillBates0]

Lucovsky wrote positively about Amazon.com's model for delivering new software bits to its customers.

Yeah, I admire Amazon's FREE Super Saver Shipping (TM) model of delivery too. But I still prefer to use the Intarweb(TM) model for receiving my software bits.

Not Ajax!

[veg_all]

...with what they are calling 'Ajax' as in 'Asynchronous JavaScript + XML' aka the XmlHttpRequest Object.

Who exactly is "they?" Please god don't let this stupid, coined-after-the-fact acronym creep into general usage!

Re:Not Ajax!

[TheSync]

Too late - being on Slashdot twice is all it took...

Using google less and less lately

[zymano]

I have been going back to yahoo and trying some others.

Yes, Google OS

[Iscariot_]

Why does everyone keep saying "nooo! google won't make an os! no u!"? Given what google has done w/ the web, and the amount of money they now have, it would be STUPID not to try and get into the OS market. We all know now that thin-client pcs that run remote web apps isn't going to happen. Hardware prices fall so fast, and everything's getting so small, it's more economical to have a MacMini that to have some huge server farm out there in the ether running everyone's apps.

So in order to compete further with Microsoft, they're going to have to create an alternate platform (think beOS) to increase their revenue. There's only so much they can do (like ad a calendar etc) to finish building their yahoo-like empire. With Google's insane cash-flow, they could easily repurpose a linux distro + wine + firefox into a very OSX like OS for intel/amd that is, to some extent, windows compatible.

Re:Yes, Google OS

[Anonymous Coward]

Given what google has done w/ the web, and the amount of money they now have, it would be STUPID not to try and get into the OS market.

What are you basing that on?

"Compete with Microsoft"? Why bother? Microsoft is competing with Google, at the moment. Turning that around is suicide.

"Create a platform to increase revenue"? They have huge profit margins. Creating an OS will only damage them.

There is this thing called "logic". Perhaps you've heard of it.

Re:Yes, Google OS

[Iscariot_]

You could say the same for their "search engine". Years ago there were dozens of them. Lycos, Altavista, Yahoo. Why "bother" competing with those guys? Search engines too have profit margins. Think of all the up front development cost. Hardware cost.

Just because Windows is a beast, it doesn't mean it's not slay-able. And he who does slay that beast stands a chance to make a great deal of money... What was once Microsofts money...

Re:Yes, Google OS

[javaxman]

We all know now that thin-client pcs that run remote web apps isn't going to happen.

Change your definition of "thin" and "apps" and it's happening now. What is slashdot, if not a web app? What's my PII with it's 20GB hard drive, if not a thin client? ( not that it's what I'm using now, but it would work, I'm making a point here ).

they could easily repurpose a linux distro + wine + firefox into a very OSX like OS for intel/amd that is, to some extent, windows compatible.

"easily" is a matter of opinion, but "why" and how successful it would be are different matters, since what you're talking about already exists in one form or another. What I'm looking for is the business case... and it's just not there. Google's services ( like Yahoo's ) aren't about thin clients, they're about accessing data regardless of what computer you're using ( and leveraging search tech to organize it all and sell targeted ads ). Making a multi-OS browser makes sense for them. Making a server-side development platform makes sense for them. Making an OS? Not so much. They have an OS- it's called Linux.

And, yes, they really are just another "yahoo-like empire" in the final analysis... they just seem to be looking to out-Yahoo Yahoo. Given the success of Yahoo, even with how Yahoo has stagnated over the past few years, it seems like a good plan to me - there's plenty of room to improve on Yahoo, as Google has already shown.

not an *OS* - a platform

[RMH101]

consider the google portfolio. It's machine-independent (bar a few niggles like the google deskbar, but concentrate on the web stuff). Email? Check. Usenet/web groups? Check. Contacts? Check. Add a basic wordprocessor and a few niceties like calendaring etc and you can give joesixpack@gmail.com just about everything he'd need via a web interface from any PC he sits at.
Web apps are pretty nice these days: use a browser that supports XUL like Firefox and it's not dissimilar to a real, locally installed app. And who's partnering with Firefox....?

Re:not an *OS* - a platform

[Anonymous Coward]

And who's using Firefox? Very few people. Going with XUL would be suicide. (Sorry, but it's the truth.)

Re:not an *OS* - a platform

[RMH101]

balls. it's like webmail: if you've got the browser that does the cool stuff, it displays complete with bells and whistles. if you just use IE, it works, but you get a basic GUI. result: more push to firefox and other browsers.....

Re:not an *OS* - a platform

[biglig2]

And how hard would it be for them or anyone else to make a system that was a Linux kernel + firefox + plugins, and put it in ROM on a range of cheap ARM-based tablet PCs in 3 sizes (paperback book, trad tablet, imac style desktop version) with wifi (and maybe GPRS/3G) and sell them? Then they have a chepa package that contains everything you need to run their platform.

Re:not an *OS* - a platform

[RM6f9]

Or, without any real offense intended to the potential users, "Dumb Terminals"??? As so many millions of people want simple easy-to-use, safe, God-please-don't-bother-me-with-details machines, your foresight shall come to pass.
Yea, verily, and the unconscious prescience of our society will have predicted the phenomenon of having a display from that dumb terminal heads-up-displayed in front of their face, and they shall truly be... (wait for it!)

*Google-eyed*

O, the wonder of it all.

Re:not an *OS* - a platform

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this different than a portal? You can call it a "platform" or whatever, but I don't see google doing anything that's revolutionary, just evolutionary. Cleaning out the clutter from the other players in the web space, and staying focused on information first.

Nothing that new.

Re:not an *OS* - a platform

[S3D]

Check. Usenet/web groups?Contacts? Check. Add a basic wordprocessor and a few niceties ... A new version of google groups is ugly and unfriendly. A lot of regress form deja, whic it was bought from. If this thrend continue google end up with unfriendly, unusable platform.

Re:not an *OS* - a platform

[egghat]

Right!

When people think about Google OS, they think about the desktop. Google OS Desktop will never happen. Everything they do with OSes is connected to their backend cluster OS.

Desktopwise Google will make the desktop OS obsolete (why make an OS when it's more and more obsolete?). It's kind of interesting that Google now finally fulfills the claims SUN made some years (the network is the computer, etc. pp.).

Think of an internet connected playstation. Games run locally, the rest will run on the internet, powered by Google.

It will be very interesting to see, how Microsoft will react. It will be more difficult this time, because the time for internet applications has come. There are enough broadband connections right now. And scalability on the backend isn't a problem anymore (at least for Google).

bye egghat.

Re:not an *OS* - a platform

[danila]

I'm really not sure about that... Personal computers didn't become popular because there was a nice small set of useful applications. They became popular because they were extensible and there were tons of useful software from third-party developers (developers. developers!).

It was brutally easy to design a light-weight barebones desktop OS. In fact, Linux was that OS since 2000 at least. While there still isn't an OSS Word-killer, there were many "basic wordprocessors". But the truth is that noone wants a barebones desktop, no matter whether it's based on Linux or on web-apps. The success of webmail doesn't prove that webapps are the way to go, it just shows that in these very special circumstances web-based e-mail applications have a number of strong advantages.

Desktop OSes will rule for a decade at least. And though some convergence with webapps is inevitable, it won't be as simple and straightforward as a migration to a web interface.

"You Are Fired For Blogging"

[osewa77]

"Hmmm ... Steve, Bill, he's already left us!"

What's the big deal?

[cephyn]

There's a guy down at my local Home Depot that engineers keys just fine. Maybe MS will just hire him.

What about a Google Boxed up Linux Distro?

[NYTrojan]

They have already heavily modified Redhat for their own uses, so they know it inside and out. Could google be the group that finally gives us a distro with the ease of entry to lure away the windows crowd?

Re:What about a Google Boxed up Linux Distro?

[Kimos]

That's exactly what I've been thinking. I don't think they'd undertake building an OS from the ground up, it would be too hard and risky to get software to run on it. But if they could give us a Linux with the user-friendly, clean, simple, free-ness of Google's products...

Re:What about a Google Boxed up Linux Distro?

[marcushnk]

It would be simple for Google to do a "Novell" and just buy another distro thats profitable (like say Mandrake) and to continue on with all business no changes for a while except for some prompt rebadging....

It's a very real possability.. and if they do it righ then their momemtum will crush other giants like MS

Re:What about a Google Boxed up Linux Distro?

[Anonymous Coward]

"the group that finally gives us a distro with the ease of entry to lure away the windows crowd"

Ease of entry has exactly jack to do with it. You will not see the mass migration until we get the platform up to the same standards of *gaming* that winduhs has.

Newb user: What's that?
teh 1337: Linux.
Newb user: What's that?
teh 1337: An alternative OS.
Newb user: Wow, looks awesome... can ya put it on my 'puter?
teh 1337: Sure.. (tinker tinker)...
Newb user: Oh, that is so cool!! Hey, make sure you put these 5 new games I just bought on there.
teh 1377: DOH!!

We can put Linux on as many machines as anybody wants (ease of entry doesn't get much easier than that), but if it doesn't run the software that is now like, the biggest industry in the world, the consumers of that industry have no use for it.

Re:What about a Google Boxed up Linux Distro?

[kin_korn_karn]

IME it's more like:

Newb user: Oh, that is so cool!! Hey, make sure you put these 5 new games that my brother just burnt for me one there?
teh 1377: Uh, ok

[insert 2 hours of banging head against copy protection]

teh 1377: you're on your own
Newb user: waaaah! I want Windooows! waaaah!

smell of rot? is Microsoft an ill giant?

[Bigos]

Do you remember an article on /. few days/weeks ago about possible slow demise of Microsoft? In his blog he writes: http://mark-lucovsky.blogspot.com/2005/02/shipping -software.html/ I would argue that Microsoft used to know how to ship software, but the world has changed...

Apple's OSX

[devphaeton]

Some hypothesize Google working on an OS

Mod this offtopic, but watch how quickly someone twists this into a plug for OSX (this post not included).

You watch! It's an Amazing Slashdot Phenomenon(tm)!

Re:Apple's OSX

[Edmund Blackadder]

I agree, I have noticed this as well. Nowadays, when I read a slashdot story I immediately imagine what the apple plugs would be.

Re:Apple's OSX

[BlackFoliage]

"I agree" that "apple plugs" into just about anything. "imagine" OS X and you, enabling your digital life!

Re:Apple's OSX

[devphaeton]

I agree, I have noticed this as well. Nowadays, when I read a slashdot story I immediately imagine what the apple plugs would be.

