Monday, June 30, 2008

Ballmer: Running Microsoft 'Til 2017, and They're Going "Up, Baby, Up, Up, Up, Up, Up!"

Financial Times has probably the most in-depth Steve Ballmer interview in a while for Bill Gates' retirement party. A lot of it is spent on his obsession with search. But there are some savory sprinkles in the mix. Like, unless the board tosses him, we've got nine more years of shouty, sweaty Photoshops to look forward to.

I'm kind of worried that he says not once, but twice, that Microsoft's key trait is persistence: "I’d call it our long term approach, which is a combination of taking on bold challenges, being patient, being persistent, being relentless." But, hypothetically, what if you're persistently getting it wrong?

I would like to see agility more than persistence. Of course big companies can be persistent—inertia can be a kind of persistence. He also scrubs on Google for doing basically one thing, and just doing it really well:

"I mean, they have a gestalt, but gestalt is gestalt. Let’s talk about the reality. The reality is one product makes 98 percent of all of their money, search. Oh, they have two products, AdWords and AdSense. They have two products, both search-based, that make all of their money, and it hasn’t changed a lot in five years."

Of course, Google does other stuff, but it's an interesting philosophical question: Is it better to do a zillion different things—a couple of them fairly well, some good, and a lot not so fantastic—or to do just a few really great things?

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Book Review: Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft Plans to Stay Relevant in the Post Gates Era

What does someone who's been covering Microsoft for 25 years think about Bill Gates' retirement? Ask Mary Jo Foley, or consider her book, Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft Plans to Stay Relevant in the Post Gates Era. I read and I found it to be somewhat encyclopedic in its breadth and knowledge of the inner workings of Microsoft, every page chock-full of historical context and deep knowledge and liberal use of external sources. It's all especially impressive since Microsoft PR decided against officially supporting Gates-transition stories. And she plays neither fault-blind sympathizer nor superficially informed critic; her work is pitch perfect, calling out the obscene and yet recommending doubters not count out Microsoft as Bill leaves.

The book is set up in these chapters: Recap of Gate Era Microsoft, Buzzwords, People, Short Term Products, Big Bet Products, Tried and True Business Models, Untried but Unavoidable Business Models, On to Microsoft 3.0.

Again, Mary Jo Foley, as a Microsoft devoted Journalist, never falls into the rabbit hole of fandom that so many Apple writers do. She quotes Microsoft's ambitions to embed Live cloud tech into the OS, and then she puts it like this, in regards to Windows: Give users what they want ("a more transparent user experience"). Office is another place she shows her perspective is right. "The Office team is focusing on two simultaneous missions: Introduce new and compelling features that will make existing customers want to upgrade..." She follows that up with a clear line, "Office today is seen by many as a bloated product that includes loads of features that very few people ever use. So Microsoft can't simply keep cranking out more and more new Office features and modules and hope it will stumble magically on something that will win over laggards still running Office 2003, Office XP, or Office 97." The entire book is well reasoned like this. That would be stating the obvious, if it weren't so meticulously researched and steeped in tons of internal perspective culled from that source list.

For example, she has a list of 10 bullet pointed objectives that are to set apart Office 14, and notes that there is no Office 13, for superstitious reasons. She has collated a list of over 40 Windows Live sub brands, and then revisited the pruned list published in 2007. Maybe so she can marvel at their bloat. She explains the subtle divide between Ballmer execs and Gates execs, partial to business minded thinking or tech minded thinking. She dives into executives and personalities and traits of 10 "Baby Ballmers," far beyond the recognizable Allard and Bach or Ozzie, and even does a list of 10 up and coming execs behind that. She touches the main profit centers and goes into heathcare, auto, and far deeper into enterprise than I'd ever care to go. This level of granularity feels exhausting sometimes and I'd gloss over sections I didn't care to know about, but there is a lot there. She draws a picture of the monstrous organization in high granularity, but does not often have a chance to make sense of all of it under the umbrella of a company goal. Could anyone?

