Windows Exec Doug Miller Responds

Doug Miller (no relation) is an amazingly affable and unflappable man. This interview came about because I asked Doug face-to-face if he'd do it when we met after a panel discussion he was part of in Washington DC a few weeks ago. He said "sure" without even a second's hesitation, let alone checking with PR people. His answers to the 10 selected questions we sent him are 100% straight-up. You may not like everything he says (devout Free Software people probably won't like any of it), but Doug Miller deserves your respect (and courtesy) for telling it like it is -- at least from Microsoft's point of view -- without a hint of weaseling.

1) Impact of DOJ case
by skoda

In what ways, if any, has the DOJ anti-trust case affected Microsoft's "competitive strategies", as well as the work Towards "interoperability"?

Doug:

Microsoft has always been a customer focused company and to satisfy customers, you need to build solutions that are competitive. I can't really say if anything has changed over the years, but I can tell you that today we are in a very competitive market - for all the technologies we are involved in. There is nothing like good competitors to help a company focused on building even more value in their offerings. As a result, we need to be even more diligent about building solutions that customers want. For example, in the server space we need to compete with Linux - a pretty good server operating system that is promoted as being free and has a solid following in the technical community. Our products need to show long term value that goes beyond the initial purchase price so the argument becomes not how much does your operating system cost up front but more importantly, how much will your operating system save you over the years that you use it.

Ultimately we believe some of the enhancements we have added to our Windows 2000 server operating system will save companies many times the cost of the operating system in productivity gains in areas such as of ease of use, management, applications choice and support and robustness. Regarding interoperability, we strongly believe the company that interoperates best, is the company that will win the business.

Interoperability is a key competitive strength. We clearly accept that customers will choose multiple operating systems depending on how they need to solve their business problems. Providing ways to plug into those other operating systems - both at a system level (e.g. files, user directories etc.) and at an application level (e.g. data formats) is essential. Microsoft has received unwarranted criticism by some for its ability to interoperate with other operating systems. I actually believe we have better interoperability today than any other OS out there. We fully support data, directory and system interop with UNIX, Linux, Novell, Mac, IBM mainframes through our base OS protocol support as well as through products like Services for UNIX, Interix, Services for NetWare, MetaDirectory and Host Integration Server.

2) OS X
by neutrino

With the recent release of MacOS X what are your reactions to it and what plans do you have to compete with a truly user-friendly desktop OS combined with the stability of a UNIX backend?

Doug:

I'm not sure much will change with the release of the new Mac OS X, as a result of the new UNIX-like features. The Mac crowd has always been a special group that has been very dedicated to the Mac platform. We actually see this as a great market for us to sell some of our products into; of course Office for the Mac is a very successful product.

Ultimately application support will be the most important factor for OS X or as it is for any operating system. BeOS is a great operating system technically but hasn't offered the features to obtain the broad ISV support you need to catch on in the mainstream market. You could ask the same question for Linux with the GNOME or KDE desktop or any of the window managers that look like Mac or Windows desktops. In the end, the OS has to do something useful. The Mac platform has been very viable in the past and I'm sure it will continue to thrive in the future.

Reliability or stability has been a major focus for us as well. We are hearing very good reports from customers who are now using Windows 2000 - both on the desktop and the server. Of course, being user-friendly is also important to us. If you haven't seen the beta of Windows XP, check it out - it is VERY cool.

3) Explain this piece of competetive strategy to me
by RareHeintz

Why does it seem that Microsoft routinely ignores glaringly obvious security concerns in favor of "convenience"-related features? Is this a false impression, and if so, why is that the impression so many security professionals form when confronted with the history of security in Microsoft products?

As an example, I'd single out (though it is by no means the only example) Microsoft Outlook. The inclusion of active code (scripts, ActiveX controls) in what was formerly static data (SMTP email) combined with defaulting to the least secure configuration (opening and running emails without user intervention) left the door wide open for the Melissa virus and its desendants. What happened here?

Doug:

You raise a good point - which is how to you balance ease of use and functionality with security and exposure to hostile attacks from the outside. We have always made an effort to provide highly functional software that makes the user experience as intuitive as possible. At the same time, we are sensitive to the growing security threats to our customers, and providing enhanced security has been and continues to be one of our top priorities. In the case of Outlook, we've taken several steps to provide improved security for users. For example, after the "I Love You" virus of last spring, we took the initiative to change the balance between security and functionality by releasing the Outlook E-Mail Security Update. The Update prevents executable attachments from being delivered to an Outlook user, and also prevents code from sending mail on the user's behalf without the user's permission. No user who's installed the Update has been harmed by any of the e-mail viruses that have been seen since "I Love You". The Update was made available as a standalone offering last spring, and has been included by default in Office 2000 SP2 and in Office XP.

