The Coming Microsoft Cultural Revolution(cringely.com)
cringely.com
The Coming Microsoft Cultural Revolution
http://www.cringely.com/2014/07/15/coming-microsoft-cultural-revolution/
52 comments
Agreed. This writer is just being a dick to stir up controversy. Microsoft has a lot of potential and what looks like good leadership from their new CEO. I think and hope things will go well for them.
> This writer is just being a dick to stir up controversy
You clicked, ad shown (Ghostery claims there are Amazon ads), mission accomplished
You clicked, ad shown (Ghostery claims there are Amazon ads), mission accomplished
I don't see it as so bad, given how much others have written Microsoft off. I think their stock performance highlights how little they've done to build on their legacy and expectations. Now they have a chance. When I read the following, I don't see it in nearly as negative a light as others.
The reality here that Nadella — to his credit — at least alludes to, is that the playing field is now level, the score is 0-0 (or more likely 0-0-0-0-0) and for Microsoft to win they’ll have to play hard, play fair, and win on their merits. And that’s what leads into the discussion of culture and how the company will do anything it must to succeed. “Nothing is off the table,” Nadella wrote. This is the most important part of the message and, indeed, is probably the only part that really matters.
The reality here that Nadella — to his credit — at least alludes to, is that the playing field is now level, the score is 0-0 (or more likely 0-0-0-0-0) and for Microsoft to win they’ll have to play hard, play fair, and win on their merits. And that’s what leads into the discussion of culture and how the company will do anything it must to succeed. “Nothing is off the table,” Nadella wrote. This is the most important part of the message and, indeed, is probably the only part that really matters.
I stopped reading after that line. It was so silly and wrong I couldnt bear finish it.
What Microsoft has done: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor...
Nobody here is denying that they've done bad things, but name a public tech giant that hasn't done stupid/bad things. They all suck. They answer to profit, first and foremost. They're going to bend rules and push the limits in the name of making a few pennies for their shareholders.
Apple does it, Google does it, IBM does it, Amazon does it, they all do skeezy things in the name of profit. MS isn't special in this regard.
Apple does it, Google does it, IBM does it, Amazon does it, they all do skeezy things in the name of profit. MS isn't special in this regard.
Microsoft is uniquely special in that they've built an empire on making second-rate versions of things other companies have done well.
Internet Explorer, Windows Server, Windows itself. Apart from BASIC, which they built independently, everything else has been ripping on someone else. DOS, their first big success, was actually a crappy clone of CP/M. Design decisions in that haunt Microsoft to this very day.
It's like the adage "good artists copy, great artists steal". Microsoft is firmly in the copy department.
In any case, this recent missive from Microsoft shows, at best, a tiny shift in strategy. They're still doomed to obscurity. They'll be around for decades to come, they might even be fairly profitable, but nobody will care about Microsoft. They'll use their products for lack of choice.
Few people today are choosing to use Microsoft and this couldn't be any clearer than their nearly complete failure in the tablet and phone market.
Until they reinvent themselves, divest themselves of all the baggage anchoring them to the past, they're stuck. IBM unloaded an awful lot to get to the place they are today. Imagine how crippled they'd be if they were still making PCs and printers.
Internet Explorer, Windows Server, Windows itself. Apart from BASIC, which they built independently, everything else has been ripping on someone else. DOS, their first big success, was actually a crappy clone of CP/M. Design decisions in that haunt Microsoft to this very day.
It's like the adage "good artists copy, great artists steal". Microsoft is firmly in the copy department.
In any case, this recent missive from Microsoft shows, at best, a tiny shift in strategy. They're still doomed to obscurity. They'll be around for decades to come, they might even be fairly profitable, but nobody will care about Microsoft. They'll use their products for lack of choice.
Few people today are choosing to use Microsoft and this couldn't be any clearer than their nearly complete failure in the tablet and phone market.
Until they reinvent themselves, divest themselves of all the baggage anchoring them to the past, they're stuck. IBM unloaded an awful lot to get to the place they are today. Imagine how crippled they'd be if they were still making PCs and printers.
