Under the leadership of CEO Steve Ballmer, Microsoft is free to turn its attention to such initiatives as acquisitions, .Net, shared source code and a more componentized Windows. Ballmer addressed these issues and others, including why Office 11 requires Windows XP, in an interview at Microsoft headquarters, in Redmond, Wash., with eWeek. Read the interview at eWeek.
Interview: Ballmer Speaks Out
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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>> Ballmer: Nobody wants to modify the operating system.
This is truly an overstatement and can be regarded as an outright lie. “No customers” or “No average users” will be a less false manner of speaking, but nobody…. where are the programmers? =P
I think he tries to say that the people who want to modify the system are in a very small percentage(developers). Looks like he doesn’t want to do 50% of the work to satisfy 1% of the userbase.
“where are the programmers?”
I think OS programmers find their Heaven in worlds beyond Microsoft’s.
What Ballmer is saying is just to cover up the fact that Windows XP spies on people.
The government certainly doesn’t want anyone mucking with that functionality.
OK, I know the expression “know thy enemy,” but I’m tired of listening to people who want to own everything.
Here in Chicago, we’re faced with a nasty problem with food suppliers because a big, giant food chain doesn’t want to pay our workers what they need to survive here, after acquiring a whole bunch more stores (Dominick’s,) and would rather close our stores instead.
I have come to hate people like that. It’s getting to the point where I don’t want to hear what they’re saying any more, because it’s too demeaning (e.g., Linux is some kind of a “communism”, “cancer”, etc, till I want to hurl.)
It comes out sounding like: “two people don’t want to do things our way, so let’s flick ’em off like flies.”
I have a great deal of respect for people who are willing to stand up to such “businessmen.”
Those who will take advantage of source code or Shared Source (which no one does–a couple hundred out of only a 1000+ enterprises who do qualify) certainly want to modify code. Ballmer mentions a great example–am I suppose to believe that a Fortune 500 company using Windows wouldn’t want to cut out the unnecessary fat of WinServer to build a dedicated DNS server? Of course they do, and this, and more tailored modifications are the type of requests and programming that goes on at this level.
What do people want of shared source? To look at the code, and say, “Oh, that’s pretty! Okay, close her back up, there’s nothing I want to do here.” You want code access to change the code.
Whether or not it’s a small percentage, we are talking enterprises here, high-level wish list. He knows these modifications can be desirable hence the double speak of saying people want one consistent codebase, but at the same time he knows they want more modular version. “Modular”, remember that word? Hell, the people who really want to modify Windows would probably gladly sign an NDA and not speak of what heinous code they see.
Weak excuse from someone who’s no replacement for Bill Gates. When you hear Gates speak,it’s like listening to Bill Clinton–you never know what the point is; with Ballmer, it’s like listening to Bush–fanatical idiocy out of both sides of his mouth, which doesn’t leave an air of mystery or ambiguity, you just feel he is a dumbass, hypocritical liar.
I think the reasoning is that when you have a general purpose operating system that is designed to be pretty flexibile, you don’t usually require much in terms of modifications for applications that weren’t originally addressed by the OS’s design. The other issue is that OS design and implementation is no easy task. Not only do you have to study the theory, but also become familiar with a huge codebase if you want to be able to work with all areas of the code to make changes.
You have to remember that the majority of windows developers are working on application layer software, not necessarily OS level software. It would be more likely that a driver developer would need to see some OS level code while developing rather than someone working on photoshop. Hence shared source rather than open source.
Within the linux community open source and free software are not just about necessity. Its about learning and understanding as much as being able to modify. Microsoft still wants to protect its secrets in that respect so it’s not going to give away the “secret recipe” for everything. I would guess that most people who look at the linux kernel source for instance (like me), are studying it or are curious about how things are actually implemented.
This is true for me since I’m finishing up a course on OS design concepts. So I’m most likely not going to modify the kernel at this point but will be checking out the VM system, concurrency handling, file system implementation, IO subsystem, page handling, etc. Even if I had the source code for the windows kernel I wouldn’t be modifying that either (for my own use anyway). My guess is that there are alot of dirty secrets hiding in the OS that microsoft doesn’t want people to know about. Like how much information does the OS reveal to microsoft about a person using winxp for example.
