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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.'"
...to finally get MS Office on Linux.
Will this be the next step (after the recent reorg) of the long-awaited breakup of MS into more focused and independent companies?
To us brits AJAX is known for been a cleaning product, to Microsoft it sounds like the next best thing but AJAX (not the cleaner) is already widely used for various things including the MSDN, so why HAS it taken M$ so long to jump on the already rolling bannedwagon?
why?
Well I was about to say "you dumb /. zealot, there's more to Microsoft than marketing, they make some software too"....
On second thoughts, based on their recent TV marketing campaign (the one where they show a bunch of children with aspirations including for things like music creation that Microsoft doesn't have any software offering for) which basically has no point whatsoever apart from an opportunity to say "Hi we're Microsoft, don't forget about us" and display a Microsoft logo I'm thinking you might be onto something. Go team!
29 mpg. YMMV.
Sure thing microsoft has plans to do the same in the web-space, but the competetion is tougher in this case. The coming days are gonna be really very interesting.
That's a great strategy for a 100-million dollar company. Problem is, Microsoft is too HUGE to work with such simplifying strategies. Their business model relies on completely dominating ALL aspects of business desktop computing because that's where the biggest bang-for-the-buck is and they can still make billions there. Yeah, they may still be a lumbering monster making foolish mistakes, but they're going to continue to make billions because they are THE lumbering monster. This memo simply tells the lumbering monster to take the next left at the fork in the road instead of the next right. Nothing will change except what area of computing gets stomped next.
TDz.
It's clear that if we fail to do so, our business as we know it is at risk
This is a seriously ambiguous line. Is he saying that the business is at risk or that the business of being fundamentally a software development company is at risk. I assume he has got to be saying the first because moving into the Google services space is a fundamental shift in the way M$ works. I have wondered from time to time why M$ have decided to go down the services + content route when their core business and money making comes from software development. They could own the software development world but are instead going head to head with massive companies in the content and service space. Odd. Here's to hoping they contiune.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
Joy. Their "pioneering work" with outlook web access used to get me woken up in the middle of the night at least once a week to play with registry settings when the OWA server forgot how to talk to the mail servers.
Hopefully their foray into online advertising will be just as successful.
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
When Microsoft decides to kick ass in an area, here's what they do, in a nutshell (according to Charles Ferguson):
In all of Microsoft's successful battles, it has used the same strategies. It undercuts its competitors in pricing, unifies previously separate markets, provides open but proprietary APIs, and bundles new functions into platforms it already dominates. Once it has acquired control over an industry standard, it invades neighboring markets.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
Before they think about playing with ajax they may wish to fix the slow ass script interpreter in IE. Of course they are threatened as these new rich web applications neutralize the platform. This time however there is a new kid (firefox) in town that is gonna be hard to kill off like they did with netscape.
Got Code?
TFA: '"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)," Ozzie wrote. "We knew search would be important, but through Google's focus they've gained a tremendously strong position."'
Hmm, something does not add up. I remember several other web-based email interfaces long before Outlook Web Access. I thought pioneering was essentially the early adopter phase, not the second wave.
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
I am a ASP.NET Developer, recently we switched to ASP.NET 2.0. While I must say, .NET has some powerful abilities, a great leap in producitivity. Rails, as another long time coworkwer says "makes asp.net look clumbsy to use". We both been programming 12+ years, and more I use rails, more I keep trying asp.net to do it. Oh do I hate DataSets. Its simply TERRIBLE compared to ActiveRecord.
Microsoft fails to realize them naming it asp.net 2.0, I expected a good level of backward compatibility, its simply not the case, the Model is INSANELY different underneath.
Anyways back to the topic of web technology, I would be more warry of rails than google, cause rails is going to cut the life line of asp.net
MS knows how to work social connections. Take away the ignorant VCs who put MS where they are and the government contracts that throttled the life out of competing (and technologically superior) designs and Windows would be a 2nd rate GameBoy OS.
If your idea of winning a race is tripping all the other participants then, evolutionarily, you're going to get blown out of the water by the runner who can dance. Watch it happen to MS.
fast as fast can be. you'll never catch me.