Microsoft ICE is pretty solid. Also: https://research.microsoft.com/en-us/about/our-research/defa...
My understanding is that Microsoft does a lot of cool stuff, but until recently most of it got shut down for conflicting with Windows/Office-centric priorities.
My understanding is that Microsoft does a lot of cool stuff, but until recently most of it got shut down for conflicting with Windows/Office-centric priorities.
It's interesting to see the contrast between Google, Apple and Microsoft.
Google: Does tons of crazy things, launches a lot of them, many fail.
Apple: Does tons of crazy things, tells nobody, launches a select few that turn into huge hits.
Microsoft: Does tons of crazy things, tells some people, launches almost none of them, instead sells perpetually boring but massively profitable Office + Windows suite.
The few break-out hits that Microsoft has had, Bing and Xbox, are both renegade projects that succeeded only because the teams were exceptionally determined and fought tooth and nail to avoid being sucked into the "Microsoft" world.
Others, like Kin, were given weak support and pulled almost immediately after launch. The rest never see the light of day other than through papers and glimpses in tech demos.
Google: Does tons of crazy things, launches a lot of them, many fail.
Apple: Does tons of crazy things, tells nobody, launches a select few that turn into huge hits.
Microsoft: Does tons of crazy things, tells some people, launches almost none of them, instead sells perpetually boring but massively profitable Office + Windows suite.
The few break-out hits that Microsoft has had, Bing and Xbox, are both renegade projects that succeeded only because the teams were exceptionally determined and fought tooth and nail to avoid being sucked into the "Microsoft" world.
Others, like Kin, were given weak support and pulled almost immediately after launch. The rest never see the light of day other than through papers and glimpses in tech demos.
Bing is not a "break-out hit". It loses $1 billion every year for Microsoft last I checked about a year ago. It's relatively little used and rarely do any of my client sites get search referrals from them (I own a web dev company).
None of the companies you mention were almost broken up by the Justice Department, fined billions of dollars for this one event, or put under Federal oversight for almost 12 years.
Well, IBM certainly had problem with antitrust back in the 60's and 70's.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_IBM#1969:_Antitrust....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_IBM#1969:_Antitrust....
"...the Justice Department finally concluded that the case was “without merit” and dropped it"
Never mind the price fixing, illegal hiring treaties, misuse of patents to stifle competition, the use of third world labor in terrible conditions, and more...
Again, they all suck. Trying to paint one as better than the other is pretty silly.
Again, they all suck. Trying to paint one as better than the other is pretty silly.
Woosh. That's the sound of you being a complete retard.
The post you are replying to even mentions anti-competitive practices.
Pay attention? DESPITE faults (like anti-competitive behavior), MS has changed the world...
What company hasn't made mistakes?
The post you are replying to even mentions anti-competitive practices.
Pay attention? DESPITE faults (like anti-competitive behavior), MS has changed the world...
What company hasn't made mistakes?
I almost gave up when he said "I don’t mean to be a pedant but which is it — mobile first or cloud first? Only one thing can be first."
If you don't recognize that those are two different areas then you are either dense, or being intentionally contrarian. Given the earlier statements he made it is clear the latter is certainly true and quite possibly the former as well.
If you don't recognize that those are two different areas then you are either dense, or being intentionally contrarian. Given the earlier statements he made it is clear the latter is certainly true and quite possibly the former as well.
It has nothing to do with the areas being different or similar. The point is that only one thing can be the first.
You would have a case if he said PC first, Phone first as they are both client consumption mediums.
Mobile first, cloud first is a rehashing of spector if priority for their devices and services. They are saying when we build new versions of Windows or Office we will put the priority on mobile devices. When we build server software, the focus will first be on our cloud varieties.
Take for example Service Bus, software they make for Windows Server and their cloud offering. New features are added first to the cloud offering and later trickle down to the licensed on-premise version.
Mobile first, cloud first is a rehashing of spector if priority for their devices and services. They are saying when we build new versions of Windows or Office we will put the priority on mobile devices. When we build server software, the focus will first be on our cloud varieties.
