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Gates' Replacement says Microsoft Must Simplify
Javaman59 writes "This article in The Australian newspaper describes the background and the agenda of Ray Ozzie, Bill Gates'
replacement as chief architect at Microsoft. The creator of Lotus Notes, he's
a high-calibre technologist.
From the article: 'Ray's a programmer's programmer .. He's much closer to an uber-engineer, whereas Bill hasn't been a programmer for a number of years.'
Ozzie is also driving Microsoft to simplify its software: 'Complexity kills .. It sucks the life out of developers, it makes products difficult to plan, build and test, it introduces security challenges, and it causes end-user and administrator frustration.' He's not the only brilliant programmer in the world, but he does have Microsoft's resources behind him."
I would totally disagree that he is a programmer's programmer. This is the guy that brought us Lotus Notes, and then a similar product named groove. Have you ever seen any company really using Groove? And on the lotus notes side - what a nightmare. I can't even think about that software without getting the shakes. The number of problems and issues I had when I was supporting it was crazy. On top of it all the program did not work like any other windows program... Causing tons of newbie headaches. I think Microsoft is in for a rough ride...
Windows Admin Tools
back to DOS would be an improvement. (i am serious)
Then there are probably few survivors at Microsoft. Ozzie has his work cut out. You can brag about Lotus Notes all you want, but that was developed from scratch when you can make the proper design decisions. But with Windows being bloated and out of control, you just can't clean it up and make it more simple... can you? It seems like there putting to much faith in Ozzie... like a silver bullet. Gonna be tough to undo years and years of neglect.
http://psychicfreaks.com/Lotus Notes is more bloated and unusable than the worst Microsoft products.
This may be the single best long term decision Microsoft has ever made. At least until Ballamer murders Ozzie with a chair.
Mr Gates himself was once moved to declare Mr Ozzie "one of the top five programmers in the universe" and revealed that he and Mr Ballmer had wanted for more than a decade to persuade him to join Microsoft. To the outside world, Mr Ozzie's programming prowess is known mainly through Lotus Notes, the e-mail and collaboration software that he masterminded, which was acquired by IBM in 1995.
And we know that if BG says it, it must be true!
There's no doubt that Ozzie has some programming credit and no one will argue (I'm going out on a limb here) that Lotus Notes was genius back in the day, pre-Internet-as-we-know it. But despite his desire to streamline programs, reduce the bloat, and re-establish some respectability, he's not going to get very far. First, he'll have to lock horns with Ballmer and dodge chairs. Then he'll find that Microsoft has become so mired in its own muck that spurring the current crop of programmers who've been indoctrinated in the "Microsoft Way" will prove nigh impossible. He will also have to live in the shadow of BG, who despite the announcement, isn't really going anywhere, and will be haunting the halls of Redmond like some anti-Obi Wan.
I give him 18 months before he resigns in frustration.
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I don't know, if I were the person responsible for Lotus Notes, I might want to omit that from my resume. If you haven't had Lotus Notes inflicted upon you, count yourself lucky.
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I've developed with Notes for 11+ years (I know I feel sorry for me too), and while the UI is gruesome, and it has plenty of quirks, its great for rapid solution development. You can do almost anything with it, fairly quickly. If anything, the reason I think people hate it so much is precisely because it allows just any wanker to come in and crap out a solution without thinking about it. Its WAY to flexible for anyone but experienced developers to do anything reliable with it. 99% of the headaches in a Notes environment are due to admins or developers setting up stuff they don't have an idea how to really do...or like my company, we have 2000+ deployed seats, hundreds of databases all developed by different people, all supported by ONE guy, part time about 10 hours a week. Wow, no wonder theres so many problems.
If anything, its the poster child of why you *shouldn't* make it too easy for people to develop solutions...and why a solution that does everything does none of it *really* well.
1) 11 billion or so shares issued over the years. The significance of this fact seems to elude most people for some reason.
2) Stock in slow decline for over five years
3) Revenue growth continuing to slow
4) open document format movement continues to spread across the computing world
5) Office software has reached a saturation point for features
6) Linux continues to step by step become the de facto choice for computing companies to base their hardware on
7) Attempts to create new revenue streams have been failures like the Xbox/Xbox 360 marketplace disasters
8) Can't attract/keep good employees now that the stock is no longer going up
9) Can't keep current employees happy - it doesn't matter how you treat an employee if their options are going up dramatically in value every day and that hasn't been the case at MS for many years
10) Years of poor engineering choices are making progress nearly impossible for their OS
Taking over a company that is in its decline is no fun.
It's certainly true that programming these days is way harder than it ever used to be. The number of APIs, formats, interoperability options and even the number of languages a single project might encompass is truly bad for the brain of anyone that doesn't spend 24/7 keeping up with it all. Anyone that can push for simplicity gets my vote.