He started a "me too!" software company, swindled a hot deal which landed him a candy contract, and then baffled all the non-techie VCs with enormous amounts of bullshit. After that it was a cycle of release early, release often, and let the users cope with the bugs by denying any responsibility in an EULA. That's hardly an accomplishment worth praise.
I can happily raise your tax rate if you like.
fast as fast can be. you'll never catch me.
If you have seen QooxDoo then you probably thought the same thing I did when you saw it: "Microsoft should be freaking out about this!" Later when I learned that AJAX comes from discarded Microsoft Technology I realized that Microsoft had pulled a Xerox. Just as Xerox threw away the chance to be the leader of Desktop Software and gave away the GUI and Mouse... Microsoft handed Google a lead. The problem is, this is Microsoft not Xerox we're talking about. Will Google keep that lead?
[signature]
Unfortunately the article doesn't dilate on exactly what Micrososft mean by "This coming 'services wave' will be very disruptive". But broadly it does suggest that a Google/Sun combo or similar outfit offering office apps on a client/server basis would really turn over the applecart, maybe not right now but sometime soon when the technology is robust enough.
...
I guess two other things emerge from the article. First, Microsoft is getting sucked deeper into an impossible dilemma. They know they must become more and more friendly both to developers and to open source. But smooching with open source appears to shaft their lucrative closed-source licensing model. If there is a way out, they don't seem to have figured it yet.
Second, sure, the memo was probably meant to be leaked. Why? Well, it suggests that Microsoft see the next few years as a serious and testing challenge for them. Since about 2000, they've had it easy because nothing fundamental has changed in the industry. But now the plates are shifting
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
MS bashing aside, it kills me that something as vague as AJAX is touted as a specific technology with a birth date. The only thing with a birthdate is the term. Wikipedia says it's when Jesse James Garrett first coined the term, in an article dated 2/18/2005.
Of course Microsoft has a lack of focus. They spend too much time knee-jerking when the stock price of one of their competitors goes ballistic. Over-attention to competition and jumping from one topic to another (.Net, XBox, you name it, flavor du jour) is the best way to drive a company into the ground.
MS needs to get its own house in order and execute first. This fiasco with Vista being the perfect example.
The good news for Microsoft is that it sure looks like Google is losing focus now. Next they will have a disappointing quarter and a stock plunge, and then be like everyone else.
I guess when you are worth $40 billion you can tell Bill how to run his business.
Yes, because no rich people are stupid.
Bill knows this and knows what sells
No, he doesn't. That's exactly the point of all of this. If he knew what sells, he wouldn't have been blindsided by the success of Google's business model, and start yet another round of frantic catch-up to superior emergent technology from another company. He didn't know what Apple knew when he ripped off their graphical interface, he didn't know what Novell knew when he foisted AD snake oil in the face of Novell's (real) directory, and he doesn't know what the Linux community knows about the importance of a development and user community. He's hoping to get this with a marketing campaign with catch words like "passion" and hiring a few key open source people specifically to work on a Microsoft version of a Linux user community. Do you see a pattern here?
If he comes up with another couple of billion at the end of the day, it will be because he successfully stole other people's ideas, cheated, or broke the law - the same way he got the first 40.
Seriously folks, how is Google competitively threatening Microsoft?
How many people here have written checks to Google that they would have otherwise written to Microsoft?
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.
Recently, I purchased an Apple PowerBook instead of a Wintel laptop. And recently I purchased an Apple iPod instead of a Microsoft-backed MP3 player. Then and now, Google did not offer any competitive products in either of those categories. In other words, Apple was a competitor to Microsoft for my money, but Google was not.
While it may be true that Google is the most sophisticated billboard company on the planet, selling advertising has never been one of Microsoft's core lines of business. So, even if Google had 100% of the Internet billboard revenues and Microsoft had 0%, how would Google be threatening Microsoft?
There are those who believe that Google will someday undermine Microsoft's operating system and office productivity suite lines of business by offering subscription-based versions of each or even free versions of each. Well, how many people here want to pay subscription fees for software that is currently available in product form? Not many, I'd bet. Especially if using that subscription software also required storing your sensitive data on Google's servers. And as far as free software goes, Linux and OpenOffice are available for free now, yet at least within the U.S. neither is threatening Windows and MS Office today.
