Slashdot Mirror
Ray Ozzie To Step Down From His Role At Microsoft
denobug writes "Ray Ozzie, Chief Software Architect at Microsoft, is stepping down. He is to remain with Microsoft until he retires, focusing his efforts 'in the broader area of entertainment where Microsoft has many ongoing investments,' based on a memo from Steve Ballmer. Also according to Steve's memo, the role of CSA was unique and it will not be filled."
Bailing out from this exploding gas bag, before she burns down to the bare frame.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
That's ridiculous. We all know that Ballmer would be perfectly happy to dance around a giant empty building while clapping and shouting "Developers, developers, developers, developers."
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
I think it is an admission that Chief Software Architect as implemented at Microsoft was just a nice sounding title to hand to one of the old crowd so they could feel they were still contributing.
You don't think a software company needs a chief software architect?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
He's stepping down to spend more time with his baby, Lotus Notes.
Well, what's left that we can yet copy from iTunes, Sony, OS X, Java, VMware and Amazon?
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Also according to Steve's memo, the role of CSA was unique and it will not be filled.
This has Balmer sounding like Francisco Franco, who created a monarchy but put in no king, only leaving himself as regent. For decades. Somehow I don't feel that Microsoft's situation isn't going to benefit any more than Spains, for the same reasons.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
"Software architects" are by far one of the worst things that can happen to a company that develops software products.
Instead of developing useful software products that improve the efficiency of their customers, such companies spins their wheels developing "frameworks" that are rife with "patterns", "inversion of control", "service-oriented architectures", "clouds", and all sorts of other nonsense. Yet somehow these frameworks end up being hugely complex piles of shit. The original software products end up being ignored or remain undeveloped, since so many resources went into developing these cock-awful frameworks.
I think its more like having a single technical lead in a powerful position is a bad thing for management because they keep asking hard questions. So lets split the role into smaller project based positions, leaving the strategy to management and marketing.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
When did he step up exactly? He brought in Groove, which was another attempt to recreate notes within office, then fucked up live mesh trying to make it another Groove. He had little to do with Azure, didn't talk much at company meetings, didn't inspire, didn't do anything. Don't let the door slam your ass on the way out Ray
Indeed, Ray Ozzie did play a pivotal role in helping keep Microsoft's leaders heads in the cloud.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
The GCC, LLVM, FreeBSD, OpenBSD and Linux communities, for instance, do a fantastic job of keeping "software architecture" in check, while still developing amazingly complex, practical and very high-quality software.
Yeah but at enormous cost (if you count the labour involved) because it is basically a test of strength on the mailing lists and forums with the last man standing getting to make the decision.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
For anyone who doesn't speak corporate-speak, or the variant they use at Microsoft, this really means the following:
Ray got fired, but at his level they don't fire you. He got fired because Microsoft is a mature business and doesn't really create anything new anymore.
Ballmer refuses to split the company up (tax reasons) so he's been given a grace period of a year to find a replacement for himself.
Here endeth the lesson.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
> Instead of developing useful software products that improve the efficiency of their customers, such companies spins their wheels developing "frameworks"
To the contrary, most decent software architects will prevent the idle developers from writing YAF.
> that are rife with "patterns", "inversion of control", "service-oriented architectures", "clouds", and all sorts of other nonsense.
I heard that kind of statement a few years ago... where was it... oh yeah I remember, it was the mainframe guy at his retirement party, he was also talking about the good ol' days of CICS and hierarchical databases, and how nobody needs a GUI, textmode 80x25 was optimal.
A good software architect is someone with experience that will define the orientations and overview the selected design patterns; as such he is instrumental in improving the quality and avoiding useless complexity.
lucm, indeed.
> Does this mean MS is killing the Azure platform?
It would surprise me. Azure is not that great so far, but recently I had to deploy an application and the money that my client saved by using SQL Azure instead of traditional hosting is huge.
Same goes with BPOS (Exchange online and other stuff, offered by MSFT). It's only about 5$ a month per 25GB inbox to have Exchange, connected to your own Windows Domain. For people who make the decision to go with Exchange this is pretty competitive. No more backups, no more DR, no more administration mistakes or forgotten critical patches. Of course there is always the alternatives, such as Google or Linux hosting, but some business are not ready to let go of Exchange, and with the features that they keep adding (such as voicemail integration) very often the business case to switch is just not there.
lucm, indeed.