We continue to enhance our offerings in this area - in fact next week, we will be showing some new technology at the RSA show to further protect users.

4) Lay it out for us
by FWMiller

Can you ever see Microsoft applications like Office, Visio, and Project being ported to Linux, and why or why not?

Doug:

"Never say never." Microsoft is continually looking at market opportunities for its products - on both our own platforms as well as on other platforms. As mentioned above we saw a great opportunity for selling our Office products on the Mac platform and have licensed a lot of our technology for use on other platforms. In order to consider porting our desktop products to Linux I think two things would need to happen.

First, there would need to be significant consumer demand from Linux users that actually use Linux as a desktop operating system and were all using the same desktop environment. Today we do not see a large installed base of Linux desktop users that use a single standard for desktop computing with Linux. Would we port to KDE or GNOME or would we try and make the products look exactly as they look today on the Windows platform? It is not obvious which way would be the right way and it would be a huge task to do this at all.

The second thing that would need to happen is Linux users would need to be willing to buy our products if we ported them. Today, there is an almost violent dislike for anything Microsoft in the Linux community - just look at some of the postings on slashdot! My sense is that a lot of people would not buy our products if they were available. But in some ways I think this really goes beyond Microsoft. We have spoken to a lot of Linux users and one of the things that they like is that they can get free Open Source applications on top of their free Open Source OS. I have yet to see any company using the traditional commercial software model become hugely successful selling their products into the Linux market. Take Corel for example. Their Linux product and the suite of applications they sold along side their Linux OS were really quite impressive. Despite this, they did not seem to end up selling very much.

I personally feel that there is little opportunity to make money selling software in the Linux marketplace - buying software goes against they whole Linux / Open Source culture.

That said, there are solutions out there that allow Linux users to run Windows applications today.

5) The "services" model
by Animats

When I see Gates saying "all Microsoft software will be rented in ten years", I see IT managers scheduling exit strategies from Microsoft products. Clearly, a services model benefits Microsoft, but do you really think corporate America will go for it?

Doug:

I personally think that we will see a mixed model for the foreseeable future. Some companies will sell, some will rent, some will provide hosted applications for a fee and some will do combination. We have been using our Enterprise Agreement system for providing our software to large corporations for some time and it seems to work well for both the customer and Microsoft. The customer pays a single fee for the use of Microsoft products for a period of time and they can then deploy the software as needed without having to purchase individual copies. They also get upgrades to the software automatically during the contract period. Microsoft has a predictable revenue stream for the period and can afford to support the customer and fund research and development to enhance the products going forward. In a sense, much of corporate America and corporations around the world are already using this system today.

The interesting challenge will be to see if we can provide a similar program for smaller companies and home users that offers the same customer benefits of license simplicity and paying for the services that you use. In some ways it is much like the system most phone or cable companies use today. Pay a monthly fee to subscribe to a set number of features. There is no reason why you can't do this with software and associated services.

6) Loosing the Golden Ring from Microsoft's fist?
by cworley

When Compaq (later followed by others) loosened the Golden Ring from IBM's grasp by reverse engineering their proprietary bios, the Open Hardware PC platform revolution was ignited. Motherboards, memory, adapter cards, etc... could be made by anybody; hardware innovation increased at a rapid pace, and prices plummeted.

That left only two proprietary pieces atop the Open Hardware PC: the Intel CPU and the Microsoft OS.

Intel's been losing ground, especially with clone maker AMD (but, AMD still has to pay Intel royalties for every clone processor).

The OS, though, has proven tough to emulate. Not only does it reach the pinnacle of complexity (where chaos kicks in), but any emulator must chase Microsoft's tail: the emulation will be worthless come Microsoft's next OS patch (i.e. the DRDOS settlement).

Ballmer has recently stated that he thinks Linux is Microsoft's biggest potential competitor.

Could Open Source be a revolution similar to the PC Open Hardware revolution of the early 80's, bringing true competition and innovation to PC software, or is Ballmer's statement just a ruse?

Doug:

We definitely take Linux very seriously.

