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Leaked Memo Gives Microsoft New Direction?
daria42 writes "An e-mail memo sent from Microsoft chairman Bill Gates to top execs at Microsoft has been leaked, revealing the executive wants his company to hurriedly change its focus and start to tap online advertising and services as new revenue sources. In the e-mail, Gates cites another, earlier memo, sent from MS exec Ray Ozzie, in which Ozzie also warns MS of the importance of focusing on the online medium. 'It's clear that if we fail to do so, our business as we know it is at risk,' Ozzie wrote. 'We must respond quickly and decisively. We should've been leaders with all our web properties in harnessing the potential of Ajax, following our pioneering work in OWA (Outlook Web Access),' he continued. 'We knew search would be important, but through Google's focus they've gained a tremendously strong position.'"
Oh, and you, the user, don't get the revenue. That is reserved exclusively to MS. It'll be in the EULA.
That's just what we need: another "me too!" document format. Oh for crying out loud. Windows is fast becoming the toilet with a toaster, cordless drill, leaf blower, and pencil holder built in. It's the Chewbacca Defense of featureware.
Gates, Ballmer, Ozzie, et al: I'm going to give you a hint which will help you. I'm not supposed to do this because I'm a Linux fanatic but I'm going to do it anyway because you seem to be retarded and it makes me feel good inside to help those who are less fortunate than I am. Do you really want to stay in the game? Figure out what your job is, define it, simplify it, and do it well before you try to branch out like some mutating cancerous amoeba. Drop all the featureware that's in your OS and concentrate on simplifying, standardizing, and securing the 600 layers beneath what the users see. There, I've even invented a new 3S meme for your PR campaign--and I claim full IP on it right here on
Young, energetic, and emerging Linux devs would do well to follow the same advice before they take Linux down the same path that MS forged years ago.
fast as fast can be. you'll never catch me.
Sure, it's great and all, but it'll never change the way the web works. Improve it, yes. Change it? No. You can build as large js-applications as you wish (and yes, spend exponentially as much time debugging them) - you will never escape the fact that you're just building hacks around a stateless technology from pre 90's.
I find it very hard to believe that anything like this coming from Microsoft is not entirely intentional.
Microsoft is nothing more than a gargantuan marketing machine. This action is no exception.
Bill and friends are too busy running around trying to put out all the fires while they cannot even fix their core product. Bill, clean up your room and then go out and play.
Unix: Do one thing, and do it well
Mac: Do a few things, but be simple, and secure about it
Windows: Do lots of things, some well, most not, but get them into production fast
They can spend billions of dollars and they will never catch up with Google, because Google has a position that money can't buy. It's not about Building a Better Browser this time - unless Microsoft manages to completely revolutionize search to where, as Eric Schmidt I believe put it, "it knows what you mean". However, Microsoft does have the right idea at least (we'll have to wait and see if they implement it well) with Live, and web-based productivity tools. Everyone has been deriding MS as "behind the curve" on the web-based, or subscription-based software model, claiming that the likes of Google will kill the desktop-oriented software market, and Microsoft with it, but Microsoft is the first to start rolling out prebetas of said software, while most else is just speculation and vapour.
Rex is 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
In a nutshell: "We missed the boat again. Smaller companies are beating us. Let's crush them. Go Microsoft!"
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
This is Microsoft's typical MO. wait to see which way the bandwagon is going, then jump on it and try to take out the opposition completely with monopolistic practices. They don't lead, they follow.
GUI's? The internet? Microsoft was clueless until their dominance was threatened.
One day they'll try and play catch up and fail completely to push out whoever they're pushing around this time. Then the writing will be on the wall for Microsoft.
Whether it'll be google, AJAX and 'web 2.0' that does it now, or some future bandwagon; too soon to tell.
my password really is 'stinkypants'
This really is ominous news, as it means that MS is going to release - YET ANOTHER - development platform which will surely have a slick interface that n00bz can pick up and drag'n'drop together some basic apps (but experienced programmers will scoff at) which - of course - will only build apps for MS' proprietary platform ... and of course, the only client which will be able to access this new platform is MSIE7 on Vistahorn...
