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

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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

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.

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.

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: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: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: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: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

[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.