6 ms·

I'm not sure how this makes any sense for Microsoft. If they assigned a few engineers to work on this, they could replicate the functionality within few months,

I'm not sure how this makes any sense for Microsoft. If they assigned a few engineers to work on this, they could replicate the functionality within few months, especially since they know the internals of Outlook.

veritas 18y ago
Features aren't the only thing they're getting. The guys at Xobni are extremely talented and Microsoft always wants talented engineers.
- steveblgh 18y ago
  Paying millions of dollars for a few talented engineers, who will probably work half-heartedly for a few months/year, depending on the clauses in the contract, then move on to the next startup? Come on, USD is not that weak.
  - johns 18y ago
    Their value is not just in being there. What they create will likely exceed the acquisition costs.
    - davidw 18y ago
      I can see this, but it's not one of those things I'm so certain of that I could defend that point of view in a discussion with someone else. It'd be interesting to explore the reasoning behind it more.
  - wright 18y ago
    > who will probably work half-heartedly for a few months/year, That's what 4-year vesting is for. Besides, part-time work from an expert is better than full-time work from the hoi polloi.
tokipin 18y ago
and if they did replicate it, everyone would call them assholes. maybe they're trying not to paint a bad image of themselves
- euccastro 18y ago
  Or phrasing it in a more positive way: by rewarding these guys they are encouraging others to do R&D for them. It's not like a few million more or less mean much to Microsoft anyway.
- ajju 18y ago
  Microsoft not doing something that could make them money and is in all likelihood perfectly legal (not that that has stopped them in the past) just to "not be called assholes"? Really?
mattmaroon 18y ago
There's a lot more to replicating something like Xobni in a megacorporation like MSFT than just the programming. In a lot of cases it's easier to get an acquisition signed off on than a new department to make a new product. And they get more than just code, and people who write code. They get a little street cred back in the hacker community for picking up a YC startup. They get people who have vision, which MSFT appears to be in need of these days. It could be the beginning of a new era for them. Also, Xobni has had a number of high quality engineers (probably much better than what you'd typically find slaving away in the trenches at MSFT) working on their plugin for a lot more than a few months. I'm guessing the programming cost would be a lot higher than you might think.
- steveblgh 18y ago
  I think you nailed it with the line: "they get a little street cred back in the hacker community for picking up a YC startup". Exactly what I was thinking. If it's not the features, not the engineers, it must be the positive buzz they get for it. Probably this is some lame attempt by Microsoft to appear cool and show that they understand the new wave.
  - alex_c 18y ago
    Or, you know, call me crazy, but maybe they just think those would be good features to add to Outlook, and this is the easiest way to add them and keep them out of competitors' products at the same time. Occam's razor?
  - alaskamiller 18y ago
    Because Bill Gates stays up all night worrying about what steveblgh on Hacker News thinks.
- random1 18y ago
  I think there is a ill informed mentality that somehow hackers are "smarter" than the coders working at Microsoft. To be honest most of the people I have met at the startup community aren't really all that special in terms of "intelligence" but they do have that drive which is what makes them special. I just think people in this community need to stop ego boosting themselves... yes some of you are probably pretty smart... but most of you aren't impressively smart or talented -- just very driven... (which is a great trait by the way) as far as the actual commentary goes I think Microsoft is doing it because honestly 30-40 million is chump change for them and yeah they could develop it but why bother when you already have it tall done and the structure already setup?
pg 18y ago
Really? Building an OS that works is a solved problem, and they don't seem to be able to do that. The reason big companies buy startups is because they can't do what they "could" do.
- steveblgh 18y ago
  Come on, building a working OS is a gigantic effort. Last time I checked Xobni was regex-ing phone numbers and names from e-mail texts, plus some fancy GUI of the kind that you said in one essay that you hate (messing around with obscure Windows APIs). Following your reasoning, the Xobni guys could have more easily built a full OS, which, with all respect, I seriously doubt.
  - wright 18y ago
    My next YC idea: A plugin for Vista that makes it work.
    - pg 18y ago
      You know, that might be just on the right side of crazy. Could one build some kind of layer on top of Vista that would make it tolerable to users?
      - deleted 18y ago
        [deleted]
      - mlinsey 18y ago
        Depends on why users think it's intolerable, I suppose. The most common complaints I hear about Vista, even from casual users, are about performance, and I'm not sure what you could do about that.
        jgrahamc 18y ago
        It would not surprise me if there's a whole bunch of useless services running; disabling them might help. http://www.blackviper.com/WinVista/servicecfg.htm http://www.blackviper.com/WinVista/servicecfg.htm
wright 18y ago
> If they assigned a few engineers to work on this, they could replicate the functionality within few months, especially since they know the internals of Outlook. Counter-exhibit 1: Vista. Apparently the MS development process makes it almost impossible to get anything done within the bureaucracy these days. Their best results are from their research groups (e.g. Haskell) but those are people paid to work on what they want to work on anyway. You can't just assign developers randomly to something and get the same results. In fact, given Outlook's bugs and lack of functionality in these areas you could make a pretty compelling argument that, despite their knowledge of its internals, those are about the last people you'd want to put in charge of making Outlook work. They already got their shot and look what happened!
tlb 18y ago
I assume your estimates of how hard it is and how fast the Outlook team can develop are completely ex-recto. Here's some data. Outlook's last two major releases were in '03 and '06. In those 3 years they added the following visible features: - todo bar - better calendar UI - RSS aggregator - search [Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Outlook http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Outlook] Xobni might be as useful and interesting as all those combined, and the Xobni team can deliver it today. The evidence suggests that Microsoft would take years to deliver something similar.
- steveblgh 18y ago
  My estimates weren't ex-recto as you said. I took a brief look at Xobni, and thought that even I could have done it in a few months. Then a few engineers from MS could do it even more easily.
  - maurycy 18y ago
    You underestimate corporate overhead.

