Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
"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.
Well this is annoying. Scoble complained just earlier on his blog that Slashdot hadn't linked to his Ballmer interview.
:-(. Come on editors, even the interviewer semi-admits this as being a troll-piece in a /. context.
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
# 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?