Microsoft's Unique Innovation

Anonymous Coward writes "The way John Carroll sees it, Microsoft doesn't get enough credit for all the technology it invents. The company's understanding of the marketplace, argues Carroll, has proved fertile ground for many of the inventions, however incremental, that Microsoft produces on a regular basis. That awareness is that all software markets, however "unrelated" they may seem, have linkages to each other. And it's an awareness that open source will have a hard time matching. Another reason many fail to appreciate Microsoft inventiveness, continues Carroll, is because most inventions are pieces of larger puzzles."

Comments

What the.....

[RiscIt]

* checks calendar *

Nope... it's not April 1st. Did I miss something?

Re:What the.....

[meadandale]

*shouts through bullhorn* "Mr. Carroll, please step AWAY from the Kool Aid"

Re:What the.....

[Spy der Mann]

Did I miss something?

*Browses Microsoft's product list*

Hmmmm... nope.

Re:What the.....

[cursion]

I know ... I've got mod points, but I can't find a way to mark the article flamebait...

Re:What the.....

[Blakey Rat]

I just finished reading a few entries in a blog about the new interface for Office 12, and I was really, really impressed at the level of thinking that's gone into the new interface and, more importantly, the level and amount of usability tests. There's some exciting stuff there, and I bet we'll be seeing that MiniBar concept in applications for years and years to come.

(The blog is here if you're interested: http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/default.aspx)

I don't know how others feel, but my impression of Microsoft is that they're always *trying* to innovate, whether or not they happen to succeed.

Re:What the.....

[RWerp]

Given the fact a *fucking lot* of Open Source applications are copying ideas from Windows, there must be some clever heads at Microsoft. But I still hate Equation Editor from the Office Suite ;-)

Re:What the.....

[Just Some Guy]

Given the fact a *fucking lot* of Open Source applications are copying ideas from Windows, there must be some clever heads at Microsoft.

I know! Just like Apache copied IIS, Sendmail copied Exchange, BSD copied their old network utilities, and Mozilla copied IE. I tell you, it's amazing they ever let us have any of their new toys, since we're just going to steal them right out from under 'em.

Re:What the.....

[eric76]

In some cases, the idea is clearly to make the software comfortable to people to make it easier for them to migrate to it.

Re:What the.....

[Kenshin]

There's some exciting stuff there, and I bet we'll be seeing that MiniBar concept in applications for years and years to come.

Don't tell me we'll have to pay each time we use an item...

Re:What the.....

[EntropyEngine]

There's no doubt that Microsoft are learning, but it's only because they're being forced to be innovative, not because they choose to be.

For me, Microsoft are more iterative than innovative, and this shows in a lot of their software, which is reactionary and often grudgingly so.

There's no denying that within the walls of Redmond, Microsoft are demonizing the broader open source movement for forcing Microsoft to do the one thing they've never had to do, which is to compete on quality rather than sheer marketing might, which has historically won out time and time again...

Re:What the.....

[birge]

Just because not all OS apps are copies of MS programs doesn't mean that most MS programs don't get copied by OS apps. I agree with the GP. Just look at GNOME. It's practically got a fucking start menu. And if tabbed browsing is an example of innovation in OSS, then I'd say the GP's point is nearly proven. Apache isn't innovative so much as a really nice job on an existing idea. (Though not stolen from MS, granted.)

In the standard litany of why OSS is great (most of which I agree with) timely innovation is not often mentioned. And as an example I give you OS X. It beats the hell out of anything in the linux or freebsd camps, and it didn't take them very long. The underpinnings (openstep, freebsd) have always been there for the taking by anybody in the OSS community yet it took Apple to produce what I think (and many others do, too) is the first decent version of UNIX for the desktop.

Anyway, it's funny that this kind of thing is even debated. There was a time before the brainwashing when it was considered patently obvious that you get better product when you pay people to build it. Thank god the OSS true believers haven't turned their attention to civil engineering. Hasn't anybody else noticed that the slope of progress on linux is far less than for Mac OS X, or even Windows? Even if Microsoft gets Longhorn out in 2008, it will still beat linux. And by that point Apple will be selling something that makes both look like a Speak 'n' Spell.

Re:What the.....

[falsified]

Don't be a dick. They're not stupid. vi + latex is harder than Word. Probably twice as hard. That is an objective statement. Even the geekiest of the geeks can appreciate that Word "just works". (Yes, I realize it's an Apple slogan.) Are Word's results not quite as good? That can be debated. But if I'm writing a paper, I want to be able to just write the paper and go. The connection between my brain and the paper should be seamless - I don't want to do, and I sure as hell shouldn't have to do, "computer stuff". It would be stupid to pick the harder of the two options for no benefit whatsoever.
For the record, I use Abiword.

Re:What the.....

[bhiestand]

name one thing MS has that there isn't prior art for.
Bill Gates' haircut.

Re:What the.....

[Just Some Guy]

There was a time before the brainwashing when it was considered patently obvious that you get better product when you pay people to build it.

I get paid quite a bit to write Free Software, as do a lot of my friends. The teenage hacker in his mom's basement is terribly '90s; you really need to update your cliches.

Even if Microsoft gets Longhorn out in 2008, it will still beat linux.

Yes, Longhorn '08 will probably be spiffy compared to Linux '05. I don't plan to be running Linux '05 then.

Re:What the.....

[ericdano]

Damn Mr. Carroll! Give Steve Jobs back his REALITY DISTORTER. That is strickly a device for use by THE STEVE only!

Re:What the.....

[jZnat]

I like OpenOffice's equation editor better because is uses plain old [La]TeX if I remember correctly. Makes it easy to write equations in OOo and in LaTeX without remembering different syntaxes.

Re:What the.....

[Daengbo]

Birge, you should've chosen KDE as your Windows example, and not Gnome. By default, Gnome looks more like MacOS (pre-X) than Windows. There are three menus, none of which have the same set up as the Start menu. I don't know how the distro you may or may not have tried modifies the standard set up, but GOD you're wrong on this one. KDE, however, has all the Windows stuff in by default. I had mod points, but there wasn't an option for "oninformed/just plain wrong"

Re:What the.....

[kuzb]

I sure hope not, since there isn't any operating system called Linux '05 now, and probably won't be later. Perhaps this is something you're inventing yourself?

Jokes aside, Windows has *always* been ahead in terms of user experience. Sure, it's the target of viruses and mal/spyware. Sure, it's got a bad security model. Sure, it was produced by a company which could for most intents and purposes be considered evil. But at the end of the day, it's beating Linux out, and in 3 years, it will still be beating Linux out. I mean, we're talking about Linux, an OS where they can't even decide on a single method for accessing the clipboard. I realize this is a small point, but tell that to the guy who accidently middle clicked and had half a page of crap spew out all over his work. There is no one thing that wrecks the user experience in Linux, it's hundreds of little things that tend to drive the average user mad enough to ditch it.

MS keeps innovating in their spin

[yagu]

This guy is pretty amazing in his energy applied to convincing the world (and himself) Microsoft is an inventing kind of company. He even uses a bizarre example:

It's akin to the argument that a Ford Escort preceded a Formula One racer, and therefore the engineers on that Formula One racer didn't really invent anything because all they are doing is making a car.

Wow! I'm not sure in this universe what comparison is being made. But I infer he is saying Microsoft is getting accused of being non-innovative because they're making the Formula One racers. I'm not sure this is a metaphor I can accept for the stuff I've seen coming from Microsoft, unless a Formula One racer:

• weighs about 6,000 to 7,000 lbs.
• gets about .0001 miles per gallone
• has a whole bunch of extra, unwieldly, unnecessary, undecipherable, and just plain weird instrumentation that never gets used
• has none of the critical and necessary instrumentation available or if it is, it's under the seat.
• has to have the tires upgraded every lap
• shuts itself down if you: don't pay a fee, or if you seem to be doing something suspicious

I would however cede their metaphor in these regards:

• Almost noone knows how to maintain a Formula One racer properly
• Formula One racers are outrageously expensive
• they really do get crappy mileage
• they really do go through tires
• they break down a lot.

There are also some specious arguments and claims:

• Microsoft is the only one who "gets it" about how technology is an interrelated puzzle.
• there should be a consistency across technology, from remote controls, to cell phones, to laptops, to desktops, ad nauseum (there shouldn't -- just what is the argument for this?
• there is no comparable technology "out there" to Microsoft's COM model (just plain wrong).

Regardless, it's kind of fun to see the periodic article pushing yet again to tell the world Microsoft is innovative. In Microsoft's case, it is actually possible saying so makes it so.