It's impossible to explain the depth and random knowledge you will find here. Let me pick out a handful of details by just randomly flipping open five pages:
•Microsoft has been testing an Office rental program outside of the US
•"The Studio" in a branding group in charge of bringing semblance to Xbox, Zune, etc. in the E&D groups.
•Cool codenames like Fiji and Longhorn are being used less and less. Boo!
•In the past, Microsoft research has demoed using the mobile connected to a TV as a low-cost PC in developing countries.
•A huge chunk of Microsoft's future revenue is from piracy crackdowns.

The facts within this book aren't stunners. But there is just so much info about how the company's business works, it can't be undervalued. I could probably pull 2,000 bits like this from the text. Is it cohesively organized? As best it can be. This is Microsoft, after all.

There is one major shortcoming which I've talked to Mary Jo Foley about. It's her ignorance of Xbox and Zune in the book, which get only three pages. Why? Because they don't make any money. I get that, they're tiny in financial regards, but Zune and Xbox are some of the few products done right at Microsoft in the last few years. Even if they don't make money, they're important for morale and example for the Windows groups. Products have to be great before people buy them and love them enough to tell their friends about them. Unless you have a monopoly business model as Windows and Office practically do. Even in that case, it's very clear that people will resist, and resent when it's shoved down their throats, as evident by the way people are clinging to XP. With that in mind, I consider the book somewhat incomplete and I think that these groups deserve more attention and respect from Mary Jo Foley.

Does this book answer the question of how Microsoft will thrive without Gates full time? I'm confident that it's a good look at the company more than anything. I mean, Gates will still be around one day a week, and he's been transitioning ever since Ballmer took the CEO role about eight years ago, so the pivotal moment of his quasi-retirement is not a shocking event as much as it is interesting.

So, I recommend this book not as casual reading, but as an invaluable reference to people who want to read up on Microsoft's inner workings. Most other books don't get past the '90s or the antitrust issues, and books on tech age almost as quickly as companies like Microsoft change pace. Being that this book is the latest and the only one to have such current matter and historical grounding, every tech journalist and follower of tech business should have it in their library. The only excuse for not having it is if you've also been covering Microsoft for 25 years.

Bill Gates Retirement Party

The time has come. On June 27th, Bill Gates will stop commuting to Microsoft's Redmond campus on a daily basis, and begin full-time work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. You probably know that for Bill, retirement doesn't mean what it meant for your dear old granddad. He will still visit his Redmond office once per week, doing what Ballmer tells him to do. Nevertheless, it's the furthest Bill will ever separate himself from the software biz while he's living on this planet, so it's something to commemorate, for better or worse.

Be on the lookout for some loopy posts, some thought-provoking essays, some retro vids and galleries, plus some analysis of a Microsoft sans Bill. It's been a great run, Bill, and in the end we wish you well. So you'll forgive us if we roast you a bit during your final week on the job.

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Why I Still Use Windows Despite the Peer Pressure

There are over a dozen people working at our fair Gizmodo, but as a Windows user, I'm in a definite minority. I still rock XP, and I'm pretty happy with that. Why haven't I switched to Macs? Plenty of reasons, not least of which being that I'm just too smart to switch to a Mac. That's right, I'm too smart for Macs. As Bill Gates's retirement rapidly approaches I figured now is a good time to lay out why I'm loyal to his OS.

I grew up with Windows. Although my first computer was a Mac Classic (I was like 3 at the time, and I only used it to play that helicopter game where you have to drop the little man into the horse-drawn hay carriage), I've been using Windows PCs for nearly my entire life, learning how to fiddle with the command prompt in DOS and dealing with the rudimentary pile of crap that was Windows 3.1. I survived Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME for a short, painful time, Windows 2000 and now, finally, Windows XP. It hasn't always been pretty (see: Windows ME), but through it all I've figured out every little trick there is to know about running Windows. I'm a monster on Windows.

And yeah, while some of those earlier versions were essentially garbage, running Mac as your OS wasn't all that great a choice either, especially before OS X came out. Yes, fanboys, I know you love your Macs and everything, but come on: The OS never really came into its own as a real competitor to Windows until 2001. By then, it was too late for me.

