Comments on: question for the blue monster crowd: “who owns the soul of microsoft?”

By: Fazlyi

Fazlyi — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 01:13:46 +0000

HI . Send to my on to may Search MSFT
Business Award Cord.
tacksam

By: hugh macleod

hugh macleod — Sat, 19 May 2007 03:04:56 +0000

@ Dennis:
“The sad fact is that the good work being done by Hugh, Steve and a ton of other people has evaporated in a moment of lunacy.”
Maybe externally, you are right, at least for now. But like I said about Scoble, back when he was working there: the big story was how much perception he was changing inside the company, not how much he was changing externally. Perhaps the same will be true with the Blue Monster.
Right now I’m more concerned with reaching out to the people inside Microsoft who “get” the Blue Monster. Maybe management and the rest of world will follow, maybe they won’t. But even if I can make a small difference [fingers crossed], that’s worth something to a lot of people.

By: Harold Jarche

Harold Jarche — Sat, 19 May 2007 02:51:34 +0000

I think that the blue monster needs a partner in crime - the "Patent Troll": http://weblog.infoworld.com/openresource/archives/2007/05/like_father_lik.html

By: Dennis Howlett

Dennis Howlett — Sat, 19 May 2007 02:42:40 +0000

The ‘multiple personality disorder’ theory is interesting because a similar issue is being played out in another company I know very well.
What I’ve discovered is that those who are in power making the big decisions are the ones who set the tone for public perception.
In this sense, whomever thought this was a good idea has blown away a lot of goodwill that MSFT was building among the OSS community. The sad fact is that the good work being done by Hugh, Steve and a ton of other people has evaporated in a moment of lunacy.
What about Ballmer’s ‘developers, developers, developers’ mantra? Sounded good then, sounds lame now.
Couple that to the *threat* of litigation and you have a bully in the park. I don’t know anyone who likes a bully.
Mini-Microsoft will, I’m sure, have something to say about this.
To @ Zakmundo — yep — right on. Needs top down tacit sponsorship but needs to be seen as low risk.
To Hugh — so Blue Monster is open source in your eyes? Nah. It’s perceived as ‘owned’ by MSFT. And as we all know…perception IS reality.
Bottom line — regardless of the merits of either side’s ‘case’ this is a BIG issue that I’m actually glad to see out in the open. Maybe for once we’ll get the question of whether it is possible to defend patented algorithms sorted out once and for all. The industry needs that. And in that sense at least, MSFT has done the industry a HUGE favour. Provided of course it gets litigated.
But if MSFT is using the *threat* as a way of beating up on competitors then shame on the company. Bullying is an absolute no-no in my book.

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 18 May 2007 15:20:36 +0000

Linux Torvald's reply: http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199600443

By: Josh

Josh — Thu, 17 May 2007 09:23:04 +0000

I'd say the money-making owns the 'soul' of MS and of its leaders. And this pressure comes from those who own the 'money'. But first you also have to understand what 'money' is and who produces it and who has control over its value.

By: hugh macleod

hugh macleod — Wed, 16 May 2007 18:05:35 +0000

@ Zakmundo–
No worries about the rant. That’s what the blogosphere is for
I disagree with you, though, at least partially. I think small changes can lead to big changes. Though exactly how is not always immediately obvious from the onset [And we have thousands of years of mythology– everything from Homer, to Jesus, to King Arthur, to Star Wars– telling us the exact same thing].
What I like about the Blue Monster [and what I’ve liked from the very beginning] is that nobody owns it– Not me, not MSFT, not the anti-MSFT crowd, not the media. It has a life of its own– which is what keeps it interesting…

By: Diego

Diego — Wed, 16 May 2007 17:43:52 +0000

“I think you mean to say that the question is moot.…”
Yes, yes I did.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 16 May 2007 16:49:51 +0000

Diego : “So the question is mute. ”
? I think you mean to say that the question is moot.…