Re:MS keeps innovating in their spin

[rdoger6424]

It's times like this where I wish there was a new mod category:
Burn! (+1)

Re:MS keeps innovating in their spin

[Apreche]

It's an especially bad analogy because he has it completely backwards. What usually happens is the Formula 1 race engineers are the ones who invent new motor vehicle technologies. Then after many years those technologies are gradually adopted by "normal" cars. See the linear paddle shifting transmission as the prime example. See various braking, suspension and aerodynamic systems for the rest.

Re:MS keeps innovating in their spin

[eno2001]

The point is that some intercommunication between certain technologies is SUPPOSED to be difficult because they are INCOMPATIBLE. As soon as you find a way to make it "easier" you've likely inserted a ton of limitations. That's what Microsoft is best at, putting limitations on technology. I suppose I should correct my earlier assertion. Microsoft has innvoated both mediocrity and artificially imposed limitations within the technology realm.

Re:MS keeps innovating in their spin

[LeonGeeste]

I agree with you, just as long as you don't start applying this to the "spin-offs" of the space program to ridicule people who oppose it. I mean, yeah, it's great all the advances of the space program, but what was the space program? It was basically a program where the government said:

"Hey, all you entrepreneurs working on technologies to satisfy actual human desires: STOP. Give us money so we can show the Ruskies where it's it."

Then later:

"Hey, some of what we did can, coincidentally, satisfy human desires outside of getting to the moon. Hey consumers! Look at all the goodies we produced for you. Please TOTALLY IGNORE what the entrepreneurs, who were trying to directly satisfy your desires, rather than satisfying them by mere coincidence, accomplished. Just focus on what we did, not what could have happened."

Then later, their court intellectuals say:

"If you opposed the space program, you must oppose insulated lunchboxes. Luddite."

Re:MS keeps innovating in their spin

[eno2001]

My comedy detector was off. I've been engaged in a battle of wits with the enemy and they managed to hit my comedy detector with a photon torpedo. I think repairs should have it online in another twenty to thirty minutes. Eno out.

Re:MS keeps innovating in their spin

[shotfeel]

I agree. After reading the article, I still don't know what he actually thinks MS has done that is innovative? His article throws together a bunch of nebulous ideas, mixed with buzzwords and analogies to describe what he thinks MS is doing different and calls it innovation?

Sheesh! If he can't give a straighforward example of MS innovation, perhaps there's a reason for that?

Re:MS keeps innovating in their spin

[dlZ]

As a previous owner of a seafoam green 1995 Ford Escort I can say that comparing Windows to the Escort is very unfair to the Escort. It ran everyday and cost much less to maintain.

Re:MS keeps innovating in their spin

[Undertaker43017]

"has to have the tires upgraded every lap"

Guess you missed the US Grand Prix this year...

Re:MS keeps innovating in their spin

[robertjw]

It's an especially bad analogy because he has it completely backwards.

Actually it's wrong on both ends, not only does engineering in the automotive world generally work from racing down to the consumer level, Microsoft hasn't turned an Escort into a Formula 1 racer. A better comparison would be that Microsoft bought a Ford Escort, put a new coat of paint on it, raised the price, fired all the engineers that built it to start with and tried to convince everyone it was actualy a Formula 1 car.

They do deserve a lot of credit.

Re:MS keeps innovating in their spin

[NMerriam]

Yeah, except that when taken too far, consistency across realms is counter-intuitive.

Witness the Quicktime player that used a volume "knob" that required rotation -- knobs are great and easy to use on physical companents, but liner sliders are much easier (both to control and judge) on-screen, whether controlled by mouse or keyboard.

Heck, witness the confusing mess of technologies that MS put out for kiosk/home threater computers and palmtops in the 90s -- they were all based on the same metaphors that the desktop systems were, which made them completely impossible to use and 1000x more complex than they needed to be. It took Palm and TiVo to show them how you build a relatively complex system without having to go through twelve menus to turn the thing off.

Re:MS keeps innovating in their spin

[ciroknight]

So you're willing to admit that Race technology its put into cars, but unwilling to admit that Space (or for that matter, Wartime) technologies get put into everything.

Apparently, you need to go back to the 40s. If you will remember, World War II was the advent of a lot of technologies. It's doubtful we'd have weather tracking RADAR systems if it wasn't for the advent of Brittish scientists playing with radio waves. It's likely we wouldn't have satellite communications if it weren't for the German's V2. And while you may argue that all of the things that got spun off from the different space agencies may have been invented anyways, it's likely they wouldn't have been advented nearly as quickly, and wouldn't have gotten any government money to do it.

NASA has given back to the Americans plenty of things we all take for granted, but it seems there is a larger and larger group of Slashdot readers who are revisionist historians and want to forget that WWII is what caused the Cold War, and thus, what caused technologies to explode into what they've become today. America is the country we are today because of War, and because of the spoils that war has brought to us. Hell, it can be argued that its the reason that Innovation has slowed down so much here in America; we haven't had a real need to. Our government no longer feels the need to compete with any other world governments.

Let's stop being ignorant and realize that Space technologies have been relatively safe (in comparison to every other industry, ever), that they've generated billions of dollars in jobs, technologies, and pathways for science. And no, I won't list them here (these are all things you should have learned in high school, and a simple google will catch you up to speed). There's simply too much that NASA and the US Military has been involved in coming together for us to simply turn our heads on militaristic and aerospace innovation.

Oh, and if it weren't for NASA's supersonic experiments, cars probably wouldn't be as fast as they are now either; Carbon Fiber, high heat resistant materials, metal alloys, aerodynamic profiles, and more, came from strenous testing and retesting at the hands of engineers using technology adapted from NASA.

You'd better bet if the government needed some awesome software to defeat cyberterrorists or something, there'd be a boom in the market ;).

Re:MS keeps innovating in their spin

[Mac Degger]

OK; for one, the space race was for one purpose only: to create ICBM's. The dev costs were too high to get the US to fund it out straight, so they created a 'space race'. You'll note that the cancelation/reduction of the 'space race' happened pretty much when ICBM technology was available.

But the thing is, that's the way technology has worked. The technology of war always trickles down to the populace, from the technology to create crossbows and trebuchets, to radar, electronics, robotics...all the result of wartime technology efforts. In a way, those court intellectuals you quote are right; no wartech, no safe plane journeys aided by GPS (wartime tech too), radar and electronics.

Re:MS keeps innovating in their spin

[LeonGeeste]

Wow. I've never seen anyone totally miss the point I was trying to make until now.

Yes, research during WWII, the Cold War, and space program led to good stuff. I specifically agreed to that in my post. But it's not enough to establish that, which you (pointlessly) went to great lengths to show in your post. You must also show that what would have happened in their absence would be worse. Showing that good stuff happened during program X proves NOTHING. Listing one by one the benefits of the space program proves NOTHING. Imagine if I took $100 from you, bought a candy bar, and gave it to you. By your logic I could say, "How dare you doubt the utility of the Theft-Candy Program? The TCP has resulted in your acquisition of a candy bar! Sure, you can play revisionist historian and claim you would have gotten a candy bar without it, but let's face it: you would have just stayed at home. And I know you can wave your hands and make the tired old 'I could have gotten a candy bar without TCP for under $100' game or even the 'I preferred my leisure and keeping the $100' game, but that's just voodoo economics."

In my post, I specifically showed how the spinoff arguments don't hold up to logic. At the beginning of the space program, entrepreneurs were researching better ways to satisfy human desires. Then the government diverted resources from this activity to another activity, which indirectly led to the satisfaction of some human desires. You're claiming that this diversion *from* satisfying human desires ... *helped* satisfy human desires?

The difference, in case you're wondering, between auto-racing research and space program research is that the auto research itself satisfies the desires of auto-racing fanatics, and the spinoffs to Ford Escorts are icing. In the space program, the goal does not actually satisfy human desires, and if it does, it's coincidental.

And no serious researcher takes your "job creation" or "boosts the economy" argument seriously. It's just the broken window fallacy reloaded (google it). Sure, we could start a government program paying people to dig holes and fill them up. That would create jobs. Or we could smash windows, burn down homes, evacuate cities and destroy them, etc. That would certainly create jobs in reconstruction! But it wouldn't prove the destructive acts were beneficial. What's important is whether human activity is directed at satisfying human desires or not. When you divert entrepreneurial activity to sticking it to the Ruskies, you take away from that.

It seems your courseload was heavy on the history, light on the economics. And you can't draw conclusions from history without a basis in the underlying economics. So you can spare me the indignance about all the great stuff from the space program, because it proves exactly nothing.

Re:MS keeps innovating in their spin

[eno2001]

So interoperabtility between Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange is not a problem then, ehhh? Get over yourself. It happens anywhere once you diverge from the church of Microsoft. I used to be a part of that congregation and believed in the implentation of an all Microsoft shop. I preached it loud and far. Until I discovered that it didn't do what I needed and their answer was, "Why in the hell would you want to anyway"? At that point I left the flock and realized that there was so much more out there that was so much better. And most of that "so much more" was in the FOSS world. Sorry, but you lose.

