Microsoft Tackles Tough Times

That is, until this beauty of a quarter.

To get the bad news out of the way fast, Microsoft pre-announced its numbers. Profits are down 11 percent, but total sales are up 2 percent. For Microsoft, this is dismal, and is leading the company to lay off some 5,000 people. But for anyone else, this would be cause for celebration.

I expect a few more rough quarters, but I also believe that Microsoft has the best technical lineup in its history. Azure and Mesh are looking great, Windows 7 appears to be the killer operating system that Vista should have been, and the company's server tools are solid and respected.

Should I take off my rose-colored glasses? Where do you see Microsoft heading in '09? Prognostications welcome at [email protected].

Posted by Doug Barney on January 23, 20090 comments

Cloud Data Sharing Gets New Beta Release

More Live Mesh details will be out in March at Microsoft's MIX09 show. I've looked into Live Mesh and found the approach a bit complex. But in terms of features, if all my files can be accessed from any of the 10 or so PCs in my house, I'd be a happy camper.

Do you use online data sharing and storage? If so, what is it and how does it work? Advice welcome at [email protected].

Posted by Doug Barney on January 21, 20090 comments

The EU Can't Leave IE Alone

I thought I was having a '90s flashback when I heard that the EU has filed a formal complaint about Microsoft's practice of bundling the browser with the operating system. But there it was again, charging Redmond with illegal bundling.

Haven't any of these ministers looked at Firefox's market share lately? Plus, bundling the browser may or may not be legal, but hasn't Microsoft been doing this for nearly 15 years?

Posted by Doug Barney on January 21, 20090 comments

Mailbag: Who's Cooler?, Saving the Economy

I am not a great Apple fan. I have always worked the Intel processor line. But I have to admit that Apple is way cool. The Mac was a super cool computer -- great operator interface and real user appeal. The entire product line calls out to the users. The biggest reason we aren't all driving Apples is the upfront cost and the big push IBM put on the PC as an enterprise machine. Most of our current GUI ideas first appeared on Apples. Apple reached out to the education market very early and still has a major presence there.

If I were a computer, which I am not, I think I would want to be an Apple. Even Forrest Gump thought Apples were cool.
-John

Microsoft is "cooler" because you know upfront that it's a competitive company. Apple is less cool because it's a "secret" monopoly.

My workplace? Very uncool.
-Anonymous

I feel Apple's coolness is trending downward and Microsoft's is trending up, although I'm not sure where each lies in relation to the other. When I interpret coolness, I view it as a personal thing. Some people have it, some don't. Apple has many great products that enable the individual to be cooler than their peers. Microsoft generally focuses on making great products that appeal to the business user. I feel in the last couple of years, Microsoft has taken great steps toward recognizing the individual. I also think that Apple will begin to experience many of the problems a larger, more mainstream company faces.

I personally think Microsoft is cooler.
-Lee

There are really two questions embedded in this question: Who's cooler to work for, and who's got cooler products. Apple wins the second question hands-down. Only if you like messing with the internals of your technology (like Linux lunatics) would you think that MS products are cooler.

The first question is much harder. If you've seen the docudrama "The Pirates of Silicon Valley" (tag line: "Good artists create...Great artists steal"), you would probably make the conclusion: Not only is neither cool to work for, they're probably both pretty uncool to work for. I've never worked for either and I've only known a couple of people who have worked for MS, so I can't answer that queston.
-Bill

Microsoft is very cool in many ways, and not so cool in others. It's cool in terms of its small pockets of teams who are enabled to dream big and applauded for their innovation. It's cool in its vision of what the world would be like if everyone just used their software for everything. It's cool in its philanthropic efforts, which are obviously led by Gates' work, but the culture is hyper-supportive of giving and will match not only money that is given, but time volunteered. It's cool in what its doing with SharePoint; most people, even in the industry, don't fully understand how far-reaching this platform is. And nearly every company has enough SharePoint in the form of WSS that is at no-cost, that they all need is MOSS. You don't have to be much of a business person to see why this is brilliant -- and thereby cool.