Nothing to see here people, its just another tactic to lock us in but this time they want to tax us -while- they rape us, rather than just beforehand.
I know its wishful thinking, but I really hope this goes the way of passport and bob...
-GenTimJS
I hope that's the chuckle of sarcasm that I hear.
fast as fast can be. you'll never catch me.
This email is nothing new. All over the years Microsoft has proved having a keen eye of what competitors are doing, not for being progressive. They jump on the fastest train.
Nothing wrong with that, ofcourse. What I think will happen is that while Bill and his fellow Microman are betting on this new horse, Google is already doing something newer. For the users (that's me and you) that only means progression.
Yes, I am the one with the legendary sig.
To us brits AJAX is known for been a cleaning product
When I hear AJAX, I think of Ajax Amsterdam.
"Microsoft is proposing its own rival to PDF, known as Metro, with Windows Vista, its new operating system that is due out next year."
Perhaps Billy failed to notice this, and I know he personally reads all my posts. The U.S. Federal Court system is accepting electronic delivery of documents. The two formats accepted by the court are WordPerfect and Portable Document Format.
What Billy is ignoring is the reason PDF is so successful as a format--its everywhere and has been for years. So, to try to come in now with a "new" document format, he'll have to surmount the legacy. Of course, he'll try to do this with some variation of the PCDos bug and Microsoft's unique market position. Although, another reason why PDF is so successful is it builds off of the PostScript file format, which oddly enough is owned by the same company as PDF--Adobe. So, what Billy will have to do is defeat PS.
All in all, that ZD article shows how grovelly they are toward Microsoft. There's nothing but positive spin on a leaked memo that itself carries little information of nutritional value.
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
This article was written before GMail.
It was written before Google Maps, and more importantly, before Google Maps and Google Local combined.
It was written before Google Movies, and Google Video.
Frankly, I think Microsoft has at least a year of catching up to do, and that is *because* they are Microsoft. Any other company, I would give them at least double that.
That is just to match the technology. Then, they have to get marketshare. Sure, they have a huge channel to shove their stuff down (Windows), but Google is in a far better position than Netscape was in it's day. Netscape was still an app that had to be run. Google is a verb. You never saw the Jennifer Lopez talking about how she "Netscaped It" in Maid in Manhattan.
It is the same reason that Amazon auctions and Yahoo! auctions flounder in obscurity, even though they are cheaper to list on and have basically the exact same feature set as eBay. Ebay has the mindshare. It is featured in Movies and TV constantly. It is a verb. It is so commonplace it will be really a tough nut to crack.
Not to mention Google also has billions in the bank and is raking in revenue, while Netscape was giving away it's key product for free. They are also in a fa rbetter finiancial position to fight than Netscape ever was.
Microsoft has never been successful in an area where they couldn't leverage their desktop monopoly. Since they don't have a monopoly on the net, they'll have difficulty here.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
"We should've been leaders with all our web properties in harnessing the potential of Ajax, following our pioneering work in OWA (Outlook Web Access)"
Economist Clayton Christensen points out in his books (The Innovator's Dilemma, etc.) that market leaders often develop the technology that does them in. Microsoft is facing a war on two fronts: 1 - Open source is starting to eat their lunch and that trend will continue. 2 - A lot of important things are moving online. People are now doing things for free on the net that they would have done previously with purchased software.
In his books, Christensen points out that entrenched market leaders usually see what is coming at them but can't adapt their businesses to take advantage of it. He has studied many industries and finds that this is something that usually happens. The bottom line is that even if Microsoft manages to weather the storm, it won't be the same company ten years from now.
www.itconversations.com/shows/detail135.html
In the past, Microsoft has been very good at playing catch-up. They have been able to identify an area that the company lacks, and then through a variety of methods such as standardization, guaranteeing interoperability, undercutting, and flat out buying competitors they unify a market and they make a lot of money in the process.
Microsoft in the past, rightly or not, was seen as a great innovator. I can remember in high school listening to a Microsoft employee talk about his job and being amazed about how fun it sounded to work there. Even though they were playing catch up in a lot of what they were doing, they were able to come off to a lot of people as improving whatever they were copying and pushing it in bold new directions.
