Scobleizer - Latest Comments in Never underestimate Microsoft’s ability to turn a corner

Re: Never underestimate Microsoft’s ability to turn a corner

BobTurbo — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 01:41:25 -0000

Microsoft is utterly screwed and will never be turning any corner as they have never turned a corner in their lives. Please tell me when they have changed, ever?

Re: Never underestimate Microsoft’s ability to turn a corner

Some Guy — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 06:19:15 -0000

Microsoft screwed the pooch when Longhorn cratered. Nothing they do now will matter to anyone but the pundits like Enderle and Scoble whom they pay to pretend that they care.

This is the same phase of the corporate life cycle that IBM entered with the introduction of OS/2. Microsoft is on the decline, and there's no Lou Gerstner on the horizon to morph them into a viable company for the long term.

Re: Never underestimate Microsoft’s ability to turn a corner

patti wilson — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 17:42:39 -0000

Robert,
I love you! And I completely concur. As a small business owner (just me and a virtual admin), thanks to Microsoft I am productively and affordably in the clouds.
I use SharePoint with my organizational clients, I use LiveMeeting to deliver webinars, and I can't wait to use the online Office 7. They have priced everything so that I can afford to compete with the big guys.
Only thing lacking is LiveMeeting complete access for Mac Users. Telll them to hurry up on that one as it is holding back my webinars at places like Stanford.
Best,
Patti

Re: Never underestimate Microsoft’s ability to turn a corner

tom Barta — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 20:50:24 -0000

MSFT and "the Cloud" are a stillborn combination. Who's dumb enough to trust private data on the web with MSFT's history regarding data security?

Re: Never underestimate Microsoft’s ability to turn a corner

Rob Dolin — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 21:07:58 -0000

It's for sure a very exciting time, but it's not just Ray Ozzie driving these changes, there are thousands of individual engineers who help to make all of this stuff happen.

Re: Never underestimate Microsoft’s ability to turn a corner

Henry Winckelmann — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 15:58:57 -0000

Microsoft have never turned a corner in their collective lives.

Re: Never underestimate Microsoft’s ability to turn a corner

Smeagol — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 09:00:43 -0000

You can safely ignore these announcements from MS.

Win7 == Vista SP2

Amazing it's taking so long to get that blob of spaghetti to work in a semi-reasonable fashion.

Ozzie turned that steam boat right into Ballmer's path. Once they strike iceberg-Ballmer, it'll continue to sink, just as it's doing right now!

Re: Never underestimate Microsoft’s ability to turn a corner

Phil — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 06:28:15 -0000

I follow a simple rule...it always works. Go with the people that have the most to loose, if their pockets are deep enough they can even get through a few screw ups and get lost before they find the right track again. If they find the track and are still ahead of the competition they will win.

There are 100's of Billions of dollars at stake and there is no shortage of BI in the IT industry to predict the trends...these guys are playing to 5 and 10 year+ strategies...this is more about chess than chance.

Microsoft have the most to loose in the developer space, and have some of the deepest pockets. That's where I will be betting my career skills and my salary for the last 20 years in IT has a lot of "thank you microsoft's in there" ...(I'm doing pretty well so far thank you in the top few % of salary in the country, so my bias here is a direct result of hard cash earned by seeing the long term benefits of their strategy).

-P

If you want to have a better idea of where my over simplified my thoughts originate from, a few good solid conspiracy theories or a reason to start a fight in the office tomorrow keep reading!

They are "food for thought" (hopefully not completly off topic as there is some rellivance)
and the hightly perceptive of you "may" sense a touch of frustration at the Apple converts...but I hope it makes it past the censors for humor and debates sake (If I save even one it will be worth it!).

