Scobleizer - Latest Comments in How Microsoft can shut down Mini-Microsoft

Re: How Microsoft can shut down Mini-Microsoft

SirLawrence — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 01:24:58 -0000

It has amazed me from the early days 3.1. That every roll-out. from day one, created such problems as to cause the consumer hours of grief and frustration trying to find a solution totally foreign to them.

It does not matter to the consumer that a driver or dll is needed from an hardware vendor that is compatible with the current os version. Or that Microsoft has trained the general public into purchasing a product that will not have full functionality until the arrival of the first service pack.

What continues to befuddle me, any other business sector that sells a product that does not work off the show room floor as advertised is bound by consumer law that recalls that product at no cost to the consumer until repaired or replaced. Otherwise the consumer is refunded their money.

When Microsoft advertises that a particular flavor os will work with specific hardware and then it doesn't. The consumer should be refunded.

When a consumer buys an off the shelf box that is preloaded with an Microsoft os, and the os prompts them to install patches to fix a broken preloaded os, and the patch crashes the consumers off the shelf box, the consumer should be refunded.

If someone would take the time to do the statistical analysis of lost productivity from unrecoverable data, or data that is recoverable, the cost to the consumer to retrieve said data. Microsoft would be getting off cheap refunding just the initial cost to the consumer. It would in no way cover the actual loss the consumer experiences.

If consumer protection laws were changed to reflect real life consumer experience with software and hardware vendors across the board, impose real time fines and sanctions to said companies. It would have an impact that would not only get their attention, it would enforce b2b to change their policy to get the lead out of whats dragging the industry down and deflating consumer confidence, in the so called vision of the future.

I realize on the surface this may appear as off thread, then again it used to be the most important person in a corporation was the consumer. No consumer, no Microsoft, go figure.

Mo Better to point, so now that Microsoft Employees are no longer treated like upper class citizens and find themselves downgraded to the consumer level, how's that working for ya? Because it sure has not been working out for those of us that keep praying the next version is really going to work as advertised.

So let's try and keep it real, the consumer either owns or works for a company that supports Microsoft Employees. If they come up short on their offerings they do not implore their company to offer them incentives to be better employees. Nor expect their employers to give them a voice in how the company is run or change company offerings. They either put their nose to the grind stone or they find another job. Welcome to the lobby....

Re: How Microsoft can shut down Mini-Microsoft

Philip — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 17:45:32 -0000

A site putting insight in sight. After years of working with Microsoft Windows and suffering a simply evelasting stream of trouble I finally switched the business/home system over to Linux. To say I didn't strike trouble would be lying. I had to wrestle for three months with hardware incompatibilities, new software, finding suitable software and with the numerous glitches that catch up with anybody changing over. After that three months and now for a further couple of years down the track, I have seen a dream come true. I have all the software I need and it is completely cost free, I have no more everlastingly repeated maintenance worries, I have no security concerns whatsoever. Yes, things occasionally go wrong as they do with any system that is worked hard. I have screwed up the odd desktop and found the odd thing I just cannot manage to untangle but by and large I have massive control over what I am doing, I enjoy simplicity and clarity and the change I made was the best move I have ever made since I began working with computers decades ago. I am not arbitrarily anti-Micrososft but I have a serious question. Why does Microsoft, deliberately promote absolute lies in the name of providing facts about Linux? If a firm lies to me, either partially, directly, indirectly or in some other subtle and slanted way, how can I trust that firm?

Re: How Microsoft can shut down Mini-Microsoft

Mister Spiffy — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 13:41:38 -0000

As a person in the storage business, I applaud your suggestion #1 re 1T of storage for every person. However, I also recommend that be RAID1 (that's 2T of disk space), and include some kind of remote snapshot facility in case the home site is lost (that's 4T... 2 on each end). And really, is 1T enough? Think about the pr0n.

Re: How Microsoft can shut down Mini-Microsoft

remeron — Sat, 27 May 2006 13:22:40 -0000

your blog is a gold mine of info, thx

Re: How Microsoft can shut down Mini-Microsoft

Rajeev — Wed, 17 May 2006 04:27:21 -0000

Lets see - Microsoft is facing STIFF competition from Google (Gmail), Apple (iTunes/iPod, and increasingly Macs - I am a college student, and you see Macbooks and iMacs mushrooming in libraries and dorm rooms like nobody's business) and Mozilla (Firefox). The digital music battle seems all but lost, Gmail is far and away better than any free email service out there and IE 7 is,um, late (as Media Player 11 is, and Vista will be).

I think Steve Ballmer should be fired. Plain and simple.