The problem now is that the perception of Microsoft has shifted to a more accurate one: a company that does not innovate, and "borrows" all of its good ideas rather than pushing the limits. This memo just furthers this idea. Online advertising has been done before, it has failed miserably before (anybody remember the dot com burst?) but now that Google has made a successful business model from it, Microsoft suddenly stands at attention and decides to get into the market.
Right now Microsoft can't even compete with Google in the areas which Google is strong. Even though Microsoft released its "new" search engine, it still only occupies something like 5-10% of users with Google having something like 50%. I realize that Bill Gates desperately wants to kill Google off, because he (rightly) sees the company as a huge threat. The problem is that Google is much better at doing what Google does than Microsoft is.
If Bill Gates wants to kill Google, he's going to have to find a way to leverage what Microsoft is dominant in (oh say... desktop operating systems) against Google. An even better idea would be to start innovating again, bring back the public perception that Microsoft is a leading edge company and start bringing back really smart people back to the company, and start doing something new.
Oh, a lesson in history from Mr. I'm my own grandpa.
What you said is true, today. Tomorrow, it won't be. It's a toy? Don't care about the quality of the underlying techonology? If MS works in the "today", they are screwed. They are so huge, it takes them forever to react to what is going on today, let alone see what is going on in the near future. That is why they will fall. They ALL fall eventually.
Right now, there are millions and millions of people who can avoid using computers and the internet because they are scared of them, because they aren't familiar with them. That will change. Do you realize that in 50 (give or take) years there won't be anyone alive in the industrialized world who grew up not knowing about computers and the internet? (I'll be 85 and hopefullly still here) Kids won't know a world where cellphones and the internet didn't exist. Just as I grew up with televisions, but my parents didn't. The way they grew up with automobiles, but their parents didn't. The way they grew up with telephones, but their parents didn't. It is a shift in the mindset of the populace. The true quality of technology will have to improve, because it will be part of everyone's daily lives. Microsoft is short sighted, IMO. They forgot long ago about technology, and are solely concerned about making money. Period. It will be their downfall, because the demands of technology are only going to increase. I just hope I am alive to see it. I'll be the old coot listening to MP3s while everyone else is ... well, listening to whatever will be the hot technology of the day.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Only a monopoly could have this kind of logic..
PDF has become a ubiquitous standard for sharing documents on the Internet.
Conclusion for a normal business:
We better make sure we support PDF as well as possible and make sure our users can take advantage of this defacto standard.
Conclusion for a monopoly:
Some other company has managed to carve out a tiny stronghold in our otherwise impenetrable wall of power. We must use our power to overrun this foreign code with our proprietary replica of their technology.
Is this why they want to buy Claria?
I trust Microsoft to be responsible in their use of advertisements around as much as I trust, say, AOL to.
For that matter, why the Mickey Mouse fuck should a company primarily involved in operating systems, office suites, database systems, and video game systems be investigating advertisement?
I paid (sucker that I am) for Windows. Many times. I paid for Office too. I paid for my Xbox (Well, actually, I traded an old computer for it. I suppose I paid by proxy.). I paid for Microsoft Virtual PC.
Once I paid for these things, I have every reason in the world to expect that these things should not be used to feed me ads.
Then again, look at what happened with cable TV. The whole fucking IDEA of cable TV was that you pay for it and it's not broadcast, so therefore [A] people can say "fuck", "shit", "cock" and "motherfucker" on cable and [B] YOU DON'T HAVE TO SEE ADS ON CABLE.
Well, [B] fell by the wayside pretty damned quick, and from what I've heard, the FCC's been trying very hard to destroy [A].
And people put up with this shit.
Prediction: Microsoft will experiment with offering a low-cost, ad-supported version of Windows. They may opt to make the 'Home' version of their software ad-supported. At first, it may be ridiculously cheap, or maybe even free (perhaps as a limited-time promotion); after a while, though, they'll find sneaky ways to work ads into all but the 'Corporate' editions of their products.