And regarding all of this talk about AJAX-based offerings, let's get real folks. Who here would really like to trade in their desktop apps for AJAX-based apps?
In my opinion, Microsoft has a locked in customer base and currently has Google trapped in a browser. As things stand now, Google is not a genuine competitive threat to Microsoft. 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.
I like to compare MSFT to Bob Sapp: Sapp is really big, he can't truly fight and in the ring his movements are grotesque and uncoordinated. He gets tired VERY quickly and then his blocks are even more non-existent than usually.
But, nobody can beat him in spite of all this, because he's just too big, and no matter how bad his shots are, one or two are plenty to put down any of his opponents. (that said, Mirko Crocop did beat him with a nice right kick to the temple).
Sigged!
If you use ASP.Net 2.0, it can now auto-detect cookies, and if they are not present, it will use a "guid" subdirectory automagically to track session related information, ie.
o fiprp))/mypage.aspx
http://www.mywebsite.com/mypage.aspx
would become:
http://www.mywebsite.com/(X(1)5(bjdc50qkgtz2aez0v
This happens for you automatically, and transparent. Pretty sweet.
Not All Who Wander Are Lost
Acrobat Reader has a lot of extra libraries that it loads at startup time that are really not necessary. Yes, it's bloated but it can be optimized. Mine loads in 10-15 seconds. Removing the majority of non-essential libraries from the plugin directory will greatly reduce the startup time.
Ryosen
One man's "Troll, +1" is another man's "Insightful, +1".
Microsoft has always had a hard-on for full desktop control. Their entry into the server market was as much to fight Novell (a cross-platform networking system) as it was to go after Unix. This is evident from the way the screwed over Novell*, as well as the general design of NT-- it essentially emulated Netware's capabilities.
The one single thing in which Microsoft has proven exceptional is controlling the market. From using the market against DR-DOS to bundling IE with MS-Windows 95, to forcing OEMs to bundle MS-Office instead of Wordperfect Office, Microsoft has controlled the market perfectly. At least, as perfectly as anyone can control the market.
These days, Microsoft is fighting not one, not two, but three major battles which they cannot control. First and foremost is Google, which is re-inventing information access by combining world-wide information access with an easy-to-use portal. Second is Apple, with the iPod. As Apple is currently the dominant distributor of on-line media, Apple is in a better position to control DRM. This could prove disasterous for Microsoft, as media distribution is going to be a huge market. Finally, the slow but invevitable move to open document standards is proving hard to manipulate, as it's hard to justify *not* moving to open standards.
As big of a Linux fanatic as I am (and oh, I am), I don't think Linux is a threat per se to Microsoft. I think as Microsoft loses its grip, Linux will be positioned to quickly become the platform of choice; but I do not believe Linux itself capable of toppling the giant. As open standards are adopted, I think Linux will have a better chance of becoming a problem for MS.
Unfortunately, I see Apple's control of the media market to be a potentially bigger issue in the next 5 years.
Anyway, that's why Microsoft is scared of Google. It means they are losing control, and mindshare, and like most bullies, they don't want to stop being the center of attention.
* Funny story. Ever wonder why MS-Windows NT was first released as MS-Windows NT 3.5, instead of NT 1.0 or MS-Windows 4.0? It seems the licensing agreement between Novell and Microsoft allowed Microsoft to ship Netware clients for any MS-Windows 3.x platform. When it came time for Microsoft to ship NT, they needed to have full compatibility with Netware, as that was the dominant networking architecture in most businesses. So, instead of re-negotiating with Novell (Microsoft knew Novell would not be happy about the competition), they simply dubbed their brand-new OS MS-Windows NT 3.5, sidestepping the problem entirely.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
A normal business wouldn't say "Everything they make, we're going to give away".
A normal business can have stable long-term partnerships without feeling the need to destroy the partners.
By making money without Microsoft's permission through a channel that Microsoft couldn't close off.