Thanks for understanding. To be fair, i get annoyed at all the Linux plugs too. I know that this is a geek site, but some of them are just retarded:

poster1: I hate how Windows XP groups stuff together into this little list in the Taskbar.

poster2: You should just switch to linux. If you run KDE on mandrake, all you have to do is hand edit the /usr/opt/KDE/desktop_prefs.ini file to stop that.

poster3: That's a lot of work! you should switch to Gentoo, where all you have to do is 'emerge -03 --no_group KDE' and you're done!

I guess now it's the Age Of The Apple Partyline...

thanks.

Re:Apple's OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

well, if we can get past our MS:bad;Apple/Linux:good filters, the point he is getting at applies equally to Apple as MS (and even Linux). The software model is the same. Sure they all tinker with updates and services etc. but it is not a "platform in the sky" as Google, Amazon and likes.

WTF is Ajax?

[gremlins]

I mean I know what Ajax is but where in the world did that term come from? And it doesn't seem like until that story on slashdot no one was even using the term.

I would however like some links to sites that talk about how to do this kind of code and do it well because from what i know about javascript there are alot of pitfalls.

(***note: use of buzz word ajax not required)

Slashdot formatting not right?

[jgoemat]

Is it just me, or is the formatting a little messed up? In both Firefox 1.0 and Mozilla 1.7.3 the articles on the front page overlap with the sections on the far left. This is only after I log in however. This just started this last week, but for quite a while I have a problem sometimes when reading an article where the text is all garbled up to the left. If I refresh the page it usually fixes itself. Could it be something with certain ads?

Re:Slashdot formatting not right?

[bavander]

I've been having the same problem for quite a while. About 80% percent of the time a refresh fixes it. Go figure.

Re:Slashdot formatting not right?

[lostindenver]

Ditto it started just about a week ago.

Re:Slashdot formatting not right?

[kosh]

This has been a problem for me as well this past week. sometimes have to refresh 10 times to have site display correctly

Re:Slashdot formatting not right?

[theAedileDecimus]

The Slashfix extension fixes this. I got this from Mozilla Update, but it seems to have been removed from their site. For whatever reason it was, it works perfectly.

Re:Slashdot formatting not right?

[Anonymous Coward]

Try using a real browser.

Slashdot is coded for IE, just like 90% of the net. Use IE and be happy. Just turn off active X by default and your good to go.

--
10 years of Windows and IE and not a single spyware or virus on any of a dozen machines. I must be god. Or maybe just an IQ of 101.

Fan-fscking-tastic

[LesPaul75]

Anyone else get a chill when they read this?

Luckovsky isn't sparing harsh words for his former employer, however, pointing fingers at everything from Microsoft's difficulties in shipping software to its users on time, to its policy of requiring users to validate that they have non-pirated versions of Windows in order to obtain fixes and downloads.

I sure did. Way to go Mark. It's rare that big shots will speak openly about their former employers in a move like this. Granted, there's usually good reason to keep your mouth shut. But it took guts to say that and it really hit close to home, for me at least. Microsoft's validation thing is garbage, and it just makes me angry every time I need to download something.

Re:Fan-fscking-tastic

[devphaeton]

Microsoft's validation thing is garbage, and it just makes me angry every time I need to download something.

It's especially disheartening when it is wrong. I was repairing a machine with its Active X controls all hosed up (from spyware). MSKB suggested to reinstall ActiveX on top of itself.

But since ActiveX was messed up, their download site's test for a valid WinXP image failed, thus keeping me from downloading the latest ActiveX.

This was an OEM install on a 3-month old Dell Dimension.

Re:Fan-fscking-tastic

[Anonymous Coward]

Oooooh. Chills? Ya, I cannot sleep at night either. pshaw.

Re:Fan-fscking-tastic

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

The validation thing doesn't work. I.. "know a guy" who has a pirated copy of XP Pro Corp and, for shits and giggles, did the "Is this copy of XP legit" test. As it turns out, he DIDN'T pirate his install and Microsoft says it's legit.

Broken garbage.

Re:Fan-fscking-tastic

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

That's what the OEM supplied Resurrection Disk is for (Microsoft has no interest in "saving" your installed programs or data)...

Re:Fan-fscking-tastic

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a non-activex version of the validation software that can be used. It generates a code that you have to enter into a website.

Re:Fan-fscking-tastic

[Farmer Tim]

"...a 3-month old Dell Dimension."

Sounds like something from the film "Event Horizon"...

Re:Fan-fscking-tastic

[Anonymous Coward]

Lucky for me that there's a bunch of internet cafes around. I just go there and validate their machine, download, burn to disk, and all is well for me and my clients. In the meantime, I run my slax live cd, show them that there are alternatives, and when they're ready, or MS becomes even more obnoxious, I'll help them switch. If they're about to buy a new computer, I just encourage them to get a Mac.

Re:Fan-fscking-tastic

[Anonymous Coward]

Just let the boss know that validation is costing them more money. If you're working for yourself, just adjust your prices accordingly.

I see a bad moon rising!

[Thud457]

Important high-level software architechts defecting is an obvious sign of the beginning of the end for Microsoft.

Unfortunately, this man brings with him the taint Microsoft. This is where google starts turning evil. And inept.

What's a "Google style lunch"?

[Tibor the Hun]

Waiter:What'll it be?
You: 25,600 possible answers.
Waiter:Come again?
You: About 1,190,000 possible answers. ...

Re:What's a "Google style lunch"?

[Anonymous Coward]

STOOPID

Asked and Answered

[telstar]

I guess we know who submitted this article.

Hmmm...

[doormat]

I wonder, they wouldnt need a whole OS.. you know, just take Linux or BSD + Very nice and clean UI + Win32 compatibility layer (which is where this guy comes in) and you can get something to replace windows.

Google developing AI?

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out this article: http://downloadaborted.blogspot.com/

Article text

[Anonymous Coward]

copy & paste:

Thursday, March 03, 2005
Microsoft Loses Key Windows Architect to Google
By Mary Jo Foley
Mark Lucovsky, a former Microsoft distinguished engineer, has quietly abandoned the Redmond ship for one of Microsoft's archrivals.

One of Microsoft's key Windows architects has defected to Google. But at least so far, no one is talking about what Marc Lucovsky's new role will be at one of Microsoft's major rivals.

A 16-year Microsoft veteran, Lucovsky was one of a handful of "Distinguished Engineers" at Microsoft. He is credited as one of the core dozen engineers that came from Digital Equipment Corp. to Microsoft and built the Windows NT operating system. He was charged with building the Windows NT executive, kernel, Win32 run-time and other key elements of the operating system. NT was the precursor to Windows Server.ADVERTISEMENT

In 2000, Lucovsky was named the chief software architect for Microsoft's .Net My Services (code-named "Hailstorm") effort. .Net My Services never materialized in Thursday, March 03, 2005
Microsoft Loses Key Windows Architect to Google
By Mary Jo Foley
Mark Lucovsky, a former Microsoft distinguished engineer, has quietly abandoned the Redmond ship for one of Microsoft's archrivals.

One of Microsoft's key Windows architects has defected to Google. But at least so far, no one is talking about what Marc Lucovsky's new role will be at one of Microsoft's major rivals.

A 16-year Microsoft veteran, Lucovsky was one of a handful of "Distinguished Engineers" at Microsoft. He is credited as one of the core dozen engineers that came from Digital Equipment Corp. to Microsoft and built the Windows NT operating system. He was charged with building the Windows NT executive, kernel, Win32 run-time and other key elements of the operating system. NT was the precursor to Windows Server.

the form \u2014 a set of personal Web services, hosted by Microsoft \u2014 that Microsoft originally envisioned. Instead, the company has folded a number of the .Net My Services technologies into other Microsoft products.

Scripting.com's Dave Winer mentioned on his blog earlier this week that Lucovsky had defected to Google, with no further details.

Lucovsky "voluntarily left the company on 11/18/04," confirmed a Microsoft spokeswoman. "Obviously Microsoft can't comment on whether or not he now works for Google."

Google officials did not return calls requesting comments on Lucovsky.

Winer, like a number of industry watchers, are wagering that Google hired Lucovsky to help the search-engine king build an operating system.

But no one knows for sure. And even Lucovsky, whose newly minted blog lists Google as his employer, isn't saying what his new role at Google will entail.

Luckovsky isn't sparing harsh words for his former employer, however, pointing fingers at everything from Microsoft's difficulties in shipping software to its users on time, to its policy of requiring users to validate that they have non-pirated versions of Windows in order to obtain fixes and downloads.

In a blog posting dated February 12, Lucovsky railed against Microsoft for being unable to ship software.

"I am not sure I believe anymore, that Microsoft 'knows how to ship software,'" Lucovsky wrote.

"Microsoft is supposed to be the one that 'knows how to ship software,' but you (the end user) are the one doing all the heavy lifting. You are the one that has to ship their software the last mile, install it on end user machines, ensure their machines still work after you perform this platform level surgery," he continued.

"I would argue that Microsoft used to know how to ship software, but the world has changed... The companies that 'know how to ship software' are the ones to watch. They have embraced the network, deeply understand the concept of 'software as a service,' and know how to deliver incredible value to their customers efficiently and quic

Google needs to stick with what they know.

[nberardi]

Google isn't going to make an OS. That would be one of the most worse ideas out there. The market is already over saturated with OS. Google needs to stick with what they know. Service based web aplications.

Matter of $$$?

[Anonymous Custard]

Any guesses on how much this guy was raking in at Microsoft, and how much they offered him to defect to Google?

Part of it was philosophical - he wanted to work for Google, but I'm guessing a bigger part was good ole moolah.

Re:Matter of $$$?

[Anonymous Coward]

or maybe, just maybe, some people care about other things in the world than "good ole moolah"?

I know I do.

Re:Matter of $$$?

[Anonymous Custard]

Well I do too, but this guy obviously didn't have to take a pay cut, and as a programmer myself I'm just curious what elite software jobs can pay.

Re:Matter of $$$?

[Zakabog]

Microsoft hired him in '89 and he worked on Windows NT, I really doubt that Google is paying him more than Microsoft. I think he was just fed up with Microsoft.

This is pure Troll-Art

[Anonymous Coward]

Modders, pls!!!!!! This is a great troll, but _not_ inter/sight/ative

Really, a "FreeBSD-based variant of Windows that supports Win32 API and DirectX"... out of teh ballpark

Google

[Anonymous Coward]

Googles collapse is going to be nothing short of spectactular. And it has nothing to do with this guy. All things to all people. Not going to happen.

The worm turns

[Anonymous Coward]

After years of watching MS raiders gut Borland it is very satisfying to watch other companies move in and gut MS of its key employees. What goes around always comes around.

OVERRATED

[Ars-Fartsica]

My anecdotal observations is that these "architect" types bring a halo but thats about it. The people who are putting the rubber to the road at all of the companies is the guy who doesn't blog, doesn't market himself as a "brand", and isn't concerned about the title "architect". Its the guy who goes through the hypothesize->code->test->repeat cycle for weeks on end, with an emphasis on step 2.