Take for example Service Bus, software they make for Windows Server and their cloud offering. New features are added first to the cloud offering and later trickle down to the licensed on-premise version.
They are two sides of the same coin. What use (aside from the incredibly useful feature of making actual phone calls) is a smartphone if there aren't services in the cloud that account for the "smart" part?
Lots of use, unless we're lumping the internet and e-mail into "the cloud." I'm quite happy to have my photos stored locally, my e-mails and documents handled by my company's exchange server, etc.
I think unless you or your company is managing their own email servers then yes, email is now "cloud".
Don't most large companies still manage their own e-mail servers?
Sure, but what about everyone else? What's the worldwide install base for smartphones these days, several hundred million if not a billion or more? For all those people that don't work for large companies and their email is synonymous with the cloud.
> Mobile-First, Cloud-First
I dunno. I see this as "devices and services" rephrased.
I dunno. I see this as "devices and services" rephrased.
I don't think so, especially because Nadella specifically mentioned that D&S is not the governing principle (well, he didn't say that exactly, but almost). What Mobile-First means to me is that mobile is _the_ platform, and being present on portable devices is the key to survival for Microsoft (and don't forget, almost every end-user device is portable, including dockable mobile workstations). That means that MS cannot afford risking not being present on dominant mobile operating systems, for example -- it would be stupid to risk the survival of the company and only push stuff on Windows Phone, for example.
Other than that, I disagree with the article on a many points.
> Microsoft’s tradition of innovation is hard to even detect, much less celebrate or revive.
The tradition of innovation is there -- see Microsoft Research, one of the best funded institutes. The tradition of polish is not there. Microsoft has produced tablet PCs, smartphones, voice and handwriting recognition, mapping, and so on. It has a bad record of taking stuff out from R&D departments and delivering them to end users in a neat and easy-to-use way.
> I don’t mean to be a pedant but which is it — mobile first or cloud first? Only one thing can be first.
I think the opposite: the two goes together hand in hand, and cannot really live without each other. That's the big problem of Apple: they are not that good in cloud services, and a phone (or a tablet) increasingly relies on cloud services. Google is mostly winning the mobile war because it's cloud services. It's the cloud services why Google can release Android for free, it's them why many iOS users slowly gravitate towards Android ('because Google stuff works better'), it's them why many people don't want Windows Phone ('I don't use too many apps but I need Google Maps and GMail').
Other than that, I disagree with the article on a many points.
> Microsoft’s tradition of innovation is hard to even detect, much less celebrate or revive.
The tradition of innovation is there -- see Microsoft Research, one of the best funded institutes. The tradition of polish is not there. Microsoft has produced tablet PCs, smartphones, voice and handwriting recognition, mapping, and so on. It has a bad record of taking stuff out from R&D departments and delivering them to end users in a neat and easy-to-use way.
> I don’t mean to be a pedant but which is it — mobile first or cloud first? Only one thing can be first.
I think the opposite: the two goes together hand in hand, and cannot really live without each other. That's the big problem of Apple: they are not that good in cloud services, and a phone (or a tablet) increasingly relies on cloud services. Google is mostly winning the mobile war because it's cloud services. It's the cloud services why Google can release Android for free, it's them why many iOS users slowly gravitate towards Android ('because Google stuff works better'), it's them why many people don't want Windows Phone ('I don't use too many apps but I need Google Maps and GMail').
> The tradition of innovation is there -- see Microsoft Research, one of the best funded institutes... Microsoft has produced tablet PCs, smartphones, voice and handwriting recognition, mapping, and so on.
I don't see how you can claim Microsoft has been innovative, ever. Windows was a reaction to the Macintosh, the Zune was a reaction to the iPod, C# was a reaction to Java, IIS to Apache, Surface to iPad, MSN to AOL, MS Money to Quicken, XBox to PlayStation, Bing to Google, Internet Explorer to Netscape Navigator, Excel to Lotus 1-2-3, DOS to CP/M, Windows Phone to iPhone, Azure to AWS, etc., etc.