Also....consider this: If you disagree with the points below...ask yourself why you feel so strongly about it. Why after all does anyone have an emotional connection to a brand, technology or an operating system. They may effect your mood when your using them (and you loose your work etc) but probably less than say, when your life is put in danger by a car cutting you off on the way to work, or the timing of every set of lights when your in a hurry. But I don't see many blogs about how the traffic light systems can be improved (I'm sure you can find some) and how the state of California is evil because they havn't scrapped lights or blocked change by capping the amount of cars on the road, or come up with some new innovative way to solve the problem, because that new subdivision down the road has a great solution! The reason people care about this stuff is simple...Marketing (lots more on Computers than traffic light technology) and resistance to change. If you find yourself evangelising and caring about something that shouldn't matter (read Apple)...youv'e just been punked by some marketing guys. (Note to Gen-Y people...your seen as the easiest audience to play with, sorry)

So...if we consider the wacko idea that time began before the launch of OSX consider this:

1) Microsoft built a huge part of this industry and gave the world exactly what they asked for with Vista (the lesson for Microsoft here is people don't know what to ask for). When XP was king all you would ever read about was the unhappy minority talking about the security and blaming MS for every virus that their poor judgement allowed onto their machines (wow by coincidence this is also the time that P2P mp3 and dodgy photo sites ruled the internet...of course it was never on any of the machines left unprotected by Microsoft's negligence, that was something else). Incidently I ran a machine for 4 years without AV running or a firewall (other than the NAT on my router) and never had a blip of a virus (I still scanned it thanks), because I didn't use P2P, I didn't think anyone who loved me would send me an executable attachement or send me money from Kenya and I kept my machine patched.

And please stop going on and on about Vista UAC (you can turn it off in a lot less time than it takes to complain about it), its in your best interests...and it probably takes less than 30seconds a week of brain power to use.
...Opps they didn't pick up the unspoken Gen-Y requirements of "the system should protect me, no matter what I do, it should know my intent and...it can never be my fault," (Ask yourself how you can secure a car, leave it open for anyone to use then leave it overnight on the wrong side of town...because that's what your asking for!)

2) Also still on the Vista bashing...Consider every major OS change has required significant HW updates, I remember installing OS's early and feeling the pain until I could get new H/W that supported all the features in DOS 3,5,6 ...Windows 1,2,3.11,NT,95,98,2000. Oh and I'm typing this on an HP machine labeled "Designed for Windows XP / Vista Compatible" and after a year on XP I loaded Vista...couldn't be happier...quicker user experience than it was before due to better config file management and drivers, a number of devices are better supported (Bluetooth and Power etc) and if I turn off the Aero stuff...it's fast as lightning. So if you didn't do your homework and couldn't wait...have some personal responsibility here!! I make bad calls all the time (like this email) but learn from it and don't blame anyone for it.

3) I'm no stranger to Apple also...I used to use one of the original ones back in 1985, then when I was at University, I upgraded H/W to an LCII ...which was outdated in weeks by an LCIII *&^!. Of course then they switched tack completely with the Power PC and then Again with OS X, none of which where backwards or forwards compatible at all (people complain about 90% compatibility with Vista when Apple normally leave you with 0% and wow it costs when you have to replace all your apps)...Remember the comment about marketing about now.

I have also worked deeply with Apple on the I-Phone launch and as a result of seeing into their organisation will never buy any of their products...I can't afford to be locked in and kept in the dark (It's kinda like communism...they say it will be better, but you have to surrender and do everything their way...or perhaps more like prozac). The NDA they tried to make me sign was sobering to say the least and it was also very educational. My opinion was: Apple are a good news factory...they "control everything" god help you if you don't do what your told. Their goal is to make you love the product, become dependant on the product (through investment of time and funds) and keep you on the hook. This is why you don't see an SD slot on an I-Pod / I-Phone. Let me be clear here...They make great products and the way they make you love them is to provide a great experince, but they do it for themselves not for you and the it's not "always" the best (Ever noticed how Mac's appeal to people, like bait does to Fish!?). Anyone who thinks because they are running Linux and in the minority they are the freedom fighters of the IT industry and that they are fighiting the open standards battle...wake up and smell the marketing. I'm also have great respect for the I'm a MAC campagn's ability to sett peoples perceptions of Vista. You may have a sense that I am a slight sceptic by now, but even I didn't realise how much you can manipulate people until I saw what Apple have done here...Great news about the EU looking into I-Tunes anti trust behavior of only supporting their devices!