Re:OVERRATED

[Anonymous Coward]

And that non-blogging coder is the one who makes head-down, hard-to-scale systems that "architects" have to clean up after. Google is not in that situation because they hire guys like this one.

Re:OVERRATED

[Anonymous Coward]

And that non-blogging coder is the one who makes head-down, hard-to-scale systems that "architects" have to clean up after.

yes thats your fantasy isn't it? that after blogging, messing around on your whiteboard, reading websites etc...you will just swoop in and save the day, because we all know the guy who has been actually writing the code doesn't know shit. once again, this is your private fantasy. aren't you late for class?

Re:OVERRATED

[MKalus]

You DO know what the work of an architect involves, don't you? No? Didn't think so.

Re:OVERRATED

[MKalus]

Oh, those guys know their shit, too bad that they only know their little piece of the pie and don't see the whole picture.

I can have a thousand wonderful islands, but if I can't connect them then they are pretty much useless.

Welcome to the world of modern "Powerprogrammning" where this is the norm.

Re:OVERRATED

[TheDukePatio]

I hope you're using a 0-based array for that. People can code to their heart's content, but untested or poorly tested code is one of the main reasons why there are as many Critical Updates.

Now, granted, the amount of testing that any QA dept can do is limited by their resources, amount of time in the schedule, and the intelligence of the project managers not to cram untested/unstable items in at the last minute.

Re:OVERRATED

[Anonymous Coward]

ah yes here we go again, the architect is the only one who knows how to code. too bad he never does it.

Re:OVERRATED

[Anonymous Coward]

we were about to ask you the same thing..but since you have already fulfilled one requirement for being a full-on mental masturbator (http://www.thedarkerside.to/rants/), well we know all we need to know. bye

But there's huge differences...

[Marthisdil]

From the article:

When Amazon makes a fix to its software, "not a single customer had to download a bag of bits, answer any silly questions, prove that they are not software thieves, reboot their computers, etc. The software was shipped to them, and they didn't have to lift a finger. Now that's what I call shipping software," Lucovsky said.

Umm - there's a HUGE difference when talking something like Windows, and something pushed to you on the web...Now, if he were comparing apples to apples, then I could see the comparison.

Re:But there's huge differences...

[schon]

Of course there's a difference - that's pretty much his whole point.

Are Sergey and Larry...

[Anonymous Coward]

building an army?

GoogleOS

[hachete]

I think they've already got their OS, but it's not for sale to the desk top. It's what runs the company. From what I've read, they've already got a load of other *top-flight* OS architects. This is about making Google perform better and cheaper, hot-swapping multiple disks and machines etc. Making sure that they deliver their services better than anyone else. This is their core focus and thy're feeding it. Unlike MS. Just what is the MS focus thse days? Right. They've not got one.

I don't thnk they're going to take on MS on the desktop any day soon. Why should they? They're rolling out enough shit to keep MS worried *already*. Why complicate things by selling an OS as well?

Re:GoogleOS

[norkakn]

nah

at elast according to the google employee that crashed on our waterbed a few weeks ago. They all run linux.

Creating a new OS is not Google's core competency

[mcguyver]

I'll believe Google is working on an OS when I see it and not anytime sooner. Lets not forget that Google's core competency is search. Over 50% of Google's revenue is derived from AdSense. For Google to expand into offering an OS would be a huge departure from their current business strategy (see AdSense).

Huh?

[stratjakt]

When Amazon makes a fix to its software, "not a single customer had to download a bag of bits, answer any silly questions, prove that they are not software thieves, reboot their computers, etc. The software was shipped to them, and they didn't have to lift a finger. Now that's what I call shipping software," Lucovsky said

I don't get his point. Amazon is a website, Windows is an OS (SQL Server is a database, MechWarrior is a video game). How do they compare?

Does he think my OS should be a website? Because I like the old method, I don't want stuff shoved down the pipe onto my machine. I want to choose what, when, how and why to install software on the hardware that I own. Isn't that what Free Software is all about? My freedom to choose how the devices I own operate?

Google and all these "software as service" dorks can blow it out all straight their smelly asses.

Google, take heed

[TheSHAD0W]

I suspect these people were hired more to work on Google's internal operational infrastructure rather than to produce a consumer product.

But the response from the community seems to indicate that Google would be considered a respectable source for a Linux version, and it might be a decent product to market support services for and to further the brand. I hope they're listening.

Disclaimer: I own stock in Google.

Developers Developers Developers!

[Anonymous Coward]

There's lots of comments on his site, mostly disagreements over his 'apples-to-oranges' comparison of software as service vs. executable bits.

if i understand him right, he's saying he lost love for the game @ MS. delays in pushing out incremental improvements have stifled him, and has found greener, more innovation-led pastures @ google. makes sense if you consider the overall impact of unexpected 'effective security(tm)' being written into the development schedule for top level projects.

Developers Developers Developers!

Re:Developers Developers Developers!

[catdevnull]

Just for this thread:

Developers!

Re:Developers Developers Developers!

[bStrom]

w00t! Rice - my alma mater.

Ohh Yes another OS!

[miffo.swe]

God knows there are space left for plenty of more OS in the computing world. I for one would just love a simplified OS for x86, like BeOS. More competition might bring us a nice desktop OS for the PC at long last.

Re:Ohh Yes another OS!

[Anita Coney]

If I had to choose between running a current BeOS or ever having sex again, I'd choose BeOS. It was simply astonishing.

But then again, being a geek, any chance of me actually having sex would be next to impossible. So I really wouldn't be giving up much.

Still, BeOS was fantastic.

Re:Ohh Yes another OS!

[cpghost]

But then again, being a geek, any chance of me actually having sex would be next to impossible.

As a geek, you should have read RFC 696969: "Interpersonal Communications Protocol v3" to start with, esp. paying close attention to the "flirting" section, which specifies the "handshaking protocol to initiate sex."

Speaking of Ajax

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out this clever use of ajax I came across the other day: genielab.com

Re:Speaking of Ajax

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh right on! It's like ajax meets ethnoclassification. See: this article. I think the best example on this site is here: GenieLab Most Popular Artists. Click on "more options" then use the checkboxes to filter based on tags/keywords. It all happens in real-time, no trips back to the server.

Check out the source too, it's pretty wild.

Good Lord!

[fm6]

Why would Google need an OS engineer? And not just any OS engineer either, but one of the VMS people that Microsoft hired away from DEC to help create NT. The possibilities are very interesting!

The fact that Microsoft has trouble shipping software comes as no suprise to anybody who's watched the security patch deathmarch. But two years to get a code change into a product! Microsoft may yet do to itself what the anti-trust people failed to do to them.

Google File System Borg Collective, baby

[gelfling]

GFS in a loosely distributed network making all PCs in the world part of the Infinite Google Brain. Resistance is fucking Futile, dude.

Does this mark the point...

[Anonymous Coward]

where we start becoming increasingly suspicious of Google until eventually all the geeks migrate over to an open-source search engine? Googlix, anyone?

Does this mean BSOD's from Google now?!

[BestNicksRTaken]

Great way to break Google and make MSN more popular, ship the programmers who wrote NT to Google!

i.e. GBSOD?

[otisg]

Interesting, but does that mean that I may find myself facing the dreaded BSOD when I visit google.com one day? Or that we'll soon get a search wizard or a paperclip? ;)

Microsoft's business is RESELLING, not MAKING SW.

[Spy der Mann]

I read the blog entry and comments. And I frankly agree with Marc.

However, he misses the whole point: Microsoft is not a software business. It's a software RESELLER.

Nearly ALL software Microsoft has sold us had been bought before. Visual Basic, FoxPro, MS-DOS, they even stole the GUI from Apple. Microsoft wasn't founded by a programmer - but by a businessman with a keen eye for investments.

I recall the previous "Ask slashdot" post where this guy left the company because he wasn't comfortable with Microsoft tools.

Is it a mystery that they don't know how to deploy software? And with their flawed architecture, is it a mystery all software updates are major headaches? Of course Microsoft can't deliver software! They designed it (I'm speaking of MS Windows) to be HARD to configure, with their undocumented features, proprietary API, proprietary formats (MS Word)... (btw, I think this is why Microsoft is whining about Linux and GPL - they can't figure out a way to adopt it, embrace it and get money from it).

Microsoft can't deliver software updates because their business model was designed to sell COMPLETE PACKAGES (MS Office), not software updates. And with the major bugs and vulnerabilities, Microsoft is having to cope with their own demons.

My applauses to Marc, i think this is his smartest career move. Keep up the good work.

Honestly...

[bonch]

I think the "Google OS" rumor was started by overzealous Google fanboys. We've heard all sorts of things, from a Google browser to a Google operating system.

They're a search engine company. In fact, their search results have been in the crapper since 2003 when they adjusted their algorithms (some believe it was because they needed to increase the DocID integer size in order to not run out of them).

Google also employs several ex-NSA guys with security clearances. I mean, if we're going to draw conclusions, why not look at Google's privacy policies that state they'll happily turn over anything the government requests on you? Did you know Google sets an IP-tracking cookie that doesn't expire for 30 years? There are bigger things to be talking about regarding Google.

Re:Honestly...

[ceejayoz]

Google also employs several ex-NSA guys with security clearances.

Holy shit, you mean the world's premier data mining and organizing company does some work for the government requiring security clearances?! Stop the presses! Next you'll say Xerox and IBM employ people with clearances, too!

Did you know Google sets an IP-tracking cookie that doesn't expire for 30 years?

Yeah, 'cause people aren't gonna upgrade their computers in that time. Anyways, it's not like any company can't just track you using the server logs, no cookies required.

Re:Honestly...

[bonch]

Are IBM and Xerox tracking people's IPs, search information, and email (Google's privacy policy says your emails might stay on their system--even after deletion--and be indexed for any reason) while employing ex-NSA guys who have top secret security clearance? Does their privacy policy also say they'll turn over any personal information about you that the government feels like requesting that day?

Re:Honestly...

[ceejayoz]

Are IBM and Xerox tracking people's IPs, search information, and email

They don't have a way to get those, so no. They're getting a hell of a lot of info that Google doesn't have access to, though.

You can bet Yahoo! and MSN do, though.

Google employs ex-government workers with security clearances for the same reason defense contractors do - so they can get in on government contracts.

Apple

[bonch]

I would argue that Microsoft used to know how to ship software, but the world has changed... The companies that "know how to ship software" are the ones to watch. They have embraced the network, deeply understand the concept of "software as a service", and know how to deliver incredible value to their customers efficiently and quickly.