Microsoft's history is a long list of occasionally successful (but mostly not) efforts at me-too-ing the competition. In the 90s this worked -- occasionally -- because they were able to enter those markets and dominate from their sheer size. Now, however, it does not. In any case, I cannot think of a market that Microsoft created or a product that they introduced that has seen success since the 1990's.
> Google is mostly winning the mobile war because it's cloud services.
I don't understand this at all. Apple is making the lion's share of profit in mobile. Last time I checked, Google wasn't making much money form Android at all.
I don't see how you can claim Microsoft has been innovative, ever. Windows was a reaction to the Macintosh, the Zune was a reaction to the iPod, C# was a reaction to Java, IIS to Apache, Surface to iPad, MSN to AOL, MS Money to Quicken, XBox to PlayStation, Bing to Google, Internet Explorer to Netscape Navigator, Excel to Lotus 1-2-3, DOS to CP/M, Windows Phone to iPhone, Azure to AWS, etc., etc.
Microsoft's history is a long list of occasionally successful (but mostly not) efforts at me-too-ing the competition. In the 90s this worked -- occasionally -- because they were able to enter those markets and dominate from their sheer size. Now, however, it does not. In any case, I cannot think of a market that Microsoft created or a product that they introduced that has seen success since the 1990's.
> Google is mostly winning the mobile war because it's cloud services.
I don't understand this at all. Apple is making the lion's share of profit in mobile. Last time I checked, Google wasn't making much money form Android at all.
By this standard, who is innovative? Wasn't the Macintosh a reaction to the work at Xerox PARC? Wasn't the iPod a reaction to the existing MP3 players on the market? Wasn't Google a reaction to AltaVista et al.? Everyone takes inspiration from the products that have come before.
In some ways, yes. But, in the case of the Macintosh, Apple took what was available and made it successful in the consumer space. They helped to usher in a new market. The same can be said of the iPod, although not to as dramatic an extent as with the 512K Mac. For Google, their innovation was AdSense. You could say that this "innovation" was just a natural evolution of the banner ads of the era, but only in hindsight.
Contrast both Google and Apple with Microsoft and you will be hard pressed to find a time when Microsoft had the foresight to see where the market is going, or what the potential is. They react to established players, embrace & extend, and (occasionally) profit. They have never been able to successfully create new markets.
Contrast both Google and Apple with Microsoft and you will be hard pressed to find a time when Microsoft had the foresight to see where the market is going, or what the potential is. They react to established players, embrace & extend, and (occasionally) profit. They have never been able to successfully create new markets.
Services maybe, but I took "mobile" to mean mobile apps and not so much hardware.
You put your finger right on the danger there. It could mean anything from "We're, selling off all the hardware, replacing Windows Phone with an AOSP-based system, like Amazon's, and implementing all our mobile apps for iOS and Android, and doubling the resources on our Azure/Bing ecosystem" to "We're keeping everything, laying off a few people to get another bump-up from Wall St., and muddling through."
Given the content, I can't tell if the allusion to the disastrous Chinese Cultural Revolution is intended or not. It seems more like Cringely's actually talking about changing Microsoft's culture, which makes the title quite poor.
That was the intention of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, too. It failed in the long term, but from the perspective of its architects, most of what we call its disasters were actually its successes.
Mass starvation? Technological stagnation? Which success are you referring to?
Presumably breaking forever the grip of the Confucian design pattern (left behind by the former imperial bureaucracy) on the imaginations of the low-level functionaries, without who no top-down empire can operate.
An example uppermost in Mao's mind must have been that, despite Lenin's putsch of 1917, by 1927 the USSR ran along lines that would have been instantly recognizable to a Tsarist-era bureaucrat from 1907. The structure of governance of the vast Russian empire re-asserted itself under the guise of Actually Existing Socialism, once the Vanguard Party had replaced the top and middle tiers of the Imperial nobility and bureaucracy with nominally-loyal functionaries. The same sorts of person are attracted to power whatever the ideology of the regime, and aside from joining a party and paying lip service to the party's ideology, they make the same set of assumptions about how power is to be exercised. True revolutionaries are discredited, expelled, or purged: see the fates of Trotsky and Zinoviev, for example.