Let me get the nice thing out of the way first. He makes the comment that he realizes that Microsoft hasn’t “nurtured” it’s community like Linux world has, and needs to do that in the future. Admirable goal for them. It’s about time. Microsoft’s documentation (though limited in completeness) was always very good, but support for the developer community was definately lacking. Just see Visual C++ 6.x for an example of how little they care(d) about a poor developer just trying to write ISO standard C++.
Now, the mean things.
1) “Nobody want’s to modify the operating system.” I do. Ever since I was able to change one line of code to get my Sidewinder joystick working with the BeOS USB-joystick driver, I’ve realized the power of open source. I don’t care if I’m in the minority. Claiming that I’m nobody and my needs can just be off-handedly dismissed (as the tone of the statement implies) is not the way to win me over as a customer. Not to mention the fact that there are a bunch of companies that need to modify the code in order make the best product possible.
2) Balmer isn’t nearly as good a speaker and spinster as Bill was. His speech is far less articulate, and he’s prone to making stupid, blunt statements like the one above. Bill would have phrased the exact same statement as in (1) in a way that made you feel like you had gained something, not lost something. Now, a slight aside into the philosophy of rhetoric. I get annoyed when people at companies tell me what I want. It’s just plain dictatorial. Marketing as a whole (this interview can be considered a form of marketing) has devolved from clever, succinct tidbits designed to attract consumers to trite, annoying, inescapable, and sometimes offensive blobs that put-off all but the most jaded consumer. We simply can’t let this continue. Do the world a favor and boycott companies that have stupid commercials
3) What market segment will Microsoft stomp on next? They mention some content management company that they are buying. Content management tools are a very interesting, budding field with a whole lot of different competitors and promising products. If I see Microsoft Content Management XP bundled with Office 11, all hope for the computing industry will officially be lost.
I think this guy is an energetic, fully of joy guy. He is optimistic and he speaks fine. I also think that he is an inspiring person. Since everybody on the forum told how much they hate or dislike him, I wanted to express my personal opinion about this guy.
The idea that software will be a service is scary though. The problem is that, many many years ago software was easy to write. I could have written something which could compete with MS Office 1.0. I could have gathered friends and write something that will even compete with MS-DOS. But now I can not compete in that level. It takes years of experience to make something like Office. It is a huge product now. Even the current competitors are out of luck when it comes to things Office does. So essentially MS can force people to subscribe to their software. It is not an MS thing though, because Oracle also charges for its database this way. So the problem is not what MS tries to do, but the natural path in the software business. After a while, people do not want to buy new software anymore. So that’s a big problem. On one hand businesses want to protect themselves, wheras users are screwed. But again, if you think about it, users, consumers are screwed in many areas, like Bank Accounts (there is no free one), credit card bills, charges, parking tickets, block buster video rentals….
Obviously you’re not a college student
There’s always someone willing to give a free bank account to a college student! As for credit card bills and whatnot, you’re only screwed if you’re apathetic. If you’re careful and concientous, you always come out ahead, or at least break even. Good lesson not only for software, but for life in general!
I would say he’s definitely a college kid who hasn’t hit the real world. I not only have a free bank account, my brokerage account is free with free checking and ATM attached to it as well. Credit, city parking, and movie rentals are a VALUE to me. Get into the real world and you’ll see that every business is trying to make money, but some of them do it by serving the customers’ needs.
MS want to generate more money for themselves … Sheesh, Microsoft HAVEN’T even fixed bugs from the previous versions of Office – they keep adding new features which no one uses !
If Software is going to be an utility that you subscribe to, like electricity/telephone, then maybe government should take over that business. What’s next? Hardware itself and even Ford will become a subscribe-to utility. Why no?
“The other option is to build OS capability into Office and all other applications. I appreciate there are customers who feel disenchanted at the decisions we make. I’m not sure they would prefer the alternative.”
Hilarious. MS simply no longer wants to support Win9x, and I don’t blame them.
I read the interview part about office11, because the windows api hasnt changed that much in the last 7 years (except for imporved eye-candy/transparancy apis) i thought to read it and try to understand why we all have to spend $600AU for a copy of winxp in order to use the $1500AU copy of office11.
I enjoy the very vauge response to why office11 wont run on a win9x computer. it says,
[quote]
System services. In the new [operating system], there are services we take advantage of that are not in 9x. Either you build an upgrade of XP into Office 11, or you tell customers that we need these system services and recommend that they get the OS upgrade and upgrade to Office 11.