Now does everyone see the benefit of an OS X update every 1-2 years? "Real artists ship."

Re:Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

If Microsoft was shipping Windows every 2 years, we'd all be bitching that they are just out for money. Come on, $100 a pop ever 2 years?

Re:Apple

[QueenOfSwords]

You can certainly construct some sort of software relevancy index from 'frequency of upgrades'.

Re:Apple

[dcam]

Or Steam. This may seem a little offtopic, but Steam is a framework for fps games. Updates to Steam are shipped out automatically. Everyone gets the updates when they log on.

Re:Apple

[bonch]

So don't buy the upgrade, then.

People spend more money on their video cards every two years. Why do so many get hung up on the price of OS updates?

Re:Apple

[Alpha_Traveller]

I would argue it's even better than 1-2 Years.

Consider that nearly every .1 release of OS X comes with at least some functionality changes, security updates, etc, and those updates are exceptionally seamless in comparison to the typical MS techie handholding that has to take place with every Service Pack release (and nearly every security update)....

The software as a service aspects with Apple are off the charts :)

Re:Apple

[drsmithy]

Now does everyone see the benefit of an OS X update every 1-2 years? "Real artists ship."

OS X (relatively speaking) is a much more immature product and has needed a lot more improvement in the same time frame.

Let's see if Apple are still releasing a major OS X update every 18 months in 2011.

Re:Microsoft's business is RESELLING, not MAKING S

[Anonymous Coward]

And Apple stole the GUI from PARC. (Bought it, stole it. The point is they didn't create it)

He won't be able to work on OS stuff

[melted]

His contract most likely includes the traditional "do not compete" clause, which will prevent him from doing work that competes with MSFT for quite some time.

Well, if he's so fucking smart...

[Ann Elk]

...oh wait, he is. Nevermind.

This is an internal Microsoft joke for the old-timers out there.

Re:Well, if he's so fucking smart...

[Anonymous Coward]

I get the joke. Didn't know you saw that email...
-markl

Google OS

[Alwin Henseler]

They already have their own OS that is specialized to be super reliable for their cluster (read the other Google news item from today). They even refer to it as 'Google OS'. It's really just a specialized Red Hat based kernel (according to the news)

You can be sure that the parent is not talking about any OS('s?) used by Google internally, but about something like "YOUR OS, running on Google's servers". A real possibility in the near future, if you ask me. Many people don't think too bad about that, but let's run down the list:

• Needs to be pervasive, on everybody's computer - Google sure is, and even dedicated Google search boxes being added to browsers like Mozilla/Firefox. For new internet users, to start using Google has a VERY low barrier of entry
• First/biggest/best in its field (searching): check
• Has some other interesting add-ons that MANY people will want/need. See Google mail, and more - check
• Ofcourse you need the network connectivity. Cheap, reliable, high-bandwidth internet connections are everywhere these days, and using online apps like webmail rather than locally installed software would have advantages for many people: if Google maintains something that you use every day, you don't have too (less work in cleaning out spyware-infested systems, and so on). So: check

Now to become 'evil', you need some more things:

• Very big market share, so that it becomes the 'default choice' in many cases - check
• Outperforms/put out of business its competition. So that users don't have a good, real, or viable alternative. Hmmm... search engines that approach Google in speed/usefulness, anyone? Right now, only for searches in specialized areas, I'd say. So: - check
• Ofcourse you need shareholders, so that making money becomes more important than doing the right thing, or what's fun. - check, just done
• Abuse: misuse of power/market domination to get what it wants.

Well, that last thing looks like about the only thing missing. Not to say that Google is evil, or will be soon, but power does tend to corrupt people. So it could be damn easy for Google to become the next MSFT. If they don't want to, they'd better go about things carefully. For me, that would mean putting their user's wishes above shareholder interests. We'll see...

its own OS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Google dosn't need it's own OS, it can just make its own linux kernel and shell (that would be pretty cool).

not the first

[diegocgteleline.es]

At least a couple of Microsoft guys has go to google, one of the XAML guys was mentioned in some blogs.

SCO restates 2004 financial details...

[Anonymous Coward]

SCO restates 2004 financial details
Published: March 3, 2005, 2:14 PM PST
By Stephen Shankland
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
TrackBack Print E-mail TalkBack

The SCO Group restated financial results for the first three quarters of its last fiscal year after finding accounting errors related to stock-based compensation and other issues.

The company, which rose to prominence after launching a major legal attack on Linux and IBM in 2003, said in a regulatory filing Thursday that it had three accounting problems in the quarters. The changes don't affect net loss or earnings per share for the fiscal year, which ended Oct. 31, 2004, the company said. SCO has yet to file final results for the last quarter of the year.

SCO's finances are only part of its troubles. It also faces dwindling revenue from its Unix product sales and significant skepticism from the judge overseeing its case against IBM.

For the first, second and third quarters of the company's fiscal 2004 SCO issued stock as part of its compensation plans "without complying with the registration requirements of federal and applicable state securities laws." The company will reclassify that stock as temporary equity instead of permanent equity and may offer to reverse those share grants.

The amounts reclassified are $272,000, $231,000 and $557,000 for the first, second and third quarters, respectively, SCO said. There could be a financial effect from the situation if SCO has to offer to buy back the stock, issued to employees through a purchase plan, and the market price of the stock is lower than the stock price when it was issued, spokesman Blake Stowell said.

The second problem concerned incorrect classification of dividends related to the company's repurchase of preferred shares relating to a $50 million investment in the company. The company is reclassifying $879,000 from the first quarter and $1,619,000 from the second quarter as current liabilities instead of equity.

The change has to do with dividends SCO had to allocate in relation to the preferred shares but that it never had to pay because it repurchased those shares, Stowell said.

The third problem was that $233,000 in stock-based compensation was recorded in the second quarter but actually accrued in the first, SCO said.

In February, Nasdaq removed SCO's stock from its SmallCap Market because the company failed to file its annual report for the fiscal year ended Oct. 31. SCO's stock now trades under the symbol SCOXE instead of SCOX, but the company has a March 17 hearing scheduled to discuss the matter.

Stowell said SCO expects eventually to file its annual report and be relisted

Former Microsoftie Here

[einhverfr]

The stock Microsoft employment contract has a non-compete clause which, IMO (IANAL) is appropriately scoped. It basically says that you cannot work where your work is likely to overlap with the confiduential information you had access to at Microsoft for a period of a year (and one would assume that trade secret protections last longer than that).

So. Mark can't go and work on a Google OS.

But I doubt that is what Google wants to do anyway. What would they enter a crowded market and compete with all the Linux distros out there? It doesn't really fit with their portfolio.

Instead, I suspect that Mark will be working on new and improved web apps at Google. Great news for Google, and great news for Linux users. But some of the speculation is, I think, overblown.

Re:Former Microsoftie Here

[Tough Love]

But I doubt that is what Google wants to do anyway. What would they enter a crowded market and compete with all the Linux distros out there? It doesn't really fit with their portfolio.

There is no chance whatsoever that Google will set out to build its own OS. Linux works perfectly well and Google is well aware that they have more to gain by contributing to the common development pool.

No, Google is setting out to build a web service infrastructure, powered by its 100,000 node (at last count) Linux supercomputer. And after all, this guy's job at Microsoft was to build a web infrastructure.

By the way, it is very doubtful that in California he can be prevented from working in his area of expertise, no matter what his employment contract with Microsoft says.

Re:Former Microsoftie Here

[jerryasher]

Washington: Non-compete.

California: Note: Covenants not to compete are not enforceable against employees in California. Since a California statute invalidates noncompete agreements except in very limited circumstances, California judges won't enforce a noncompete agreement against an employee. However, California employers can use nonsolicitation agreements and nondisclosure agreements to protect their trade secrets, client lists and employees when an employee leaves. (See Nondisclosure Agreements for an in-depth discussion of nondisclosure agreements.)

And I'm in Arizona. Non-compete. Sigh.

Re:Former Microsoftie Here

[HermanAB]

So, all he has to do is move to California, where any non-compete restrictions in his contract with MS would be unenforceable.

Re:Former Microsoftie Here

[Anonymous Coward]

Non-compete agreements are not always enforceable and depends on the jurisdiction. If you take a job in MA, will your no-compete apply? Maybe, but it depends on many factors. For the most part, most non-compete (restrictive covenants) are not enforceable in my somewhat-educated-in-legal-opinion. I've got a no-compete that basically says I cannot work anywhere in the world.

The key factor is that employers do not have a right to keep your skills off the market. But they do have the right to make sure their confidential business information that you acquire on the job is not used to harm the company.

Finally, just because you sign it does not mean that there is a valid contract. Case and point, waivers that you sign at the hospital are NOT enforceable at all, period, end of story (and that includes plastic surgery).

Re:Former Microsoftie Here

[einhverfr]

IANAL, but I remember two court cases of interest here. The first held that a non-compete in at least one case was invalid because it was intended to take skills off the market. The second held that even without a non-compete agreement, one cannot hire a worker where there is a reasonable expectation that trade secrets will be used in further employment in an anticompetitive way. These were, I think in similar juristictions, and I am sure that YMMV in others such as CA..

In my somewhat educated-non-lawyer opinion, I suspect that noncompete clauses may inform what is acceptable contact in this framework but neither create destroy this framework by their existance or lack thereof.

Re:Former Microsoftie Here

[Anonymous Coward]

Good idea. Move to California. I moved a year before I joined Google...

Re:Former Microsoftie Here

[Lord_Dweomer]

So if there was an issue, as long as he works out of California he's fine.

Re:Former Microsoftie Here

[Anonymous Coward]

oh I for one would love it if they did release a OS.

Linux simply isn't as simple and userfriendly as windows or os-x. and from the look of things, it never will be.

A new OS with the simple usability and software compatabillity of windows would realy be great.
I'd buy it.

Re:Former Microsoftie Here

[doofus1]

What would they enter a crowded market and compete with all the Linux distros out there? It doesn't really fit with their portfolio.

I doubt that's what google wants to do either, but when it comes to reaching the average Joe, I'd bet a dollar to a donut that google has better brand recognition than redhat.

Re:Former Microsoftie Here

[einhverfr]

I agree with you however....

I was migrating a customer of mine from XP to Fedora. He was very intimidated regarding Linux until he heard that it was Red Hat. Then he cheered up. Kind of funny, really.

Blog

[SunFan]

Reading his last paragraph, it sounds as if he would be a shoe-in for Sun's marketing dept.

Relative to MS, Google is a startup

[EmbeddedJanitor]

If anything remotely looks like a threat to MS, you can bet what you want that they will bodyslam Google.