Re:MS keeps innovating in their spin

[LeonGeeste]

Is no one paying attention to my post? I just explained it to someone else.

Yes, war technology trickles into the general populace. But (for the third time), it's not enough to show war technology helps. You must show it helps more than what would have happened without it. Let's see if this example is easier to understand.

Imagine a company of say 1000 people working on a cool new kind of TV. Then a war starts, and that's no longer profitable, so they have to go into researching war technology. The develop a new missile targeting system. And then let's say the only civilian application of this technology is for a kind of toy set for 5-year olds. Then the war ends.

Given the war, the civilian community got a toy for five year olds. Had it not happened, the research would have gone into the new high-res, high-quality TV that far more people would have wanted. Space program spinoff defenders focus on saying how good this cool new toy for children is. They never acknowledge, because they're not even aware, of the technologies more beneficial to more people had the war not happened.

To be sure, most examples aren't as clear cut as this. The war technologies sometimes lead to really awesome tech for the populace. But since the non-war technology was directly for satisfying consumer desires, and the war technology does it only by coincidence, the non-war technology is necessarily more beneficial.

Now, you can claim that civilians are incapable of this level of research (which we can never verify because of the degree to which government crowds it out), but that's not the argument space program proponents use! They merely say "hey, the technology was good, so obviously it was better than all of the other alternatives"... which is a really weak argument when you think about it.

The problem lies in connecting them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not inventing them.

Hmm.

[Limburgher]

The reason for that unstoppability is the lack of an awareness on anyone else's part of the value of an end to end solution where everything works together using the same technology

Riiiight. I work in an almost all MS shop, and if everything suddenly started working seamlessly, I'd have a friggin' heart attack.

Re:Hmm.

[stillmatic]

You mean, you'd wonder where all your end-users went?

Re:Hmm.

[Limburgher]

Bingo. I'd also report my Exchange server missing. :)

Haha

[sulli]

In the media realm, they have their DRM solution, their media formats (both video and audio), tools for generating that media, server and client software, management tools, etc., etc., etc. It's an integrated end to end solution that simply is not matched by anyone else. David Berlind talks about the "unstoppable Microsoft Media Juggernaut."

... which is getting its lunch eaten by Apple.

Hey Look...

[thebdj]

Another AC with an e-mail address (really people, think a little). Oooh and another inflammatory story from zdnet blogs. Yo slashdot, just save us the trouble, stop accepting blogs as news. All you do is drive up ad revenue for these sites that often are filled with jibberish and anything that resembles news worthy material...

Re:Hey Look...

[Overly Critical Guy]

Hello, I am Zip Zorroski, CEO of Blogs, Inbloggerated. We are starting a new blogging service where bloggers can blog about anything at all (including blogs). We are also beginning several new ventures to spin off commercial blogs, called blogazines. These blogazines are like standard print but not, because they are blogs. This makes them cool (we prefer the term "bloggy"). Blogs are revolutionizing the planet by giving a new name to things that already existed 10 years ago when they were called "journals," "personal websites," and "weblogs." Now that they have an official name of blog, you can submit blog entries to major websites claiming to report news, and they will report them. Because they are blogs, and blogs are everywhere, and blogs are great.

Please, go to www.blogblogblogblog.com and sign up for your own blog today, and begin blogging the exact same things you blogged about 10 years ago. Except now it's all bloggy. Sign up this month and you get a free "Blog it!" t-shirt (aka blog-shirt).

Sincerest regards (and blogs!),
Zip Zorroski
Blogs, Inbloggerated, CEO
Co-founder of Blogging Consortium of Blogs

Frequent Rebooting

[Average_Joe_Sixpack]

I don't remember having to reboot as much with other platforms ... I guess that's sort of an innovation

Re:Frequent Rebooting

[shis-ka-bob]

Hear, Hear! This is actually Microsoft's innovative solution to carpal tunnel syndrom. Who else is working to see that the average worker actually gets a periodic five minute break from typing?

What has Microsoft ever invented?

[ivanmarsh]

I'm just curious.

I know a very long list of technologies that MS claims to have invented... but buying a company that invented something and inventing something isn't the same thing.

Re:What has Microsoft ever invented?

[schon]

Microsoft Bob.

AKA "Clippy"

Re:What has Microsoft ever invented?

[MightyMartian]

I'd like to know what they've even put together "innovately". Various office programs working together predates MS-Office, Windows wasn't the first consumer operating system with Internet support, they weren't the first ones with a GUI or with a means for processes to communicate with each other. In every category of technological and ergonomic innovation I can think of, MS has come after the fact (and sometimes not even duplicated it terribly well). I suppose their marketing might be innovative, but considering the methods they used over the ways, I'd hardly call that a plus.

Let's face it, Microsoft is a technology reseller. They take what already exists, or at most aid in the planning of some new standard, then turn around and screw with it just enough to assure that competitor products don't do as well as its own. That's not innovation, that's anti-competitive, monopolistic behavior deserving of punishment, not kudos.

Re:What has Microsoft ever invented?

[RetroGeek]

Can you give a source/example for this one?

Sure. Go here.

Re:What has Microsoft ever invented?

[mranchovy]

Various office programs working together predates MS-Office,

Can you give a source/example for this one?

Lotus Symphony for DOS in the mid 80s

Lotus Jazz for the Mac around the same time

Some old geezer here can probably come up with some mainframe applications that did something similar

Microsoft had Word and Multiplan fairly early on, but it took them a while to roll Word, Excel, and PowerPoint together into Office

Re:What has Microsoft ever invented?

[YASUID]

"Can you give a source/example for this one?"

Hmm... there used to be a program called Enable/OA, made by The Software Group. There was a product by Lotus called Symphony. There was PFS:First Choice, too. They were PC/MS-DOS apps, and had integated word processing, spreadsheet, database and telecommunications modules (I don't recall if PFS: First Choice had the latter, however).

Re:What has Microsoft ever invented?

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>Cleartype for one

"So more than twenty years ago, Apple II graphics programmers were using this 'sub-pixel' technology to effectively increase the horizontal resolution of their Apple II displays." -- Steve Wozniak

This guy works for Microsoft...

[Master Of Ninja]

This guy actually works for Microsoft as acknowledged by ZDNet themselves. You should take some of this with a pinch of salt then.

seriously ...

[SamSeaborn]

Seriously, the *only* innovations from Microsoft were the mouse scroll-wheel and fast user-switching in XP Home.

Both very fine pieces of technology innovation.

Everything else -- I mean *everything* else -- was a copy of the successful work of a more deserving 1-in-a-thousand startup that suffered through all their hard times only to get stomped by the monopoly in the end.

Sam

Re:seriously ...

[szo]

fast user switching? Have you ever seen a linux workstation with virtual terminals?

Szo

Re:seriously ...

[Monte]

Have you ever seen a windows box with multiple keyboards?

Yes, but they were all connected to the MIDI port at the time...

With this article I'm sure....

[Anonymous Coward]

A mature, rational discussion will follow.

Innovation?

[rastin]

Maybe I am a bit out of the loop but the lion's share of M$ revenue comes from Windows & Office. An operating system and a collection of applications, that are direct dirivitives of the same software you would likely buy over 10 years ago. Sure both are a bit more polished than the same version from a decade ago but I would not call that innovative. Nothing else springs to mind when thinking of what M$ is known for. They just buy or steal other people's ideas and rebrand them.

Re:Innovation?

[fermion]

MS has done some interesting things. Excel was a wonderful product. It really did redefine the catagory. It is true that Visiscalc, Lotus 123, Quattro, etc did do all those things, and I used all those poducts extensively, the graphical and three dimensional quality was a wonderful use of technology. Excel, like Visicalc, was largely responsible for Apples in the Office. The next big interesting thing was probably Powerpoint, another good use of then current technology. You are, however, almost correct about the 10 year thing. The hieght of basic functionality and usability for Office was the mid 90's. Everything since then is equal amount of interesting feature and bloat, depending on what one needs.

Mostly everyhting else they do simply makes state of the art affordable and usable to the common person, which is innovative and creative in a certain. I mean stripping down FoxPro to the basics and redeploying as Acess is no simple task. Copying a webserver and making it usable to the average tech school graduatge is equally interesting.

The real problem is that MS wants to be known as a high tech leader, which in some ways they are, and perhaps were more than now. OTOH, Toyota makes a pretty penny delivery cars of adequate quality to consumers, and though they might exagerate, they are not going to say they know thier place.

Inventors?

[Daveznet]

When was the last time Microsoft actually developed something on their own? Arent most of their products bought then developed on top of? ie: DOS - Windows, XBOX, Direct X, Hotmail. Microsoft is not a great software development/inventing company they are however a great marketing company.

Re:Inventors?