Mao and his inner cadre saw the Chinese people, a generation after the revolution (itself largely pushed through by force of Russian arms, in the shape of the Manchurian campaign of 1945 that kicked the Japanese army off the Asian mainland), reverting to the social and political patterns of the Confucian bureaucracy that had run the empire they supplanted. True, the new bureaucrats paid lip service to communism as a guiding eschatology. But they weren't communists, much less revolutionaries. This was repugnant to Mao, so he fired up the whole social revolution that cost so many lives precisely to break that design pattern.
It sort of worked. In the short term, it caused chaos and starvation and massive deaths: but in the long term, it laid the foundations for a technocracy. Today's Chinese party politburo are primarily engineers and scientists who grew up during the cultural revolution, not the spiritual heirs to the earlier system. Although I think the direction they've taken China in probably has Mao spinning in his grave so fast they could hook him up to a dynamo and power their national grid ...
An example uppermost in Mao's mind must have been that, despite Lenin's putsch of 1917, by 1927 the USSR ran along lines that would have been instantly recognizable to a Tsarist-era bureaucrat from 1907. The structure of governance of the vast Russian empire re-asserted itself under the guise of Actually Existing Socialism, once the Vanguard Party had replaced the top and middle tiers of the Imperial nobility and bureaucracy with nominally-loyal functionaries. The same sorts of person are attracted to power whatever the ideology of the regime, and aside from joining a party and paying lip service to the party's ideology, they make the same set of assumptions about how power is to be exercised. True revolutionaries are discredited, expelled, or purged: see the fates of Trotsky and Zinoviev, for example.
Mao and his inner cadre saw the Chinese people, a generation after the revolution (itself largely pushed through by force of Russian arms, in the shape of the Manchurian campaign of 1945 that kicked the Japanese army off the Asian mainland), reverting to the social and political patterns of the Confucian bureaucracy that had run the empire they supplanted. True, the new bureaucrats paid lip service to communism as a guiding eschatology. But they weren't communists, much less revolutionaries. This was repugnant to Mao, so he fired up the whole social revolution that cost so many lives precisely to break that design pattern.
It sort of worked. In the short term, it caused chaos and starvation and massive deaths: but in the long term, it laid the foundations for a technocracy. Today's Chinese party politburo are primarily engineers and scientists who grew up during the cultural revolution, not the spiritual heirs to the earlier system. Although I think the direction they've taken China in probably has Mao spinning in his grave so fast they could hook him up to a dynamo and power their national grid ...
I would agree with most of this except for the establishment of the technocracy. I do not think Mao or the gang of four wanted to establish a technocracy. That is a bit different from the aim of the cultural revolution, which was hostile towards the academic class and the Western style of academia (Bach was targeted just as Confucious and Mengzi).
A side product of the revolution and the departure of the Gang of Four, together with Mao's death, led to a power vacuum. This was filled a few years later when Deng Xiaoping and his supporters gained prominence. Deng Xiaoping was the true technocrat, and his reaction against the cultural revolution is what paved the way for today's technocracy. Now the question of whether Deng Xiaoping is spinning faster in his grave than Mao is open for debate.
A side product of the revolution and the departure of the Gang of Four, together with Mao's death, led to a power vacuum. This was filled a few years later when Deng Xiaoping and his supporters gained prominence. Deng Xiaoping was the true technocrat, and his reaction against the cultural revolution is what paved the way for today's technocracy. Now the question of whether Deng Xiaoping is spinning faster in his grave than Mao is open for debate.
Great comment, and I'm not Chinese, but did they really break away from Confucianism?
It looks like a civil service with an emphasis on standardized testing at the entry level and tending towards organizational politics at the medium->high levels.. where's the ideological sea change? The biggest difference from the dynasties seems to be the handover between premiers every decade.