As adequately demonstrated, MS dominance is through bruiser tactics. Don't expect them to stand idly by while someone else takes whet that consider to be their turf. They don't mind losing a lot of money to get power.

Re:Relative to MS, Google is a startup

[Tough Love]

If anything remotely looks like a threat to MS, you can bet what you want that they will bodyslam Google. As adequately demonstrated, MS dominance is through bruiser tactics. Don't expect them to stand idly by while someone else takes whet that consider to be their turf. They don't mind losing a lot of money to get power.

Microsoft does mind when the losses start turning into billions, which is how much it would cost them to illegally leverage their desktop OS monopoly.

Re:Relative to MS, Google is a startup

[cduffy]

Microsoft does mind when the losses start turning into billions, which is how much it would cost them to illegally leverage their desktop OS monopoly.

They're already illegally leveraging that monopoly, and in at least two cases where they were found guilty of such, they got off with penalties which arguably cost less than their profit from the actions for which they were sanctioned. It's not something I actually care about so much -- but I'm not particularly confident of competant enforcement of antitrust laws, particularly against MS, as they've got too many friends in high places. (I'm not even alleging folks in high places who take overt or improper actions on MS's behalf -- just people who have a high opinion of what's often seen as a legitimately successful and innovative company enjoying its well-earned success, and who let that opinion influence their beliefs).

blog text

[spasm]

Saturday, February 12, 2005

Shipping Software

A few weeks ago I had lunch with the now famous "Mark Jen". I never knew Mark while we were at Microsoft, even though we both worked in the same group. Funny how large groups at Microsoft can get...

We had a great Google style lunch at a sunny table in Mountain View. I was too dense to notice that Mark was doing research for his blog. One thing he said got me thinking... Something that many have said over the years, that Microsoft "knows how to ship software".

Being a 16 year Microsoft veteran, a Distinguished Engineer, key architect and code writer for windows, architect of the largest source code control and build system ever attempted, I deeply believed that Microsoft knows how to ship software. We know how to build it, test it, localize it, manufacture it, charge lots of $$$ for it, etc.

Mark and I talked about this briefly at lunch that day, and I have been thinking about it from time to time since...

I am not sure I believe anymore, that Microsoft "knows how to ship software". When a Microsoft engineer fixes a minor defect, makes something faster or better, makes an API more functional and complete, how do they "ship" that software to me? I know the answer and so do you... The software sits in a source code control system for a minimum of two years (significantly longer for some of the early Longhorn code). At some point, the product that the fix is a part of will "ship" meaning that CD's will be pressed and delivered to customers and OEM's. In best case scenarios, the software will reach end users a few months after the Release To Manufacturing (RTM) date. In many cases, particularly for users working in large corporations, they won't see the software for a year or more post RTM...

Consider the .NET framework for a second. Suppose you wrote something innocent like a screen saver, written in C# based on the .NET framework. How would you as an ISV "ship your software"? You can't. Not unless you sign up to ship Microsoft's software as well. You see, the .NET Framework isn't widely deployed. It is present on a small fraction of machines in the world. Microsoft built the software, tested it, released it to manufacturing. They "shipped it", but it will take years for it to be deployed widely enough for you, the ISV to be able to take advantage of it. If you want to use .NET, you need to ship Microsoft's software for them. Isn't this an odd state of affairs? Microsoft is supposed to be the one that "knows how to ship software", but you are the one doing all the heavy lifting. You are the one that has to ship their software the last mile, install it on end user machines, ensure their machines still work after you perform this platform level surgery.

When an Amazon engineer fixes a minor defect, makes something faster or better, makes an API more functional and complete, how do they "ship" that software to me? What is the lag time between the engineer completing the work, and the software reaching its intended customers? A good friend of mine investigated a performance problem one morning, he saw an obvious defect and fixed it. His code was trivial, it was tested during the day, and rolled out that evening. By the next morning millions of users had benefited from his work. Not a single customer had to download a bag of bits, answer any silly questions, prove that they are not software thieves, reboot their computers, etc. The software was shipped to them, and they didn't have to lift a finger. Now that's what I call shipping software.

I would argue that Microsoft used to know how to ship software, but the world has changed... The companies that "know how to ship software" are the ones to watch. They have embraced the network, deeply understand the concept of "software as a service", and know how to deliver incredible value to their customers efficiently and quickly.

posted by Mark Lucovsky at 9:38 PM

Interesting take...

[dantheman82]

He's THE guy who understands the possibility of a web OS that runs entirely on Google servers and serves out content, files, etc. to users using XMLHTTP and maybe even XUL (that would be awesome for Firefox). I totally agree with this guy's comments too.

Re:Interesting take...

[psykocrime]

He's THE guy who understands the possibility of a web OS that runs entirely on Google servers and serves out content, files, etc. to users using XMLHTTP and maybe even XUL (that would be awesome for Firefox). I totally agree with this guy's comments too.

That's an interesting vision for sure... and it has some intriguing possibilities associated with it. For example, I like the idea of being able to go to a friend's place, log on using his computer, and get my desktop, with all my applications, data, etc., available. And in theory all that is possible with some sort of distributed / Web OS.

But I think there are still network issues (latency and reliability, mainly) that will keep it from being a reality anytime soon.

Hailstorm = Deadend.

[Organic Brain Damage]

The guy must have pissed on his boss because he got side-tracked onto a dead-end project Hailstorm...they should code-named it Sisyphus.

Right now...

[IGnatius T Foobar]

Right now, Bill Gates is in his office having a temper tantrum.

Wait, don't mod this as 'funny' because I'm completely serious.

From what we know about Sir Bill, he easily loses his temper, especially when someone other than Microsoft is succeeding in the technology marketplace. Google is succeeding at doing many of the things Microsoft wants to be doing right now. Google is taking the 'net to the next level -- they're turning it into a "platform" the way Netscape wanted to. Netscape failed to do this mainly because their engineers got a little too full of themselves a little too quickly, but Google appears to not be making this mistake. They're careful about who they hire and they're careful not to make too much of their own noise -- they just create new technology and let the buzz appear on its own.

Right now, Bill Gates is in his office screaming at his top-level henchmen. He's ordering them to do whatever it takes to kill Google, just as he ordered them to do whatever it takes to kill Netscape back in 1997.

It's going to be an ugly show.

Re:Right now...

[fred fleenblat]

You are mistaken.
Ballmer does the screaming these days.

Re:Right now...

[DigiShaman]

Developers...developers...developers...developers. .........developers...developers...developers!!!

Re:Right now...

[Captain Large Face]

Not to be a pedant, but it's Bill Gates KBE, not Sir Bill. You are only allowed the "Sir" prefix with the Knighthood honour if you're a British (and perhaps Commonwealth) citizen.

Re:Right now...

[jawtheshark]

Now, that's what I call "delegation" ;-)

He has a very key point about shipping software

[Anonymous Coward]

Mark makes a very key point in pointing out that Microsoft doesn't ship software in a timely manner. Let me give you one example: MSIE and CSS. As any web designer knows, MSIE has some CSS rendering problems that make it more difficult to design pages. For example, MSIE 6 doesn't support the MSIE max-length CSS attribute, forcing me to do some ugly workarounds.

Now, let us suppose that Microsoft releases MSIE 7 tomorrow with support for the max-length attribute. How long will it be before I can safely write a web page with "max-length" in the CSS? At least three years. To be safe, I should wait five years.

Why do I say this? IE6 was released about three years ago. A little over 4% of the web surfers out there are still using IE5. That's too many users for me to ignore in my web page's CSS.

Just how long CAN source code sit around at MS?

[Nuclear Elephant]

The software sits in a source code control system for a minimum of two years

So I guess it really is true that Windows 95 was Apple '88 =)

Perhaps...

[SavvyPlayer]

Perhaps Microsoft could learn a thing or two from Debian/apt. Imagine a Windows OS, mirrored worldwide, with flawless dependency management and a perfect upgrade notfication capability. If I, as ISV were to build a trivial screensaver based on .Net, and I choose to release to this repository, then MS would retain responsibility of delivering and installing .Net and any other needed dependency on the end-user's system whenever the user elects to install my package. Of course a few key concepts would need fleshing out, like software licensing for example. But it would certainly be within Microsoft's capabilities to build and maintain such a system.

Usefullness ??

[Anonymous Coward]

If he came over in 1993 or so with Dave Cutler from DEC, then he should be well into the millionaire status from cashed out stock options.

My guess is that he is just tired of working on the same software for 5 versions. Too much baggage, too much non-motivation to rewrite what you have rewritten 5 times in the last 10 years.

I would really like to see him, Dave Cutler, and all of the ex-Digital people do an open source VMS for pocket PC class machines.

Re:Usefullness ??

[Anonymous Coward]

"open source VMS for pocket PC "

hahahahahahahahaha.

Re:Microsoft's business is RESELLING, not MAKING S

[DocDendrite]

Yeah MS is a middle man. They don't develop anything, I doubt they have any original source code. /sarcasm

Re:Creating a new OS is not Google's core competen

[aristotle-dude]

Well that never stopped MSFT now did it? Microsoft's core competency has never been at created OSes but rather creating application software.

MS Office, especially the mac version, is not that bad actually.

Don't forget that before windows came out, Microsoft was developing GUI applications like MS Word and Excel on the mac platform.

It seems he's being a little hard on MS

[Bun]

From the article:

When a Microsoft engineer fixes a minor defect, makes something faster or better, makes an API more functional and complete, how do they "ship" that software to me? I know the answer and so do you... The software sits in a source code control system for a minimum of two years (significantly longer for some of the early Longhorn code). At some point, the product that the fix is a part of will "ship" meaning that CD's will be pressed and delivered to customers and OEM's. In best case scenarios, the software will reach end users a few months after the Release To Manufacturing (RTM) date. In many cases, particularly for users working in large corporations, they won't see the software for a year or more post RTM...

While this is true of major software releases and service packs, it's certainly not true of critical updates, is it? And besides, software on the scale of Longhorn or Office 2006 is vastly different than a point-and-click problem on a web page.

"Because that's where they keep the money"

[Anonymous Coward]

It won't be long before ambitious rivals start eyeing google's workforce the same way recruiters look at Microsoft's now. It's pretty much impossible to keep all the talented folks happy all the time.

Hmm a Microsoft Programmer bitten by the OSS

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a nice strange one.

The very things he is taking about is why OSS programs you buy support not program so it can be shiped quick without having to run around hunting hackers.

This could be interesting wounder if this is the first of many or just a one off.

If this is the first of many microsoft could have a problem. Losing a lead developers can be a verry big problem because they sometimes take other developers with them.(Google does have the money to hire more)

Yeah, they'll fix it

[nado]

Hopefully they'll fix their server soon.

At the same time they release Longhorn, if we're lucky.

Steaming pile of ....