And people will just put up with it.
I wouldn't put that past them, would you?
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
Microsoft's innovation isn't necessarily about radical new ideas.
I don't think it means what you think it means...
Dictionary.com:
2 entries found for innovate.
innovate Audio pronunciation of "innovate" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (n-vt)
v. innovated, innovating, innovates
v. tr.
To begin or introduce (something new) for or as if for the first time.
v. intr.
To begin or introduce something new.
Admittedly, Microsoft is good at throwing a ton of money at ideas that are already taking off and refining them into a marketable product, but they can't redefine common english words no matter how much they spend on PR.
-Ryan C.
If they adopt strategies similar to previous, MS needn't have much difficulty. (Not counting paying off a few wasted litigants and regulatory authorities in return for dominance in a multibillion dollar market.)
They may not have a monopoly on the net, but they have a monopoly on how most people view the net: Windows and Internet Explorer pre-loaded on the PC.
Imagine a special version of IE "enhanced" with sidebars that show competing advertisements simply by harvesting whatever search keyword is typed into Google. Or show competing advertisements based on a word-frequency count in the content of the user's browsing history. Or have convenient out of the box functionality to have hover-over MSN search results popping up before the user types Enter/Return into Google's text box. Or 541 API calls from every Longhorn-ready application that automagically does MSN search/mail/map. All of could plausibly be called innovation. Part of the OS, in a matter of speaking. You get the idea.
Granted - MS doesn't control network protocols, the web pages that people decide to visit, the content of those web pages, W3C standards, etc.
But, because MS controls the single most influential viewer of the web (IE) and strongly sway how people see the web, they can have a huge influence on the many things that they don't control explicitly.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Make no mistake, "Wintel" laptops are Microsoft products.
They are not manufactured by Microsoft, true.
Each laptop, however, requires a Windows license to operate (regardless of whether or not you actually _use_ Windows, you pay for the Windows license).
Each laptop's hardware is engineered to MS's Hardware labs standards. Many of the interfaces in these laptops were is some fashion or other coengineered by Microsoft.
Video hardware is designed to meet Microsoft's DirectX specifications, as is audio hardware, and even networking hardware.
Keyboards are designed to meet MS standards, and include MS functionality. Printers, especially the mass-produced cheap ones, are designed around MS's GDI printing standard.
Your laptop is not a direct Microsoft product, but do not be naive enough to believe that Microsoft does not have quite a few fingers into its design.
Laptop manufacturers, or their suppliers, pay the Microsoft tax in quite a few iterations, from Windows licenses, to WHQL certification, to DirectX SDKs, and other forms of support/cooperation.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
It hasn't and can't kill that avenue for growth, but it can reduce how much M$ can practically grow. This makes it darned hard for M$.
Seriously folks, how is Google competitively threatening Microsoft?
By being Google. By being big. By being popular. By having a tremendous amount of momentum. The threat is that Microsoft really doesn't know what they will do. A few years ago Google was a just a search engine. What will they do in the next few years?
Put another way, in what product categories could you purchase a Google offering instead of a Microsoft offering? Google doesn't offer an operating system product and doesn't offer an office productivity suite.
So? Maybe they will in the next 5 years. Maybe they won't. In any event, you're taking a very narrow view of competition. Google and Microsoft both have a pretty wide array of products, and quite a few of them are in direct competion.
The only way that Google will be able to become a genuine competitive threat is if Microsoft makes a serious mistake by heading down its proposed path of competing with Google on Google's browser-based terms.
So, you're saying that even if Google search crushes MSN search, Google Mail crushes Hotmail, Google Talk crushes MSN Messenger, Google Maps crushes MSN Mappoint, Google Earth crushes Terraserver, Blogger crushes MSN Spaces, Google Desktop crushes MSN Desktop Search, and so on, that Google isn't a threat to Microsoft?
On top of this both of these companies (and Yahoo! and Amazon, etc.) are going to be spawning a lot of new services in the next few years (e.g. Windows/Office Live), and gobbling up a lot of startups. Even if there is no "crushing" involved, it's foolish to say that there is no competition going on between them.
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.