And while I used to be pretty into PC gaming, the whole no-good-games-on-Macs thing doesn't bother me so much anymore. It's just that to me, when it comes down to it, the PC just feels more logical. Windows is an OS that feels structured and it makes sense just because I'm used to them. Macs feel more nebulous and more dumbed down, like the corners have been softened to not intimidate your mom when she uses your computer. Well, I like having the corners exposed. I like tinkering in the registry to improve performance, I like being able to really tweak the system at the base level. Windows has its engine exposed, and while it might not always be pretty, if you know what you're doing you really have access to the whole thing. And hardware choices are choices I cherish as are access to plenty of apps. Apple takes pride in hiding everything under the rug and keeping it out of your hands to not let you mess it up. I don't need kid gloves.

Furthermore, beyond the OS itself, I hate the cult of personality that surrounds Steve Jobs. I like the soon-to-be-retired Bill Gates way more than Steve Jobs, because the guy cares about more than just making enough money to build a castle for himself out of stacks of $100 bills (not that Bill can't do that). Bill Gates is going to be remembered for seriously impacting the global health climate for the better. After all, the Nobel Prize is named after the dude who invented TNT, but his name is invoked a lot more often for encouraging advancements in science, literature and peace. And chances are, if the Gates Foundation keeps chugging along, Gates may even win a Nobel. Steve Jobs, on the other hand, just makes pretty plastic objects, and when it comes down to it, he seems like kind of a greedy dick. I'm more than happy to not give him any more money.

And you know what? Macs are too hip. Oh, look at me! I do graphic design! I wear women's jeans and hang out in coffee shops! I'm a DJ! Well good for you. My computer is not a fashion statement. It's a computer.

But really, when it comes down to it, the main reason I still use Windows is this: I'm stubborn and lazy. I don't want to switch because it will amount to admitting that I've been wrong for the last 15 years or so. And it would be just a huge pain to do it even if I swallowed my pride, having to relearn all the shortcuts and commands and little nuances that make an OS tick. I know all those for Windows already. I am just far too lazy to relearn OS X, and I don't care how easy you claim it is. I've made my choice, and I'm sticking by it. At least until I buy my next computer, because I sure as hell don't want to have to use Vista. I mean, I like Windows, but I'm not crazy.
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BILL GATES

Bill Gates: top ten greatest hits (and misses) - the Microsoft years



Damn, Bill, you have come a LONG way. Look at you there back in '82, you handsome devil. As part of our tribute, let's take a quick look back at the top ten greatest (and not so great) products created on Bill-time, shall we? Don't worry, it'll only sting a little.

Hits



Internet Explorer (IE)
Introduced 1995
It's really easy to simply remember "Internet Exploder" as the standards-breaking, web-forking, buggy, monopoly-causing app that helped shape Bill's old image as the evilest baron of all technology companies. But it's also the app that led to the creation Ajax-based web apps through the XMLHttpRequest spec, and the kludgey early popularization of CSS. Love it or hate it, IE's gotten more people on the web over the years than any browser, and that's definitely got to count for something.


Media Center
Introduced 2002
Despite TiVo's DVR dominance and competitors that came and went over the years, Media Center has always been an underrated standout product. Even Bill admits that the company's long struggled with usability, but Media Center is a beacon of hope not only for 10-foot UIs everywhere, but also for the company's ability to create powerful, advanced, user-friendy products. Between its online integration, extensible plugin architecture, ability to stream shows to nodes around the house, and now CableCARD support, the only real downside to Media Center is the fact that you still need a full-blown PC to run it.


MS-DOS
Introduced 1981, discontinued 2000
It was arcane and nigh-unusable to mere mortals -- but the early cash-cow was one of Bill's most strategic moves, and helped Microsoft define the concept of software licensing. It also helped launched Mossberg's career as crusader of user-friendly technology. But most importantly, MS-DOS was still the OS an entire generation grew up learning, so del crticsm.* for a second because our autoexec.bat and config.sys were so very well crafted, and extensively tweaking Memmaker for a few extra KB of usable RAM definitely ranks amongst our top most formative geek moments.