4) Linux...Hmmm...doesn't most of the funding/revenue for the product (through purchasing via product alignment etc) come from Oracle and IBM. Could this be because they don't have a desktop / client proposition so they need to buy time to defend themselves against Microsoft who's only place to grow is into their revenue streams? Could it be that the perpetuation of Unix through Linix as a commercial model is largley as a mechanism for Oracle and IBM to strip revenue from Microsoft that they could use to invest in products that enter into their play space? It wasn't working so well, so now there is a thrust into the office marketplace...who's paying for that again?

Who knows, but my money is on IBM here...They are happily cashing in on all their patents and revenue at the top end of town...governments etc they can afford to through a few hundred billion over 10+ years into pushing the revenue out of the low end of the market to keep the $$ out of their challengers pockets or at least slow them down enough to manage.

6) I guess as I have gone after everyone else here: Google...Marketing...it's how they make all their money, but we think they don't use it!? ...but I still wish Alta Vista had won the battle, search relivance was much better, but they where out smarted. That said...if you are looking for something that lots of people need to chat to each other about in online forums Google engine provided great results...

Food for thought anyway...feel free to prove me wrong with a good solid debate!

-P

Re: Never underestimate Microsoft’s ability to turn a corner

teraom — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 05:33:56 -0000

WIndows is crap, but most people form the conjecture that Microsoft is bad. Being a apple fan boy, i have always made fun of windows and Microsoft, till i saw the surface and silver light.
More things in the pack coming up..from Microsoft, Possible, but there should be no one at Infinity loop.

Re: Never underestimate Microsoft’s ability to turn a corner

Gregg — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 15:38:53 -0000

@fauigerzigerk

Free, as in freedom.

Re: Never underestimate Microsoft’s ability to turn a corner

Gregg — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 15:37:34 -0000

@Ike
He doesn't have to be right. But he is.

Re: Never underestimate Microsoft’s ability to turn a corner

Court — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 13:23:43 -0000

If you get a chance, try to get your hands on a internal MS video of how Ori Amiga embedded Mesh in his car. It is easily the coolest thing I have seen from any tech firm in a long term, as a regular joe tech fan.

Re: Never underestimate Microsoft’s ability to turn a corner

Steve — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 11:07:49 -0000

Scoble - I know that you get really excited about stuff, but I think this one may be legit. Sure, everyone at the PDC (I was there) says the same thing, "They announce something every year and like 10% of it ever makes it live." But I am hedging my bet towards follow through this year. Reasons:

Azure - it's already something that they will be offering in one way or another, through a shared and external office offering or through the Server 2008 embedded virtualization layer. The only real catch here is will microsoft get a billing and use system built.

Cloud Office - If you look at Google or more specifically Open Office 3, they have to adjust or the fight is over. Open Office has the capacity to open and store to Google docs (yah!) and it has extensions like Firefox... it's better than Word as far as I'm concerned.

Windows 7 - They gave me a windows 7 early release disk. It's fast and boots lite. They don't force to much onto the platform and let me decide what is and isn't on start up. PLUS the GUI is nicer.

Anyway, a boy can dream of a world where everything runs like my iPhone.

Re: Never underestimate Microsoft’s ability to turn a corner

Robert Scoble — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 09:19:41 -0000

Brian: you're right, and I'm sorry. I oversimplified what you were doing in North Carolina too much. You added a lot to the conference there beyond what I presented.

Re: Never underestimate Microsoft’s ability to turn a corner

Ike — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 06:49:35 -0000

@davemall
Oh no you must be right! Idiot!

Re: Never underestimate Microsoft’s ability to turn a corner

kkamuela — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 06:19:53 -0000

I believe microsoft will make a big come back in due time so don't count them out of the ball game just yet

Re: Never underestimate Microsoft’s ability to turn a corner

Adult Supervisor — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 20:29:21 -0000

Microsoft is over and done, finished, kaput, history, etc. Stick a fork in them.

Fact is they were never a leader. They've always been better copiers than the Chinese though.

Apple and Google are the technological leaders now. Microsoft is history. Dell, Gateway, etc. are even more irrelevant.

Microsoft today is what IBM was after the Mainframe began to decline. There are a bunch of smart guys working at Microsoft but they're riding a dead horse.