[praxis]

Most inventors, though I'm even inclined to say all, use previous advancements upon which they build their inventions. You can't really say that the Hotmail today is the same as the one they bought many years ago. You can't say that Window's hasn't changed since the release of 1.0. Perhaps what you are looking for are wild earth shattering innovations that are felt around the world in every field of research. The might not have any of those, but nor does any other large software company I know of, and nor does any free OS I know of. Yes, the GPL is pretty earth shattering and had reprecussions that were deep and wide, but that was Stalman's idea a long time before Linux really took off. One could similarly argue that Microsoft's idea to *gasp* sell software seperate from the hardware was a counterpart to the GPL, though diametrically opposed in philosophy, which also had reprecussions that were deep and wide. The software *industary* would not exist as it does today without it. Note, software would, but the Oracle's of the world would be selling their products as complete solutions with hardware, etc.

It's Not That Microsoft Doesn't Innovate

[rising_hope]

But when compared to the rest of the industry, they stagnate. Certainly, they've made some valuable contributions, but when you consider their next closest competitor is less than half the size, they should be responsible for an overwhelming majority of invention and innovation in the market. But - they're not. Part of my problem with Microsoft is that it seems like since Windows 95, they've been constantly playing a game of catch up, rather than bringing unique products to the market. They certainly have a way of solving integration, and seemless interface design with other Microsoft products, which has made them successful. Microsoft might be the master of integration, but innovation leader? Most certainly not.

There's a difference between good and evil..

[Mechcommander]

And Microsoft's innovations always seem to hurt the consumer in the long run. Granted, they have made some significant contributions and ideas to the software industry, but MS seems more concerned about catering to the companies that demand to impose regulations on digital media (**AA, et al.) while most of the open-source and freeware community listens to their users and tries to help them all the more, instead of partially helping, and partially hating.

I suppose I just prefer unconditional love, than a love-hate relationship.

And the basis of his arguments are?

[vigyanik]

Anyone can sit and fantasize about what the motives of an XYZ company are in doing what they do. Much like critquing a work of literature: many times the author himself doesn't know why he wrote what he did and many times his intentions are much more basic than how others interpret them.

Yeahgoodluck....

[Otter]

Granted, there are movements to make things consistent, such as the LAMP set of technologies for Linux, or the Linux Standard Base project.

Given that there still isn't a consensus as to what the P in LAMP stands for, I don't know if I'd hold my breath on that happening. Not that I'm so optimistic about the LSB either, but at least they know what it stands for!

Anyway, Microsoft -- the place where they excel is this: They make something that isn't very good. They make a version 2 that's better, but still not good. 3 isn't bad, and by 4 it's 90% there.

Their competitors (Sun is a perfect example) can frequently make a better version 1, but then Microsoft is still there and competing with them, they get bored and go on to something else. The open-source projects have trouble doing the boring 30% that gets you up to 90%, and start adding translucent menus and XML feeds instead.

Oh, and that's why I'm a Mac user, given the choice...

SALES!!!

[millahtime]

This is sales and marketing. You put a twist that is difficult for anyone who isn't technical in understanding (99% of people). This is what politicians do to get people behind something. You use a lack of understanding, make it sound good, and talk like you know what you are talking about and people buy it and believe you. Sales and marketing.

MS shill.

[Yaztromo]

It's worth noting that John Carrol is a Microsoft employee, who also writes for ZDNet. The journalistic integrity here is absolutely zero.

Now I don't blame him for his obvious slant. He's paid by Microsoft. Hell, he probably wants to think that his work, and the work of his co-workers is innovative. Who doesn't?

Personally, the fact that ZDNet brought him aboard as a writer is where the real problem lies. I remember at one time how ZDNet used to try to defend themselves against accusations of being MS-shills; but now they seem to embrace it whole-heartedly.

So, coming from this source -- can anybody be surprised by the conclusion? It's worth just what we've paid for it: absolutely nothing.

Yaz.

Re:Article Summary

[eno2001]

OK I finished reading the rest of his tragic blog posting. It sounds like his eventual conclusion is that Microsoft innovated mediocrity. Which is probably OK considering that VHS (mediocre technology) beat out Betamax (superior technology). And IDE (mediocre technology) beat out SCSI (superior technology) on the desktop. for people who don't want to deal with mediocre software solutions, Microsoft still isn't the answer. Having a consistent technology backend that becomes the "de facto standard" is never a good thing when you are looking for the BEST solution. Usually you are making some compromises, at best, if you go with a solution like that. Witness the dismal quality of commercial software today. Everyone and his brother is a coder due to the logic this guy is suggesting (a desktop developer could also develop for handhelds). That's NOT a good thing. While the guy might write excellent apps on the desktop, do you really want him implementing things that he CAN implement on a handheld but probably shouldn't? And you know he will implenet them because he's never worked with handhelds before. This is NOT a good thing.

Just think about all the people out there who call themselves "web masters" and "publish" their sites with Microsoft Word on Windows 95 with Personal Web Server and you'll see where I'm coming from. Sometimes it's better to leave things to people who actually were trained within the problem domain. Trying to make them spread their reach may not be a good thing in every case.

Redefinition of innovation?

[Bastian]

I can think of preceding examples for a couple of is examples of innovation, so all he's really convinced me of so far is that he didn't do his research before writing this article.

Apparently, innovation isn't developing new technology. It's noticing new technology coming out of obscure companies and the academic community and then re-implementing it for Windows and backing it with 8,000 metric tons of advertising hype.

The real reason...

[RingDev]

is that most developers like getting paid for their work. :)

-Rick

Come on. I dare you...

[ScentCone]

To actually have a reasonable conversation about this. I'll help, by clearing the deck of:

1) 1,000 monkeys typing = Shakespeare, yadda yadda
2) Broken clock right twice a day, blah blah
3) Every other thing that's always said about buying innovation rather than... what, mining it? Every employee that works there is "bought" every week when they get paid, and sometimes they're bought in a group from somewhere else. Same as anyplace else with a lot of irons in the fire.

But - surely people aren't going to pretend that Excel doesn't exist, or that Active Directory isn't actually pretty damn effective. And Visual Studio actually has its moments (me: old timey VB6 fan, but what do I know).

If you actually work with MS's server products all day long, you'll find that there really is a sum of the parts that actually scratches quite a few itches. And don't forget their hardware... given my choice of a anything from Logitech, MS, or several others (especially for the money), for some uses I'd probably reach for the MS stuff more often. Strictly on touchy-feely-reliability merit, no brand loyalty whatsoever in that area. Unfortunately, they don't make the asbestos products I'll need for this comment.

John Carrol

[theolein]

John Carrol is the guy who used to be an developer living in Geneva, Switzerland. Anyone who had the misfortune to follow the ZDNet talkback boards would never fail to see John jump to Microsoft's defence no matter what the topic was, be it the DOJ case (Jonh:Microsoft is being punished for innovating), Linux (John:Developing for Windows is far easier. Just look at how easy it is to make a COM object I can use anywhere) or Microsoft's business practices (John:Microsoft is innovating).

Now, years later, after having trolled incessantly for Microsoft for years, he finally got a job with them and a blog at ZDNet where he, surprise, trolls for Microsoft.

I actually do think that Microsoft does innovate in places (xmlhttpobject for example)but I don't think I'd listen to John Carrol when I wanted impartial advice on Microsoft or th IT market.

just sad

[sjofi]

he actually knows that he can't claim microsoft being innovative unless he redefines the meaning of the word "innovative" in some bizzard way he can't even express proberly.

Well, he's right, although not directly.

[ardor]

MS does help innovation, although not in a sane way. Sure, there are lots of small companies with fresh, innovative ideas which get bought up by MS. Evil MS, no cookie? Wrong. How likely is it that those companies would have survived? For most: zero. So, in theory its a good thing that the 800-pound gorilla takes the innovative ideas and includes them in their products. In theory. In practice the new ideas often vanish in the patent portfolio, or they mutate to really ugly MS incarnations.

Sorry, but no.

[Karma_fucker_sucker]

... Tablet PC (a form factor that hadn't been tried before),...

You see, there was this company called "Go" a few years ago. Read about it here.

They were working on a Tablet PC before MS fucked them over - at least that's the way they tell it.

But they DO innovate

[Pudusplat]

Look at all the things they HAVE created:

DOS
The GUI
the Web Browser
Word Processing
Media Compression
Solitaire

The future seems to hold limitless possibilities if we look at their past innovations. Long live Microsoft!

Re:But they DO innovate

[ardor]

You forgot teh internet. They invented teh internet. With a shiny nice blue "e" logo.