First of all, Linux is a pretty good collection of technology and is able to do many things as well as UNIX, Windows or other operating systems. It is hard to call it an operating system when in fact "Linux" typically refers to a distribution that includes contributions from hundreds of projects. This is one of the most interesting aspects of Linux but also one of the biggest challenges for Linux users. Lots of technology but little in the way of integration for things like management, internationalization, documentation, installation, data sharing etc. But looking at Linux technically, there is no real revolution here. Linux looks and feels like UNIX and isn't any better than a commercial version of UNIX.

Secondly, the area that gets the most attention in the press is the fact that Linux is "free" and you can get the source. Again, I don't see a major revolution here. The BSD operating system has been free for more than 20 years and you have always been able to get the source as well. Other companies make their source freely available and give away their binaries as well (e.g. Sun). Even free has its costs in the end in the form of user training, support, applications etc. so the fact that the OS is "free" really has little bearing on the fully loaded costs of deploying and using a computing platform.

In the end, it all comes down to solving customers' problems and there is nothing revolutionary about that. Linux will only be hugely successful if it can solve customer problems better than UNIX, Windows and other OS platforms. I know there is a lot going on to enhance Linux but be assured Microsoft is not sitting still - we continue to proactively innovate and continue to be totally customer driven.

7) Copy protection at the hardware level
by iamsure

What are the current, and future opinions at Microsoft about Copy Protection at the hardware level?

If a spec is developed that has TRUE hardware-industry support, would Microsoft utilize it in its software, would it ignore such abilities, or would it give consumers the right to check a box to turn it on or off?

(And if you choose the check option, what would the default be) :

Doug:

There are others at Microsoft who are better equipped to answer this question than me. I know we are continually looking at ways to protect our software but balance it with an acceptable user experience. Software piracy for all commercial software companies around the world is a huge problem. For companies that choose to charge money for their software, there should be ways to ensure they are paid appropriately. I know a lot of Open Source supporters seem to think that all software should be free and unprotected. I think it should be up to the software company or developer. If you want create a product and give it away, it's a free world - that's your choice. But you should also respect that if a developer wants to charge money for their software, they should be allowed to do that and have some legal or technical assistance to protect their property.

8) Licensing
by Phoenix_SEC

Doug, I was reading a review of Windows XP today, and came across some interesting information on the new licensing scheme. From what I read, the XP will use the current hardware configuration to generate an id string (I believe they called it a fingerprint), which you then tell Microsoft, over the phone, to get the license key for your machine. In an end-user environment (especially laptops), configurations change constantly, and thus the user would be calling in regularly to get a new key.

At the same time, several OS developers (e.g., Apple, various Linux distributions) are moving in a very different direction by open-sourcing their operating systems.

How do you feel this difference in policy will affect Microsoft in terms of new computer purchases (e.g., choosing a different OS - even a previous version of Windows) and upgrades to existing systems?

Doug:

Microsoft is a commercial operating system company that makes most of its revenue from selling its software. We charge money for our software. That is how we pay our developers, our support people and others to provide for the ongoing existence of our company. Other operating system companies like Sun, Apple and IBM make most of their money selling hardware or services. These folks can afford to "give away" their software since they use it as a hook for selling more hardware or services. In the end, the customer pays something towards the cost of producing the operating system - either separately or embedded in the cost of the hardware.

The model around Linux is truly bizarre. How much do RedHat or Caldera really make from selling their distributions? It seems not very much. So in order for them to survive they rely on selling proprietary software, support, services, books, tee shirts, penguins etc. Not a very revolutionary business, but in the end they must sell something if they want to survive.

For Microsoft, we simply want to have a fair system to be compensated for the use of our software - much the same way other companies are compensated for the use of their products or services. It is sad that we have seen so much talk in the industry about devaluing the worth of software. Software is core to the computer experience. People create software and it is essential that we pay people for their valuable and creative work.

9) Interoperability
by moonboy

Microsoft representatives are often talking about innovation and it is well known in the developer communities that Microsoft often seeks to "embrace and extend" certain technologies. Examples include Kerberos and Java (although I'm sure there are others.)

Many readers/posters on Slashdot like to joke about this philosophy calling it instead "embrace and extinguish" because it seems that Microsoft, in their "extending" a particular technology, also make it incompatible with the originating technology. This "extending", coupled with Microsofts huge (some would say monopolistic) presence in the marketplace, places the original technology in jeopardy.