By: Zakmundo

Zakmundo — Wed, 16 May 2007 16:46:37 +0000

Hugh, you say “there are some seriously smart, good people working there who yes, can still change the world for the better”
you may well be right. But the question that the recent court action poses, and the question that the comments on this thread suggests, and the question that even you appear defensive on, is this:
can these people change Microsoft for the better?
Now it might be that Microsoft is great, and people don’t realise it — then ‘all’ MS needs is a good and consistent marketing exercise. But it is a big corporation, and its intended audience (um, almost everyone?) will have perceptions with significant inertia. And thats assuming MSFT can stay on-message all the time — can they aspire to match the impact and values of Apple’s marketing for instance?
Or it might be that Microsoft as a corporation is possessed by a corporate culture that generates external behavior that is jealous of others, patronising to its clients and bullying to those smaller. In which case the external audience’s perceptions are rooted in reality, and the Blue Monster crowd have a problem on their hands.
I spent 15 years working in investment banking (derivatives trading) — full of hugely intelligent, focussed people. Some were great, and really did want to effect positive change from within. What I found fascinating, and somewhat depressing, was the longevity and all-pervasiveness of the corporate culture — different at each of the 3 institutions I worked for, but persistent at each one.
One example I can give : I too tried to change organisations from within, and was a major sponsor of the ‘new’ communication tools of wikis, chat and blogs at the most recent bank that employed me. Huge amounts of my management time and effort went into this, and yet each time I took my foot off the gas, the use of these tools would evaporate. There was a rather obvious lack of overt senior management support for the use and distribution of these tools, and that company is still stuck in the email age.
The way corporate life works is that change needs to come from the top down, as well as the bottom up. Feverish activity in the middle is at risk of being wasted. I think it is a pleasant diversion to dream of a better, fairer worlds, with corporate charters drawn up as a response to Cluetrain manifestoes, but my experience and observation is that it’s just not how it works. Am more than happy to be proved or persuaded otherwise.
sorry for the rant,
Z

By: Diego

Diego — Wed, 16 May 2007 11:46:22 +0000

“Diego, thank you for the informed, origninal and helpful comment ”
Anytime, Hugh.
But then again, you asked a question about something which Microsoft does not have. So the question is mute.

By: Dalibor Topic

Dalibor Topic — Wed, 16 May 2007 10:04:53 +0000

Hugh, no worries, I’ve rarely been enjoying a ‘world changing’ move from a Microsoftie as much as Ballmer’s declaration of total war on Microsoft’s customers, and the reaction that followed it.
I’ve even seen the first lawyers publicly make their rounds to find clients & funding, so it seems that a lot of people right now are realizing that the time for making Microsoft history has come.

By: hugh macleod

hugh macleod — Wed, 16 May 2007 07:03:26 +0000

You’re making sense, Rick.
The thing to remember about the Blue Monster is: it ain’t about what it represents i.e. “the MSFT marketing message”. What’s important is the conversations it generates… which now… includes your own… HA!
Yes, you have now been officially assimilated by the Blue Monster

By: Rick

Rick — Wed, 16 May 2007 05:57:00 +0000

Ouch!
You’re right. Not helping. Please allow me to try again without ranting.
I’m having a hard time separating the wonderful things the people of Microsoft can achieve (and yes, I believe they can) from the, uh, how shall put it, somewhat not so nice things the corporation Microsoft does with it.
So I fail to see how the Blue Monster thing is going to change the way Microsoft behaves and is perceived, if what I consider fundamental questions about how to use this wonderful potential are brushed aside with a “whatever”. I feel it contradicts big words like “change the world”.
Am I making any sense?

By: Ed

Ed — Wed, 16 May 2007 05:33:13 +0000

It’s interesting — but what we’re seeing is two Microsofts — the one, corporate, US based, legal-driven, that sees cash from suing FOSS as a legitimate revenue earner; and the other that understands that there’s a greater ‘long game’ to be played by engaging the development community and ‘opening up’ Microsoft.
The second group have made huge steps forward with the likes of Scoble (and, moving forward ideas like the blue monster), and I suspect that the former just don’t understand (or care about?) the impact of their actions on the efforts of the latter.
As always I’d choose ineptitude and lack of vision as the driver over some overarching conspiracy — but sadly honest evaluation of the situation has never sold copies in the wider media.
I think most non-religious observers (in which I’d include myself — I use ms platforms and linux for the jobs they’re best suited to) would argue that this whole argument is somewhat irrelavent — the real competitors to MS aren’t open source (or for that matter Google) but the likes of IBM and going forward the salesforce.com’s of this world, who are able to do something MS is trying to do, but better and cheaper.
When you look at it impartially, most FOSS operates in a different market, with different drivers to that of Microsoft’s.