4 ms·

As Microsoft CSA, Ozzie had to live up to the legacy of Gates while steering the direction of hundreds of product groups. This is certainly no simple task. Ul

by aseem 16y ago

As Microsoft CSA, Ozzie had to live up to the legacy of Gates while steering the direction of hundreds of product groups. This is certainly no simple task. Ultimately, he was doomed to fail. His job was to advocate the right technologies at the right time. Yet MS rarely makes the right choices in this area. Technology decisions are made by political GMs who want to hold on to their empires. They are made by VPs who don't want to sacrifice short term profits for a longer term vision. Steve Jobs made an excellent point at the D conference this year about how Apple tries to pick technologies that are in their "Spring". These are technologies that are on their way up. Certainly Steve has the luxury of not worrying as much about backwards compatibility, etc. But he certainly has the courage of his convictions to pick a path that's best for his company and customers. I don't think Ray had that kind of fortitude, and unfortunately, I don't think he had that kind of power. Ultimately, the CEO needs to push the technological vision of Microsoft. Leaving it to mid-level managers will only result in further mediocrity.

jimbokun 16y ago
"His job was to advocate the right technologies at the right time. Yet MS rarely makes the right choices in this area. Technology decisions are made by political GMs who want to hold on to their empires." So he had much responsibility and little authority, always a combination that guarantees failure.
- slantyyz 16y ago
  Agreed, I never really saw him as much more than a figurehead. In many ways, Microsoft is such an immovable beast, you can't expect many people outside of a Bill Gates to have the gravitas to make things happen.
- allwein 16y ago
  >always a combination that guarantees failure. Well, not always. I'm actually reading a book on the subject right now called "Results Without Authority" http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0814473431?ie=UTF8&tag=keysofgeni-20 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0814473431?ie=UTF8&tag=...
lkijuhygtfd 16y ago
Technologies in their spring? A BSD kernel, a gui from Next and a object orientated version of C from before C++ ! Technology-wise Apple basically takes a steam train, wraps a Bang+Olufson case around it and makes it emit the scent of roses! Nice toys, very well made, but cutting edge technology doesn't underpin Apple's success.
- aseem 16y ago
  You certainly note some fair examples for your point. However, I was referring to Apple's choosing of HTML5 instead of Flash. The easy choice that probably benefits mostly in the short-term is to play nice with Flash. Ultimately, Jobs and his team felt the best customer experience was to ditch Flash much to the malign of developers. Would Microsoft made such a decision? And who at Microsoft makes those decisions? Where does the buck stop?
- gvb 16y ago
  Exactly! Jobs picked BSD (1977), the NeXT GUI (1985/1988), and an object oriented version of C (1986) that came before C++ (1983)! (OK, BSD had been around a little while by that time, and C++ predated Objective C.) They are mature technologies now, but were all picked relatively early in their life. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Software_Distribution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Software_Distribution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXT http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXT http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%2B%2B http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%2B%2B
- slantyyz 16y ago
  Can't fault you on your points -- they're all solid, but I would say there's a glaring omission. Cutting edge user experience (and that includes usability) does underpin Apple's success.
  - lkijuhygtfd 16y ago
    Precisely - it's the user experience that puts Apple out ahead not cutting edge technology. In fact their technology is and always has been (when did Mac-0S get real multi-tasking?) rather conservative.
auxbuss 16y ago
The CEO must push/sell the technological vision, but he must not make it. Not in a company the size of Microsoft. I won't miss Microsoft, but their inability to define a vision, communicate, and execute it is voyeuristic to observe. That said, Ballmer needs to walk, and do it quickly. It's over.
- rbanffy 16y ago
  > I won't miss Microsoft, but their inability to define a vision, communicate, and execute it is voyeuristic to observe. It's like watching a trainwreck in slow motion from a thousand different angles, isn't it? (burn, karma, burn)
ergo98 16y ago
>Ultimately, he was doomed to fail. Ozzie was essentially given reign to plow some green fields. He failed miserably at giving Microsoft any credibility or initiative.
ciupicri 16y ago
> Certainly Steve has the luxury of not worrying as much about backwards compatibility Not all the time. Let's not forget about the Universal Binaries (a solution for the transition to Intel) and the Carbon API: Carbon provides backward compatibility for existing Mac OS X software, while serving as a stepping stone for developers porting procedural applications from other platforms. [1] [1] http://developer.apple.com/carbon/ http://developer.apple.com/carbon/
- Zev 16y ago
  Let's not forget about the Universal Binaries (a solution for the transition to Intel) And from 68k to PPC.
  - jonah 16y ago
    Weren't those called "Fat Binaries"?
    - Zev 16y ago
      A "Universal Binary" is the exact same thing as a "Fat Binary," the only difference is that marketing gave it a new name. If you look at the mach-o header of a binary that contains multiple architectures (initially, ppc/68k or now, i386/x86_64/ppc), the first 8 bytes will be either 0xcafebabe or 0xbebafeca, depending on your endianness. These values are also #define'd as FAT_MAGIC or FAT_CIGAM in <arch/fat.h>. If you're on a Mac, you can check this by typing `open -h fat.h` into a Terminal and opening up the binary of a universal app in a hex editor.
      - jonah 16y ago
        Yep. But I don't believe the 68k/PPC ones were called "Universal Binary".
        Zev 16y ago
        If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck... Please see the end of the first line in my previous post: ...the only difference is that marketing gave it a new name.
elblanco 16y ago
> I don't think Ray had that kind of fortitude, and unfortunately, I don't think he had that kind of power. I'm not even sure, looking at old internal Bill Gates emails and memos, that Bill had that kind of power.