In another interoperability area, the SAMBA software suite has encountered more than a bit of difficulty in making it easier for Unix and Unix-like OS's to interoperate with Windows.

My question:

Since your focus at Microsoft seems to be the interoperability of your products with others, could you explain Microsoft's reluctance to "play fair" and adhere to existing standards?

Doug:

First of all, I think it is worth pointing out that standards, on their own, are not substantial enough to fully solve customer requirements. If you look at the UNIX world, the POSIX standards were only a subset of what you needed in an OS. The attempt by the Open Group to define the UNIX 95 and UNIX 98 standards still fell short of what it would take to build a fully functional UNIX operating system. As a result, the UNIX OS vendors took the standards and extended them to add the appropriate functionality they felt they needed to meet their customers' needs. Some of these enhancements were based on other standards but often these features were proprietary code that they did not share with the rest of the world. Why? Because they wanted to have features that they felt were compelling to customers and gave them an edge over their competitors. Extending standards beyond a given specification is a way of life for all software vendors. Show me one product that is built exclusively on a standard specification that does not include code beyond the standard. It doesn't exist.

Microsoft is very standards driven. We are an active participant in many of the standards bodies and have been leading the charge in promoting the use of XML, SOAP and other standards for our .NET initiative. We have not only "embraced" many of the computing platform dejure standards but we have also built products to embrace defacto standards from other operating system platforms. For example, we fully support NFS and NIS in our Services for UNIX product to allow full file sharing and user directory interoperability between our platform and UNIX or Linux platforms.

We should be very clear in defining the difference between standards and proprietary intellectual property as the above question seems to arbitrarily mix the two. When it comes to implementing standards-based software, we respect the standard and expect that our software will fully interoperate with other products that have also implemented the standard. We also develop software that is not based on an established standard - either no standard exists or the standard that exists does not meet our customer requirements. Should we be required to publish the source code or underlying designs of all our software so that anyone can copy it? I would hope not - much the same that companies in other industries have the right to build products and retain the intellectual property rights associated with those products.

10) Microsoft and KDE vs GNOME
by Karma Sucks

Has Microsoft evaluated the latest Linux desktop technologies such as KDE2.1.1/Qt2.3.0 and Ximian GNOME 1.2? Well, we know you probably did because you mentioned KDE/KFM extensively in your anti-trust trial.

The advances that these projects have been making is incredible. And at the same time differences between these projects is amazing. So what is Microsoft's evaluation of the situation. What does Microsoft think of KDE vs GNOME, in terms of the consequences for Microsoft and Linux?

Doug:

We have looked at both KDE and GNOME. There is some interesting work going on there. I personally feel it is too bad that the Linux community can't agree to build on one graphical environment. I had this debate with Bob Young once where he stated it was great that so many desktop options exist for the Linux user. I don't see it. Lots of choices of desktops in the academic community might be good for stimulating many different approaches but having too many choices in a commercial platform environment in the end, confuses developers and users. If the Linux community could take the best thinking from both the KDE and GNOME projects and join forces, they would have the best chance for success. ISVs would have one platform to write applications to and users would have one user experience to learn. However, that is only half the battle. Having a great graphical environment is a good start but commercial application developers need to be convinced that the platform can pay them dividends in future profits. As mentioned in a previous question, if the Linux community wants to attract great applications, then they need to be willing to compensate developers and that means paying for software.

HOLD IT DOUG!

I would like to respond to your comments about buying software, and selling the office to Linux.

Lets start at the end of your comment (I'm reffering to question 4)

You've mentioned Corel Linux. I happend to be one of their beta testers and used Corel Linux for a couple of weeks.

IMHO, the Corel Linux is something like "proof of consept" - yes, they did a nice job of packaging and making it easy for end user - but what a disribution is worth if there is only 1 security fix in 6 months? (go ahead, count the security fixes that debian had in that same branch they made the Corel Linux). Also, what about compatibility? they changed the QT libraries that they were practically useless for avrage programs to be compiled? haven't they heard about compatibility libraries? even RedHat puts compatibility libraries with a new major version of their distributions.
And updates? I didn't see any update besides the 1 security fix there.

So lets summorize this point: people don't just buy or use a product unless they read reviews about it and maybe following it along the way. With Corel Linux track so far - I wouldn't bother to use it.