Re:But they DO innovate

[codergeek42]

1. MS bough DOS and simpy rebranded it.
2. Apple and some prior folk invented the GUI.
3. Tim Burners-Lee's was the first browser, if I recall correctly.
4. TeX was around with Unix since the 70s and 80s, long before graphical systems arose.
5. You do realize that MP3 was first set as a standard for lossy music encoding by the MPEG group about year before Windows 3.1, right?
6. Ok. You win one. ;-)

The Rules of Slashdot

[popo]

Apparently some of you have forgotten the Golden Rules of Slashdot.

Here they are:

Rule 1: If you're discussing a problem with Windows:

Blame the monopolistic, capitalist monstrosity which is the root cause of this problem. If Microsoft weren't a bunch of money-grubbing, back-stabbing pigs your problem would never have occured.

Rule 2: If you're discussing a problem with OSX:

It isn't Apple's fault. Maybe its your fault. Or maybe its that third party software you're using. Most likely your problem is the result of incompatibilities with MS Office (see rule 1). Apple doesn't make mistakes. Apple loves you.

Rule 3: If you're discussing a problem with Linux:

Agree that there *is* a problem. Then state that the hardworking heroes of the opensource community are hard at work making this problem go away. The message has to be that "We're on it". Remember, one shining day in the future these problems won't plague our people any more. It doesn't matter that your system is losing data, we proudly wear the banner of responsibility in this matter, and we are slavishly addressing your problem.

Any questions? ...apparently there was some confusion.

----------

judge a man by his wallet

Re:The Rules of Slashdot

[freeweed]

There, there, we understand. It's very hard to imagine the concept of different people having different opinions. UIDs in Slashdot do in fact look just like process IDs, and really, how do you KNOW that Slashdot isn't just one big automated process continually forking itself? I know when sitting at a computer it can feel like the whole Internet is just one big automated script, spewing out automated responses to everything.

Take a deep breath, step away from the computer, and go for a walk outside. The big scary bright place where it's hard to read your LCD monitor.

See all those other humanoid carbon-based lifeforms? They're called people. It's hard to tell without dissection, but they in fact each have their own brain. Unlike computers, those brains cannot be wirelessly networked to form some sort of super hive mind. They actually operate independently to form a working society, interacting with only a few others at a time.

I know, I know, it's scary to imagine that there are so many people around. In fact, last time I counted (one by one, on my fingers, too) there were over 6 billion of them. It's funny, too, because not every one of them agreed with me on everything either. Scared the hell out of me when I first discovered this.

MSFT information value

[mulcher]

At the risk of being flamed... does linux innovate? does open source innovate?
And I mean besides being open-source alone which is pretty innovative... It
marginalizes existing industries and makes software cheaper + it provides jobs and opportunities without having to shell out $$$ for official certification programs.

A lot of what we like is *NIX apps and utilities... linux is not entirely innovative in this way. Sun with Java? Is a JVM innovative? I can say that in
academia there were previous VMs around.. Apple with Aqua? perhaps... but seriously... most people take what works and make it a little bit better and in many cases a little bit cheaper (or expensive by adding/increasing value). Apple
did this with OS X. It makes *NIX more valuable. DirectX? Is that innovative or a complete smash up of OpenGL? Visual Studio? Visio? SQL Server? MSFT buys good tech... SQL Server may get slammed by many here, but for a small-medium business that needs advanced data analytics to query financial data and export it to XLS/PPT for the executives to make decisions I think it works pretty well and is way cheaper than the alternatives. Big companies use Big Iron and Oracle. MSFT has largely been medium user to end-user desktop based. That is because there is a lot of money in those areas. Follow the money and
you will find MSFT.

For businesses that don't need that, such as web2.0 companies there is little incentive to go with MSFT on the backend since it is pure cost than value. Plus you can tweak and extend your linux implementation freely. Linux is more customizable and that helps in many instances and it is cheap for building a server farm. But for data analytics, for integrating information, and providing information value for cheap MSFT is the way to go. They own the corporate information pipeline. That is where value is. Information is valuable. Making it easy to create, get, and use information. Open source hasn't done that yet, except in limited cases where programming gurus go off and start there own companies (Yahoo,Google) etc... and even then they scale to large company size and then will buy Oracle and other large-scale data analytics (or write there own). Google makes then NET valuable. Ebay makes garage sales valuable.

I think open-source will continue to marginalize infastructure, but as long as MSFT keeps providing information value it will always have the lead. Here information value is provided by the solution and not necessarily the product.

Re:MSFT information value

[killjoe]

" At the risk of being flamed... does linux innovate? does open source innovate?"

Yes, of course it does. Here are just a few examples.

Zope, Xen (paravirtualization), GFS, reiserfs, parrot, loadable stored proc languages in postgresql, user definable operators in postgresql, selinux, XML-RPC, XUL, SVG, APT/YUM, zeroinstall, git, are just a few which pop into my head right away.

"QL Server may get slammed by many here, but for a small-medium business that needs advanced data analytics to query financial data and export it to XLS/PPT for the executives to make decisions I think it works pretty well and is way cheaper than the alternatives."

Feature for feature oracle costs the same as sql server.

"MSFT has largely been medium user to end-user desktop based. That is because there is a lot of money in those areas. Follow the money and
you will find MSFT."

MS has to find new markets, those markets are under serious assault by open source. SQL server for example is being squeezed on the low end by mqysql, firebird, postgresql etc and on the high end by oracle and db/2.

"I think open-source will continue to marginalize infastructure, but as long as MSFT keeps providing information value it will always have the lead. Here information value is provided by the solution and not necessarily the product."

Let's hope that MS management is thinking like you do. As long as they have their head buried in the sand like that we have nothing to worry about.

I have moments of agreement with TFA...

[HerculesMO]

It ends when "I wonder if Open Source can do what Microsoft did."

There alone, explains the author's lack of grasp on the subject. The Open Source movement is riddled with people that once upon a time, made Microsoft a great company. And I will give credit, even as taboo as it may be on Slashdot with the large followers of Microsoft *cough cough*.

Microsoft's ability to innovate does not lie at the OS level, or the application level. It lies at a fundamentally different area, one that's not related to software in and of itself. Microsoft's brilliance is simple -- they made it possible for a business to conduct complete workflow thru their software, from beginning to end. Businesses will always mandate what the future of consumers will buy, and their decisions. If you work for a finance firm and they tell you "Okay Johnson, we are switching to Linux to save $2523432!".. do you think that Johnson is going to go home and buy another Windows PC for his home? He will need a Linux PC to mirror his work environment. Then he will have a friend who comes over and says "wow, what's that?", where Johnson will explain the benefits (as explained to him by his company) of Linux on his desktop, and will thus propogate the use of Linux on the desktop.

Microsoft made Windows -- arguably a crap OS, arguably not. But with the combination of Exchange, Biztalk, Sharepoint, the Office Suite and Windows working in (relative) harmony under Active Directory well.. I'll argue it takes some vision to bring a company that far, and innovation to boot.

But I wouldn't count out Linux as the author did... the people who made MS what it is are who are working in Open Source, working at Google, working at Yahoo, working at IBM. And they will tell us how innovative open source can be, or hell, not even Open Source... but MS alternatives :) Google seems to be doin a great job so far.

What about the Recycle Bin?

[freepudding]

If they had just straight copied Apple's Trash, think of the landfill problems we'd be having right now. Reuse! Reduce! RECYCLE!!!!

MS Didn't invent the wheel mouse

[Pizza]

I wish I could find a link somewhere, but back in the Windows 3.x days, the days where serial mice were common, the days when _Mouse Systems_ actually meant something, the days when mice were ugly bricks, the days before the MS dove bar mouse, I remember seeing a mouse by Genius that had a front-center-mount scroll wheel.

The wheel wasn't clickable as a third button, but the spiel on the box was all about how it would make scrolling that much easier.

So Microsoft didn't invent the wheel mouse, but they did refine it considerably and make it universally usable, thanks to their ability to integrate tightly into the OS. It's so much easier to do that when you control the APIs.

big bang?

[rnd()]

A lot of people fail to understand what real innovation is. Sure every now and then there is an invention that abruptly changes the world. Some people consider the Segway scooter an example of such a thing. I do not.

Microsoft has made a lot of very small innovations (often called "soft innovations"). Whether it's the ease of use of VB or the elegance of C# or the xml grammars used in the speech SDK. They are not huge, "big bang" style innovations, but they are not insignificant.

Microsoft slowly advances the state of the art and we're all better off as a result. Sure it's not flasy like the industrial design of an iPod or the first space walk or the Polio vaccine, but added up they are a huge force of progress.

Re:big bang?

[jonastullus]

Microsoft has made a lot of very small innovations (often called "soft innovations"). Whether it's the ease of use of VB or the elegance of C# or the xml grammars used in the speech SDK

i might even concede your point - microsoft has indeed made several small innovations that by themselves are not much to look at, but in their entirety can make up a totally new style of working and collaborating...

but IMHO your examples suck!