by aseem 16y ago

jimbokun 16y ago

"His job was to advocate the right technologies at the right time. Yet MS rarely makes the right choices in this area. Technology decisions are made by political GMs who want to hold on to their empires." So he had much responsibility and little authority, always a combination that guarantees failure.

slantyyz 16y ago
Agreed, I never really saw him as much more than a figurehead. In many ways, Microsoft is such an immovable beast, you can't expect many people outside of a Bill Gates to have the gravitas to make things happen.
allwein 16y ago
>always a combination that guarantees failure. Well, not always. I'm actually reading a book on the subject right now called "Results Without Authority" http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0814473431?ie=UTF8&tag=keysofgeni-20 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0814473431?ie=UTF8&tag=...

lkijuhygtfd 16y ago

Technologies in their spring? A BSD kernel, a gui from Next and a object orientated version of C from before C++ ! Technology-wise Apple basically takes a steam train, wraps a Bang+Olufson case around it and makes it emit the scent of roses! Nice toys, very well made, but cutting edge technology doesn't underpin Apple's success.

aseem 16y ago
You certainly note some fair examples for your point. However, I was referring to Apple's choosing of HTML5 instead of Flash. The easy choice that probably benefits mostly in the short-term is to play nice with Flash. Ultimately, Jobs and his team felt the best customer experience was to ditch Flash much to the malign of developers. Would Microsoft made such a decision? And who at Microsoft makes those decisions? Where does the buck stop?
gvb 16y ago
Exactly! Jobs picked BSD (1977), the NeXT GUI (1985/1988), and an object oriented version of C (1986) that came before C++ (1983)! (OK, BSD had been around a little while by that time, and C++ predated Objective C.) They are mature technologies now, but were all picked relatively early in their life. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Software_Distribution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Software_Distribution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXT http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXT http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%2B%2B http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%2B%2B
slantyyz 16y ago
Can't fault you on your points -- they're all solid, but I would say there's a glaring omission. Cutting edge user experience (and that includes usability) does underpin Apple's success.
- lkijuhygtfd 16y ago
  Precisely - it's the user experience that puts Apple out ahead not cutting edge technology. In fact their technology is and always has been (when did Mac-0S get real multi-tasking?) rather conservative.

auxbuss 16y ago

The CEO must push/sell the technological vision, but he must not make it. Not in a company the size of Microsoft. I won't miss Microsoft, but their inability to define a vision, communicate, and execute it is voyeuristic to observe. That said, Ballmer needs to walk, and do it quickly. It's over.

rbanffy 16y ago
> I won't miss Microsoft, but their inability to define a vision, communicate, and execute it is voyeuristic to observe. It's like watching a trainwreck in slow motion from a thousand different angles, isn't it? (burn, karma, burn)

ergo98 16y ago

>Ultimately, he was doomed to fail. Ozzie was essentially given reign to plow some green fields. He failed miserably at giving Microsoft any credibility or initiative.

ciupicri 16y ago

> Certainly Steve has the luxury of not worrying as much about backwards compatibility Not all the time. Let's not forget about the Universal Binaries (a solution for the transition to Intel) and the Carbon API: Carbon provides backward compatibility for existing Mac OS X software, while serving as a stepping stone for developers porting procedural applications from other platforms. [1] [1] http://developer.apple.com/carbon/ http://developer.apple.com/carbon/

Zev 16y ago
Let's not forget about the Universal Binaries (a solution for the transition to Intel) And from 68k to PPC.
- jonah 16y ago
  Weren't those called "Fat Binaries"?
  - Zev 16y ago
    A "Universal Binary" is the exact same thing as a "Fat Binary," the only difference is that marketing gave it a new name. If you look at the mach-o header of a binary that contains multiple architectures (initially, ppc/68k or now, i386/x86_64/ppc), the first 8 bytes will be either 0xcafebabe or 0xbebafeca, depending on your endianness. These values are also #define'd as FAT_MAGIC or FAT_CIGAM in <arch/fat.h>. If you're on a Mac, you can check this by typing `open -h fat.h` into a Terminal and opening up the binary of a universal app in a hex editor.
    - jonah 16y ago
      Yep. But I don't believe the 68k/PPC ones were called "Universal Binary".
      - Zev 16y ago
        If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck... Please see the end of the first line in my previous post: ...the only difference is that marketing gave it a new name.

elblanco 16y ago

> I don't think Ray had that kind of fortitude, and unfortunately, I don't think he had that kind of power. I'm not even sure, looking at old internal Bill Gates emails and memos, that Bill had that kind of power.