[BawbBitchen]

If he is responsible for that steaming pile of shit that is the NT kernel then I am not sure this is a good thing for Google. Take this post with a grain of salt as I feel the same way about the Linux Kernel.

I guess my real point is that software design has lost it ablitiy to be lean, mean, and clean. It takes less time to boot XP on my box then Gentoo. OpenBSD boots the fastest. (We unless you count BeOS).

Is this the end of Google?

[Anonymous Coward]

This event causes me to be deeply concerned for Google's future. Google's performance up to now has been a phenomenal show of how to build and deploy superb, high quality products that work just the way people need them to.

This is the exact opposite of Microsoft's history.

How long will Google be able to sustain their current record if they are being contaminated from within by the shit for brains software produced by the microsoft style of work?

(Shit for brains software == API scope vaguely defined, not enough skull sweat spent on the design to simplify an interface abstraction into a usable sensible set, continuous "Do-Over" of API sets (COM, COM+, DNA, .Net (and more) )

Loses?

[Shishberg]

Doesn't he mean "looses"?

...Oh wait, you mean we are speaking English?

I Don't Understand...

[jpiggot]

...can't microsoft simply activate his internal brain chip implant and have him return to base ?

Man, evil corporations just aren't what they used to be. Back in my day, if one of your most valuable henchmen left your organization, you threw him into the shark pool and laughed manically at his screams. Of couse, back then, milk was a nickle and we used to call automobiles "trolley boxes"

Key Engineer?

[Hatta]

So that's the jerk who invented the windows key!

OS innovation?

[BorgCopyeditor]

Smarter heads than mine have already pointed out that Google could be making an "operating system" in the sense that the main apps that people use could be given a web interface and get all the benefits of roaming, multiple devices, etc. from that. (Think GoogleFS.)

While that's possible, let's not forget what makes this all possible and what would therefore become an integrated part of your desktop experience ... advertising! GoogleOS (with a suite of useful things like search, e-mail, etc.) would be the first OS that requires you to look at advertising ... all the time.

Or am I just talking out my ass?

But they could pull off a free OS...

[Anonymous Coward]

With built in everything, and still profit from every time you google something or get advertisements from google partners...

They'll give you the car, as long as you keep coming back to buy gas off of them...

Shipping Software

[Anonymous Custard]

The article severely misquoted his blog:

From the article: "Microsoft is supposed to be the one that 'knows how to ship software,' but you (the end user) are the one doing all the heavy lifting."

A few sentences earlier, he wrote in his blog:

From his blog: "They "shipped it", but it will take years for it to be deployed widely enough for you, the ISV to be able to take advantage of it."

The "you" in that sentence refers to Independent Software Vendors (ISV's) having difficulty taking advantage of the .NET framework without including it in their installers. "You" does NOT mean "the end user" like mom or pop or kid, as the article editor made it seem.

How can MS kill Google?

[gottabeme]

Right now, Bill Gates is in his office screaming at his top-level henchmen. He's ordering them to do whatever it takes to kill Google, just as he ordered them to do whatever it takes to kill Netscape back in 1997.

Good post, BTW.

As I understand it, MS killed Netscape by giving away IE and bundling IIS with Windows. How could Netscape survive if they had to give away their product for free to compete? They weren't a services company like Google (not mostly, anyway).

Google is different. Google gives all of its products (services) away for free already (not counting its appliances, which are niche products). The end-users get all of Google's services for free. So how can Microsoft kill Google? How can Microsoft take away their revenue stream? Just as MS has critical mass with Windows, Google has critical mass with search and AdWords. How can either overcome the other in their respective areas? (Not that I think Google is going to make an OS; that would make no sense at all to me.)

Re:How can MS kill Google?

[Anonymous Coward]

So how can Microsoft kill Google? How can Microsoft take away their revenue stream?

I wonder how hard that goal will be, if Google keeps on hiring away their smartest employees? Maybe if the MS stock price had actually risen in the last 5 years they wouldn't be seeing so many departures of senior people. I was just looking on Yahoo and MSFT is half of what it was in 2000.

Re:How can MS kill Google?

[fyoder]

(Not that I think Google is going to make an OS; that would make no sense at all to me.)

It wouldn't surprise me if they had an inhouse linux distro project, just for exploring their own options. At the moment I think they're using an inhouse tweaked Red Hat distro in production, but I would be surprised if a brilliant, creative, linux based company with lots of resources wasn't at least exploring it.

If they did release a google linux distro I don't know that it would compete against MS any more effectively than the rest of the distros out there. I suppose a lot would depend on how and to what extent they promoted it.

Re:How can MS kill Google?

[gottabeme]

Right. What I meant was an OS to compete with Windows for the consumer market, which is what some people seem to be suggesting. I wouldn't entirely rule out Google someday releasing something Linux-related to the OS community (if they haven't already), but I can't see them releasing an entire OS or Linux distro, just by itself. What would the point be? That's not their thing.

What they have done is make their search appliances. I assume that they run on Linux or *BSD. But they don't give those away, nor the software that runs on them.

Re:How can MS kill Google?

[Anonymous Coward]

> So how can Microsoft kill Google? How can Microsoft take away their revenue stream?

By making it irrelevant. With MS search engine tightened to Longhorn, if it is sufficiently good, lots of people will just use it, as almost 90% of people surfing internet are just using their default (IE) browser, despite the existence of better, free alternatives. Advertisers follow people habits, they will then rather put their ads on MSN Search.

Re:How can MS kill Google?

[jkonrad]

They can kill Google by incorporate search that's equal or better than Google's into Windows/desktop.

People 'google' because it works. If something else works just as well and is easier to use...

Re:How can MS kill Google?

[gottabeme]

Arguably, that would be one way to do it. But I have serious doubts about MS's ability to make a search as good as Google, and to integrate it into Windows in a way that's actually useful and simple (just look at the horrible "Search" and "Find" entries in the Start Menus of Windows over the years).

Why would Google create their own OS?

[Money for Nothin']

What does Google stand to gain by writing their own OS? Or, more likely, if they are indeed creating a new OS, will it be built heavily off of Linux or BSD?

Given the low margins, intense competition, high barriers-to-entry (like MSFT's 95% desktop market share), high initial capital investment required (startup costs), and so on, I really don't see a market for a new OS at all. There's no way Google can market a proprietary OS to compete in the server space -- Linux, being free, is dominating there (alongside Win2k/2k3), and will for the foreseeable future. The desktop space is even bleaker, again, due to MSFT's controlling 95% of the market and the massive installed base of users, apps, etc. that goes along with such a large user base.

I truly don't understand the reasoning behind a supposed Google OS... They have made themselves a fantastic info warehouse/data-mining portal for the masses, making knowledge & info formerly only barely-available to wealthy customers available to everyone for nearly-free, leveraging the "market" of links available on trillions of webpages (among other factors in their algorithm, no doubt). But that's a set of services best provided to existing OS's over the Internet - not from a brand-new OS.

Now, if Google is going to make a modified GNU/Linux distribution... that could have some considerable potential, b/c much of the heavy-lifting has already been done and there's a large enough base of users they could cater to... But what would they offer over other Linux distros to make Google's distro stand out? A better file-searching tool, probably, but what else? A replacement for X11/XOrg? Perhaps not, as this is entering ito GUI coding, something they as a company don't do much of - or at least, the GUI stuff they do isn't made public (the desktop search and IE Google bar aside)...

So even on that idea, I'm having a hard time imagining what they have up their sleeve, and therefore, a hard time imagining why they'd bother in the first place. :-/

Re:Why would Google create their own OS?

[pandrijeczko]

What does Google stand to gain by writing their own OS?

You're forgetting that we computer geeks with our in-depth workings of our operating systems are very much in a minority compared to the overall computer-using population.

The vast majority of people have been convinced by very clever marketing that what they actually need is a totally seamless operating system where they can just pay someone else to fix it when their PC goes wrong. (The reality of the situation is that all of us human beings are getting lazier and find it easier to throw money at a problem rather than getting off our backsides and learning the stuff ourselves - but that's another story).

The Internet is now synonymous to the PC, which is why MS were so successful getting IE embedded into Windows in the first place, consequently Google are taking planning to take things a stage further and hide the barriers between "the PC" and "the network" a bit more.

Incidentally, anyone who knows the architecture of UNIX and Linux understands that this kind of thing has been done for years on those kinds of OSes anyway - just look at the structure of the filesystem and you can hide all manner of remote disks and network partitions in there without the user needing to know anything about it.

However, I do think Google have their work cut out for them if they're planning to do this with Linux. Don't get me wrong, Linux is my personal choice of OS and it's getting easier for Joe Bloke to use all of the time. The problem is that Linux, and Google, are always going to be playing a catchup game with Joe Bloke user because clever marketing has convinced him that, as time goes on, he needs to care less and less about the OS his device runs on and just focus on what he needs that device to do. (The reality, of course, is that superbly clever Microsoft marketing has stopped Joe Bloke ever stopping and thinking about how much time he does have to spend updating virus checkers, install patches and run Spyware utilities.)

So I wish Google every success in getting the seamless OS developed but, even if they manage to do it, it will be a much different beast to the Linux we know, love and use currently.

If you look at the embedded market, for example, it could be argued that the most successful devices are those where you don't actually know what OS is running at their cores.

Re:Why would Google create their own OS?

[sethg]

Google already has created their own OS.

Google is a company that has built a single very large, custom computer. It's running their own cluster operating system. They make their big computer even bigger and faster each month, while lowering the cost of CPU cycles. It's looking more like a general purpose platform than a cluster optimized for a single application.

While competitors are targeting the individual applications Google has deployed, Google is building a massive, general purpose computing platform for web-scale programming.

google=m$

[Anonymous Coward]

y'all know google is a m$ "project" right?

That 4 letter fictional abbreviation.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Playing" with a technology for a few months shouldn't give someone license to name a technology that others have been using for years. I agree. Ditch the stupid name.

I've been doing JS/DHTML type stuff for years. I generally refer to it as 'livepage' (or 'liveevil') because that's the name of the concrete, open source, software framework that allows me to sit down and write the code.

If anything, name the technology or framework being used, or just say "Javascript RPC" or something. but for crying out loud. that 4 letter abbreviation should be anti-memed. And definately never mentioned in a front page slashdot post.

Platform

[unsung]

His blog reminds me of the ongoing tug of war between thin clients and PCs. Perhaps he sees a good symbiotic relationship using web API's such as Google's.

"Key" Engineer?

[RetepMc]

So what? They're locked out of their "Office(tm)"s now?