• "elegance of c#" is an insult to languages that might actually claim that attribute. C# is a conglomeration of diverse language features from all over the place without a coherent "metaphore". c#'s scripting features go well against its object-oriented origins and the cleanliness of its language specification - while still better than C++ - has no benefits over java.
  
  please correct me if i'm wrong, but calling c# "elegant" is stretching it a bit, ain't it?
  
  
• "ease of use of VB"; well, you can't argue about taste and there certainly are benefits to the integration of VB and the office suite and windows in general. but again "ease of use" is taking praise a bit too far; not even talking about the abomination of a language that is VB.
  
  
• "xml grammars used in the speech SDK". i must admit that i haven't used them, but in my opinion xml (while being a nice "technology") is far over-hyped! using markup to represent code/data was an innovation of LISP and has been used before to great success. its use in the MS speech sdk might be comfortable and easy to use, but this (in my opinion) is just a case of good software development and good framework design than of talking about innovations!
  just by using the OO paradigm or design patterns my software doesn't automatically turn "innovative"; using known technology to achieve new aims is the right way to do it, but calling it "small innovations" is a bit over the top...
  

Re:What has Microsoft ever done for us?

[thewils]

The aquaduct, don't forget the aquaduct!

Microsoft's Innovation

[rlp]

Microsoft's innovation is the application of brilliant marketing tactics and envelope pushing legal tactics to the software industry. Microsoft is NOT a technology driven company, and woe the the technology driven software company that dares to go head-to-head with Microsoft. Their 'innovation' has been tremendously profitable to Microsoft, but if anything has hindered innovation in the software field.

there should be a standard ..that works everywhere

[Qubit]

Here's a quote from his article:

Translated, I'm saying that technology across software domains should be consistent. There should be a standard, however de facto, that works everywhere. Skills should be portable across those markets, ... Everything should just work together, and development across all devices should be relatively straightforward to someone with experience in any one of them.

Standards? Works everwhere? Hey dude -- you're working for M-i-c-r-o-s-o-f-t... you know, the people who don't like standards, who won't use open standards (OpenDocument), tweak standards so they are not compliant (Kerberos), invent their own "standards" and not share them (MS-Word format), and then finally try to patent everything (FAT filesystem) so that other people (that would be us, the open source community) can't use it.

Maybe you should read your own article and think about those things, eh? Maybe a lot of people at Microsoft should think about those things...

Re:This piece reminds me

[symbolic]

This guy works for Microsoft, and had released an article with a rather defensive tone to it. I laughed the same way when I heard Mrs. Bush chastising the American public for picking on her husband.

Yes. 1992 was a very good year. :-)

[Richard Steiner]

1992 was the year that OS/2 2.0 (the first 32-bit version) was released by IBM with its nifty ability to run both DOS and Windows software out of the box and a real drag-and-drop GUI that made the newly released Windows 3.1 desktop look fairly primitive.

Unlike DOS GUIs like GEM, PC/GEOS, and others which preceded it, OS/2 was demonstrably better than Windows in almost every way you could think of except in three areas:

  * It required more RAM than Windows did (OS/2 was usable in 8MB while Windows was usable in 4MB).

  * It had support for fewer devices (especially video cards) than Windows, which was a major issue for a number of people I knew who were interested in it including myself, and

  * It required a bit of a mind shift to use if one was used to Windows, mainly because it actually used the second mouse button for context menus and such (unlike Windows).

It was missing native software, but that didn't matter -- most of the folks I know used it as a platform to run DOS or Windows software anyway. Why not? It that that job very well.

We know from history that preloads, developer deals, and various other Microsoft tactics and actions would cause OS/2 to drop from the industry radar roughly four years later, but I'm sure that the introduction of IBM's product scared the crap out of some folks in Redmond. :-)

I for one am thankful that IBM released such a product -- in those days, we didn't have many alternatives on x86 hardware (BeOS wasn't around yet, nobody in PC land had heard of the BSDs, and Linux was just barely starting to become useful).

Re:Article Summary

[robertjw]

Problem with your examples are that SCSI and Betamax were expensive solutions while VHS and IDE were considerably cheaper for the consumer. The lower price allowed greater adoption, market share and eventually success of the inferior product.

Microsoft basically was the VHS or IDE of the computer world during the 90's when Windows took all of the market share from superior operating systems, primarily the Macintosh. Problem is there is now a superior technology with a lower pricepoint in Linux. Microsoft has become the proprietary 'Betamax' of the early 21st century. Expensive applications like IIS can't compete with Apache due to it's lower cost of ownership. Eventually Microsoft is going to lose market share and fail - it's inevitable.

But

[The MAZZTer]

We don't WANT the technology (read: DRM) that Microsoft invents!

Their own fault

[fm6]

It's true. But so what? Microsoft doesn't get credit for the things they do right because of all the things they do wrong. Like shoddy products and monopolistic practices. Besides, their marketing is mostly about how fucking brilliant they are — and that practically guaranteed to make people discount their accomplishment.

There's also the fact that they don't play well with other. People at Microsoft deserve a big share of the credit for inventing XSL — and it would be hard to overstate the importance of that. But, as they always do with any activity they can't control, Microsoft gradually withdrew from the XSL working group. So whenever you hear about XSLT or XSL:FO, it's in connection with somebody else.

MiniBar?

[turgid]

Hotels have had them for years... so where's the innovation?

Now, I know as well as the next pro-Windows shill that Open Sores copies everything Windows does, so give it a year or two and I'll have unlimited free beer, whisky, chocolate and peanuts.

All they have to sort out is free hookers and I'll be sorted.

The only thing that MicroShit is good at, is...

[SilverSand2021]

...marketing.

  Most of the base technology that MS has been touting since its glory days of DOS/Win3.x was copied from Apple, or the Xerox PARC. [For those unfamiliar with PARC, I highly recommend the book "Dealers Of Lightning"... or just google "Xerox PARC history".]

  MS's claim that they're responsible for ANY major innovations in the computer industry is on par with Al Gore's comment that he "invented the Internet". How can a company whose base technology was stolen from someone else, and enhanced with innovations originated elsewhere, claim any innovation of their own?

  Below are a few examples of the baseline concepts that completely changed the computing world, and led to the proliferation of personal PC's, the Internet, and quite a few other things. And NONE of them were pioneered by MicroSoft.

  1.) A suite of applications that shares data and is designer with multiple users in mind.
  2.) A packet-based, self-monitoring networking protocol? i.e. "let's work out a stable connection over an unstable medium".
  3.) Image rasterization (conversion of displayable image to printable).
  4.) A programming language whose specs fit on a SINGLE piece of paper, and from which dozens of other languages spawned.
  5.) Seamless scrolling, adjustable by-screen, by-line, and by-pixel.
  6.) In-application adjustment of application parameters, as well as command scripting.

  Just six examples out of hundreds, of the concepts that were invented by others, but co-opted by MS. And now, they claim innovation? I call "bullshit"! Almost everything that is promoted by MS today is based on technology that was invented in the 1970's.

  There's a significant difference between "enhancements", and "invention". My advice to Microsoft's mouthpieces would be, look up the definitions of these terms, and don't make yourself look like a fool in front of a worldwide audience. /rant

CmdrTaco -1 Troll

[Eric Damron]

Subject says it all.

Re:Seriously?

[IthnkImParanoid]

The Mac does not count because it relied on imbedded metadata in the file, rather than an outside deciding program.

Why is this so different than Windows using the extension of a file as metadata? Microsoft's way has advantages of course (being able to easily change the filetype, if you've unhidden extensions for known file types), but disadvantages as well (SalesReport.doc.vbs, anyone?)

Re:Seriously?

[mrsbrisby]

Troll.

1. The "taskbar". Before Windows 95 there was a concept of a window being "iconized", where the "icon" vanished if the window was open. It appears that Microsoft first made an "icon" that stayed there even if the window was open.

Err, both NeXT and OS/2 did this. Furthermore, there's a very good reason almost nobody else uses the "task bar": it's a terrible user interface.

2. Also in the taskbar, the realazation that words are more important than icons, and shrinking the icon to a more appropriate 16x16 size and making the text visible.

In OS/2, you got the entire text. Even for Modal Windows (which don't show up on the Win95 task bar). For NeXT you got a tool tip of the full text, and never an amended version (like you'll see in Win95).

3. Eliminating the artificial dividing line between the window border and the contents, so that a window displaying a uniform gray rectangle of the right color blends cleanly into the border. Although I wrote something like this myself quite a few years earlier for the NeXT, I hardly publicized it, and never saw similar graphics design until Windows.

Wow. Many MacOS and OS/2 applications did this exactly, and NeXT did it one better by getting rid of the window border itself.

4. "Combo box" where text input and multiple selection are done by the same widget. Having worked with NeXT before this, I'm pretty certain it did not have this, and never saw it on any other system either. (crappy popup implementation with the scroll bar is irrelevant to the innovation, although I really wish they would fix that...)