Re: How Microsoft can shut down Mini-Microsoft

Mike — Sat, 13 May 2006 16:49:55 -0000

Datecenters and storage investments are the most capital intensive and least profitable.

Microsoft's "big bets" have always been in innovative software, not hardware infrastructure.

Think bigger... if "the network is the computer" then MSN should be managed as the new computer.

Create "Web OS" software that let's any hosting partner or VAR participate in the MSN cluster and reap some rewards for being part of MSN.

Even Google will eventually need to decide whether their core competency is in innovative datacenter operations or software development. They'll likely outsource or contract the hardware in the future.

Re: How Microsoft can shut down Mini-Microsoft

Alex — Tue, 02 May 2006 18:46:27 -0000

You are all looking in a wrong direction, guys... Sorry to say that. Have you EVER read ANY MS End-User Aggreement? preferably the one for ANY on-line services and especially a VOLUMINOUS "Indemnification" clause...
MS ALWAYS disclaims ANY liability for whatever happens with it's customer as a consequence of using... whatever it's offering.
It came to the point when this is a 'no go'... Enough is enough. Think about this for a moment. You have to take responsibility FOR SOMETHING, otherwise - MS will become history.
Regards.

Re: How Microsoft can shut down Mini-Microsoft

Ian Restil — Mon, 01 May 2006 10:49:16 -0000

[...] Scoble said "But, Robert, almost every 'big bet' that Microsoft tries doesn't work out," you might say. That isn't true. Just study the history of SQL Server." [...]

A product which was bought, not 'innovated'. FoxPro probably doesn't count as a 'big bet', but can certainly be counted as another victim of "embrace ... extinguish", without, unfortunately, the intervening 'extend'.

Re: How Microsoft can shut down Mini-Microsoft

Dan — Sun, 30 Apr 2006 09:50:25 -0000

Giving everyone a TB of storage is similar to googles desktop beta three. The problem then arises that the data stored on a corporate network, even e-mail like hotmail, yahoo mail and gmail are discoverable. that would then entail that all my data on the corporate shared drive is also discoverable under the same circumstances.

What would stop RIAA or MPAA from subpeonaing the entire system to see what MP3's and movie files were on those drives to see what was legal and what was not. We have yet to learn what the impacts of google's shared drive is going to be, but the major security companies are against it, and many have labeled it malware because of that issue, and advocate not using it.

Is anyone going to pass up a file named "US Senate Master Misstress list.xls"? We would have to have better trust in the corporation (even google has problems with this right now), and we would have to seriously stregthen privacy laws before I would ever use something other than my own drives for storgage of my data.

Nice idea, too many risks for me to adopt it.

Re: How Microsoft can shut down Mini-Microsoft

khabri — Sun, 30 Apr 2006 09:48:50 -0000

Mini is no more with Microsoft. He is being fed by his old MS disgruntled colleagues.

Re: How Microsoft can shut down Mini-Microsoft

Sean DALY — Sat, 29 Apr 2006 22:29:05 -0000

Robert: I salute you for this call to action, which is never easy in a big company, and even less so when done publicly. I firmly believe that those who are not part of the solution are part of the problem; complaining without suggestions is pointless.

To me, the obvious moonshot is one that was routinely announced every year in the 1990s: speech recognition. This is the true killer app, and requires participation from every coding group imaginable, since it is indeed much more complicated than anyone ever suspected; so much so that today, it no longer even rates a mention, being considered simply unattainable. For my part, I don't think Microsoft will ever bring that innovation to the world, because efficient, modular code is not in your genes, but never mind me: while equipping staff with dual monitors (100% guaranteed to boost productivity, and easy/cheap now with TFTs), equip them with VOIP handsets set up for sound input. Ask for their help: once a week, have everyone read the same text into their handset/PC, so Research will instantly have massive samples for variance studies. Everyone in the company, from overworked coders to middle-management speedbump slackers, can contribute. Get the XBox people to come up with a small, robust music player/VOIP handset... set up for voice input to ANY computer on ANY OS running a Microsoft client app (a tried and tested business model, known to music lovers). And forget about patents and blackbox voodoo firmware: open up the source as Microsoft's contribution to Earth, and work on developing profitable business models providing vertical applications, everywhere connectivity, and 7/24/365 reliable (absolutely SLA) data availability.

