Ballmer on Innovation

prostoalex writes "Robert Scoble interviewed Steve Ballmer on the topics of blogging, innovation at Microsoft, Microsoft's work with developers and other things. Video is available in WMV format." From the interview: "Did IBM out innovate us? I don't think so. I don't think they've done much interesting at all. What about Oracle? I don't think they've done much innovative at all. What about the open source guys? Ah, the business model is interesting but we haven't seen much in the way of technical innovation. People cite Google. Google has done some interesting stuff."

Comments

Does IBM innovate more than Microsoft?

[nurhussein]

Did IBM out innovate us? I don't think so.

IBM invented SQL. IBM invented the hard drive. IBM invented the scanning tunnelling microscope. IBM employees have won the Nobel Prize.

IBM may be evil, but it has always been cool evil.

Microsoft on the other hand introduced...uhm...the animated paperclip? The monkey dance? The BSOD?

Really, Ballmer. You just down like IBM because they gave support to Linux. Which makes them even cooler.

Re:The monkey man screeches

[Anonymous Coward]

"Did IBM out innovate us? I don't think so."

It's kind of ludicrous for Microsoft to claim that IBM hasn't been an innovator. Just about everything in modern computing was developed and commercialized by IBM, including but not limited to:

1. Virtual memory
2. Virtual machines
3. Relational Databases, SQL (ya, I know, but it is an IBM thing)
4. Protected memory
5. Multiuser Operating Systems
6. Multitasking Operating systems
7. Markup (SGML, the parent of HTML and XML)
8. Source code management
9. Spinning disk storage
10. Network terminals, graphics terminals
11. RISC architectures

and so many other basic ideas that most people (including myself & Steve B.) have no concept.

Microsoft brought a half-baked MacOS clone to Intel. That's all. I wouldn't call that innovation.

Technical innovation from opensource

[Peaker]

Lets see, Software installation management:

• A central repository of packages, and a GUI with more than 10000 packages, all installable with 2 clicks.
  
• Automatic upgrading of all these packages.
  
• Uniform interface to install, remove or upgrade all of these packages.
  
• Automatic installation of packages according to file access attempts (auto-apt).
  

GUIs:

• Desktop/network integration (i.e: ftp exploration works just like local file exploration) (and no, this does not work, not even in Windows XP, try copying files from one ftp to another, for example).
  
• Panel applets bringing usefulness to the panel, as well as quick browsers/bookmark lists in the panel (Microsoft copied some of this)
  
• Tabbed command-line consoles
  
• Password-keeping wallets for all applications, allowing the user to remember just one password
  
• Customization of desktop behavior, shortcut keys to basic operations such as minimizing/maximizing, and any other feature in the desktop.
  
• Division of responsibility, window management keeps working even when applications hang.
  
• Search feature in Configuration Manager.
  
• Countless other innovations
  

Development tools:

• The diff/patch tools.
  
• gcc: A single compiler handling the compilation of a huge collection of languages, in a large set of platforms.
  
• xemacs: An environment platform that allows extensions via a dynamic language with seamless on-the-fly compilation of the extension code you write. Also, the most featureful platform out there for this purpose, with powerful macro recorders/editors, customizable key binding, etc.
  
• Languages: Python, Perl, Ruby. Microsoft is still behind in this area, despite its .NET technology, which is less innovation, and more an extension of the Java platform (I would even say, Java done right). Many more languages are Open Source, but I simply don't recall the exact history of other language to tell for sure.
  
• Vast libraries in each of these languages, many of which are filled with technical innovation (i.e: Twisted Matrix, SDL, pygame)
  
• Transparent RPC's for: Python, Ruby, Smalltalk. Microsoft, to the best of my knowledge, does not implement a single transparent RPC. (Transparent means that the server needs not be aware of what objects the client will use, nor does it require any code to explicitly export the object's features to the client, as Microsoft's COM/.NET technologies require).
  