NeXT most certainly did have it, and so did Motif. They were uncommon with Motif, but SGI used them quite a bit.

5. Scroll wheel. The idea of having another control to scroll data on the mouse was older, but Microsoft seems to have realized that a 1-D version would provide most of the benifit without the confusion or flakiness of older attempts that tried for 2 or even more degrees of freedom.

Wrong again fanboy, both Kensington and Logitch did it with a knob, and Logitch even did it with an actual toothed wheel that was much easier to use than the Microsoft bastardization.

This is exactly why Microsoft has a patent on using a scrolling wheel as a z-index instead of as a scrolling device.

6. Having all files be "commands" in that if you double-click it examines the file (even if only the filename) and opens it with the correct program. The Mac does not count because it relied on imbedded metadata in the file, rather than an outside deciding program. Nor does #! notation in Unix exec of files, as it still requires the execute bit and does not work for files that lack this. I think a very important detail is that this idea could have been implemented 20 years earlier, it does not rely on GUI, and no CLI system ever did. A useful idea that is not realized until long after it is possible is a real indication that it is an "innovation".

First of all, MacOS doesn't work that way; the "type extension" is 4 characters (instead of three), but it's basically the same mechanism. Furthermore, multiple programs that support editing a file type are all accessible (as the creator is additionally available as another 4-character extension).

Why are these things invalid when they're clearly part of the file name?

So even if you refuse to let the Mac count for other reasons, why don't GEM, OS/2, OSF/Motif, CDE, or NeXT count?

bullshit

[idlake]

Open source developers don't usually copy Windows features because they think they are good, they copy them in order to make it easer for Windows users to switch. OpenOffice, for example, could be a much better office suite if it weren't constrained by the shitty Microsoft application it is trying to replace.

And many of the features you may think of as open source copying from Windows weren't actually invented at Microsoft at all--a Microsoft product is simply the first time you happen to have seen them.

Is there a word..

[StikyPad]

for an article that's designed to be inflammatory? It could just be me, but it seems like posting pro MS articles on /. is like a white guy yelling "Up with the man!" in the middle of Harlem. I can almost hear half the /.ers thinking the nerdy equivelant of "Oh no he di'int."

The Registry(TM)

[theolein]

Microsoft certainly innovated that POS. If there was ever a piece of software so central to an operating system, yet so fragile, vastly overburdened and insecure with a tendency to break if you just look at it, then it's the Windows Registry. I don't know how often in all the years that I've used Windows just been dumbstruck at what a braindead idea it was to make the registry so central to the OS.

The irony is that the Registry reflects Microsoft's company structure, i.e centralised, as compared to any OSS OS where there are hundreds of competing config files in different formats which ensure that the OS won't become unusable if one of them goes down. And that is probably why OSS is inherently stronger than Microsoft. No matter what Microsoft does, Linux is simply too broadly based to die. Microsoft will pay one idiot like John Carrol thousands per month to blog about how he loves Microsoft (he's been developing for 11 year and that's why he *knows* Microsoft is better than OSS or anything else, according to him. He doesn't realise that there are people who have been coding on other platforms for over 20 years and have the exact same opinion about their favourite OS for the same reason).

Still, his zealotry paid off in that he got a well paid job to troll about Microsoft, even if he has become more defensive about it over the years, which makes me laugh, to be honest. The guy's like a little kid trying to win a fight by shouting the loudest.

Re:The Registry(TM)

[Shotgun]

If there was ever a piece of software so central to an operating system, yet so fragile, vastly overburdened and insecure with a tendency to break if you just look at it, then it's the Windows Registry.

Dude, you're to young. The Window's Registry was preceded by the OS/2 Registry, which was equally hated and villified for years before Redmond picked up on the 'idea'.

My biggest beef with Microsoft is that when they do claim to innovate, it turns out that what they've done is either steal someone elses bad idea, or reimplement a good idea poorly.

Xerox PARC and real innovation.

[kupci]

Hasn't anybody else noticed that the slope of progress on linux is far less than for Mac OS X, or even Windows? Even if Microsoft gets Longhorn out in 2008, it will still beat linux. And by that point Apple will be selling something that makes both look like a Speak 'n' Spell.

Slope of progress? Like, do you measure that in utils, or what? Lines of code? Eye-candy? How many OEMs include it? Or do you measure it in reliability, security, standards-adherence? The underpinnings (openstep, freebsd) have always been there for the taking by anybody in the OSS community yet it took Apple to produce what I think (and many others do, too) is the first decent version of UNIX for the desktop.

Always there for the taking? Nice corporate attitude. Well, that sentence speaks for itself. Apple benefits from the hard work of the folks at Berkeley and KDE, then adds some polish, calls it innovation. 'cepting they wouldn't be where there are now had it not been for open-source. And by the way, if you search the Slash archive, you'll see Apple is not exactly a self-respecting member of the open source community. They see far, by sitting on the shoulders of giants. But don't contribute anything back, unless they get their hands slap. Read up on Safari's roots in KDE's KHTML.

Even if Microsoft gets Longhorn out in 2008, it will still beat linux.

NOW you're talking crack. What an inane statement first of all. Still beat linux in what way? Again, what are your criteria? Besides, the Linux development pace has forced Microsoft to entirely revamp their glacial development process to the 'Agile' process of the Linux crew. Read up on the article in WSJ recently about how sloooooow it took to get builds from Microsot.

Just look at GNOME. It's practically got a [bleep] start menu.

The start menu. Oh, thank you very very much Msf. What a wonderful contribution. But they stole the entire user interface for Windows, and Windows 95, from Macintosh, who stole it from Xerox PARC. Xerox Parc built the GUI interface. Msft contributes a button. Thanks.

Re:Xerox PARC and real innovation.

[birge]

Slope of progress? Like, do you measure that in utils, or what?

I measure it in the amount of time it takes me to configure a new printer. Isn't that how everybody does it?

NOW you're talking crack. What an inane statement first of all. Still beat linux in what way? Again, what are your criteria?

It will be self evident when you use longhorn and then use linux, the same way its self evident when you use OS X and then use linux. (Or in most people's case, not use linux.) Remember, you're part of a brainwashed minority and hang out with people who agree with you. Most people in the real world don't use linux, and don't want to. Every once in a while you run across somebody like me who's used linux and hangs out in places like /. and yet knows the truth about linux and I come across as strange, when it's really you who has lost touch. Try to remember a time when you didn't think it was logical to edit text files in buried /etc to fix things. I know, it's hard.

Anyway, if you want specifics, and I agree I omitted any, MS will have a rendered graphics engine before linux, and they will have a DB filesystem (or at least an overlay) before linux. And they will continue to have far better dev tools than linux has. And people in the real world will continue to use MS products while you guys huddle in your insular support groups and kid yourselves into thinking linux is JUST about to take over the world. Meanwhile, MS and Apple will be working hard full time (as opposed to in their 20% time) and risking real money (as opposed to free weekend time) to really change things in a timely way. And then we'll have a round of never to be finished open source projects parrotting MS and Apple's latest work like the ones we have now which aim implement their current work (like C# and rendered graphics, etc.)

If Apple has only done the trivial, you have to wonder why nobody in the OSS community could do anything remotely as good in five times the time. But, yeah, Apple is a bitch about giving back. Won't argue with that, except to ask you why they should.

And you're right about the Start Button. Totally lame idea. So why the hell can't OSS figure out something better than to copy such a lame idea? Why don't we have works of staggering genius coming out of OSS where we don't even recognize the desktop it's so new? There's no money to be lost. There's nothing holding back innovation. Why do we get clones of commercial products? Why don't we have crazy experimental GUIs where windows are done away with (they are overrated, anyway, and only arbitratily limit your view of what you're currently doing)? Why don't we have completely new blank-slate ideas coming out of OSS like shells which pipe XML instead of text? Because real innovation takes a lot of time and money. Would that it didn't, but it always has, and an idealistic quasi religious movement created by an old hippie who's somehow conned a generation of programmers into thinking economics doesn't exist can't change that.

Re:Xerox PARC and real innovation.

[Daengbo]

Another place where you don't know what you're talking about. There are so many alternative desktop concepts in OSS it's almost impossible to try them all. The most recent is SymphonyOS (http://www.symphonyos.com/), who's first law of UI is that Fitt was right, but nobody listened. No nested or drill-down menus, no scrolling if possible, no icons, and no pop-up dialogs. Sound a lot like Mac or Windows, doesn't it?

There are already 3d desktops for Linux, so "MS will have a rendered graphics engine before linux" is silly. As for DB file systems, I found three for Linux in under five minutes.

Re:Xerox PARC and real innovation.