Now - the porting to GNOME or KDE - come on Doug, you can do better then that! you're using Motif with applications that you port to Unix (or Linux), so whats GNOME or KDE got to do with it? you can use the XDND protocol (along with some others RPC like Sun RPC's) to do OLE. Go ahead - ask the guys at Mainsoft how they're doing it. Besides - all the distributions today are installing BY DEFAULT all the libraries that are necessary to run both GNOME and KDE applications.

As for your point of buying commercial software - You are more then welcome to call VMWare and ask them how they're VMWare for Linux is selling and why they make they're product first to Linux and then to Windows - they sell pretty well. In fact - they have been profitable since they started to sell their product.

So yes, an avrage Linux user doesn't buy lots of commercial software since most of them are free - but do a survey and you'll find that for a good commercial products with a good price - they'll be lots of people and companies who will buy commercial applications.

And another thing - MS attitude to Linux in terms of porting applications to Linux: Microsoft is porting their MSIE and Windows media player to Solaris and HP/UX - why not to Linux? We both know that by any count you have more Linux workstations then there are Sun's and HP Unix workstations COMBINED! so why not port your MSIE and Windows media player to Linux? if you already ported it to other unices - it wouldn't be that hard to move it further along to Linux. Even the GUI stuff can be ported with QT Libraries

my email address on this post is real, please - feel free to correct me or to respond me.

Re:He doesn't get it.

Very good point, and very revealing, too: sometimes you forget that to some people, the idea of cooperating and behaving socially is not only bizarre but frightening and possibly dangerous. I think the accepted term for this is 'sociopathic'.

Rather than have open source outlawed as being anti-American *g*, maybe it would be good to question everybody in the country, 'why would people do this?'. Anybody who literally did not understand why people cooperate and behave socially would be locked up as a sociopath, on the assumption that normal people can choose to behave socially or not, but people who don't even understand the concept are a danger to others :)

Open Standards, hmm?

<i>We are an active participant in many of the standards bodies and have been leading the charge in promoting the use of XML, SOAP and other standards for our .NET initiative.</i>

Well, a cursory glance at Dave Winer's <A href="http://www.scripting.com">Scripting News</a> might suggest otherwise. One of the leading exponents of SOAP, and of cross-platform interoperablity, talking fairly frankly about how he's had his fingers burned by "embrace, extend, exclude".

Some points ...

First of all, many thanks to Doug for his candid and non-obscenely-lawyerized comments/answers.

Something I would like to point out, however is the interesting non-mention of the GPL. "free Open Source software" is often mentioned, but never is the fact that the power of the "Linux movement" if I can use that term is pretty firmly rooted in the GPL. While I agree that RMS can come off as very strong most of the time, I do think it is significant that most software designed for Linux is not only available free of charge, and with the source code, but that it is protected by the GPL. This is the major difference, in my mind between the BSDs and Linux. Anyone can use BSD code (stuff like, oh I don't know ... a TCP/IP stack for instance), incorporate it into their code, and then hide it.

Microsoft has been in the profitable licenscing business for a long time now, and I think that while they say that Linux is their number one "target" right now, what they really mean is that the GPL and all its implications is their target, for it effectively competes on the philosophical level with Microsoft's licenscing stategies ... or at least I think it does. Many peole don't care about any of this, but they will in future. When the US Consitution was drafted up the Bill of Rights as we know it wasn't seen as something that was needed ... but some of the more extremeist of the drafters foresaw that it would become important in the future. I think the GPL should be looked at in the same light. Many think it's try to defend something that isn't that important right now ... and that may be true, but far in the future it is going to be extremely important. And the general public has shown time and time again that they often don't think about the far reaching consequences until it is way too late. IMO, the Microsoft licensing philosophy exploits this.

Also, when it comes to a single desktop environment, I think that compatibility would be nice, but that GNOME or KDE or any of the hundreds of individual window managers should not "concede" and merge together into a "unified linux desktop". That is the purpose of the distribution in my mind ... already some distributions, like Mandrake, default to a specific environment. If you are saavy enough to change it, hooray, if you don't want to futz with it, hooray.

In Brave New World stability was chosen at the cost of choice. Having a wide degree of choice does cause problems, does make some people feel bad emotions (anxiety, frustration, powerlessness), but I see the alternative of having the maddening hordes take the easy road of numbing happiness as a danger, not a boon.

Well, I guess that's about all I have to say about it. Thanks for reading.