As a concrete suggestion, Microsoft could start supporting industry standards instead of fighting, subverting, or ignoring them. Microsoft has always penetrated new markets by supporting existing formats, conveniently dropping support as competition heats up. Examples: The OpenDocument file format, which is very clearly what the world needs for long-term document archival - yet today, Microsoft has nothing better to do than push an encumbered alternative and refuse to add a filter to the 73 (I counted them) filters currently in Office. Or how about the MPEG-4 Chapter 10 (AVC, H.264) video standard, enthusiastically supported by every audiovisual industry player except Microsoft; no codec for Windows Media Player in the forseeable future - native on Macs for months now already, supported on a multitude of platforms including GNU/Linux by VLC and others. The list is long - PDF write support at OS level, W3C browser compliance, SMB/CIFS, the RTF and CSV pseudoformats which wander aimlessly with every version of Office, etc. Building to industry standards would be win/win/win for everyone - developers who could be more productive, integrators and administrators who could spend less time solving silly problems, users who could discover a system that just works. After all, dropping NetBEUI for TCP/IP never did Microsoft any harm. Why not show true commitment to customers and open the proprietary binary formats of previous Office versions, so we could all be assured of accessing our data in 10 years should we want to? In that vein, why not open the source code to your legacy apps? I fondly remember Excel 3, which ran well on my little 386 with 12 Mb of RAM... and had enough functionality to model the mortgage loans I'm still paying. Microsoft has always spared no expense wooing developers; you are losing a generation of engineers to the superior Free Open Source Software model.

Too, you didn't mention virtualization, which is about to eat Microsoft for lunch: The future of Windows is an image running in a sealed container over a serious OS (and by that I mean stable and secure and multiprocessor optimized) such as GNU/Linux or *BSD. Malware will be as eaily handled as flushing a contaminated image. Banking data will run in a separate image from gaming, or surfing. Users will become accustomed to using alternative (secure, ergonomic, standards-based) main desktops, keeping a virtual Windows around for legacy apps and data. In this context, insisting on licenses per image, rather than per CPU, will simply hasten the departure of fed-up users.

I'm afraid Microsoft is destined to be seen as an accident of history: IBM gives away the store, savage business practice of browbeating OEMs into exclusively preinstalling DOS and later Windows quashes OS competitors, OS dominance makes conditions ripe for Office monopoly, stagnation rots bloated empire from within. The traditional strengths which justified this monoculture - rock-solid DOS under floopy Windows, robust installers with outstanding hardware support, localization in numerous languages - have been surpassed by FOSS. I moved to a new office recently and was dismayed to discover my first day that I had forgotten the new password on my XP Professional-equipped laptop. Fortunately, I had a recent Knoppix with me, booted with that, and was able to access all of my supposedly encrypted files, which of course meant i had to later encrypt my sensitive business data with third-party software (a FOSS project, naturally). Since Windows 3.0, I have not seen Microsoft as a tech company, but as a profit-making venture - the poverty of the DOS CLI compared to Unix was a dead giveaway. That's been fine until now for the founders of the company and for shareholders, but rotten for the industry and for end users. Today, Microsoft consistently reminds me of a country I had the privilege to visit in 1991, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics - born with passion and vision, capable of great strides in the early days despite the warning signs, finally extinguished as the fire went out and today judged harshly for its catastrophic failures. Microsoft's paralysis even as revenue streams in from Windows and Office (and doesn't from other products) is ghastly to watch - Microsoft can't hold those monopolies for long, for a number of reasons (growing irrelevance of PC-centric computing, stronger and stronger offerings from standards-based FOSS). I suspect that Microsoft's tumble, when it comes, will come more quickly than anyone suspects... when your OEMs rebel and start offering choice to buyers. Don't alienate your OEMs by going all-Dell; although they are fine machines, Microsoft would do much better to buy from ALL its OEMs, ideally in proportions related to marketshare. Any biologist will confirm the advantages of diversity, and for once you could properly debug an OS before shipping it. I don't agree that you need to convince any partners about driver development, given your marketshare, but not shutting out any of your OEMs could do wonders for the way you are perceived by your partners.

Your marketers, unfortunately, have to deal with senior managers who have only a passing interest in the arts and culture, the enabler of taste in what's cool. It was said that the USSR could have bloomed if Lenin appreciated fine wine and modern art more. I am one of those personally offended by the ads which describe me as a dinosaur because I won't shell out for buggy new Office software (which I know is buggy since my employer has already shelled out). Savvy buyers feel locked in; unsavvy buyers just assume it's normal for a company to be so greedy. Today, most of the 20-odd basic users of Windows I support (for free - family, friends, neighbors) assume that all personal computer operating systems are as crappy as Windows. They feel cheated when they have to buy additional software to secure their computers, in particular when they are surprised to learn that less or none is necessary for the alternatives. They wonder why GNU/Linux or the Mac was never talked about at the store, feeling like they have been rooked. Finally, they ask if their data - documents, photos - would be readable on another platform. By the way, without exception, they are incapable of backing up their data, aside from the occasional CD burn.

