Comments on: how microsoft lost their canary

By: Chris_et

Chris_et — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 18:28:33 +0000

Ahoj!
Check this out!
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By: Daniel

Daniel — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 18:58:32 +0000

“Quick rant #2.
How about this big idea:”
How about putting the pipe down? Someone paid for you to go to TechEd, and yet you can spout this kind of vague, fluffy evangelism?
“If you think of Vista as MS-DOS, then image what lies ahead when we get to the next ‘Vista’ ten years from now.”
We’ll need to keep our computers in the deep freeze, before they can run cool enough to use, without melting, yes. Thank you for that bulletin from the land of Nod, Steve.

By: mamund

mamund — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 01:08:28 +0000

microsoft is in desperate need of change. and meaningful change comes from without – not within.
gates’ leaving is a chance to start that change. ray ozzie came from the outside. is he the man to make it happen? imho, his background is all wrong for the future of software. but he might already know that and be able to steer the company in the right direction by picking people with the right skills and background. we’ll see.
as for scoble – he’s a scribe, not a change agent. he did a pretty decent job of documenting parts of the beast, but that’s all he could do. too bad he won’t be around to document the next phase of msft, but that’s the way it goes.
so who will fill scoble’s role? nuther big q. kennedy might be the man, be he’ll need to change, too.
yes – interesting times.

By: Steve Ball

Steve Ball — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 00:04:09 +0000

Quick rant #2.
How about this big idea:
your PC is a ‘Powers of 10′ microscope you can use to study every minute detail of any subject under the sun.
It is also the telescope you can use to discover and interact with every thought that has ever been thought, every book, lecture, class, picture, film, play, brainstorm, equation, contradiction, emotion, song, performance, conversation, idea, person, character, genius, and idiot who opts in to participate in the globally connected collective consciousness.
The PC is also our primary local interactive connection to global context (physical, social, political, emotional, spiritual) in the universe.
Today’s tools and interfaces are extremely primitive. If you think of Vista as MS-DOS, then image what lies ahead when we get to the next ‘Vista’ ten years from now.
We’re exchanging primitive and random bits of ascii and you think ‘we’re done’?
These boxes give us the power to share and distribute experiences and broadcast intelligence (and stupidity) in ways we have only just begun to imagine.
Love to see this vision drawn on the back of a business card. Please, keep up the great work, Hugh.
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By: Daniel

Daniel — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 19:39:00 +0000

“The interface for 3D Modelling products are very pretty and very very user friendly”
I’m a 3D graphic artist (I suspect you’re not): I’m telling you, dude, the interface on 3D graphic packages SUCK, big time. They’re horrible, and the only reason anyone uses them, is because they have to (realistic, animatable human hair just doesn’t come out of spreadsheet packages, unfortunately – and until it does, we’ll be stuck with these dreadful, brightly colored $3K-per-license applications).
They’re ugy, awkward to use and counterintuitive until you’ve learnt them. Going from one to another and back again is one of my major daily gripes, as I have to reprogram my brain to do things the “3Ds Max” way, form how you do it in Maya…
In any case, this is an operating system, we’re talking about here: the user is trying to open a spreadsheet or read their email. They’re NOT trying to produce realistic, animaable human hair.
And DON’T try to get me to imagine building a render farm with Vista machines. In my industry, you don’t pay a thousand dollars for a graphics card because you want to look at your windows sideways on.

By: hugh macleod

hugh macleod — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 18:42:01 +0000

Nice rant, Steve Ball. Some good points.
But I’m still none the wiser what MS’s “big idea” is… and it certainly isn’t expressed by the x-zillion dollar global advertising campaign they’ve got going.
Anybody?