Office
Introduced 1989 (on Mac), 1990 (on PC)
Word, Excel and PowerPoint certainly did well enough on their own, but when Microsoft combined 'em into the tidy (and pricey) package that is Office -- first on the Mac in 1989, interestingly -- it had a selling point that would prove irresistible to many a productivity-obsessed middle manager even today. The addition of Outlook and its support for the (for some) nigh-indispensable Exchange only further solidified its foothold in the corporate computing world, and that's where Bill knew the real money was. That's certainly not to say that it hasn't been without its share of problems and annoyances, though -- we're looking at you, Clippy.


Peripherals
Introduced 1982
Microsoft has always been a software company first, but it's been cranking out high-quality peripherals for over 25 years -- long before the Xbox and Zune were even a twinkle in Bill's eye. Not only that, but it's been a reliable innovator in the field, with a string of devices that were first, early, or just simply popularized technologies like the wheel mouse, force-feedback joysticks and controllers, the modern optical mouse, and the ergo-keyboard. The division has gone through some bumpy times -- the SideWinder line was killed off for a while there, and there've been somequestionable designs along the way -- but it's been riding high as of late, and it doesn't show any signs of slowing down soon.


Windows 3.1 / NT 3.5
Introduced 1992 and 1994
It took a few versions to come into its own, but by the time Windows hit 3.1, Microsoft finally had a product that was able to pull PC users away from the command line (for some of the time, at least) and give them a real taste of things to come. Windows NT may not have had quite the same appeal with the average consumer, but it did bring the operating system into the 32-bit world and pave the way for enterprise desktop computing as we know it today. (Plus, it had the NT file system (NTFS), which to this day continues to carry on the legacy in its own little way.) We really wish they'd made a sequel to the Pirates of Silicon Valley, because we'd love to have seen the dramatization of Bill overseeing the first popularized verions of Windows -- especially '95, which came out just a couple of years later.

Windows 2000 and XP
Introduced 2000
When thinking of Microsoft and the new millennium, few people are able to keep the crinkles out of their nose. Thankfully, Windows ME wasn't the only thing that arrived in late Y2K, as Windows 2000 rushed in to rock the socks off of suits everywhere. The whole Win2K thing went over so well that Gates and company decided to base its next consumer OS, XP, off of it. Some may argue that the resulting product still stands as the last great OS to ship out of Redmond.


Windows CE / Mobile
Introduced 1996
As two of the most ubiquitous projects to come out from under Bill's command, both Windows CE and Windows Mobile are almost impossible to avoid when it comes to handhelds or phones. What began as a mishmash of small components has grown into the adaptable -- though sometimes maddening -- mobile OS that resides on just about every kind of device you can think of. Really, we mean every kind of device, from PMPs to enterprise-level stock-keeping systems. The slimmed down and restructured micro-Windows is at the very least one of the more flexible offerings the company has ever produced. Say what you will about its usability, there's no denying the massive impact it's had on portability and convergence.


Xbox and Xbox 360
Introduced 2001 and 2005
Back in 1999, Bill was all about multimedia convergence, and he said that a new gaming / multimedia device would be Microsoft's trojan horse into the world's living rooms with something coined the "DirectX-box." In 2001, the original Xbox entered gaming territory dominated by Sony's PlayStation with Nintendo's N64. But the clunky machine brought with it the first easy to use multiplayer console service, Xbox Live, as well as a developer-centric model that helped turn the tables. Of course, things look quite a bit different today: the Xbox 360 leads the former market leader's PlayStation 3 in spend and attach rate, and with the relative success of media and content sales on Xbox Live, it seems Bill's dream of dominating the living room wasn't just a pipe-dream after all.


