This week two giants spoke to the technology wave known as cloud computing. Larry Ellison called it a new label on what everyone is doing already. He acknowledged he was going along with it to keep his marketing and sales guys happy, but basically he called bullshit on it.
Steve Ballmer talked at a deep level about intelligent caching between the cloud and the client. Over an hour of snappy questions by Ann Winblad and Obamaesque nuance from the Microsoft leader let some significant cat out of the bag. No longer software plus services, the net of Ballmer’s signals was cloud + client. If you believe as Jason Calacanis does that we’re on the brink of a startup depression, the technology industry should be very very afraid.
Bill Gates has been thinking so far out ahead for so long that we’ve grown complacent in understanding how long it takes for Microsoft to reposition itself. Most observers still think the company is caught in an intractable wedge between the revenue of the Office group and the release cycles of Windows. The forthcoming Windows 7 announcements at the Professional Developers Conference just before Election Day in Los Angeles can already be understood as a point evolution, more like a service pack from the old Windows NT days when Redmond was trying to absorb consumer Windows into the IT server stream.
Back then, the twinkling in the eye of what became .Net was owned by the Exchange group, who by the accident of the competition with Lotus and Netscape in the Y2K messaging rollup was the owner of Outlook Web Access and a URL addressable hook into the file system. The server code that processed those requests was ASP.Net, and it was first released as a service pack upgrade to Internet Information Server. Within a year, Scott Guthrie had a Visual Studio plug-in that allowed rapid authoring of these applications, laying the groundwork for much of what Guthrie now owns as today’s service pack aka Silverlight and Mesh.
Service packs have always been where Microsoft performs its own jujitsu on itself. What they’re called is irrelevant; what they do is allow innovation and politically incorrect projects to get traction before the normally hyper-aggressive power brokers inside the company regain control and shut down the insurrection. By that time, the market has usually shown the new direction is strategic, and the changes are absorbed in a reorg. But the underlying reasons why these “skunkwork” projects break out are deeply understood by Gates, often years before they emerge in the dynamic of the time.
Steve Ballmer prides himself at underplaying his technical understanding, but he’s gotten away with it for years with Gates as Johnny to his Ed. Now, he has little cover, and at the Churchill Club on Thursday he didn’t bother to hide his command of the details: Virtualization, where he identified the classic Microsoft strategy of moving in and commoditizing the space from 5% to 80% market share. The balanced model of computation, from smart set top boxes to smart apps painted to dumb clients – Ballmer was not talking about plans but the tail end of execution.
Listen closely and he’s talking about applying the right amount of intelligence (software) at the right time. Gone is the software (read client) plus services (read cloud) mantra, discarded now as Windows is in the process of receding behind the user’s perception in favor of the applications that Gates says have always driven the success of the company. The service pack model for Windows 7 is being pushed to the cloud and virtualized, with updates streaming down to the user on demand rather than bundled on the dead DVD.
This is the SlingBox platform of application virtualization, and just because Google has pioneered it doesn’t mean Gates didn’t anticipate it years ago. Spray the bits onto a range of devices from phone to big screen, and neutralize the pain of migrating the hardware base with a Mesh/Silverlight OS that replaces Windows on the client with Windows in the cloud. Ellison is right – go along with the name change but stay ahead in the apps race by making the decision about where the code resides purely a function of caching and predictive push.
It’s like the Obama/McCain debate. Watch it live and McCain won. Watch the moments as sequences, ranked and streamed according to the logic of each section, and Obama won. Listen again to Ballmer and you hear a tough competitor, cagey and jovial, more relaxed than I’ve seen him in years. It’s the calm of the lion, relaxing in the shade and watching the world, his world, lining up.
Microsoft is a platform company. The web is currently the dominant platform. Web applications need to be able to run across many different clients and devices. That requires universal standards. Mesh and Silverlight are attempts to define a client that Microsoft can maintain control of as they currently do not control HTML and Javascript. That’s only going to work if these MS technologies can replace what we now call a web browser. Microsoft was not able to force OOXML on the industry when Office rules the desktop so I find it hard to believe that they still have the clout and the means to co-opt web standards.
“I find it hard to believe that they still have the clout and the means to co-opt web standards.” –You are not alone: many, many other IT pundits and small, irrelevant players have ‘anticipated’ the demise of Microsoft for a long time, just to end up looking like the fools they are when it does not happen.
Just like them, you are in denial –please, make the effort to come down to reality. Microsoft is the largest and most successful software company in the world.
“Bill Gates has been thinking so far out ahead for so long…”
That’s a good chuckle.
Yet another ignorant comment from yet another stupid and uninformed troll……
See, this is another fool flapping his irrelevant lips… Yeah, talk is very, very cheap, particularly when you have no clue.
Interestingly, anyone ever stop Microsoft already?
I can’t stand Steve Ballmer. Bill Gates is ok. MS is trying to monopolize everywhere they can.
http://gatesandjobs.blogspot.com/
Bill gate is the best their is.
While the Google team has been on a roll the last few years defining what all corporations strive for in terms of innovation, one would be foolish to count MS out of the game. They have way too many smart people and piles of cash. The playing field will even out and MS will still be a competitive organization.
I do think they will continue to lose major market share to Google in many areas especially MS Exchange. Google’s mail service is very impressive.
Would you like more Kool-Aid, my son?
Sergey.
Google+impact+enterprise=Non+existent
Unless you count the time employees waste on some of their services.
some can say MS trying to monopolized, but its the people want to use their product. and no one cant stop them.
Don’t count MS out yet
there is censoring in the comments?
From what I saw McCain did have some good points but radiated negativity. Whereas Obama radiated positivity Obama had 30 good insights for every one good point from his opponent. Obama just looked and acted professional, cool and presidential. McCains did the usual mud slinging and it did nothing but make Obama look mature. McCain hemmed and hawed on questions and Obama hit them square out of the park.
I would say no contest.
The same could be said for Google/Microsoft. When Microsoft/Ballmer stop with the negativity and focus on creativity. Stop with the idea of destroying MS’s enemies which is such an old paradigm. George Bush is stuck there. War on drugs, war on terror, always out to get the evil doers. Leading by creating fear. If Bush had put the 2 trillion dollar surplus left by Clinton into developing technologies and inspiring people like Google is doing the US and the world would not be in the financial meltdown you see today. A different tack is needed by nations and companies.
I would like to see Microsoft change in one simple way. They want to take business from other companies. MS should start by adopting Google’s strategy of being and doing as much good as possible.
Relationships are based on giving (not taking). MS is not evil but it would be great if they could focus more on giving, being constructive and creative like Google does.
Life is short why not focus on creating a better world.
If you think Google does good – well meet the new boss baby – worse than the old boss – because this one (google) is watching your every move.
Some interesting insights into cloud computing can be also found in these two blog posts:
http://www.executivebrief.com/blogs/the-pros-and-cons-of-saas-part-1/
http://www.executivebrief.com/blogs/the-pros-and-cons-of-saas-part-2/