Microsoft never did understand Lotus Notes. It was like a alien language. They just didn't get it. I experienced this first hand, having worked with both Lotus and Microsoft. When Gates hired Ozzie he hoped that MS would get his vision for the Internet. Even after Ozzie made huge headway with Azure, the Windows 8, 9 , 10 people still didn't get it. They just want to do fat OS's, Office and dabble in media. I though Balmer had Ozzies back, but if he tried, he just didn't get it either. In desperation, Ozzie decided to leave (I am guessing) because MS could have been the leader in the cloud with the only true operating system designed for the cloud. Now MS will just be another cloud player and the legacy OS, et al people will keep driving the company into the ground. Well, they had their chance.
Don't bitch at me. These are all other people's money makers, that MS slavishly copied, without any profitable revenue coming back to them.
When I mentioned Amazon, I was specifically referring to EC2 and S3.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Was official "Do Nothing".
He was installed, to keep the board and principal shareholders mollified at the prospect of a Gates departure that left the Corporation in the hands of clueless Sales executives.
"Here, Ray! Stand here, hold this, and grin."
If BillG had gone without a Ray Ozzie in place, everyone would have seen the previous 5 years of Ballmer-led "performance" - then headed for the metaphorical exit. Microsoft, instead of trading in the lackluster mid-twenties, would have been an instant 9-dollar-stock, eventually nosing up to 12 or 16...
Too many multi-millionaire, club members would have bathed on that one - Including Gates, Ballmer and Allen. So. What to do? Get yourself a scarecrow, like Ozzie, and stand him at the end of the field.
God! is there nothing about Microsoft that is not some sad, hollow sham?
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Well, you can always do what I'm doing and just install the MacOS on a well-made Win7 machine. Then dual-boot when you have to.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
And chock full of DRM.
DRM is irrelevant unless you have DRM-encumbered media.
I tried it once on a computer that came with it, the moment it could not play a dvd without setting a region code on the drive I knew it was not for me.
Every single licensed software DVD player on the planet requires a DVD region code to be set on the drive. This is hardly something unique to Windows 7, or even Windows.
These folks seemed to think my computer belongs to the MPAA.
Again, the DRM does nothing unless the owner of the copyright has DRM-encumbered their media. You're complaining about the wrong people.
I used Lotus Notes for many years, starting with version 3, and I got the impression that there was some sort of philosophy behind it, but I just couldn't figure out what it was; I admit I got tangled up in the interface. A good friend of mine was a Lotus Notes admin, and while I believe he "got it", the hoops the interface made him go through to do various tasks (backing up a database by copy-n-paste because it was the only "reliable" way?) negated whatever deeper benefits the platform provided.
Ultimately it comes down to execution; the web has its shortcomings, but it's simple enough that people "get it" and can use it effectively. Being relatively simple and text-based, it encourages experimentation without needing to worry that the underlying database can somehow can be corrupted or external links permanently invalidated. It doesn't hurt either the the web itself is basically "free", while Notes was (is still?) quite expensive.
I don't want to get all Godwin here, but I think a decent analogy is that Notes is a Tiger tank; sophisticated and extremely powerful, but ultimately done in by the cheap and plentiful Sherman. It doesn't mean that the Tiger wasn't better than the Sherman, it's just that the Sherman won by sheer volume.
Ozzie may be a brilliant guy, with an IQ of 100!, but if he can't execute his ideas in a way that people nowhere near as smart (say, 2!) as him can use, what's the point? History is littered with people who had brilliant ideas but are forgotten because they botched the execution. Having used both Notes and Groove (as I understand it the only other actual piece of software Ozzie actually worked on), he took a serious leap forward, just down the wrong evolutionary path.
Delphi.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
I loved ozzie's music. He should bite the head off balmer like a bat.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
You're right, we should reap the dead UIDs and auction them off for great justice.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
I think its more like having a single technical lead in a powerful position is a bad thing for management because they keep asking hard questions. So lets split the role into smaller project based positions, leaving the strategy to management and marketing.
Having a single technical lead across a company as diverse as Microsoft possibly is a bad thing -- should SQL Server, Word, XBox Live, and Phone 7 all be managed by the same technical lead? Is that one person really going to have a deep understanding of all the technical, business, and user issues across all the products, or are they inevitably going to skew towards their favourite area, or not have enough time to devote to all the areas to be both effective and timely? I suspect Ozzie just found there wasn't enough time in the day anymore. For Gates, being across everything probably worked better -- the whole company was his baby; for Ozzie, coming in from the outside and trying to be across everything might have been harder.
Steadily improving?! The Vista debacle happened under Ballmer. Why do you attribute it to Bill Gates?
Some examples would be nice.
360 has been the same money-loser as the original. Have you forgotten the red ring of death debacle, which happened under Ballmer? You seem to think "steady improvements" is going to keep Microsoft on the edge of technology.
"This sucks and I hate it, which means Ballmer is good."