Visual Basic
Introduced 1991, discontinued 1998
It's hard to underestimate the impact of Visual Basic. While the average user might have never heard of the original VB that Microsoft released way back when, the simplicity of the language and its graphical toolset made just about any power user a potential app developer, powering the flood of third party application development Microsoft operating systems enjoyed throughout the 90's. Sadly, Visual Basic met its demise at the hands of more modern languages and toolsets, but with a legacy of making programming accessible to the masses, its place in the history books and in Bill's pocketbook is undoubtedly secure.

Runners-up: DirectX, Flight Sim, Portable Media Center, Solitaire and Minesweeper


Misses



Auto PC
Introduced 1998, discontinued 2001*
Riding high on its previously-introduced sister products -- the Handheld PC and Palm PC platforms, now dead and transformed into Windows Mobile, respectively -- Microsoft's Auto PC initiative was promised to herald a revolution for in-car entertainment and productivity. There's no question it was well ahead of its time; in fact, many of the features debuted in Auto PC have gone on to become standard fare in today's cars. Problem was, when it launched your ride was already pimped with a mere CD player. In-car navigation, voice recognition, and MP3 support were still the stuff of science fiction in those dark days (particularly at the four-digit asking price), and the whole thing was doomed to a geeky, spendy niche. Though products were initially expected from several manufacturers, Clarion ended up being the only one to actually produce a head unit.

*The Auto PC lived on in spirit as Clarion's Joyride, but Microsoft's heart was no longer in the project and Clarion had switched to a generic Windows CE-based core to build the product.


Microsoft Bob
Introduced 1995, discontinued 1996
Poor Bob. No one ever gave him a chance. Maybe it had to do with the fact that he was really annoying. And as it turns out, Bill was dating Melinda French, Bob's program manager. Which isn't to say there was any nepotism involved -- Bob suffered an early death in 1996 due to general hatred for the little bastard. Bill offered this to a column in January, 1997, "Unfortunately, [Bob] demanded more performance than typical computer hardware could deliver at the time and there wasn't an adequately large market. Bob died." Thankfully, Billinda's blossoming relationship lived on. Oh, did you hear? They're like the world's greatest philanthropists now.


Cairo
Introduced 1991 (but never released)
Ask folks to pick one word to describe Microsoft's technology roadmap in the 1990s and you'll commonly get "Cairo" in response. Announced before Windows NT 3.1 was even released, Cairo was occasionally an operating system, occasionally a collection of new technologies -- it depended entirely upon who and when you asked -- but at its core, it was intended to guide Microsoft on the path beyond the architecture introduced by NT. After throwing countless dollars and man-hours at the ambitious project, Cairo was ultimately canned (though mentions of the storied buzzword continued even into this decade). Although Windows 2000 eventually became NT's heir apparent, the fruits of Microsoft's labor weren't entirely for naught, as various Cairo features found themselves implanted into various versions of Windows throughout the years. Even the WinFS file system can trace its roots back to the project -- fitting, because it too has become such an albatross.


MSN Music and URGE
Introduced 2004 and 2006, both fully discontinued 2008
When MSN Music -- Microsoft's effort to build its own PlaysForSure-based subscription music based store -- imploded, headstrong Bill did what he usually does: rebrand, and launch again. When he got up at CES 2006 and announced MSN Music would become URGE with MTV, we were all a little skeptical -- after all, the problem wasn't really the service, it was the overbearing DRM and the fact that consumers simply weren't ready for subscription music. Of course, eventually URGE died as well, and MTV shunted customers to Rhapsody America; naturally, Microsoft had a thirdPlaysForSure-based store waiting in the wings with Zune, which doesn't appear to be going anywhere any time soon.


Origami / UMPC
Introduced 2006
Note: Intel, please join Microsoft on stage to accept this award
UMPCs... what can we say? Sure, Scoble liked them, but even from day one we never saw the market potential. Fueled by an early and too-successful hype-generating viral campaign of Microsoft's own making, there was no way that these first generation Origami devices would achieve their promise. Overpriced, underpowered, desk OS-laden (with Microsoft's Touch Pack add-on), and poor battery life would ensure that UMPCs would need quite some time to live up to the wave of "ultramobile lifestyle PC"-hysteria they rode to market. And as UMPCs begin to fade, the shrinking niche between smartphones and laptops now looks toward to the sweet release of MIDs -- though that's already been two years... and counting.