veritas 18y ago

Features aren't the only thing they're getting. The guys at Xobni are extremely talented and Microsoft always wants talented engineers.

steveblgh 18y ago
Paying millions of dollars for a few talented engineers, who will probably work half-heartedly for a few months/year, depending on the clauses in the contract, then move on to the next startup? Come on, USD is not that weak.
- johns 18y ago
  Their value is not just in being there. What they create will likely exceed the acquisition costs.
  - davidw 18y ago
    I can see this, but it's not one of those things I'm so certain of that I could defend that point of view in a discussion with someone else. It'd be interesting to explore the reasoning behind it more.
- wright 18y ago
  > who will probably work half-heartedly for a few months/year, That's what 4-year vesting is for. Besides, part-time work from an expert is better than full-time work from the hoi polloi.

tokipin 18y ago

and if they did replicate it, everyone would call them assholes. maybe they're trying not to paint a bad image of themselves

euccastro 18y ago
Or phrasing it in a more positive way: by rewarding these guys they are encouraging others to do R&D for them. It's not like a few million more or less mean much to Microsoft anyway.
ajju 18y ago
Microsoft not doing something that could make them money and is in all likelihood perfectly legal (not that that has stopped them in the past) just to "not be called assholes"? Really?

mattmaroon 18y ago

There's a lot more to replicating something like Xobni in a megacorporation like MSFT than just the programming. In a lot of cases it's easier to get an acquisition signed off on than a new department to make a new product. And they get more than just code, and people who write code. They get a little street cred back in the hacker community for picking up a YC startup. They get people who have vision, which MSFT appears to be in need of these days. It could be the beginning of a new era for them. Also, Xobni has had a number of high quality engineers (probably much better than what you'd typically find slaving away in the trenches at MSFT) working on their plugin for a lot more than a few months. I'm guessing the programming cost would be a lot higher than you might think.

steveblgh 18y ago
I think you nailed it with the line: "they get a little street cred back in the hacker community for picking up a YC startup". Exactly what I was thinking. If it's not the features, not the engineers, it must be the positive buzz they get for it. Probably this is some lame attempt by Microsoft to appear cool and show that they understand the new wave.
- alex_c 18y ago
  Or, you know, call me crazy, but maybe they just think those would be good features to add to Outlook, and this is the easiest way to add them and keep them out of competitors' products at the same time. Occam's razor?
- alaskamiller 18y ago
  Because Bill Gates stays up all night worrying about what steveblgh on Hacker News thinks.
random1 18y ago
I think there is a ill informed mentality that somehow hackers are "smarter" than the coders working at Microsoft. To be honest most of the people I have met at the startup community aren't really all that special in terms of "intelligence" but they do have that drive which is what makes them special. I just think people in this community need to stop ego boosting themselves... yes some of you are probably pretty smart... but most of you aren't impressively smart or talented -- just very driven... (which is a great trait by the way) as far as the actual commentary goes I think Microsoft is doing it because honestly 30-40 million is chump change for them and yeah they could develop it but why bother when you already have it tall done and the structure already setup?

pg 18y ago

Really? Building an OS that works is a solved problem, and they don't seem to be able to do that. The reason big companies buy startups is because they can't do what they "could" do.

steveblgh 18y ago
Come on, building a working OS is a gigantic effort. Last time I checked Xobni was regex-ing phone numbers and names from e-mail texts, plus some fancy GUI of the kind that you said in one essay that you hate (messing around with obscure Windows APIs). Following your reasoning, the Xobni guys could have more easily built a full OS, which, with all respect, I seriously doubt.
- wright 18y ago
  My next YC idea: A plugin for Vista that makes it work.
  - pg 18y ago
    You know, that might be just on the right side of crazy. Could one build some kind of layer on top of Vista that would make it tolerable to users?
    - deleted 18y ago
      [deleted]
    - mlinsey 18y ago
      Depends on why users think it's intolerable, I suppose. The most common complaints I hear about Vista, even from casual users, are about performance, and I'm not sure what you could do about that.
      - jgrahamc 18y ago
        It would not surprise me if there's a whole bunch of useless services running; disabling them might help. http://www.blackviper.com/WinVista/servicecfg.htm http://www.blackviper.com/WinVista/servicecfg.htm

wright 18y ago

> If they assigned a few engineers to work on this, they could replicate the functionality within few months, especially since they know the internals of Outlook. Counter-exhibit 1: Vista. Apparently the MS development process makes it almost impossible to get anything done within the bureaucracy these days. Their best results are from their research groups (e.g. Haskell) but those are people paid to work on what they want to work on anyway. You can't just assign developers randomly to something and get the same results. In fact, given Outlook's bugs and lack of functionality in these areas you could make a pretty compelling argument that, despite their knowledge of its internals, those are about the last people you'd want to put in charge of making Outlook work. They already got their shot and look what happened!

tlb 18y ago

I assume your estimates of how hard it is and how fast the Outlook team can develop are completely ex-recto. Here's some data. Outlook's last two major releases were in '03 and '06. In those 3 years they added the following visible features: - todo bar - better calendar UI - RSS aggregator - search [Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Outlook http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Outlook] Xobni might be as useful and interesting as all those combined, and the Xobni team can deliver it today. The evidence suggests that Microsoft would take years to deliver something similar.

steveblgh 18y ago
My estimates weren't ex-recto as you said. I took a brief look at Xobni, and thought that even I could have done it in a few months. Then a few engineers from MS could do it even more easily.
- maurycy 18y ago
  You underestimate corporate overhead.