> You don't need "software architects". You just need a small number of developers who can actually code
Clearly you do not have a lot of experience in big environments, where people come and go because the workload is not the same all the time. In that type of workplace, where contractors are part of the landscape, design patterns and architecture orientations are a must, otherwise each time you bring in someone new you go again all over the same sterile discussions about PHP Vs Perl, Web Vs Fat client, Plain DAL Vs ORM, and whatnot. Not having a clear set of design patterns will lead to a mess, quick.
Faced with this problem, typical core developers usually come up with overkill rules, such as very detailed naming conventions and flowerbox documentation requirements, and quickly you end up with reams of paper wasted and no improvement. Then someone brings up an idea of using a common library, and from there it's a sure path to Yet Another Framework.
Software architecture is a trade, a specialized one, and maybe small companies can't afford one (usually the same that won't pay for a good DBA) but it does not mean there is no need for this skillset. Being able to establish efficient guidelines and avoiding the pitfalls of frameworks and other common mistakes requires a specific expertise.
> and that are using a sufficiently-expressive language to not need "design patterns".
When you work on relatively complex systems, design patterns are not bound to the programming language, especially since the said system can require more than one language. And even if you are lucky enough to work on a software solution that can be done with a single language, there are usually more than one way to do something - so you still need design patterns.
> I know, I know. You'll claim it's difficult to find developers like that. In reality, it's not. You just have to offer them a good salary. Sure, you could buy 450 shitty Indian developers with the same salary as three or four good developers, but those three or four developers will be tens of thousands of times more productive than your shitty Indian developers.
I don't agree. Remember a few years ago when everything was about code generators and whatnot? I remember being amazed by JBuilder and TogetherJ where all I needed to do was draw a class diagram in UML, and automagically the stubs were created in the java source files.
Well guess what: reality won (again) and the cheapest and more efficient code generator there is Southeast Asia. At some point it is more cost-effective to have a good analyst write specific requirements (even maybe executable requirements) and have the code done somewhere in India or China. Sounds silly, but it beats the shit out of all those scaffolding solutions. Does it mean you can outsource everything? Of course not, but don't underestimate the economics of expandable code monkeying.
It's just like the Y2K madness. With mainframe and proprietary locked code that could not be updated in time, one of my biggest customer had a big team of engineers working around the clock to find a way to move data out of the mainframe before the crash. And the most efficient solution they came up with was "Marge Protocol": bring in shitloads of data-entry clerks to read on one machine and type on the other one. Did the job pretty well. Cheap labor 1, software engineering 0.
lucm, indeed.
MS hasn't invented anything new in the previous 10 years either. Whatever they got, was always purchased from someone else.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
God brought .NET to Bill Gates in a dream, as an apology to him and the world for ever letting MFC exist.
Microsoft's marketing department.
Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
the towel on any further attempts at, ahem, innovation.
They've been flailing around and failing to imitate Apple since the creation of the Macintosh.
Apart from "rousing the giant" long enough to kill Netscape through illegal anti-competitive moves in the nineties, Microsoft has finally realized that they suck at innovation, suck at integration and suck at being anything but exactly what their big (140k+ desktop per) clients want them to be.
Look for Windows to stay on the desktop and stop being an embarrassment on other platforms.
Balmer is now at the head of a moribund company and they have started the downward spiral.
Their cash reserves will give them a soft landing for another 50 years.
But once desktop machines go away, Microsoft goes away too.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I think its more like having a single technical lead in a powerful position is a bad thing for management because they keep asking hard questions. So lets split the role into smaller project based positions, leaving the strategy to management and marketing.
I think it would be cheaper and more effective to leave the strategy to Paul the Octopus. He's probably nicer too.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Where I am the term sysadmin is almost never used (Australia). They're just server engineers, exchange admins, or whatnot. Funny how on /dot it seems to figure as a term of abuse.
Seems to me there is a big difference between 'creating a virtual machine' and designing, speccing, configuring and implementing an ESX cluster, yet I've seen both functions performed by guys whom I would just call server engineers.
Of course as infrastructure guys (I'm a network engineer) we do yes very often see that kinda behaviour from the apps side of the fence. Also the converse is equally funny, where they start ludicrously over-speccing and blaming minor everyday inconveniences (OMG WAN latency is 40ms and the app is sensitive, guess what, that app is not suited for WAN deployment end of story its not a problem with the WAN itself LOLOLOL) because their app doesn't work properly. Though I must mitigate that angle as usually by 'app doesn't work properly' its usually 'outsourced team has zero idea how the app works'. Sometimes it does seem that to a DBA, where their datastore resides is kinda like where babies come from to a 3 year old, a magic stork brings the data to them and its no concern of theirs which server or DB they parked their data in.
I just realised I went stupid off topic so apologies
Yeah, mplayer plays dvds just fine.