FWIW, any time I find it all overwhelming, I reach for my trusty copy of 'Programmers at Work' by Susan Lammers. Many of the great programmers are here along with the stories of how they created much of the basic building blocks we take for granted these days. Almost without exception, their ability to convey ideas in a clear and concise way is inspiring and after reading a few sections, I'm all fired up again and ready to cut code.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
Command Line here we COME!!
As a rule, I never trust dark brown ketchup.
Microsoft has at least 2 really big problems deriving from the same fundamental reality: Everyone needs their OS to interoperate with the bulk of the information industry.
The first problem is ethical and really goes beyond the scope of my professional opinions to my public opinions about the support of property rights. Suffice to say, I have no trouble with someone who goes after a natural monopoly position and succeeds. I have a problem with someone who then refuses to use that position of success to fix the bug in the society that made them inordinately rich and their technology inordinately influential.
The second problem is technical, which is what my argument here is really all about.
Basically Microsoft's code bloat problem derives from its monopoly position. This may seem like a truism since all of the software "profession" suffers from code bloat, but only Microsoft can take this to monopolistic proportions -- proportions that make Ma Bell's monopolistic complexities of yore look Spartan.
So Microsoft has this problem and it has many programmers (contributing to the code-bloat problem). It also has mountains of cash.
So how can Microsoft bust its own monopoly position turning its many programmers and mountains of cash into succinct code?
Monetary Incentives for the Programmers, ala the C-Prize:
S = size of uncompressed code-base
P = size of program outputting the uncompressed code-base
R = S/P (the compression ratio).
Award monies in a manner similar to the M-Prize:
Previous record ratio: R0
New record ratio: R1=R0+X
Fund contains: $Z at noon GMT on day of new record
Winner receives: $Z * (X/(R0+X))
What happens very rapidly is the programmers first apply their skills to maximally refactoring the code. What falls out is a series of legacy API layers written atop a tight core.
They'd have to spend more money on code testing to verify the compressed code-bases of the competing teams actually worked to spec but the results should be quite gratifying.
Seastead this.
Chairman Ballmer did it in the Conference Room with a Chair
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It kind of reminds me of the Captain of the Titanic handing over command to the third mate: "She's a magnificent ship except for a small gash in the side. I trust you to take good care of her."
By the time Microsoft gets its problems sorted out, Linux will be the de facto standard. Engineering the complexity out of Windows will take years.
It's just extraordinary, there's nothing MS won't do to shoot itself in the foot. The only thing they've done since late 2000 that has been remotely constructive has been .NET, and even then it's worth remembering how despite having an excellent product, they rebranded it and spun it and confused the issue until not one manager in ten had any idea what it was. ".NET is XML," remember that? That's MS on marketing, that is.
The popular perception is that they excel at marketing rather than technology, but the reverse is true. They have top-notch geeks and project management, and then above that, suddenly, there's a layer of utter leaden idiocy that -- well, the chair thing. The chair thing.
It seems so obvious, from outside, that there's a layer of deadwood generic-mulitinational-parasite-management people gradually crushing the company and that they need to put someone up there whose focus is on delivering actual value to actual people. And I think a little bit of that awareness has reached MS itself (I mean the MS boardroom -- it's an accepted fact most other places). And so they decided to appoint Ozzie, because he's handled a real product that involved real software.
It's weird how being a tiny bit right, actually makes the decision so much more glaringly wrong. Of course, I've worked with Notes in some detail (anybody else remember the thing where if the server is too fast, the timestamp on everything starts gradually moving forward, becaues the timestamp is used as a unique ID? It was on thedailywtf.com a while ago) and so to me it's extra specially glaringly wrong.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
Lotus Notes was a great innovation. The kind of thinking outside the box and meeting the need would certainly help MS to focus. Right now "Up-Sell is the mother of invention" at MS. Ray Ozzie could get back to "Necessity" as the mother of invention.
On a lighter note, the only certifications I have are for Lotus Notes, does this mean the will transfer? Can I be an MCSE without the hassle of regurgitating facts on a test without understanding concepts?
One ring to bind them - should probably have more fiber and less rings in their diet.
From what I've seen of Ozzie, especially on TV, he is in no condition to go on tour with a heavy metal band never mind run a major company.
"Gonna be tough to undo years and years of neglect."
That's what rehab is for.
Rock on!
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
When are they going to realise complexity is like the cancer they've got. It's not a small thing, something to be tided up, it is THE thing they're suffering with.
Windows is like a house of cards made from million decks, so many co-dependancies. It's why Vista has taken so long and will continue to cause problems.
The only thing to do is 'rip it up and start again' but they can't do that because of 1) time 2) losing customers by the millions along the way, so they carry on regardless and hope for the best.