Re: Never underestimate Microsoft’s ability to turn a corner

Dan Shafer — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 17:42:47 -0000

Robert,

Azure is apparently months, perhaps even a year or longer, from delivery in a market space that is moving and exploding very fast. I'm perplexed why it takes MS so long to move from announcement to release on a known technology. By the time Azure ships, others already in the space will have outdistanced it.

The online Office products that you characterize as "really nice" are, in fact, deliberately crippled versions of their desktop products. This creates incompatability between the two worlds, meaning seamlessness is non-existent. Which in turn means they don't have a compelling adoption story.

MS could own the online app space if it wasn't so terrified of the cannibalism issue. As long as they feel the need to protect their desktop turf by releasing not-quite-complete software as a service, they will not be nearly as successful as they could and they'll leave a large gap for a competitor.

Re: Never underestimate Microsoft’s ability to turn a corner

Joe — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 17:34:32 -0000

I don't think anybody really has counted them out, in the enterprise IT space and general consumer space. It's just the Mac touting tech bloggers and valley start-ups that were counting on a dramatic shift in the industry.
I still don't think some of the announcements have trickled through the blogs yet. Mesh is a game changer, as are the Live Services.
MS have cloud enabled Office (and with this tech - any desktop based application). This is far more attractive to enterprises that don't want to big bang migrate their users onto a new risky platform.

Re: Never underestimate Microsoft’s ability to turn a corner

Christopher Coulter — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 16:15:53 -0000

Microsoft is great at ANNOUNCING, (heck look at PDC 2003, back then Vista was going to raise the dead and buy the world a Coke) it's that whole DELIVERING thing that doesn't really connect. If their competitors had more spunk and more apps were cross platform, it could become a post-Microsoft era (such is the CIO disgust), but that's just Linux weenie wishful thinking. Still never underestimate Microsoft’s ability to trainwreck, esp. in anything consumer.

Re: Never underestimate Microsoft’s ability to turn a corner

Francine hardaway — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 15:00:27 -0000

I'm impressed by what Microsoft is doing by way of evangelism; they are really reaching out to the developers with their new tools. I think, because they are big, they can probably run pretty close to the front of the parade from the rear, but I think they will have some pretty tough competitors to elbow out of the way when they get there. Because those, competitors too, are moving forward, and the front is a moving target.

That being said, at least they are going to keep their installed base happy, although for how long can we call it an "installed" base?

Re: Never underestimate Microsoft’s ability to turn a corner

fauigerzigerk — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 12:20:44 -0000

Yeah Gregg, everything will be free! Even google adwords will be free. All developers will work for free and will get food for free as well. It's all going to be paid for by ... extraterrestrial entities who are lower down in UPS2 (Universal Ponzi Scheme 2.0)

Re: Never underestimate Microsoft’s ability to turn a corner

Marc Canter — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 11:39:18 -0000

Dude - more significant to the rest of us = OpenID reliable party!

Re: Never underestimate Microsoft’s ability to turn a corner

Brian — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 10:46:52 -0000

Hi Robert,

As one of the DEs that was at ConvergeSouth, I'm a little offended at the comment "Microsoft had an evangelist there to make sure everyone got the latest software they were pitching"... that's actually not why I was there, and frankly, would expect you to know better.

Re: Never underestimate Microsoft’s ability to turn a corner

Shailesh S. Khandekar — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 09:05:22 -0000

The software industry will always need a competitive spirit. The more, the merrier. MS provides that with its unique style. It has a team of bright engineers, smart marketing professionals and a leadership that has quite an aggressive approach to business. From a neutral perspective, whether or not Microsoft turns a corner, it is important that it remains in competition.

These days, I do not use any Microsoft product, except probably the OS and the Platform SDK, even while developing desktop software that targets Microsoft Windows as one of the platforms. The reason is simply that open source has provided higher quality solutions to the problem at hand. (While someone might be quick to dismiss desktop software, let me point out that 1. The lines between desktop and server are blurring, and 2. Some problem are intrinsically suited better to desktops than servers; and vice versa. That will be a completely off-topic thread.)

Clearly, Microsoft has a long way to go before it can hope to regain the trust of many talented developers, lost in the broken promises of past. The recent developments are surely interesting.