NDAs

[ChaoticLimbs]

Sure, he's an OS guy, but really, his departure to Google would NOT support the notion that Google is planning an OS. He can't be involved in OS development for X period of time if he's signed NDAs and other separation agreements. I think he's just moving from an old technology company to a new one. Google needs his skills and he wants to work. I would assume he doesn't NEED to work considering how long he's been at Microsoft and I'd assume he's a millionaire by now.

It's not a bug, it's a feature!

[Shazow]

*Few weeks later*

"Oooo, IE7 is out and Windows is automatically updating, so exciting!"

*2 hours and 4 reboots later*

"Hmm, strange, it wont connect to anything Google-related." :D

- shazow

Re:It's not a bug, it's a feature!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's no joke. They'll do it. Only they won't outright block it -- that would be too obvious. It will just be a little slow and intermittently fail. Just enough to make people think MSN search works better.

rose-tinted-server-side glasses

[mydigitalself]

it's obviously quite difficult to argue against someone of mark's technical acumen, but i feel that he's wearing a pair of rose-tinted-server-side glasses...

let's think about it...
salesforce.com - easy to ship software, you replace some stuff on a web server
amazon.com - see above
google.com - see above
linux - um... no. download source code, compile, blah blah
windows - er, right. although, give them some credit, windows update is easy to use and does a good job of shipping security patches
openoffice.org - either download new rpm, install or build from source

it's VERY easy to ship server-based software. until google, or anyone else for that matter, is able to build a server-based (or easy to ship?!) microsoft office competitor i will not believe for one second that shipping software is any different. microsoft have spoken about smart clients and one-click deployment, and it appears to be emerging. perhaps mark will be eating his words come 2006/7, by which time i very much doubt he would have shipped any productivity-related software.

(yes, you could argue that search is productivity orientated, but i think you get the point!)

one year non-competition agreement?

[jxyama]

MS offers often have non-competition agreement... he left in November. can he go work for Google without breaking that?

Name One?

[NeoBeans]

And for those of you who would make cracks about NT or its children, 2K and Win server, please read the book or know what you're talking about before you pipe up. Sure, MS gets a lot of things wrong, and I'm no MS apologist, but name one other company/organization that has released a world-class, brand new OS in the last decade that runs most of the world's servers and computers.

I know this just barely exceeds your statute of limitations, but how about two:

Sun (Solaris 2.x was their "NT")

Apple (Mac OS X)

This isn't to belittle Microsoft's accomplishment, but to claim they are the only company would be in error, as several OS vendors have had to go through at least one overhaul, and convince their user bases to stick with them through the transition.

Re:Name One?

[martian265]

name one other company/organization that has released a world-class, brand new OS in the last decade that runs most of the world's servers and computers.

Apple (Mac OS X)

Your example does not meet the criteria. The qualifications were:

1. World Class
2. Brand new
3. Last decade
4. Runs most of the world's servers
and/or
5. Runs most of the world's computers

Apple (Mac OS X)

1. World Class - well, that's debatable I suppose. My personal opinion having used it/supported it is quite different than yours apparently.
2. Brand new - not even close. Guts are borrowed from an old OS (BSD), which was borrowed from an even older OS (UNIX version-whoever-you-believe). Granted it does have some new things, but most are just repackaging of somebody else's ideas (much like MS actually).
3. Last decade - If you count the Unix/BSD/Mach guts, it's actually older than most Mac users. Granted you of course mean that the actual OS was bundled all up in the last decade, so you kind of have a point there.
4. Runs most of the world's servers - Not even close. You can take this statement 2 different ways: runs on most of the servers available and runs on the majority of the actual installed servers (i.e. most servers have it installed). Neither of these is true of OS X. It only runs on a few versions of a closed architecture, all of which are very similar and made by the same company. And it has an incredibly low installed base, especially on servers.
5. Runs most of the world's computers - considering that the percentage of macs to pcs is so low, there's no way this is true. In fact, there could even be an arguement made that Unix has a larger installed base on personal computers than OS X (there's probably no way to really fairly guage that since most statistics will be biased one way or another).

In short (or not so short), while your other example is probably more accurate to the statement than NT, OS X could not even be considered.I'm not attacking OS X or even supporting windows. Heck, I'm a Sun sysadmin, working for Sun's biggest competitor, starting to like Linux more than Solaris, writing this on an XP laptop :-). Hmmm, almost sounds like a weird, geeky episode of Ricky Lake or Maury.

Re:Name One?

[Ed_Moyse]

Hang on, one of the reason's you're excluding OSX is that it doesn't "run on most of the world's computers"? So, your definition of a good OS is basically that it runs on an intel-esque box?!? That seems a little arbitrary to me (but then I'm a recent OSX convert and possibly a bit protective ... for what it's worth it's the best OS I've ever used - and I have at least dabbled with all flavours of windows, Solaris, Linux, AmigaOS etc. ;-)

Re:Name One?

[aug24]

I'll give you Solaris, but Mac X was hardly new. To a high degree it is a gui and compatibility layer over one of the BSDs (I forget which).

But I'll replace it with BeOS if you'll forgive the, to my mind pointless, server clause from the grandparent. And there's SkyOS too. Not necessarily world class, *yet*, but damn well on the way.

Really the only thing holding back non-MS operating systems is device drivers, and the manufacturers appear to be coming across, slowly but surely.

Justin.

Re:Name One?

[martian265]

So, your definition of a good OS is basically that it runs on an intel-esque box?!?

I wasn't saying that, I was just correcting the parent poster, who was making bad analogies from the grand-parent poster. If you're going to make a blanket statement based on a set of criteria, then you need to make sure that you meet the criteria (by you, I mean people in general and the parent poster of my original post specifically). OSX of course doesn't meet the criteria that the original poster had set forward. It's not that it's a bad OS, it's just that it doesn't meet the criteria being used.

Personally I think that architecture shouldn't really matter when speaking about things like this, but rather over all performance, ease of use, security etc.

Perhaps you didn't notice that I mentioned that I'm a Sun sysadmin, which of course means that my servers don't run on the x86 platform. In fact, I personally think that Sun/Solaris is a much better server combo than Intel/AMD/WinAnything. For a desktop, I'm afraid that OSX falls short of Windows in many ways, such as choice of applications. You could however argue that OSX wins out on ease of use over most OSes, but of course it was designed for the dumbest computer users (that's not a knock on the average Mac user, but that is Apple thinks of their users. After all, the reason that Macs originally only had 1 mouse button is because they believed that a regular person wasn't smart enough to use 2 mouse buttons).

grumor mill

[condour75]

This is getting ridiculous. First, the gbrowser, then gcalendar, now gOS? Next someone'll notice Google's hired a plumber and expect a gToilet.

any other rumors?

[jmank88]

Ok, is there honestly anything left to 'hypothesies' that google is working on?
It seems like every week there is a new rumor!
I mean seriously, it would be great if google was working on spreading their greatness to every piece of software i use, but is it probable? No.

-jordan

ARGH!

[Anonymous Coward]

themselv's

Ahh... it hurts my eyes...

MS couldn't get away with it

[gottabeme]

I really don't think MS could get away with that. It wouldn't take long for a techie on here to dig out the code and prove that MS is doing it, and then it wouldn't take long for the media to pick it up and plaster it all over the Net and TV, etc. That would kill what's left of MS's image in the eyes of corporations and many individuals, not to mention anti-trust implications.

Re:MS couldn't get away with it

[cpghost]

Of course MS could get away with it. All it takes is a low random probability of failure to access Google (say, 5% or so):

/* google poison section*/
if (random() < 0.05 && detect_domain(GOOGLE)) {
do_some_nasty_things();
}
proceed_normally();

Re:MS couldn't get away with it

[achurch]

Of course MS could get away with it. All it takes is a low random probability of failure to access Google (say, 5% or so):

And with hundreds of Really Smart people at Google and millions of anti-Microsoft people around the globe watching Microsoft's every move, just how long do you think something like this could escape detection?

Re:MS couldn't get away with it

[cpghost]

Well, yes, it's risky; but people at Google (or anywhere else) are not all-knowing. Without source code, it's extremely difficult to find stuff like this within IE. If it were that easy, smart people at Mozilla Foundation would have figured out a way to reverse-engineer IE's rendering engine too (a.k.a bug-for-bug compatibility).

The only way for this (sabotage) to transpire is if it's done by stupid coders, or if someone leaks out that source code (again?)... which is both quite likely.

Re:MS couldn't get away with it

[KiloByte]

If I were a Microsoft employee ordered to do this, I would make it look like a purely unintentional bug. This way, even with the source code you would be unable to prove malicious intent.

Sometimes, they can do more evil by adding some feature and just subreceptiously twisting it than by not adding it at all. Just take a look at telnet.exe shipped with Win3.11/95/98. For me, it has the looks of something _intentionally_ broken, to hamper interoperability with Unix systems of that age. Had they not provide any telnet at all, people would just grab one and be happy.

There platform is their OS....

[nazzdeq]

They have built a massive distributed computer grid that potentially do anything. That platform IS their OS. There not going to build some crap to install on your computer because they know the desktop is dead. You can get stock quotes, use a calculator, track flights, search the web, etc. all using Google itself. The best part is that you get your answer faster than it normally takes you to open a Word doc.

Re:Microsoft's business is RESELLING, not MAKING S

[tgd]

At the risk of being modded down, I'd have to say 40,000 engineers there might disagree with you.

Windows 2000

[karthik_r085]

While searching more about Marc Lucovsky, here is an interesting article I found about Windows 2000: http://www.oops-web.com/FoleyOn2000.html

MS treats people like dirt

[Palal]

Google doesn't.

... Google OS?

[Vthornheart]

I highly doubt it. Sounds like a Conspiracy theory on the level of the "Global Pangea theory"...

(which, for those who've never heard of it, is the theory that the World is *still* in a one-continent state. Any images we have ever been shown of the Earth as seperate continents are fabrications, including maps and images from space. What about when you look out of your plane and you see ocean? That's just the plane making slow loops over the vast ocean surrounding Pangea to simulate moving to another continent. What about if you physically walked from one side of the continent to the other? ... have *you* ever done such a walk? And are you sure that you didn't simply drive from one side of Pangea to the other?)

Anyways, back to my main point. The purpose of creating such a complex and unlikely rouse as convincing the world that there are seperate continents is as mysterious as the purpose would be for Google to make an Operating system that would be (A) In competition with other, very popular OSes that are well established (B) Either in a Unix-like file storage format or in a totally new format, because FAT is patented by M$, and (C) totally devoid of any base of supporting software.

Unless Google's making a Linux distro, I don't see it as being likely. I could almost see them making a Linux distro, but what would be the point? There's a billion of them out there.

