June 30, 2008 | Comments: (0)
It feels strange writing this. Starting today, I won't have Bill Gates to kick around anymore. (Or, given that he still plans to visit the Redmond campus once a week, I'll only have 20 percent of him to kick around.) Of all the tech targets I've pummeled over the years, the world's third richest man easily commands the pole position.
There's certainly been no shortage of tributes and memorials, some snarkier than others. PC World's Dan Tynan captured Gates' 10 most memorable moments, including some he'd like to forget. Josh Quitner's professional obit for Gates in Time magazine is titled "PC Genius, Internet Fool." (Oh, snap!) In India, where Gates is apparently better liked -- possibly due to employing half of Bangalore in one of Microsoft's many offshore operations -- his farewell is titled "A Jolly Good Fella!". (Sir Bill, jolly? That's a new one.) Infoworld's own Galen Gruman takes a more sober look at what the Post-Gates Microsoft might look like.
It's true that Gates doesn't matter the way he used to, just like Microsoft doesn't matter the way it used to, though like an aging great white shark it still can still deliver a nasty bite. As we move more into the mobile always-on world and away from static desktops it will matter less and less.
(Personally, I think the worst thing that ever happened to Microsoft was having an appeals court nullify the order to split the company in two back in 2001. Really, Microsoft should be 4 or 5 companies -- separate entities for the OS, applications, Web, mobile, and enterprise. I think we'd start to see actual innovation coming out of Redmond again, instead of the stuff you get out of a can. Wake me when that happens.)
But it's not just Gates. Aside from The Mad Ballmer it seems all my old targets have gone to ground. You hardly hear a peep out of Larry Ellison these days, though Oracle's appetite for acquisition hasn't waned. Darl McBride seems to have crawled back under a rock, with only SCO's delusions of patent grandeur to keep him warm. Steve Jobs is hanging tough, of course, but did you see how scrawny he looked at the last keynote? It seems almost unfair to pick on him in his wizened state. And isn't Carly Fiorina on The View with Whoopi Goldberg and that ditzy blonde chick?
So what are we left with? Plucky Zucky, the Google Twins, Yahoo's Jerry Yang (who is so boring I can't even make a joke about him), and a lot of Web 2.0-wannabees. Unspeakably dull, the lot of them. So I've got to say I'm going to miss Sir Bill. With all his bluster, bloviation, and blindness, he was a more than worthy adversary.
Got an opinion on the dearly departed but not yet dead Microsoft scion? Post them below or email me direct: cringe (at) infoworld (dot) com. Top tipsters qualify for cool swag.
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Posted by Robert X. Cringely on June 30, 2008 08:09 AM
June 25, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Facebook: What's originality got to do with it?
Pity the innovators -- always hounded by the jealous hordes who clamor for a sliver of their success. And so it goes with Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg, though exactly who's the innovator in this scenario is a matter of some debate.
Zuckerberg is being sued by identical twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (distant descendants of Rip Van Winklevoss) and Divya Narendra, co-founders of also-ran social network ConnectU. In late 2003 the Winklevoss/Narendra trio hired the 19-year-old to do some coding for their nascent network, then called Harvard Connection. They say they never received a line of code from Zuckerberg; coincidentally, in early 2004 plucky Zucky launched his own Harvard-centric social network, which he later expanded to other campuses and then the world. Now Facebook allows you to throw sheep and otherwise annoy millions of your closest personal friends, making Zuckerberg a paper billionaire, while ConnectU languishes in obscurity.
ConnectU thought that smelled fishier than a three-day-old mackerel, so they sued Zuckerberg for allegedly stealing their source code.
Here's the sticky part. Last February, ConnectU's founders reached a settlement with Facebook. But after a Cyber PI discovered a trail of instant messages possibly relating to the case on Zuckerberg's laptop, they had second thoughts. (Apparently, neither the PI nor ConnectU actually know what the IMs say, only that they exist.) Now a judge is deciding whether ConnectU's founders can back out of the deal, presumably so they can cut a juicier stake from the Facebook cash cow when the site goes public.
If the charges are true, this wouldn't be Zuckerberg's first taste of -- how should I put it -- expanding on someone else's idea. While an undergrad at Harvard, Zuckerberg created a knock-off of the popular Hot or Not web site called Facemash.com. It used photos taken from Harvard's online student directory (which was called -- wait for it -- the facebook) and let other students rate their relative attractiveness or lack thereof. Facemash lasted less than a day before being pulled by college administrators, who very nearly expelled the Z-man for illegally accessing photos stored on the school's computers.
Shortly thereafter he was hired by the Winklevosses, who were apparently caught napping when lucky Zucky quit a few months later and launched Facebook.
It seems especially fitting that this case is in news now, given that Zuckerberg is The Next Bill Gates (spoiled, brilliant, arrogant, and whiter than the inside of an Oreo). Because Billy G. was not a guy to let a multi-billion-dollar franchise slip out of his hands just because someone else had the idea first. Remember when Microsoft got sued by Apple for "stealing" the Macintosh graphical user interface? It took five years for that case to settle. Of course, the Mac owed more than a bit of its technological inspiration to the Xerox Alto. Likewise, Borland was sued by Lotus for "stealing" the 123 interface for its Quattro spreadsheet, despite the fact that Lotus 123 owed much of its look and feel to VisiCalc.
Fact is, ideas are stolen every day, and it's almost never the Joes or Janes with the original concept who end up cashing in. It's the execution of the idea that counts. And despite a few stumbles -- like violating its users' privacy -- Facebook has been executed rather brilliantly.