By: Steve Ball

Steve Ball — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 13:13:33 +0000

“They opted to take that route because they have run out of ideas. They’re at a time in their corporate life when they need a big idea. And you what? They. Simply. Don’t. Have. One.”
I laughed outloud when I read this.
This is one of the most clueless and uninformed statements I have ever heard about a company of ~70K of the worlds best, brightest, and most motivated geeks on the planet, many of whom are beyond brilliant.
Perhaps this noisy level of radical misinformation is actually good for Microsoft and Microsoft people, mostly because those who choose to blindly believe this nonsense will (again) under-estimate what is coming from MS over the next decade.
Big ideas are easy and obvious. Executing on big ideas takes decades, maturity, patience, and the creative ability to transform today’s alleged bad news into tomorrow’s opportunity.
How many times has MS been under-estimated in the past?
My view is that attrition, even for the likes of Bill and Robert, is absolutely healthy and not a sign that anything is ‘wrong’ or ‘going down.’ Both Bill and Robert are going on to other work that may enrich the world.
And they are leaving behind a large team of creative, driven, and capable folks. Please, keep spreading the rumor that MS is doomed. It will make the coming transformation even more unbelievable.
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By: bean

bean — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:53:44 +0000

“Micorosoft losing both Bill and Robert in the very same week.”
Uhm, Bill Gates retirement is still 2 years away dude.

By: Alexander Muse

Alexander Muse — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 08:16:56 +0000

Hugh, I have to agree with the other folks – it is hardly game over for Microsoft. There is just too much inertia behind Microsoft for a couple of departures to matter – regardless of who they are. EVERYONE is replaceable. I think Robert helped bring a new culture to Microsoft – over 3000 corporate bloggers exist at Microsoft – that number is growing. Ozzie is taking Gate’s place and that is a good thing. I would hold off making the call that the game is over. Sort of like baseball here in the states, it can last forever.

By: Etan

Etan — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 08:16:50 +0000

While this blog post is likely to get a pop, I hope the readership here is no so thin to judge a company with 70,000 employees and nearly $45 Billion in revenue as being the result of just two people. Bill and Robert are both awesome, however, the company will move on to do great things.

By: Jim Benson

Jim Benson — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 05:17:59 +0000

I agree with some of the above in that I think Ozzie will go in a direction more beneficial for Microsoft … if he can get Balmer to play along.

By: Pinky Riordan

Pinky Riordan — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 05:02:20 +0000

Hugh, we love you here in the USA, but you gotta know the only big idea Microsoft ever had was that they should get their big ideas from their competitors.

By: tarun bhatia

tarun bhatia — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 03:54:49 +0000

But guys, I said this before, you build on what you have. I used the new Vista that has been delayed. It is way more interactive and has many tabular functions just like 3D Studio Max or Alias Maya (these are 3D Modelling software). The interface for 3D Modelling products are very pretty and very very user friendly and that’s what Vista was looking like. Imagine tabs falling from everywhere, big pretty buttons and 3D menus….it looks good. They have not run out of ideas they are just building on to what they originally had.

By: hugh macleod

hugh macleod — Sun, 18 Jun 2006 19:45:44 +0000

I like Microsoft fine. Just about everybody I’ve met who works there I liked. As a result I wish mainly good things for their future.
That being said, I’ve also been asking “What’s their big idea” for years, and so far have not received anything CLOSELY resembling an answer from them, except for “Let’s sell more of we we’ve got”.
When what you have is worth $50 billion, that might not be a bad idea, but it’s not a “Big” idea.

By: John

John — Sun, 18 Jun 2006 18:50:11 +0000

I am no fan of Microsoft and never have been and I type this comment on a Mac. It’s just incredibly simplistic to assert that Gates’s leaving (which isn’t happening until 2008 by the way) will automatically cause the extinction of the biggest software company in the world.
As has been pointed out above, founders leave their companies every day and they don’t all collapse. On the other hand, most companies have a limited shelf-life, that’s the nature of capitalism. So Microsoft’s extinction is in some sense inevitable (perhaps it will be prompted by the rise of open source) but that won’t be down to Gates’s leaving.