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Bill Gates's Last Speech
Ian Lamont writes "Bill Gates, in an address to the TechEd Developers conference, talked about Microsoft's plans for hosted services, and revealed that the company is planning data centers on 'a scale that we haven't thought of before' that will apparently enable the company to offer all of its server-based products over the Internet. The talk did not include details in terms of capacity or scale. This was Gates's final publicly scheduled speech as a full-time Microsoft employee, and he acknowledged that Microsoft's success is 'due to our relationship with developers.' On July 1, he will start spending most of his time at The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation." After that date he will be devoting his "20% time" to Microsoft.
A new head of Microsoft would have a monumental amount of work to fix the company.
Step 1 - Kill off the Ballmer turds like Zune, Xbox, and maybe even search
Step 2 - Mass firings of everyone involved in those stinkers
Step 3 - A complete overhaul of the marketing, branding, and UI people
Step 4 - Wrap up everything DOS/Win32 into a virtual machine and move forward with a clean slate while still supporting the gargantuan DOS/Win32 legacy code out there
Step 5 - Start coming to terms with open source and open standards and figure out how Microsoft will fit in that type of world
Hell, why not go all the way and grab some BSD source and build on top of that with the DOS/Win32 stuff running in a VM on top of it.
I was thinking about this the other day, and I honestly don't think MS can do much to be innovative and maintain their position in the market. Take Apple as an example - a few years back they were gasping for breath with a very small market share. They didn't have all that much to lose, and so were able to make a break with something new (OSX) and come up with something different.
Now, to put that against MS....they achieved a mindboggling share of the PC market, and were able to rest on their laurels for years. Now, they face competitors in a number of areas - OS, browsers, office suites - and their success is also what cripples them. They can't make a break with their software past the way Apple did, because if they do, they suddenly lose the connection with their established market. Think about it - if new MS products differ too radically from their old ones, or are completely incompatible etc, then suddenly the barrier between them and Linux/Apple etc is lowered dramatically. If you have to learn a new OS, for example, then there's as much chance of someone buying a shiny new Mac or picking up that free OS the kids are talking about as picking up the new MS OS and learning how to use it, not to mention the fact that MS and bugs/insecurity are a common perception...
So IMHO, they can have innovation or market share. Not both.
Between the falling angel and the rising ape
So we are returning to the very thing Microsoft fought to eliminate in the first place. Big data centers where you lease CPU time and have nothing but a terminal at your desk. ( ok, so its slightly different in actual practice, but same basic principles )
Anyone else find it as ironic as i?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
MS has started their decline, just like IBM did before them. Even if they recruit the greatest CEO in the world, all he can do is stabilize them and maybe get 3-5% annual growth.
The question is though, is there a Lou Gerstner-level of executive talent out there who can turn Microsoft into an effective development organization? I don't think there is.
All that Ballmer is going to do is continue to piss away shareholders' money on his ego trip of the month club. He's desperate to show that MS's dominance isn't just from the sheer luck of catching IBM's fumble.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
If that's what you see, you really oughta get your eyes checked.
The opposite of Free Software zealots isn't proprietary software zealots. It's people who don't get emotionally involved in a machine.
But I think the real point is not that Microsoft is going bankrupt any time soon. Simply that they are going the same route as IBM. Once IBM was the 800 pound gorilla and you played their game or got crushed. Then MS played that role for a while.
I don't expect Microsoft to *increase* market in their core profitable businesses (win32, office), and so far they have failed to show an ability to innovate in any new markets (Zune) or be profitable in those markets (XBox).
Even after IBM lost the crown, they were still mostly profitable, and eventually MS will go in the same direction as IBM as a more services oriented business.
But the only innovation that will be seen coming out of Redmond is the steady bleed of the better talent to more lucrative startups.
For any really good programmer in Seattle, the pecking order of where you want to work is:
- Working for a startup that could be sold to Google.
- Working for a startup that could be sold to MS.
- Working at Google.
- Working anywhere.
- Working at Amazon.
- Working at Real Networks.
- Working at Microsoft.
... because apparently my patience for bullshit is even shorter than yours.
Props to Bill Gates and his company Microsoft, and his business strategies, which served to DRIVE software and hardware innovation for so many years, literally making the computing world what it is today.
Smelly farts (actually, big piles of shit) to Bill Gates and Microsoft, and his business strategies, for what they have done to the computing world and the market(s) AFTER they reached the top -- about the last 10 or 12 years -- and helping far too much to make the computing world what it is today.
I am referring to the underhanded monopolistic practices, the illegal deals, the stifling of innovation in the name of profits, and more... I could go on for a while. Hell, even just within the last year they were caught buying votes on an international standards question, and that is hardly the tip of their list of recent misdeeds.
So, yeah. Bill Gates has done these industries (computing in general: hardware, software, and even theory) some tremendous good. (Not favors... his motives were completely selfish... but good.) And then, when he was in a position to do even more good, to drive the industry farther... he took the selfish route instead and did the opposite.
20 years ago, I would have called Bill Gates a hero. And he deserved the title. Today, I would call Bill Gates a villain, and he has well earned the title. I can't wait to see him leave.