Apple is very cool in a much different way. Its coolness is much more felt by the general consumer public. I'll let somebody else comment on why that is, but hey, bottom line is it has some pretty cool products. And Steve Jobs is very cool. The guy just comes up with amazing stuff and inspires his people and the marketplace. That's very hard to do.

So, I guess I'd have to say both companies are cool. They have their warts, though. I've seen them first hand at Microsoft through the types of managers who get promoted. There are too many decisions made at levels that don't see it first hand in front of the customer and also aren't high enough to see the big picture. It leaves a middle-management crisis which results in constant turnover. This creates a culture where virtual teams become more important than formal chains of command -- which would be great if it were managed that way. However, it is not. It creates an odd culture that often leaves people feeling little trust in mid-level management. I'm sure Apple has its own problems, but not being an insider, I can't make any particular assertions.
-Brian

It never ceases to amaze me that the people that blast Microsoft for its money-grubbing ways and the fact that it is not open source like Linux are, many times, the same people that have a love-fest with the proprietary Apple.
-Joe

Frank challenges the notion that major companies like Apple live and die by their CEOs:

This industry and its media have an inappropriate (nearly cultish) habit of attributing the entirety of the successes and failures of multi-thousand-person organizations to single individuals (i.e., "Jobs' real talent is his unrelenting attention to detail"). The notion that the "best CEOs" are the ones who know every minute detail about technical implementations or even that they are somehow the Uber Human Factors Engineer for a 2,000-, 5,000- or 10,000-person company is a sign of a positively abysmal CEO or the most ridiculous of simplifications. Should any CEO attempt to be that Uber Engineer, then they would have failed before they have started -- in my opinion and that of pretty much every piece of MBA-related writing in the last 50 years. It is the fool's errand of all fool's errands to even attempt such a thing.

Organizational talent, I get. The ability to build, extend or direct great teams, I get. But the notion that these CEOs are somehow THE only significant creative nucleus or the only capable overseer of quality is totally ludicrous. What typically happens is one of two scenarios: Either the CEO as Godhead is mostly PR and they really have a great organization that can survive just fine without them (as long as the next guy doesn't basically screw it up), or you have someone who has managed to handicap a multi-thousand-person organization greatly by holding too much decision-making too close. Whenever an organization, which has already been hobbled, does topple shortly after the CEO leaves, is it a sign of the CEO's greatness, or one of their criminal negligences -- to the stockholders and the thousands who work there? If the U.S. collapses shortly after eight years of Obama-inspired Golden Years, is he a success?
-Frank

And readers share some of their ideas for getting the economy back on track (more to come on Friday):

My solution for the economy is for the government to get the media to lie to us. What if the mainstream media announced that jobless claims went down and the stock market closed up 400 points three days in a row? People and companies would go out and start spending again.
-Craig

Americans will not be able to contribute to the restoration of the economy without being gainfully employed. It seems that a company such as Microsoft, with large amounts of cash on hand, could invest in its current employees for additional training and eliminate all H1B visas. Microsoft would make a greater contribution to the U.S. by not laying people off. America needs to pursue a policy of greater self-sufficiency across the board for a while in order to recover. It is said that isolationism does not work, but I don't suggest it has to last forever; just setting up the manufacturing of, say, personal computers here at home would stimulate the economy, put people to work and encourage kids to pursue careers in computer science and related disciplines.

And nationalization of the health care system should provide all Americans coverage, relieving cost and decreasing the burden on employers. Hopefully, it would also allow greater retention of workers in these troubled times.
-Johan

My thinking is that the problem we're in is one part fundamental and one part psychology. In order to fix this, we need to play to both ends. In my opinion, any kind of drastic, palpable action done by the government that appeals to most or all will do the trick, such as:

1. A dramatic rise in projects ('New Deal'-style spending).
2. A dramatic cut in taxes will have the same affect in No. 1.
3. Bill Gates as treasury secretary.