Re:Typical M$

Can isn't the same as actually doing it. Yes, the code is out there, but there isn't very much cross-pollination, AFAIK, at least not from KDE to Gnome. Much of the code isn't directly transferrable and I think there's a bit of NIH working against it too. Of course you can run KDE and Gnome programs at the same time, but I don't really know how often that happens.

As for narrow-mindedness: Yes, it's nice to have a choice and competition is good as he himself pointed out in another part of the interview. However, he was mainly talking from the POV of a commercial developer who has to decide which environment to support when creating/porting a product. And it can be a problem: how can you be sure that when you choose KDE libs, the Gnome users won't shun your product, or the other way around? Besides, you can't be nowhere near sure that a user actually has the needed desktop environment on her Linux box.

Don't be blinded by the fact that he works for Microsoft. He does have a valid viewpoint and things aren't perfect in the Linux community. The current situation does have it good points, but there's the flipside, too.

Re:Choice and competition are *good*

This seems to be the pervailing attitude among those at Microsoft and elsewhere: users are stupid, so stupid that we must make all their decisions for them.

This seems to be the prevailing attitude among those "at" Linux and elsewhere: users are smart, so smart that they can figure out what ever we throw at them.

See how extremist everyone can get when Microsoft and Linux get mentioned in the same room? Doug makes a perfectly valid point about the usability and out-of-box experience of the typical Linux distro, and the knee-jerk reaction is to act like he's banging his shoe on the table, shouting "We will bury you."*

I'll take the typical developers' cop-out and say that it's a training issue. Too much of what people need to get the job done, and not enough of the overall metaphor. Here's a desktop, here's the icons, here's the menu, here's a folder tree. It doesn't matter if you use GNOME, KDE, Mac OS 9, Mac OS X, Win95, Win2K, WinXP, or WinPDQ. User interface design has only been moving in drips and drabs over the past five years or so. The biggest culture shock involves the mouse button count. :-)

I agree with Doug that too many choices, too soon, will confuse the average user. I also agree with Bob Young that, for the experienced user, choice is good. Either way, as long as there's competition, there won't be a monoculture.

Please, the world isn't that stupid.

I don't mean to be so nihilistic, but the world isn't as smart as you think. At the very least, it's far too impatient to frell around with downloading ALSA packages for their laptop's sound system, when Windows 2000 "just works."

"User-friendly" and "powerful" are not mutually exclusive. They just take more work.

*: ObAYB: All your desktop are belong to us.

We're not scare-mongering/This is really happening - Radiohead

Re:Blah blah blah

An operating system is substantially different than a car or a toaster. Can you make your toaster do arbitrarily many things, or interact with arbitrary components? I don't think so. And, actually, in "appliance" settings, Linux does extremely well. Take the Tivo, for instance. Noone says the Tivo is hard to use. That's because, like a car or a toaster, it has only one use.

When you come to something inherently complex, trying to act as if it were simple causes more problems than it solves. Granted, Linux swings farther in the other direction than it should. However, when the OS starts doing things "for you", without telling you, it complicates the issues, and confuses the user even more. Users are very able to follow instructions. Surprisingly so. The problem is that when a system tries to out-guess you, you can't just hand someone instructions - they end up fighting the system.

What needs to happen, both in Windows and Linux, is to have a more "appliance-oriented" attitude. The OS, as it is currently conceived, is a total waste of time for the average consumer. What needs to happen is for many more specialized "appliance-type" computers/OSs to spring forth. Linux is the optimal system for this, because of its componentization and customizibility.

This is the concept of the iMac, and it is truly the best way to go. For example, you need a "Grandma" machine, that doesn't allow you to add any devices or software, and just incorporates the functionality a "grandma" would want. Also, it should be organized based on the use patterns of the average "grandma". The "grandma" should have no conception of a separation of software and hardware, it should just be a complete package.

The same can be done for business terminals, graphic artists, and so forth. If you insist on having a more "general", "pluggable" interface, well, that's for techies. Any attempt to dumb that down to the "idiot" level will cause more problems than it solves. That doesn't mean that we should make them as complex as possible, but "dumbing them down" isn't the solution either. Consumers just want to get things done. They don't want to mess around endlessly with their systems.

Window's one graphical environment

I personally feel it is too bad that the Linux community can't agree to build on one graphical environment.