OS/2
Dates: introduced 1987, discontinued 2006
What began as a collaboration between Microsoft and then-partner IBM blossomed into what looked like -- for a time at least -- the logical successor to the DOS / Windows empire. The advanced OS showed early signs of greatness with it's incorporation of the HPFS file system, improved networking capabilities, and a sophisticated UI. But cracks in the relationship between the two powerhouse corporations would ultimately lead to its downfall. With Windows 3 a sudden success, IBM's reluctance to go hardware neutral, and Microsoft's increasing displeasure with code which it called "bloated" (ahem!), the project was eventually swept aside by Gates and the gang to make way for what would become the omnipresent operating system you know and love and/or hate today.


SPOT watches and MSN Direct
Introduced 2004, discontinued 2008
When the concept of an information-enabled watch that automagically received content over unused FM radio subcarriers was first conjured up by Microsoft in the early part of the decade, it seemed like a fabulous idea. So much so, in fact, Bill personally took the project under his wing. But by the time it had launched, it was already doomed by a perfect storm of problems: the devices were uglier than sin and comically oversized, the bizarre ad campaign featured frighteningly hairy cartoon arms, and -- as the mobile web was just starting to pick up steam at that time -- virtually anyone who would've been interested in that kind of product had already discovered ways to get the same information from their phone. The underlying data network Microsoft built out to support the watches, MSN Direct, lives on to this day and sees plenty of use in Garmin's nüvi line, but will it ever be used to beam weather, news, and MSFT stock reports to wrists other than Bill's? Not bloody likely.


Windows Activation
Introduced 2001
Depending on who you talk to, Windows Product Activation is a serious privacy violation, a headache, minimal protection against piracy, or all of the above. Lucky for us, Microsoft is finally seeing (some of) the folly of its overbearing ways, and has gone with a more permissive nagware method with Vista SP1. This as opposed to the regular method of routinely locking users out of their systems, which, wouldn't you know it, tended to hurt legitimate users more than pirates. Perhaps the best example of Windows Activation's legacy was the great WGA outage of 2007, which left 12,000 systems out in the cold due to a few downed servers at Microsoft. It didn't take long for the servers to bounce back, but any shred of reputation the service had at that point went out the window with the uptime.


Windows ME
Introduced September 2000
It's not exactly clear what the point of Windows Millennium Edition was -- our guess is that Microsoft needed to keep up with that year-based product naming scheme it had going at the time, and cranked out this half-baked update to '98 in order to capitalize on the turn-of-the-millenium frenzy. Unlike the NT-based Windows 2000 released at the same time, Windows ME retained its MS-DOS-based core, while managing to somehow get even more slow and unstable than its predecessors 95 and 98. And to add insult to injury, it restricted access to shell mode, rendering many MS-DOS apps incompatible. Thankfully, Windows ME was only inflicted upon consumers for little over a year; it was replaced by indomitable Windows XP in 2001.


Windows Vista
Introduced 2007
Vista doesn't suck. Let's just get that off our chests. In fact, it's a quite capable, secure and sexy OS when you get right down to it. Unfortunately, its problems just loomed too large for many folks to overlook. A multitude of delays and a rapidly diminishing feature list soured people right out of the gate, and once the dust settled people just weren't happy with the minor improvements they were getting in exchange for their hard-earned monies and fairly mandatory RAM upgrades. Mix that in with the standard driver incompatibilities of any Microsoft OS upgrade, and you've got a whole bunch of disgruntled downgraders on your hands -- and plenty of bad press to fill in any remaining gaps. Sadly, improvements to Media Center, aesthetics and even that quirky little sidebar got overlooked in the process. Microsoft's already scrambling to get Windows 7 together to capture the multitude of users that've decided to skip Vista altogether, let's just hope it's not too late.

Runners-up: Actimates, Pocket IE, Games for Windows - Live, Xenix (yeah, Microsoft actually did a Unix at one time!)
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