It won't matter whether it's a right- or a left-wing action, just as long as it's seen as the government trying to do the right thing.
-Gregory

More of your thoughts on the economy -- and how to fix it -- are coming on Friday's installment. Want to share your own ideas? Leave a comment below or send an e-mail to [email protected].

Posted by Doug Barney on January 21, 20090 comments

Seeding the Microsoft Cloud

The key to exploiting Azure is to first know Visual Studio. A big part of the Azure test release is actually a set of Visual Studio programming and testing extensions.

Posted by Doug Barney on January 21, 20090 comments

New Redmond Virt Tool Rankles Top Journalist

Virtualization is another area in which I'm far from expert. Here, I lean on Keith Ward, editor of Virtualization Review. Case in point is when I read about Redmond's beta release of Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V).

When I first read Microsoft's breathless announcement of this amazing new breakthrough, I had a few misgivings. For one, MED-V sounds like some kind of new ambulance. More important, Microsoft's desktop virtualization strategy at this point is overly complex. You can use Windows Terminal Services (I'm sure this has been renamed) to run apps from Windows Server. You can also use the application virtualization wares Microsoft got from SoftGrid. And you can use Virtual PC to give your PC multiple OS personalities. Or you can run apps from the cloud. (I'm sure I'm forgetting a few more options.)

MED-V is based on Kidaro, which Microsoft recently acquired. It works with Virtual PC and lets you run legacy apps on newer operating systems such as Vista. I thought I had all the negative angles well in hand until I read Keith's recent blog, where he points out that the only way to get MED-V is to buy an expensive Software Assurance (SA) contract. The same is also true for the application virtualization tech acquired from SoftGrid.

SA is no picnic. You pay a lot of money for benefits you may never use, and for upgrade rights to software that may not ship on time. Want to know if SA is right for you? Check out this special report I put together a few years ago (it's just as relevant today).

Posted by Doug Barney on January 19, 20090 comments

Mailbag: Microsoft, Apple and the Cool Factor

Apple: Cool.
Microsoft: Somewhat cool.
Workplace: Uncool.
-Anonymous

Apple, cool. Microsoft, no. My workplace, no.
-Anonymous

Redmond is cooler. "The Simpsons" said it best. Yeah, I'm slightly prejudiced.

And to answer your question: My workplace is the coolest on the planet.
-David

Apple is cool. Microsoft is frigid.
-Mark

Microsoft is cool. Apple, not so much.
-Anonymous

The only thing actually cool about Apple is its marketing machine. Microsoft could learn something from it (or almost anyone) about hip marketing.
-Jeff

Come on. Apple may seem cool because Jobs is a GREAT salesman and convinced everyone who is a Mac-er that he's cool, but they are just easily impressed with ribbons and flashing lights. Jobs wears cool dress-down clothes (probably $1,000 apiece) that make him seem like he's a free thinker, not caught up in corporate structure, but that's crazy.

Bill Gates is a nerd and has developed his company and persona on the fact and he never tried to fool people. It is what it is. Are the guy and his products cool? Yeah, they are.
-Dan

Short answer: neither! They are businesses with profit-driven motivations. Gates, while to be lauded for his charity work, is doing so with his personal fortune, not Microsoft's, to my knowledge. Let us not forget that both Microsoft and Apple have BODs, investors, industry analysts and a slew of other interested parties to keep happy in terms of profit, loss, earnings, etc. It's time to stop conferring knighthood or sainthood on corporate execs, sports stars or winsome politicians.