Yes, Linux needs to grow up and have a single, consistant interface, just like Windows. Look at the many products which accept the need for conformance under Windows. Products like Softimage [softimage.com] (example [softimage.com]) (though they may have an advantage, being owned by Microsoft for a while), LightWave [6] [lightwave6.com] (example [digitmag.co.uk], check out the conforming buttons and tabs), and Kai's Power Tools [corel.com] (example [corel.com])

Media players naturally conform to the standard Windows look and feel. Winamp [winamp.com] led the way. Soon there were competitors like K-Jofol [ronography.com] and Sonique [lycos.com] which felt that they could make their mp3 players conform even better to Windows GUI standards. RealPlayer [real.com] quickly followed. Apple realized they couldn't rehash the Macintosh interface for QuickTime [apple.com], and delivered a version that perfectly matched the Windows standard. Not to be out done, Microsoft released a new version of the Windows Media Player [microsoft.com] which perfectly complied with the Windows standards for interfaces.

Even the next version of Windows, Windows XP [microsoft.com], has been carefully crafted to conform to existing standards. With such strong and unwavering leadership, no one would even think of using an alternate shell [litestep.net] or replacing the entire widget set [windowblinds.net].

Thank you, Microsoft, for getting the world to agree on one graphical environment. Thanks to your efforts to end competition, there is no risk of the Windows platform fragmenting into a pile of inconsistent applications, each making their own rules.

Re:Security Vs Usability

Also, personally speaking, I must declare an interest. I much prefer using Linux to Windows because it is easy to use and allows doesn't want me to be an idiot and try to do everything for me. The last time I used windows it wouldn't let me recompile my kernel so that I could have working sound and access my linux partition.
Except it didn't work. So I was screwed over.

He doesn't get it.

He makes it very clear that he doesn't understand the nature of Free Software and GNU/Linux when he says, The model around Linux is truly bizarre. How much do RedHat or Caldera really make from selling their distributions?

He is focusing on the busines side of things, on the competitive side. He reflects the Micro$oft ethos and figures the only thing that matters are the other corporations and businesses. He overlooks what is really driving the Free Software Movement, the users and developers who actually do the work.

The model around GNU/Linux isn't bizarre at all. It's about what everyone should have learned in kindergarten: sharing, cooperating and playing nice with your friends. These are lessons that Micro$oft still needs to learn.

GNU/Linux isn't about bu$ine$$ or selling software. GNU/Linux is about a guy in Cambridge, MA and a guy in Helsinki who thought that the world would be a better place with a free implementation of a UNIX-like operating system, and the thousands (now millions) of other people who agreed with them.

Re:Some comments

If there was an Internet Explorer for Linux, it will NOT be a port of any existing code. If you look at the current versions of Internet Explorer for the Macintosh, they're written from scratch specifically for the Macintosh environment (it was written by a team of MS engineers based here in the Bay Area), owing nothing to the Windows version.

Very likely, IE for Linux will be written from scratch, and will likely function akin to the upcoming IE 6.0 for Windows 98/ME/2000/XP.

Re:Some comments

Internet Explorer for Solaris was kind of a rushed port that did not really take advantage of the graphical environment used normally in Solaris.

I think if we do see a version of IE that runs under Linux it will likely be a written-from-scratch version that takes advantage of the API calls used in KDE or GNOME so it works seamless in these graphical environments.

Some comments

I think he has some very interesting insights in regards to the computer industry--probably more than the vast majority of the Linux crowd.

First, I think that Microsoft will be a huge contributor to MacOS X. The reason is simple: it is relatively easy to write to the Mac environment, since all the API calls are standardized. After all, we will see Office for MacOS X and very likely Internet Explorer 6.0, too.

Second, Miller is correct that Linux is still primarily a server operating system. This is where Linux's strength lies, and don't be surprised that Microsoft offers ways for Linux servers to operate in the Microsoft.Net environment.

Finally, Microsoft may port a few programs to Linux. The most likely thing: Internet Explorer.

Re:skillfully skirted the 'hardware fingerprint' Q

I thought he answered it quite directly: "We charge money for our software."

This allows them to sell more software. Never mind the first-sale doctrine or any of that nonsense. They want your money, and they have the technological means to extract it. What more did you expect him to say?

Re:Choice and competition are *good*

A great example is component embedding. OpenOffice has a whitepaper up discussing the component models available on Unix systems.

Turns out you have:
+ The Gnome model (still in beta?)
+ The KDE model (different in KDE1 and KDE2 ?)
+ The Mozilla model
+ And now, the StarOffice model.