Sadly, Microsoft has stunted innovation in the IT industry for years; the industry's response is to move to collaborative development, which is fundamentally incompatible with Microsoft's sell-licenses-forget-support-laugh-to-bank business model. FOSS is coming after you, and you can't compete on quality and you can't compete on price. I personally believe it is too late to change; I think the future can only hold a diminished Microsoft, or maybe a group of companies - each focused on services and products meeting customer needs. The golden boom years are ending, and a huge number of current Microsoft employees won't make it through. But there is still a long-term possibility that Microsoft's successor startup companies, or a reduced and focused core, could thrive. Should you continue to decide to stay with Microsoft, I wish you luck - you shall need it.

Sean DALY.

Re: How Microsoft can shut down Mini-Microsoft

Wesley Parish — Sat, 29 Apr 2006 09:05:39 -0000

Branding seems to be Microsoft's downfall. "Windows" was the branding effort that has lasted the longest. It seems to come and go, though - we had the Windows [release number] thing for a while. Then we got to the Windows [year of possible release], which ended with Windows 2k3. Then we had the Windows [Random Initials] sequence, which pretty much describes XP.

Office has been through the same trauma.

But I couldn't believe the absurdity when a friend explained he had a Vista Beta. I repeated quizzically to myself "Sex Sells"? - after we parted. After the Microsoft Windows CE/ME/NT hilarity, Microsoft could have made a better job of branding.

To put it crudely, I can't take Microsoft's Windows Vista Beta at all seriously. Can you?

Re: How Microsoft can shut down Mini-Microsoft

Kevin Daly — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 18:02:39 -0000

Hmmmmm...If managers are payed for pruning rules, I see scope for "rule-farming"...managers making sure that lots of new ones are created so they can get paid for killing them later (and they don't have to create the rules themselves - all you need to do is appraise someone with the appropriate responsibility of a "problem", and the rule will suggest itself.
But then I have a twisty mind.
And as people in our profession are so fond of saying: "Surely Nobody Would Ever Do That".

Re: How Microsoft can shut down Mini-Microsoft

Cheech — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 14:53:27 -0000

Scoble-- what are you smoking man? And where did you get it? -3 today and falling!! Is there any hope for us?

Re: How Microsoft can shut down Mini-Microsoft

Ben Tover — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 03:21:20 -0000

"And, I, and my coworkers in the Evangelism team are now running Windows Vista and finding we're more productive, even WITH the burps that come from using pre-production code. "

I HATE to start off on a negative note, but there's no other way to say this: Mr. Scoble, you are a liar.

The OS is not up to snuff right now for daily use, though it is rapidly getting there are they approach beta 2. But this claim is complete and utter crap.

I generally support your suggestion for public compensation change logs. I think just publishing the percentages is a great way to add some transparency to the review process.

"the worst person I've dealt with here at Microsoft is far better than many employees I've dealt with in past jobs "

But I also support Mini's suggestion that mass firings are needed. The statement above about the worst person you've met @ MSFT just tells me that you're only talking to the smartest folks. There are PLENTY of people throughout the company who aren't cutting it anymore (or maybe never were; many people snuck in around the time of the perma-temp lawsuit, many others were probably just hired because a team needed a warm body in a hurry...hey, it happens). Maybe we're responsible for burning them up. That's one of the many management problems we have. But that doesn't mean we need to keep the dead weight here.

As for the multi-mon suggestion, I can't remember the last time I walked into someone's office and didn't see at least 2 monitors already. So there's probably a good chunk of that $240 million that we won't even need to spend :) I believe most LCD's also use much less standby power than your typical CRT, so this could also have cost savings to Microsoft as well as making us much more eco-friendly.

Here's an idea that's no more crazy than the ones you proposed: Hold LisaB accountable for at least some of the promises that she made in her listening series discussions. For starters, get her to update her website with the list of common themes. It hasn't been *touched* in over 3 months!!! She's supposed to be fixing morale problems. Instead, she's now causing them.

Re: How Microsoft can shut down Mini-Microsoft

Jonathan — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 17:34:00 -0000

... just thinking aloud on the [marketing and the] product name thing: How much of that is driven by marketing's wishes around product naming vs. how much of that is driven by (1) existing patented name conflicts, (2) global friendly name considertions, (3)etc.

I totally agree on the need for cool product names, but it seems there are some limitations. (and also wonder about how "fake" the public may perceive the attempts to sound/act cool: Like Gramps putting on some hip-hop bling, oversized jersey with cap backwards, making gangsta hand-signs and tring to act young.)

