Former Microsoft employee and software-development pundit Joel Spolsky shares his two cents on what’s going on with Microsoft.
A Q&A With Joel on (Microsoft) Software
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Excellent article. I’ve always found it obvious that .NET and Longhorn bring no value to the end user. They are targeted at developers so that they can build in less time applications that they have already built. As a bonus, the new app will be half as fast and require an army of other Microsoft products and technologies to function.
His value comparison was great, this however is a problem for both Microsoft and OSS:
1) Microsoft needs people to upgrade to get revenue. No value to enduser = No new sales or upgrades.
2) OSS needs to offer excessive value before people will migrate to it. This happened in the server room, because commodity hardware with inexpensive software could do the job of a Sun solaris server or similar.
When is the value of the Open Source desktop great enough that it will start replaceing Microsofts offering? I say close, as we’re already seeing early adopters – sooner or later a large part of the enterprise world will have to make the choice too. 2 years, 5 years, 10 years? It doesent matter, as it will happen, its inevitable.
I think Microsoft knows this, and thats why they are spending huge amounts on R&D in new markets (for them). Gameing, hardware, services (?), etc. This is the golden age of Microsoft, when they could get a 85% profit margin on their products. It will have to go down to industry standard levels, like 10-20% profit margins sooner or later because software is becomeing commodities.
Joel is really one of the more insigtful “IT experts”.
I’m a Windows-man but I can’t get excited about Longhorn. Oh, and Firefox has just become my new default browser. Some things in Redmond must change!
Firefox has just become my new default browser.
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well good. one step at a time. Here we also run gaim and openoffice throughout including firefox on both linux and windows systems
Fact is, windows needs a new api, the win32 api should have been deprecated years ago, win32 is the root of all evils on windows: the security flaws, the stability problems, the dll hell, the driver install/reboot crap, etc, it’s all win32 api fault. Joel says indigo sucks, what he propose then? another 10 years with netbios? Or yeah, lets keep using crap like the GDI instead of avalon, all this while linux moves to cairo, and OSX quartz gets better! Nice thinking there Joel, i’m going to put you up for http://www.darwinawards.com, you’ll win for sure 😛
I switched to Opera in 1998, and while I’ve occasionally used Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox in the time since, I’m quite willing to pay for quality. But I digress.
Joel’s not particularly insightful — it’s rare that he states something nonobvious to those who have some indication of what’s going on. What he is, however, is coherent and on the ball. He can get to the point (usually correct) without circling around it for days and he can state it plainly. As he does in this interview.
You can hear him talk about some of this in this interview:
http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail207.html
They have several other interesting interviews as well.
Hah, I wasn’t aware that Fog Creek Software was “a household name.”
Not sure exactly which houses they’re talking about on that one. I guess I just didn’t realize most Americans got so excited about Bug Tracking and Software Management. Yeah.
First of all he addressed the infopath, sharepoint stuff spot on. If you want a technology to take off and be used then start with the colleges. I think, more than anything, Linux owes it’s success to colleges. It’s the perfect toy for college kids. I don’t know that many CS, or IT guys that have been in the business 20 yrs that are intimate with Linux (and PHP, etc) but I know a ton of guys that are in college, just out of college, or whatever, and they love Linux.
Next I thought the API thing was interesting, MS has been floundering big time with the API situation. .Net I think is really quite impressive but I will be willing to bet that in the next few years you’re going to see .Net make a much bigger wave with OSS stuff than MS stuff. FOr one thing MS, as mentioned, is floundering. They have SWF now but if you develop using it then you’re developing for the short term since it will be replaced by longhorn technologies. Furthermore developing windows apps isn’t as daunting as Linux apps so .net brings more value to OSS developers who want quicker and simpler application development.
Just my thougts.
The microsoft-watch.com website is so “busy” that it’s really difficult to discern the article from all the rest of the crap on the page – and I don’t mean just the ads. There’s more links, comments, disparate interest columns that it could fit on ten pages.
The questions in the article are lame and the “read on” comments are comical with their urgings…
Q: Joel, what do you think about Microsoft’s current course?
What’s Joel Think About Microsoft’s Current Course? Read On
They might as well go all they way and make it a 100% flash site where every single pixel is in constant animation…. then it could truly be the “velvet elvis” that it aspires to.
” Joel says indigo sucks, what he propose then? another 10 years with netbios? ”
uhh, comparing indigo to netbios is a real stretch.
look at it like this:
COM/COM+
became
webservices/remoting/entreprise services
should become
indigo.
as a windows dev I had a good feeling about leaving the com mess behind. The issue we are having right now is that there are several options (remoting/entreprise services) and endless discussions about what to use.
indigo is all of that in 1 api, and it’s a little more compatible with webservices standards (to interopterate with bea or whatever other app server)
but it’s in no way a successor to netbios
I feel like a total idiot for buying Microsoft Office about four years ago. I don’t want my money back, but I don’t want to make that kind of a mistake again. I hardly even used it.
I’d rather just pay for what I use instead of getting tricked into a product where the company makes an 85% profit earning.
I can recommend it, it’s funny (hilarious sometimes) yet intelligent.
Sorry to stray off topic, but I’m thinking you don’t fully understand what the Darwin awards are about here. The guy isn’t dead.
I think the takeup of Longhorn will be pretty good. Newer, better, cheaper hardware with a narrower spec will allow for lower box prices and good reliability. Besides, if someone in Australia wants to wager on a horse race in America, they’ll have to go through an MS box to do it. This is the next big monopoly cash cow for MS/IBM.
http://news.bloodhorse.com/viewstory.asp?id=24974
With MS getting a slice of every transaction.
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“They might as well go all they way and make it a 100% flash site where every single pixel is in constant animation…. then it could truly be the “velvet elvis” that it aspires to.”
Or take the advice of a VBS expert.
http://www.internet-nexus.com/books/vbscript/whyvb.htm
I don’t think you understand what the Darwin Awards are about either. He merely has to remove himself from the gene pool.
Uh…ok buddy…but he hasn’t, and he won’t I’d imagine. So again, how in the world would he be eligible for a Darwin award?
He doesn’t want indigo, he says that indigo is not needed, therefore he wants to stay with netbios for the next 10 years. That’s pretty much the computing equivalent of cutting off his own head or lighting a match inside a gas tank.