Emulation:

• CoLinux: Modifying the Linux Kernel to run in kernel-mode side-by-side a host operating system.
  
• bochs: Unprivileged, 100% user-space emulation of an entire PC.
  
• qemu: Like bochs, but with dynamic code translation.
  

All in all, I may have misattributed a few innovations, but most of these are from Open Source. Also, there are many others I can't remember or simply don't know. Microsoft has done less innovation than Open Source, that much is obvious.

I would appriciate information fillers on innovations from other projects I'm less familiar with, such as Apache, the Kernel.

I am pretty sure Ballmer really believes what he says, because most people, surely Microsoft employees, are quite ignorant of Opensource offerrings and their innovations.

Is it real Microsoft face, after all?

[sogod]

Speaking about innovation, MS probably meant her .NET technology, for example. Then should we forget who actually did it? The Borland guy! We can continue the list of innovations. The new filesystem? But look at Apple, she already implemented this database-like I/O concept and it really works today. We could continue further, etc. Honestly, do Balmer remind you a car salesman a bit? As for me, this face isn't even much in real Microsoft spirit and corporate culter. Some descrepancies... There are a lot of very thoughtful ppl over there, and they are not exposed. For example, the already mentioned big ex-Borland guy, big ex-Linux Guy, etc etc. Probably, money is all that counts at the end :-(

Re:He's Not 100% Wrong...

[Qbertino]

You talk about lack of inovation and give openoffice as only example- an ex-commercial sad-and-sorry MS Office rippoff.

I'll give you some innovation in OSS:

Enlightenment
Konqueror (and it's extensions)
ogg
flac
Rox
zshell
Zope (you can hardly get any more innovative than that)
Python
Ruby
blender (ok, so it wasn't OSS from the start, but it was free (beer) and the people who drove blender back then are the same that do it now, that's why I dare name it - and before you ask: It's Blenders Workspace Management that is to date unmatched by any application in existance. It's actually the successor to desktop-metaphor workspace.)
verse, loqairou et al ( OK, so these are the rare things that are more innovative than Zope, they are the future of interface design and computer interaction and usage. I'd say ten years ahead. Go check if you don't believe me: www.quelsolaar.com/, http://www.uni-verse.org/Blender_Foundation.8.0.ht ml)

Bottom line:
What you said is wrong in so many ways. The truth is, a lot or real high-end avantgarde innovation takes place in the OSS world. You just need to open your eyes and look around.
But if your looking for innovation in openoffice your going to have a hard time, I'll promise you that.

Scoble complains, Slashdot obeys?

[syphoon]

Well this is annoying. Scoble complained just earlier on his blog that Slashdot hadn't linked to his Ballmer interview.

The post in question: Interesting that Slashdot hasn't linked to the Ballmer thing yesterday. Maybe they belong to the Andrew Orlowski "we-must-not-link-to-or-acknowledge-Scoble" school of reporting. Heh.

What's fun is that Ballmer, in the interview yesterday, took a swipe at open source and IBM and Oracle. Surely that'd be worth getting the Slashdotters all riled up.

He got a lot of comments pointing out the interview was content-free, a spin job, and otherwise of generally no interest to the discerning crowd here. How pleased I was to see Scoble's shot go amiss.

And then I refresh the front-page here :-(. Come on editors, even the interviewer semi-admits this as being a troll-piece in a /. context.

These "innovations" are up to 40 years old.

[argent]

# Incremental compilation
# Incremental linking

Forth, um, 1972? Lisp, 1965?

# Pre-compiled headers

Manx C on the Amiga in 1986.

# A very strong visual debugger, with useful features like DataTips.
# Integrated source browser
# Integrated class browser

Smalltalk, 1978

Remote debugging over tcp/ip

EVERYONE, as soon as TCP/IP existed.

Intellisense (auto-completion)

GNU Readline?

Re:The monkey man screeches

[jejones]

Um, I think virtual memory is an English invention: vide the Ferranti Atlas.