My company (the largest consulting company no one's ever heard of, with annual revenues of over $8 billion), while an interesting and very entertaining place to work, is not cool either. I know full well that earnings, PBT and gross margins all drive decision-making, and no matter what HR lip service to "people-focused" and "professional development" is pandered about the workplace, the bottom line rules the roost here. Please do not think me cynical, however, as I believe that's how it should work.
-Mercury

I vote for Apple as cool as it beats Microsoft in every way except price. Microsoft is the cheaper alternative.
-Anonymous

Definitely Microsoft is cooler. Even years ago when I was taking classes for MCSE NT, I remember I always had some classmates thinking that MS is uncool. However, I told them then and I'll still say it today: "BLUE IS COOL!"
-Scott

Check in on Wednesday for more of your letters! In the meantime, leave your own comment below or send an e-mail to [email protected].

Posted by Doug Barney on January 19, 20090 comments

Google Greenness Questioned

But a Harvard physicist argues differently. Alex Wissner-Gross (sounds like a physicist to me!) says that two Google queries emit as much CO2 as heating up a tea pot. The problem is that Google servers are highly distributed so a single query can reach out to servers churning away thousands of miles apart.

I mentioned this to my kids and they asked what we should do. I suggested we get used to cold tea from now on.

Many Google searches are clearly non-essential (I fail to see the economic value of +"Pam Anderson" +"JPEG") But this doesn't mean that the type of cloud computing Google and others offer isn't green. If Google or Amazon or Microsoft or Sun or Oracle build massive datacenters, one would think these would be highly efficient. Compare this to having all enterprises cobble together and power their own server farms. For power savings, I'd go with the cloud every time.

Are you concerned about electric use and costs? What's your plan? Share your ideas by writing to [email protected].

Posted by Doug Barney on January 19, 20090 comments

Microsoft in the Pink

My take? Microsoft can still be highly efficient and productive with a smaller workforce. After all, it's an aggressive capitalist enterprise; competition is in its DNA.

So the question is: If Microsoft and others can run fine with smaller budgets and workforces, why can't government -- local, state or federal -- do the same thing? Seems odd to me that as tax revenues fall and the economy contracts, government's answer is to grow larger. As an economics major, I understand the multiplier effect, but this still makes no logical sense.

How would you solve our economic mess? Is massive debt/stimulation the answer? Right- and left-wing answers equally welcome at [email protected].

Posted by Doug Barney on January 19, 20090 comments

Stupid or Stupendous?

The idea may have come from the Wii controller. Remember when players would get so excited bowling or boxing that the controllers would fly out of their hands and into the TV screen? But I'm not sure how many of us will loop this beauty around our fingers every time we pick up the phone.

If you think this idea is dy-no-mite, click here.

Posted by Doug Barney on January 16, 20090 comments

Jobs Concerns

No one besides those in Jobs' inner circle knows what's really wrong, but I'm nervous that health issues could keep a true leader out of the loop. Jobs' real talent is his unrelenting attention to detail. Products have to be -- or at least must try to be -- perfect before they're foisted on a fickle public. It's the same approach that makes a truly great wine great, or a movie something you'll watch again and again.

I hope Jobs returns later this year, but in his absence, perhaps other high-tech execs can adopt the same discipline that makes Apple great.

Posted by Doug Barney on January 16, 20090 comments

Is Apple Cool?

Now it's time to turn it around and ask if Apple is cool. Think about it: The Mac is an entirely closed proprietary system. The iPod is an entirely closed proprietary system. The iPhone is an entirely closed proprietary system. And Apple has been known to sue bloggers just for writing about its unreleased products, something I've never seen Microsoft do.

Nor have I seen Apple try to cure malaria, cancer and AIDS, all of which Microsoft and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are working on -- free of charge. To learn more about how Microsoft is trying to save the world, check this out.

Now satire site The Onion is wondering if Apple is cool or just another cog in the computer establishment. It ran a piece called "Apple Employee Fired for Thinking Different." Here, fake Apple employee Brent Barlow got pink-slipped for listening to Bob Dylan and walking around barefoot.

Is there a ring of truth to this parody? Who's cooler: Apple or Microsoft? And how cool or uncool is your workplace? Vote at [email protected].

Posted by Doug Barney on January 16, 20090 comments