[/quote]
What services is balmer talking about? i am assuming that the DRM features of win9x is missing, but is included in the all-new winxp. or could it be that the menus are now semi-transparent so win9x wont be able to use it either.
anyways, reading abit more:
[quote]
That’s not to say we don’t like the 9x customers. We like them just fine. But this is an evolution. This is an innovation that requires a change to the OS. There will be times when to do application innovation you need platform innovation. We see that as a feature, as opposed to a problem. And I don’t know if we’re very effective at communicating that.
[/quote]
And i want to understand why i need to spend $600AU to be able to use a product such as office11. From what i understand, OfficeXP already has the http://bbspot.com/News/2000/12/ms_cancer.html“>cure , what other features will there be for this product that noone else can do?
I still dont see a reason to move from Office2k (except for that clippy-clipboard toolbar that doesnt go away)…
Anyone, please help me understand what i clearly dont.
Obviously you’re not a college student
There’s always someone willing to give a free bank account to a college student! As for credit card bills and whatnot, you’re only screwed if you’re apathetic. If you’re careful and concientous, you always come out ahead, or at least break even. Good lesson not only for software, but for life in general!
Thanks for the (unnecessary and useless) life lessons, but obviously you missed my points and talked about somethingelse.
Credit card companies are more dangerous than Microsoft. They make money out of nothing. They make money from both consumers and the sellers. They have established such a nice monopoly that, Microsoft is a sweet company compared to them. Free checking account is mostly very hard to get, only recently there were such accounts. I also don’t pay money for my account, but you can’t deny the fact that until recently that was an issue. Why did Washington Mutual started to advertise free checking accounts? Maybe you can give the same lesson to them too. Probably they were not aware of that. Also how did Bank Of America responded to these ads, by showing their ATM monopoly. Everywhere there are Bank of America ATMs, which actually makes it harder to switch to Washington Mutual. It is sort of Windows everywhere issue. How about charging 1.5$ for looking at your account, not even withdrawing money, just checking out account balance from a different ATM. Banks promised to stop charging for years but they didn’t do anything about this. Your life lessons are useless here, well unless you say don’t withdraw money and travel with lots of money just in case you need which is a pretty useless life lesson.
Blockbuster, Music Industry, Movie Makers, Copyright holders. All of these companies use the fact that they sort of fix the prices and usually they make a lot of money. Normally Walt Disney characters should have been public recently, but congress increased the lifetime of the copyright. DMCA, now you can’t even copy the film you bought for your own use. If you do that, you can go to jail. Compared to these, Microsoft is the sweetest, the best company out there. You may of course, suggest not to buy music, video or even software, but that’s a pretty useless life lesson, isn’t it?
Every read about the next version of Windows?
Ever heard of something called “Palladium”?
Microsoft is in cahoots with all the copyright holders, credit card companies, banks, movie industry companies, news companies, media companies, etc.
Totether, Microsoft and their allies are making your PC into a machine that will spy on you. That you cannot even control. In fact, there will be large pieces of software that are invisible to you.
This goes beyond the spying that Microsoft already does. French intelligence have discovered that the NSA includes code in every version of Windows:
http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2000-02-19-008-05-SC
And what’s coming next? A completely closed PC:
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html
http://anti-dmca.org/DRM-OS.html
For even more, none of it good:
http://www.google.com/search?q=DMCA+Palladium+TCPA&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF…
Better start reading. Your “Microsoft is good” future is pretty damn dismal in reality.
Red Pill: What Ballmer is saying is just to cover up the fact that Windows XP spies on people.
Please provide proof of this spying allegations. What they do spy on, those really proved (and revealed in their Privacy Policy) is much milder than what AOL is doing. Strangely enough, I don’t see you accusing the government of spying through AOL.
Besides, to the rest of you guys, what he meant was that most Windows users don’t want to edit the source code. heck, most Windows users don’t KNOW whats the source code. Open source serves them no purpose.
Microsoft is still not free to continue their acts. Don’t forget there are still private suits from Be, Sun, AOL etc. What was solved was just one case. There are many more in the future. The best way out for Microsoft in this case is to, well, slowly abandon Windows 🙂 Which is unlikely.
hmm, Rayiner, boycotting companies that do stupid commercials, especially McDonalds, would cause a great depression, a recession.