Apple was in the same situation with Copland and it almost killed them too. Eventually they bit the bullet, trashed it (re-used some sections and ideas), provided the carbon bridge for transition/migration, and bought in proven code (BSD/Mach) and just worked on the GUI experience. This rescued them with literally months to spare before the big bad complexity monster ate them up. Genius, IMO.
Surely, at this late stage, they're can be no doubt that *nix won the OS wars?
spoonerize "magic trackpad"
...And he wants to simplify things?
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( http://techrepublic.com.com/5254-6257-0.html?foru
Hmm, is this quote from Microsoft after the development of Windows 2000 concluded, or when in the finishing touches of Vista.
They're confusingly similar anyway:
So... Microsoft learnt from their mistakes in Longhorn? No, wait a minute!
The next OS shouldn't be as monolithic with things breaking in their own products, or even worse, OS, as soon as they apply a patch.
So now you know what you can expect in Vista -- more of the same?
A funny thing in all this, and a constructive suggestion instead of just whining, is a request for Microsoft to offer install-time choices. Sure, there should be a "novice installer mode" like Vista (and XP) currently features where at the very start, one can say "I'm an idiot, install the OS" in prettier wording. But what about advanced users? Shouldn't they be able to exclude stuff they don't need. Maybe then, *gasp* they won't be subject to security exploits in these non-installed components either.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Even if he were a brilliant programmer (which I think he's not), he still has the extreme inertia of the Microsoft entrenched culture to deal with. This isn't the Microsoft that reacted quickly when the Internet sneaked up on them in the 90's, this is a bloated Microsoft that has as its main goal the protection of a deteriorating monopoly. This is a Microsoft that has not seen a successful, profitable new product in many, many, many years.
Yes, it would be simple. All they need to do is use that product they bought. You know. VirtualPC. All it would take is a WinXP and a Win95 preinstalled disk image, a VM that is premapped to the existing hard drive, and some tweaking to the interface so that users don't see a big difference between an emulated window and a native one.
Some difference would be fine because they could just call it 'compatability mode' and people would live with the slight kludgeness. They don't have to allow any new drivers in the images, as they have a fixed target. This would prevent people from moving the image to other machines.
The beauty of this is that VirtualPC is already semi crossplatform.
I worked in the Exchange group responsible for beating Notes. Its not like Notes made it difficult or anything. Remember VIM? Sure, back in the days when we beat Notes, we thought people were more interested in actually gettting their mail, then whether or not they could all collaberate in trying to figure out where their mail went. Notes sucked early and never recovered. Exchange started out good and only got better. There are 100K+ employee Exchange installations all over the world that work just fine. There has not been a day that Notes existed where it didnt just suck in all kinds of ways. We barely had to pitch Exchange to get businesses off of Notes, we just went down the list of suckage and asked which items applied to their current environment. The rest is history. I wont even go into NotesScript 2.0. My hands might start shaking just remembering the suckage.
I strongly suspect the Gates decided to bail now while Microsoft is at it's peak. I figure he knows what is going to happen in ten years.
When I worked for GE they used Exchange for 250K people. It was server-side unreliable (at least in our division) but it was a decent user experience.
I have since been involved with a smaller Notes install - Just 12K seats. IT WAS A HORRIBLE PILE OF SHIT.
IT was elated that they pulled off the config (of Notes/Domino), it was (server side) reliable, it ran on Linux, it fit thier needs.
The users were left in the cold with the brutal Notes interface. Tales of its suckage are all true.
I currently use Notes (at a MUCH smaller company) and am constantly amazed of how bad this software really is.
HP calculators he uses, for RPN he thinks in.
Exactly. As Ballmer once put it, when asked why Microsoft kept adding functions to Windows, "If we stopped adding functions to Windows, it would become a commodity, like a BIOS. And Microsoft is not in the BIOS business". This is called "strategic complexity". It's a very real, key component of Microsoft's strategy.
Anyway, you're missing the point. Yes, people primarily use Outlook to send and receive email. But if you deploy it together with Exchange, you supposedly have a groupware solution. And indeed, the Outlook/Exchange combination is obviously meant to compete with the Notes/Domino combination.
As for Sharepoint, I think you're a little confused as to exactly what it is. Sharepoint is server side software, and it's meant to be used in conjunction with Outlook, not in place of it. Of course Sharepoint has a web interface too — which I guess is what you're thinking about. Which isn't supposed to be the primary interface. Though perhaps folks use it anyway, rather than deal with Outlook's weirdnesses.
Groove was conceived as a P2P alternative the above. Hence my assertion that Groove and Outlook compete.