If a judge or jury decide ConnectU can back out of its agreement (or was fraudulently induced to settle) and Zucky doesn't own the code he wrote, that will make the ConnectU folks much richer, but it's unlikely to do much harm to Facebook. There are simply too many friends to be annoyed and too many sheep to be thrown.
Got any brilliant ideas? Post them below or email me: cringe (at) infoworld (dot) com. If any of them make a billion dollars I'll be sure to send a few bucks your way.... maybe.
Posted by Robert X. Cringely on June 25, 2008 03:21 AM
May 21, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Don't look now, but there's a secret cabal at work conspiring to lock you out of the public Internet. That, at least, is the hyperventilated opinion of Robert Scoble, who not so long ago was just another Microsoft employee with a blog and now is a Web 2.0 maven.
His theory? After lopping off the tastiest bits of Yahoo Search and tossing the scraps to the dogs in Mountain View, Microsoft will then drop $15 to $20 billion to swallow Facebook solely for the purpose of keeping it and its 70 million sheep-tossing users locked in a permanent digital dungeon, far from the clutches of Google.
Scoble told Cocky Locky, who twittered Ducky Lucky, Henny Penny, and Foxy Woxy. Yes, the sky appears to be in free fall.
His main clues: Facebook's spurning Google's attempts at data portability via Friend Connect, and reports that Microsoft was making goo-goo eyes at Facebook while trying to score with Yahoo.
Would Microsoft want Facebook? Sure. Redmond desperately needs somebody who knows what they're doing on the Internet, and it already has one gnarled talon wedged in Facebook's door with its $240 million investment last year. But the notion that Microsoft would gladly spend $20 billion just to snub Google seems totally koo koo for cocoa puffs.
There are a few things wrong with this theory.
* Why in Gates' name would Zuckerberg sell? He's already a billionaire on paper. In two years when he takes Facebook public he'll be a billionaire for real. Yes, he might get richer faster if Redmond cuts him a check, but then what's he going to do -- start a softball league for 25-year-old billionaires? It makes no sense for Facebook to sell now while it's still in a massive growth phase with lots of worlds to conquer. The only way that would happen is if the company's VCs got antsy and forced Z's dainty hands. I don't see it.
* If Microsoft did somehow coerce the Z-man to cash out, and then decided to step on Google's spiders, so what? Some FBers would immediately flee anything with the taint of Microsoft on it. Some would leave after Microsoft made "improvements" to the service, drowning any innovative or interesting features in the bathtub and driving away the smart employees. And the rest of the Facebook throng wouldn't notice. After all, Rupert Murdoch managed to buy MySpace without destroying it (though you might argue MySpace was already trashed, and that's how its users like it.)
* Assuming all this comes to pass, is having a small section of the Net closed off to Google such a horrible thing? Isn't the point of a social network to share your inane thoughts, photos, videos, and barnyard animals with your friends -- and only your friends? That's how Facebook is today. Fact is, Facebook will probably end up working out an agreement with Google over Friend Connect. As long as I get to choose what information is and isn't available to the Net at large, I'm fine with that. How about you?
Got more hot conspiracy theories? Post them below or email me direct: cringe (at) infoworld (dot) com. Swell swag awaits those whose tips make it into a blog post.
Posted by Robert X. Cringely on May 21, 2008 03:00 AM
March 03, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Vista (in)Capable: New price, same old ****
Stop the presses: Windows Vista Ultimate is now cheaper than ever!
Yes, Microsoft has done something I can't remember ever doing before: it slashed the price of its own operating system. You can now upgrade your XP machine to Vista Home Premium for only $129 (versus $159) or to Vista Ultimate for $219 -- an $80 savings, order yours today!!!
I don't think my heart can take all this excitement. But Cringester B. D. puts it in perspective nicely:
Let me get this straight: I get a price cut on an OS upgrade that will not run on the computer I purchased just one year prior to the Vista release? I think I will run out right now and not buy a copy.
It's hard to suss out what the Redmond Radicals were thinking with this price cut. Microsoft won't release the figures, but it's safe to say the vast majority of the 100 million copies of Vista foisted unto an undeserving world came pre-installed on machines. The relatively few intrepid souls who upgraded older machines to Vista did so mostly out of curiosity, not necessity. Surely there can't be many of those suckers people left. So why cut prices now?
There are two schools of thought. One is that this price cut is really about the international market. Vista prices in poorer countries will drop closer to 50 percent -- though, given Vista's costly hardware requirements I don't see how it's going to make a difference. (Hey, you can upgrade to Vista or you can feed your family for three months. Your choice.)
The other theory is that this is a pitiful attempt to distract attention from the emails that surfaced last week in the "Vista capable" class action suit. You remember, the ones where MSFT's own executives thought Vista was such a turkey they considered bundling it with giblets and cranberry sauce?
If you believe a 20 to 30 percent price cut will wash away that delicious memory, I've got an operating system to sell you.
The problems with Vista are simple: a series of stupid marketing decisions by Microsoft and general apathy by vendors, who've been dragged down this road by Microsoft so many times that they weren't really motivated to rewrite their stuff from the ground up to support Vista. As those emails reveal, given how Microsoft treated longtime partners like HP (while kissing Intel's muscular buttocks), who could blame them?
Bottom line: Stupidity is expensive, no matter what price tag you slap on it.
Will price cuts make Vista more attractive? Weigh in below or email me direct. If I quote you in my blog, I'll send some swag your way.
Think you've got the right stuff to pass our tech quizzes? They're not as easy as they look:
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Posted by Robert X. Cringely on March 3, 2008 07:06 AM
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