It looks like a civil service with an emphasis on standardized testing at the entry level and tending towards organizational politics at the medium->high levels.. where's the ideological sea change? The biggest difference from the dynasties seems to be the handover between premiers every decade.
Great comment, and I'm not Chinese, but did they really break away from Confucianism?
As Zho Enlai allegedly said when asked about the significance of the French Revolution, "it's too early to say".
(Spoiler: he may have misunderstood the question, but it's still a great anecdote: http://www.historytoday.com/blog/news-blog/dean-nicholas/zho... )
As Zho Enlai allegedly said when asked about the significance of the French Revolution, "it's too early to say".
(Spoiler: he may have misunderstood the question, but it's still a great anecdote: http://www.historytoday.com/blog/news-blog/dean-nicholas/zho... )
His (valid) point is not that the Chinese Cultural Revolution was a success but rather that, in their twisted minds, its architects perceived it as a success. They probably aimed at establishing ideological "purity" and authoritarian rule, they probably never thought of your valid concerns as being relevant.
True believers have awful perceptions of what success means.
True believers have awful perceptions of what success means.
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Mass starvation wasn't part of the cultural revolution. It happened as a result of the great leap forward which happened about 15 years before.
> Which success are you referring to?
Keeping Mao in power would be the major success, again very much from the perspective of the architect...
Keeping Mao in power would be the major success, again very much from the perspective of the architect...
I think you can assume that was his goal (an indirect reference to the cultural revolution that works in the way you say.)
In the comments there is a link to a critique that I think hits the nail on the head:
http://www.mondaynote.com/2014/07/13/microsofts-new-ceo-need...
http://www.mondaynote.com/2014/07/13/microsofts-new-ceo-need...
I just read the comments on posts with "Microsoft" on the title so I can laugh at the people who says "I do not care about microsoft" (but I am here commenting on a topic about it anyway).
Decent windows on unlocked devices with root and sideloading to the users. Still a winning idea.
It would nice if they don't follow Android and iOS by having everything totally locked down. (Unless you root or jail break). They can see Microsoft give you flexibility, freedom.
The only thing that will keep Microsoft and Apple going in the consumer markets over the next few years are patents and binary blobs. Once chips become fast enough and non-free drivers become irrelevant their days will be over.
Already a $150 smartphone contains as much CPU power as a desktop of 5 years ago. Add a keyboard and attach it to big screen, presto you have a desktop. Their days are over and they are living on sales hype and clever apps.
Once developer lock in ends, thats it for them.
Already a $150 smartphone contains as much CPU power as a desktop of 5 years ago. Add a keyboard and attach it to big screen, presto you have a desktop. Their days are over and they are living on sales hype and clever apps.
Once developer lock in ends, thats it for them.
Already a $150 smartphone contains as much CPU power as a desktop of 5 years ago. Add a keyboard and attach it to big screen, presto you have a desktop.
Microsoft is working on unifying their OS versions. Please catch up.
Microsoft is working on unifying their OS versions. Please catch up.
I don't really care what Microsoft is doing. I don't use any of their products. I don't intend to in future either. It took me years to fully extricate myself from the disaster zone which was Microsoft Windows, and having done that I have no desire to return.
"Nadella begins at the altar of innovation, a word that at Microsoft has traditionally meant stealing technology. Of course he is the company cheerleader to some extent but Microsoft’s tradition of innovation is hard to even detect, much less celebrate or revive. This is revisionist history. Can he really believe it’s true?"
Seriously? We're going to poopoo them stealing tech and completely dismiss everything they've ever done? I guess Apple/Google/IBM/HP get a pass...
I'm a Linux fanboy first and foremost, so I don't exactly view MS with rose colored glasses. With that said, regardless of how they did it, MS has left a mark on the world. Show me a huge tech company that doesn't "steal tech" or engage in anti-competitive practices. That doesn't make it OK, but completely dismissing MS's history seems silly.
If the author missed the mark this bad on what Microsoft is and has done, I have a hard time taking him seriously when talking about the future.