We use Lotus Notes at work, and from my experience it's not exactly a well-designed software. For example: A user's password expires every 30 days. To change my password I have to log in (so I type in my password) and then you have to access my user id (type in password again) and then click on change password (where I have to type in my password once again) and only then can I actually type in a new password. And then it has this web-browser interface that never works right in Firefox or Opera so I had to use Wine to run it on Linux.
It doesn't bode well for Microsoft to have this guy as their main "architect" if his Lotus Notes is any indication of his design prowess.
"Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you?" --Yoda {whips out green light saber}
> Ozzie is also driving Microsoft to simplify its software: 'Complexity .. It sucks the life out of developers, it makes products
> kills
> difficult to plan, build and test, it introduces security challenges,
> and it causes end-user and administrator frustration.'
At last somebody at Micro$oft whose understanding of software approaches that of the Unix way - Keep it simple.
If he really does manage to symplify Micro$oft's software then I think that company will pull through the OSS challenge.
"We barely had to pitch Exchange to get businesses off of Notes, we just went down the list of suckage and asked which items applied to their current environment."
This was of course after you beat Notes. I mean after you beat Notes it was no problem. We all remember when you beat Notes, and often say, "Wow, remember when they beat Notes?" "Yeah, that was great when they beat Notes."
Makes me wonder what else you guys like to 'beat'.
Yeah, and when "the Exchange server" serving >100K clients gets taken down for maintenance or disrupted due to unknown reasons, mail gets queued and thousands of people can't get their work done for hours on end. There is a reason why people call it "the Exchange server", and that reason is what Microsoft needs to fix ASAP. The marketing managers have justification too: it allows them to put another set of IMPORTANT bullet points on their PowerPoint slides (i.e.: "You can set up an Exchange cluster that will failover when one dies, allowing mail to continue to be delivered, and calendars to continue to be browsed and updated").
Seriously, Microsoft. Clustering and failover in Exchange. DO IT NOW.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Exchange
Benefits
1) It's not Notes! (sorry couldn't resist)
2) Mail handling is it's primary function and it does it pretty dang well.
3) Outlook and Outlook web access work pretty well. Say what you want about the client experience, but compared to Notes... Outlook/OWA rocks.
4) Tight integration with all other Microsoft OS/applications and AD. This is pretty important for user authentication and security.
5) Fast and reliable SMTP engine.
6) Connectors to every system under the sun. If it isn't a built-in Microsoft code connector, then the manufacturer of the third party system will have one (think Rightfax, Call-Pilot, you name it).
7) Backwards compatibility for a whole mess of clients. Although it's a toss-up on whether or not you want to call this a benefit vs a fault.
8) It scales LARGE if you design it properly. It takes a lot of experience and time, but you CAN scale Exchange for a global 100K plus environment (a heck of a lot easier than Notes if you ask me, but YMMV)
Faults
1) Database replication for redundancy is non-existent. This one is a true SUCK. Notes really gets this right.
2) Application level clustering is non-existent. Again, Notes gets this right. Clustering in an Exchange world means OS level Windows clustering, which is complicated and delicate (although it gets better with every patch and OS upgrade).
3) Encryption is an afterthought. S/MIME while supported is a mess to manage in an AD infrastructure and you can forget PGP completely.
4) An awful lot of infrastructure dependencies with E2K and later. DNS, WINS (god help us), AD, the list goes on. That's an awful lot of infrastructure to put in place for one or two servers.
5) Email archival and storage management is weak to non-existent. You'll have to go third party for cradle -to-grave data lifecycle management.
Notes:
Benefits
1) Database replication. Notes works pretty damn seamlessly in replication.
2) Application level clustering. It just works. One of the nice things about Notes.
3) Console window. I love being able to watch the internals of the Notes server scroll through that CLI. Watch the server console for 15 minutes every day and you'll get a REALLY good idea what's going on in your environment.
4) Encryption is strong and built in to the app at every level. Pretty dang easy to admin too.
Faults
1) Horrendous client UI. This is the biggest SUCK I've ever seen in a client UI. God this thing is horrible.
2) Terrible email engine. Notes does application database work fairly well, but it is NOT an email server. I don't care what anyone tells you, email is never supposed to get stuck in a queue the way that Notes does. Have to restart the internal mail queue routers constantly just to keep messages flowing. Second biggest SUCK in relation to Notes.
3) Terrible web experience/access to email. I thought Exchange 5.5 OWA was bad, but it looks like paradise compared to Notes.
4) Client manage-ability from an admin perspective. GPO's and Outlook work pretty well. Notes doesn't have anything close. And again, we're back to the Notes client SUCK.
Look, I'm an admitted Exchange guy. It's what I do. Even more bizarre to most people... I like it. Not just like it, I've made a career out of it. That said, I'm not blind to the fact that it's not the only solution or the best solution. Honestly, there are things that Microsoft Exchange can do a LOT better. I'm encouraged by the direc
"The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been wide