[RTMFD]

Always there for the taking? Nice corporate attitude. Well, that sentence speaks for itself. Apple benefits from the hard work of the folks at Berkeley and KDE, then adds some polish, calls it innovation.

Other than KHTML, the roots of OS X are in NeXT/OpenStep which has been in production for the last 15-16 years or so. What the hell are you talking about? NeXTStep had the first "web browser", etc. I think this argument is futile. As far as not contributing KHTML back to the "community", the last time I checked, the WebKit source was available to everyone with a (free as in beer) base-level ADC login and password.

Go emit code.

Re:Xerox PARC and real innovation.

[Mechcozmo]

Apple benefits from the hard work of the folks at Berkeley and KDE, then adds some polish, calls it innovation. 'cepting they wouldn't be where there are now had it not been for open-source. And by the way, if you search the Slash archive, you'll see Apple is not exactly a self-respecting member of the open source community. They see far, by sitting on the shoulders of giants. But don't contribute anything back, unless they get their hands slap. Read up on Safari's roots in KDE's KHTML.

Root hard drive/Library/Documentation/Acknowledgments.rtf
30 pages of thank-yous. And Apple is pretty good about open-source... WebKit, heck even Apple Darwin!
http://developer.apple.com/darwin/ Pretty hard to call that 'evil to open source' in my eyes.

Also, Apple did not steal the GUI from Xerox. Xerox created a GUI where you have a bunch of CLI windows, not much more. Apple ran with it. A team of engineers were invited to tour Xerox's labs for a million shares of Apple stock or so, which was a lot for the company that had created the Apple // and made "home computer" a reality.

Re:Xerox PARC and real innovation.

[stoborrobots]

Try to remember a time when you didn't think it was logical to edit text files in buried /etc to fix things. I know, it's hard.

It's not hard - I remember such times easily. However, in those days, we complained about having to edit text files called "INI files" in C:\WINDOWS, and "CONFIG.SYS" in C:\. Eventually, that avenue was taken from us, and we had to resort to using a graphical tool to change settings in a binary data-store, which was called the "Registry", which contained the exact same entries as the old "INI files", but without the ability to edit them in DOS mode.

Just because they're not stored in /etc doesn't make them magically more easy to use...

Re:Xerox PARC and real innovation.

[birge]

Well, two things. First, editing the registry is a hell of a lot easier, because it's a unified database, not a collection of odd files each with their own syntax. Second, I can't remember the last time I HAD to edit the registry. I had to muck with config files all the time in linux.

Standarize on CORBA? What?

[kupci]

Good point. His CORBA/COM point was ridiculous. That microsoft standardized on something, but *all* open source projects did not is simply utterly ridiculous. That's not innovation. That's the benefit of being ruled by Bill. Bill says we are using Visual Basic across the board, it happens. Fine.

Besides, KDE standarized on DCOP, GNOME on Bonobo (CORBA?), that blows away his argument that nothing like that exists in the open-source world. Microsoft's advantage is copying an existing standard (CORBA), and embracing/extending it (COM).

Besides, so what? DCOM (distributed version) is a failed standard, and COM is only applicable *within* Microsoft (think intranet vs. internet), that's why they bit the bullet and are pushing web services, having realized having a Microsoft-only standard doesn't do them a bit of good in the real world. Further, let's take CORBA. This is a well-adopted standard, supported by 800 companies, and many great open-source implementations, such as omniORB. With CORBA, or web services, or even REST - interoperability works. .

Though CORBA exists and is unencumbered by any fixed relationship with ideologically impure organizations (read: proprietary companies), you'd have as much a chance of convincing all open source projects to standardize on CORBA for native code interoperability as you would convincing 1000 cats trapped in a room to run in the same direction once you opened the doors.

Well, they ain't using COM either. [Granted, it would be *great* if KDE and GNOME standardized on *something*. There was talk of some sort of Bonobo-DCOP bridge. ]

Re: Yeah, war is the greatest thing... evar.

[s388]

i thought i was going to have to argue against a very dangerous idea, and have to really talk about the totally misbegotten ideas about the correlation between warfare and technological advance. but then you knocked down your own house of cards:

"You'd better bet if the government needed some awesome software to defeat cyberterrorists or something, there'd be a boom in the market"

yes, that's exactly right. if "government" needs something awesome-- AND pours money into it (that part is crucial)-- good things can happen. you can actually cut out the middleman, who is war. it's all about the money, not war. somehow you haven't noticed that.

not only are there peaceful technologies that could improve everyone's quality of life if it was made a national priority for THAT REASON, rather than the hysterical r&d impulses and blank-checks for the military-industrial complex that come with war, there are many technologies that ALREADY HAVE ARISEN without war. so what you said is coming off as very crackpot and very dangerous.

the immediate forms and formats of every piece of gadgetry i use has nothing to do with military technology, and has everything to do with consumer technology. the world wide web itself has come unto its own without war. now you can argue until youre blue in the face that somehow everything that i find useful, in some ultimate or original way, comes from military research. but you'd be pathological. for example: "It's likely we wouldn't have satellite communications if it weren't for the German's V2." you might as well surmise that we wouldn't have "fast-moving vehicles" if somebody somewhere didn't want to kill somebody in short order. because, actually, regardless of what the connections between some sectors of space-technology and warfare are, satellite communication BOOMED for just that-- communication, not war. peaceful commercial purposes are what gave rise to modern satellites, not war. similarly, automative technology comes from companies who want to make money off of it, and who want to make their racing teams the fastest. you see, it's kind of nice, isn't it? because hundreds of thousands of people don't have to die. (the profit-motive, even during peace-time, has some obvious problems, but i digress...)

war just happens to be the easiest current way to get the money floodgates open. in fact, there's even some people out there who don't think "government" should bother collecting or spending any money at all on anything other than warfare. but in reality, war does not magically make venture capitalism, or wise investments possible.

you'd be correct if you could name some things that are anything close to unfeasible without the motivation of national warfare. but, you're not correct.

did the first commercial spaceflights have military objectives? did the first GUI have military objectives? does my beautiful ibook come about from war? desktop linux? the blogosphere, the world wide web? no. they didn't.

you can blab all you want about how war is the greatest thing ever and we should say prayers in thanks for it every day. but it's sickening. there's not some magical barrier stopping people from innovating during peace-time. it's a matter of national fear and the willingness to invest in new technology. military industry gets a blank check during war-time. that's all it is. how could you not have noticed this?

for any piece of technology that owes itself to some military research somewhere, some DARPA project, some ancient innovation of death, i could probably name a hundred computer, scientific, biomedical advances that have absolutely nothing to do with war. yes, "it can even be argued that innovation has slowed in america because we don't have a war."

innovation hasn't slowed down. technology does not start or stop at your, or war's, convenience. you'd have to live under a rock to think that, because so many breakthroughs are all over the web, all over the news, and they make the items on your shortlist of nic-nacs look puny and trivial in comparison. have you looked at a physics or astronomy journal lately? visited a biomedical lab? surfed the internet?

Re:Lets talk about server-side

[Forbman]

MS licensed SMS from NetIQ...
MS colicensed SQL Server from Sybase, way back in NT 3.5 days, and eventually forked it about SQL Server version 6.0.
CLR? OK, let's allow other languages to "compile" to the JVM, eh, Sun? Let's not even think about the USCD p-code system...
SQLCLR? What about Java JRE embedded in Oracle?
Exchange? Hmm... Lotus Notes. GroupWise. CHMS (if you have worked in US military hospitals, you know full well about CHMS... but I would posit that it is internally what Exchange wishes it could be. Yes, I know about how shitty everyone who uses it thinks it is...).
WinFS? Oracle did this first, InternetFileSystem (iFS).
MTS...didn't they kind of steal that idea from IBM?
ActiveDirectory is MSified Kerberos.
Terminal Services, better ask Citrix how they feel about that one...

for one reckon VS.Net 2005 Team System Oooo...Delphi Enterprise. Hmm... been this way since at least Delphi 5. Remote debugging, too.

& SQL 2005 are gonna kick some serious butt. Nah. People will realize just how stupid it is writing stored procedures in .Net langs, just like most Oracle developers still write PL/SQL code, not Java stored procs. It'll make non SQL Server developers feel slightly more comfortable, but it will make it even easier for DBAs to say, "well, figure it out yourself."

(Ajax support and ongoing ORM systems are gonna be the icing on the cake.) Ruby on Rails.

a lot of the stuff in this software has gotta be their own ideas/solutions

Maybe, just maybe, Microsoft would be far better off saying that they're the "BASF" of software development: "We don't come up with the ideas, we just market the hell out of them so you think we did". Of course, we wouldn't have AJAX if some other non-MS brains realized how powerful XmlHTTPRequest actually is...

Sure, some of the guts are actually worthy of respect, even back in Win 9x days (read: "Undocumented Windows 95").