Re: How Microsoft can shut down Mini-Microsoft

Max Power — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 16:55:45 -0000

"Let's have compensation changes put into public. Say I get a four percent raise. Tell everyone. Let's say my managers don't believe I'm adding value here. They could leave my compensation where it is. After four years of public embarrassment (yes, we'd explain that 0%'ers aren't good, that 2%'ers are OK, that 6%'ers are above average, and that anything above that is way above average)."

This wouldn't solve anything - the review process is not broken because it's not public, it's broken because it's a popularity contest. Making it public would just give the people who spend their whole day shaking hands and kissing babies for a good review something else to waste time on - arguments with other groups as to why they're so much better and deserve to be compensated more richly.

Until the words "managing perception" disappear off the face of the Microsoft campus map, the review process will stay busted, busted, busted. Hey, here's a thought - how about reviewing and compensating people based on their actual on-the-job performance?

Re: How Microsoft can shut down Mini-Microsoft

John — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 14:04:49 -0000

Microsoft needs another Windows 95. That was a "I NEED TO GET THIS THING" kind of product. Ask yourself this: Is Vista like that? NO it's not. Screw copying goog. Focus on the important stuff : SOFTWARE.

Re: How Microsoft can shut down Mini-Microsoft

Ian Halsema — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 12:26:31 -0000

Great article! I had a chance to use a dual display system once, and I was impressed by how helpful it was in my work. I tried to interest my management, but they won't listen if I can't quantify the increase in productivity. Can you point me to a study which documents dual-display productivity improvements?

Thanks!

Re: How Microsoft can shut down Mini-Microsoft

Wesley Parish — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 08:08:13 -0000

"Even "hot" companies like Google or Apple are looking for ways to make sure its employees are happy and well engaged in the problems ahead of them."

Precisely. That's what makes them "hot". Unhappy employees are bad employees.

Re: How Microsoft can shut down Mini-Microsoft

CK — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 02:15:09 -0000

What's needed is the equivalent of "A PC on every desktop", but a) for devices and services and b) in non-geek speak. "A terabyte for everyone" is still old-school thinking.

Everyone has a PC now. Evangelizing and iterating on things for PCs isn't a moonshot.

Getting to the point where anyone can get to, manipulate and share their data, from anywhere, to anywhere... when people don't have to think about where it's stored, how it's formatted, who they're sharing with... but can trivially find out if they have to... when we have collaboration software and web authoring tools so good that our own company actually USES them... when the only printers on campus are for compatibility testing, and the conference rooms are all turned into lounges, labs and extra offices... when we're not trying to sell people on a way to live ("store your photos this way, share your photos that way, listen to your music this way, set up your home computers that way"), but rather subtly finding and enhancing the things they already do... when getting a new MSFT product is less like learning a whole new language and more like buying a new bicycle(i.e., i already _know_ how to ride it, don't make me relearn how to pedal)...

THAT is a moonshot.

Re: How Microsoft can shut down Mini-Microsoft

Aakash — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 01:54:41 -0000

I see that microsoft's Internet explorer has freeze its feature back somewhere in 2001. I like it and want microsoft should extend its feature likes other are doing.
Whatever, Microsoft is unbeatable

Re: How Microsoft can shut down Mini-Microsoft

James — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 22:31:41 -0000

Eh, Micorsoft can do whatever at this point, for all I care. Ubuntu does everything I need, it's free, and it's faster and easier to use then Windows XP.
Quite honestly, I don't care how much online storage space MS offers Windows users. What the heck would I do with a terabyte of disk space?

Pretty much the only thing MS could do at this point to win me over would be to either base Vista off UNIX (doubtful), or send me lots of free computer equipment and software. I'm not entirely sure that bribing your customers is the best long term business plan, though. ;-)

Re: How Microsoft can shut down Mini-Microsoft

Molly C — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 19:20:56 -0000

I think Microsoft should split itself into multiple companies. Of course, the split would be on their on terms, not at the point of a gun held by intrusive government.

Re: How Microsoft can shut down Mini-Microsoft

John Seiffer - Business Coach — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 08:05:37 -0000

Great ideas for revamping any company:

1. Create a vision that inspires.
2. Give every employee top of the line tools to do their jobs.
3. Allow for public understanding of who's moving ahead, who's not and WHY. Or at least public discussions of which ideas are moving people ahead or holding them back.
4. Make the rules and systems serve progress. Incorporate a system that reviews and revised. Make public input (internally at least) to that system easy.
5. Explain decisions publicly (at least internally) and allow for comments.