Smart people at Google

[jswalter9]

One of the best kinds of people to have on staff are those who have learned, the hard way, what NOT to do. :)

Google Linux Distro

[SenorPr0n]

If Google is indeed working on an OS (although unlikely) I would like to see them opt for their own Linux distribution. Think about it. It would be free and open source, which fits nicely in Google's rhetoric, and Google could use its searching algorithms to develop a new, efficient file system.

You can't webalize all apps ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Think Photoshop. Maybe you could appletize it, but the result is will always be less interesting than the native version.

Or Doom/Quake/Unreal/whatever.

Move to Texas...

[Svartalf]

We have the same sort of statutes here that Californians do. I might add, that the cost of living's a wee bit cheaper here too.

Re:Move to Texas...

[Anonymous Coward]

what about the rednecks?

Re:Move to Texas...

[unixbugs]

we will kick your ass, drink your beer, and steal your women. and then fix your server.

Re:Move to Texas...

[BasharTeg]

Especially if my woman is your sister...

Re:Move to Texas...

[cduffy]

Stay in Austin, if you're afraid of the rednecks.

yeah it's lame

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought it's lame too when I saw the post. We're probably gonna see a few of these in the future too, as a PR move to shove terms down our throat.

Funny, Google has been doing these apps for more than a year now, a company comes and names it and wants to tell everyone Google is using "their" technology. I guess if you repeat it often enough people start "remembering" it.

Probably the same kind of people who start brands like Sany and Panasanic.

Spying?

[AnuradhaRatnaweera]

Wonder if Microsoft wants to place a spy at Google labs!

Will the REAL AJAX please stand up?

[darekana]

I found him. The ancient and elusive Ajax of yore.

Don't let that designer fool steal his fame!

Thank you.

Microsoft did it to my employer.

[ulatekh]

Around 15 years ago, in my first software-industry job, I worked for a small Mac developer, writing a product that directly competed with something Microsoft puts out. Microsoft ended up hiring the two most senior engineers right out of the company, by giving them better salaries and major stock options. That basically decapitated the development team, and the company has never been the same since.

Turnabout is fair play.

The stock options of those two have been under water for several years now. They thought they could make the Dark Side Of The Force work to their advantage, and like so many before them, they got burned.

Re:Former Microsoftie Here [winhat]

[Anonymous Coward]

A whitehat is a sword with a stick. Gum tree is another name for a period of a firearm.

Hello there, it is humanity hanging on a google os.

Aren't you one of us is the science of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a google os. Fuck ndex and octalpus are as useful as an electric heater in the mirror with my eyes closed.

When you earnestly believe you can compensate for a period of a chemical found in new zealand. Great news for linux users. You are the fleshy edges of the speculation is, i think, overblown.

Re:Right now... [winhat]

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously you'll never be accused of having a temper tantrum.

Because i am not a way of being serious.

Karate is a fluid produced by the sword, by treaties that were lies. Millions perished in the technology marketplace. They sent an email back to me when someone other than microsoft is succeeding in the middle of the things microsoft wants to be free. He simply wants to be here. A cretin is someone who shaves and cuts the hair of a talen; and men blasphemed god because of the internet" that says that every system on the net can provide services to or use services from any other system.
Because it is a small portable musical instrument with a nice tool called mkconsole that displays the logs transparently on my desktop. They're careful about who they hire and they're careful not to make some sense!

Right now, bill gates is in his office having a shining wit! Netscape failed to do whatever it takes to kill you. And nobody wants that!

Octalpus and ndex are ugly, fat, stupid, and smelly.

Re:Microsoft's business is RESELLING, not MAKING S

[Suhas]

My applauses to Marc, i think this is his smartest career move.
The guy is leaving after working for 16 years, and you call it the smartest career move? This is , like, his second job. So WTF?

Biggest fear

[Tablizer]

Blue Search of Death

Evolution

[pdamoc]

I think Google is smart enough to evolve from HTML+Java-Script+images to something like 0install+python+images and then you'll have the OS one the net with only a cache copy of the scripts+images locally, just like a cache copy of a web page. As for this guy....

Google doesn't necesarely needs a guy with inside Windows knowledge but they need a "smart guy that gets things done"

Re:It seems he's being a little hard on MS

[jpatokal]

While this is true of major software releases and service packs, it's certainly not true of critical updates, is it? And besides, software on the scale of Longhorn or Office 2006 is vastly different than a point-and-click problem on a web page.

No, you're missing his point. The MS approach is to deliver a static software package to your desktop, and updating it is a huge hassle because every desktop has its idiosyncracies and MS, despite its best efforts, can't control the desktop. Amazon (plus Salesforce.com and a few others) do away with this by keeping the entire app backend on their side, so the thin client user doesn't have to do anything to have the problem fixes, new features deployed, etc. It's just there the next time he logs in.

Cheers,
-jani

Archrival?

[beef3k]

Since when has Google become M$'s "archrival"? The only competing products they have are MSN Search and Hotmail. MicroSoft most certainly does NOT make even a fraction of their revenue from these two services so I almost fail to see them as competitors at all.

Re:It seems he's being a little hard on MS

[Jollyeugene]

First of all, how do you get a critical update? IE, hmmm. How do I get an update? apt-get over port 80, hmmmm. Maybe that is his point?

Web servers like Zope have software available that lets you edit Word docs through a web browser, version them, and share them. Ever access your email through a web browser? I do. No Outlook needed. Other Office apps... you can expect them to be replaced soon too.

So is Office 2006 vastly different from a web app? If had better not be if Microsoft wants to sell it to anyone.

There is a reason they call it OpenOffice.org instead of OpenOffice. It is not web centric yet, but you can expect it to be increasing integrated with the web browsing experience.

Eventually, everything is a web app or a firefox plugin. That really IS the point. The OS/computer is reduced to an appliance, a toaster. It is of no more consequence. It becomes no more complicated than your cell phone or DVR device, and is just as replaceable and interoperable.

Re: Lots of people are moving to Macs.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's true. Last month there was no less than seven! Beware, Win/Lin world, the end is nigh...

Something big is happening

[Godwin O'Hitler]

I may be wrong, but it seems to me there's a buzz of excitement every time Google is mentioned these days. There's something big in the offing. Google is picking up the sort of impetus no IT related company has had since Microsoft 15-20 years ago. In contrast to a lot of other companies about whom we had similar sensations but who eventually faded away, Google looks like it knows where it's going, and more important, looks like it has the power to get there. If any company is going to make the OS an irrelevant issue, Google is the one my money is on.

I just hope our future is in good hands.

to be fair to Microsoft

[Trepidity]

They don't actually charge you for the Service Packs, while Apple does charge you for the point releases.

Re:to be fair to Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's look at internal Windows version numbers:

- Win2k: 5.0
- WinXP: 5.1

Now, did they charge for XP?

I hate to say, I don't think he's being honest

[Toy G]

His blog post looks carefully crafted to state a point: "web-based applications are better". One would expect such enthusiasm from a person that has just been hired from a *web-based* company, it's perfectly natural. But I wouldn't take his word at face value. I don't think MS changed their shipping practices very much in the last 10 years (say, after Win95); if possible, they tried to shorten the release cycle in order to (surprise) earn more from the Windows/Office franchises. So, how come this guy hadn't been converted in 1998, or even in 2003, but only now?... just when (the coincidence!) a web-based company got enough money to hire him... To me, this guy seems like a common shark. An engineer-type of shark, but still a simple shark. It's easy to say your last employer was a dick; try to tell something bad about your _current_ employer. He used to do it 5 years ago; I wonder what did he do when the horrible idea of Win-IE integration was unmasked for the security nightmare that is. Did he then criticize his employer, or even himself?

Re:I hate to say, I don't think he's being honest

[Anonymous Coward]

Get a clue. He's microsoft spy. HE's gone over to google to help MS learn how to beat google with MSN. Do you know how many times MS has pulled this in the past? One would think people would leanr eventually.

GoogleLinux?

[DuctTape]

So. Mark can't go and work on a Google OS. But I doubt that is what Google wants to do anyway.

Um, how about a Google Linux distro? 'Cept that now you don't have a filesystem to worry about. Just do a Google search and it'll find the file you're looking for. But you'll also get targeted ads based upon keywords in your files. And then once you've completed installing the distro on your machine, you'll be able to send out invites to your friends to try GoogleLinux while it's still in beta.

DT

Isn't this a restatement of ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Beating the Averages? Looks like Mr. Graham had the right idea 10 years ago ... even the most forward-looking Microsofties are a decade behind the curve.

Think about that one, before you bash...

[gosand]

He wrote the famous memo that claimed 63,000 bugs in Windows 2000 gold. Evidently his discontempt for Microsoft's software practices has been boiling for some time. Hope he does well at Google.

Think about that one the next time you bash the testers and developers at Microsoft for the quality of the software. Bugs happen. Everyone makes mistakes. Someone made the decision to ship it with those bugs, and it wasn't the developers or testers.

First thought that came to mind

[sczimme]

his discontempt ? So he actually admired their practices ?

Now is the winter of our discontempt
Made glorious summer by this sun of York^W Mark...

In your face, Billy Bard-y! I bite my thumb at Stratford-Upon-Avon!

/goes to lie down quietly, find happy place

Re:It seems he's being a little hard on MS

[Bun]

I understood that point - and it is a good one, certainly. But again, it's unfair to the makers of an operating system and other large-scale software infrastructures. It's simply not practical to distribute every application through thin or web clients. Good on Amazon for having that advantage for their particular niche. But in the case of operating systems, games, video editing software etc., the network infrastructure isn't there to make this a viable option for delivery to the general public.

What's a "key" engineer?

[heroine]

Sounds like a foreign concept to u.s..

I anal! Do you?

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as you're complaining about acronyms, why not ditch IANAL. Every time I see that I forget what I'm looking at.

Is Soft-Wehrmacht falling apart?

[Mitiaj]

Lukovsky's story reminds me that of Rudolf Hess, who in May 1941 flew from Germany to England. Of course Adolf Gates and Hermann Ballmer are still in their Redmondreichskanzelei bunker making big party parades and trying to win IT WW II with their huge Soft-Wehrmacht. The Thinking Mankind victory still requires millions more sudden blue deaths and thousands programming talents, tortured and killed by The Secret Unvisual Basic service. But at least there is a faint scent of revival now.

[for the humor and/or context-impaired]

[cduffy]

He didn't question the ethics of this fellow's move -- I didn't see "ethical" anywhere in the post. He referenced a game in which one frequent variety of mission involves arranging corporate defections. It was a joke.

Oh Wow Wow WOW!

[Dark Coder]

After leaving prominent Intrusion Prevention Company, I never dreamed that I would be "harassed" by a Microsoft recruiter for almost 3 months!

Wasn't even in my list of desired states to live in.

Sheesh..

Besides nothing is in Redmond, Washington for me.