Slashdot Mirror
How Ray Ozzie is Changing Microsoft
prostoalex writes "The October issue of Wired magazine takes a look at Ray Ozzie's work with Microsoft. To hear the article describe it, he's rebuilding the company from the ground up. A 70,000-employee company is quietly changing its ways by thinking of software as deliverable services that perhaps could be rented on a monthly subscription basis." From the article: "There are, of course, two major reasons for Ozzie's ascendancy at Microsoft: Gates and Ballmer. Ozzie is one of the few technologists anywhere whom they respect; they'd been trying for years to get him to join the company. Now he's carrying their hopes for the future, and it's a heavy load. Ozzie needs to move Microsoft from selling software in a box to selling lightning-fast, powerful online applications ranging from gaming to spreadsheets. The risks are enormous. The mission is to radically alter the way the company sells its most profitable software and to pursue the great unknown of so-called Web services - trading an old cash cow for an as-yet-to-be-determined cash cow. No, Microsoft doesn't think its customers will stop using PCs with hard drives and work entirely online, but the desktop era is drawing to a close, and that promises to force some painful trade-offs."
Currently MS provides OEM WinXP to the home user at a one-time low cost. The user would use that software for years afterwards without generating any income. Lost profit is basically theft.
How about instead Microsoft started charging a usage fee per time that the computer is actively used?
At, say, $0.12/hour for each non-idle hour (keypress or cursor move), this is bound to stop users stealing from Microsoft, which should keep MS in the business.
For those without internet access/credit cards, a pre-paid cybertime cards could be sold at a local 7/11 (100 hours' worth of computer use for $12, etc.)
You are welcome, Ozzie.
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
Have you noticed that every other post is a "welcome our new overlords"? Did you see the one on a certain planet? The fake "departments" encourage this behavior. Dropping funny comments won't help. People get tired of tagging people with it at this point. I must have been a three or four digit ID because I remember being here in 1997 at the beginning. I just don't remember it being this bad. Maybe it came with the "departments".
Yes, even given your user ID. Slashdot has become far worse than almost anything else. I'll say it again--the fake "departments" are a big problem. Look at the recent story on the planet again! Literally every comment was a flippant one. There is a difference between not taking a joke and having to wade through constant "overlord" stuff. I have tried to provide content, and have had a lot of great karma in the past (in different IDs). However, fighting the flood of turd is not fun. I am paying them for this. They should be paying me. Have fun wasting your time.
Waiting for the IP ban from a god-mod at this point. Maybe Taco himself. Don't forget to block your slashdot ads people!