Meanwhile on Windows, you've got a single model, COM.

Now, tell me why a platform with maybe at best a 2% desktop marketshare needs 4 different ways of component embedding and a platform with 90% marketshare can get away with one.

And sure, there's always a good reason that you don't want to someone else's widget set. But, now, we are talking about fundemental interoperability issues. It's been possible to insert (say) a Excel chart into a WordPerfect document on Windows for nearly 7 years now. Will this sort of thing ever be possible on the tower of babel of Unix desktops?

But, yeah, I know emacs and pipes rule and nobody needs that stuff.
--

Re:Blah blah blah

I didn't say it was the same as a car or a toaster. I had only two points which, apparently, I somehow obfuscated.

The original post said that idiot proof things can only be operated by idiots. His implication was 1) that Windows is idiot proof, or will be Real Soon Now, 2) only idiots can operate such things. In response I say, 1) Windows is so far from being idiot proof that his statement is ridiculous, 2) there are plenty of idiot proof things in the world that non-idiots are able to operate, invaliding the entire basis of his "insightful" claim.

Secondly, the original post seemed to be operating under the assumption that everyone wants the same thing from their computer, namely what the original poster wants. Some people don't want to tweak every last thing on their toaster. They aren't interested in the physics of toasting. They just want to eat toast. Different people want different things from their computer, which will necessitate different approaches in OS design and user interface.

FWIW, I agree with you that OSes need to evolve towards a more appliance like attitude, at least for the overwhelming majority of users and uses. I would wager that the poster I responded to do does not agree, since that is making things idiot proof.

Re:Choice and competition are *good*

This seems to be the pervailing attitude among those at Microsoft and elsewhere: users are stupid, so stupid that we must make all their decisions for them.

No, users are trying to USE their computers for something. Unlike kernel hackers, geeks, and your general /. crowd, most people WANT TO GET WORK DONE on their computers. They really don't give a damn about pushing the envelope on new OS technology, upgrading their file system, or taking positions in a religious war.

I'm beginning to think that Microsoft really will continue to kick Linux's ass around the block, because no one seems to want to actually figure out why their products sell so well. MS woke up, and they clearly understand how and why people use Linux, and are incorporating that knowledge in their development and sales goals.

Linux folks seem content to just say "oh, they're just sucky, so pooh on them" rather than actually learn something frm their success.

NORMAL USERS DO NOT WANT A HUNDRED DIFFERENT WINDOW MANAGERS! THEY WANT TO GET WORK DONE AND GO HOME.

I do not know how much more clearly this can possibly be stated, but it doesn't seem to be getting through to Linux developers. You would think that 95%+ of desktop systems using a single interface would give the hint. We're not talking about developers or power users, who DO like to customize for power, we're talking about actual users who write reports, run spreadsheets, and download porn. They do not give a rat's ass about KDE vs GNome, and if you tell them the first thing they have to do to use the system is decide on a freaking window manager, forgetaboutit.

There rarely is One Right Way

That is true. But there usually is one standard way. Regardless of the inefficiency of the QWERTY keyboard, MOST people don't have trouble with it because its pretty much the same everywhere.

I'm sure NASA is thrilled that their engineers can "choose" between english and metric units -- it gives them more power! So what if it leads to the occassional incompatibility and loss of millions of dollars in equipment. We'd hate to take away the power of choice.

Most people are not seeking the "perfect operating system" (otherwise known as One Right Way). People are looking to get work done, and Microsoft excels at meeting the PERCIEVED needs of their customers. Whether Linux or some other system would be better if properly customized and learned is a whole 'nother topic, but Microsoft sells a solution that is Good Enough (and in business, Good Enough is usually more cost-effective than One Right Way).

The first thing Apple did when they moved to OSX was standardize the interface. They didn't REMOVE the ability to customize it (or to run X with Gnome or whatever), but the truth is the VAST majority of users have no desire whatsoever to customize their interface beyond wallpaper and icons and sounds, etc.

Please, the world isn't that stupid. Don't insult the people who fund the very survival of your company.

MS is the single most successful company in the history of the world, pretty much. As long as they stay paranoid, I don't think they need to worry about going bankrupt any time soon.

People are not stupid, and for you to take "standardization" as an assusation of stupidity is an interesting mischaracterization of Doug's statements. People have enough complexity in their lives, we hardly need to be forcing more on them just to send an email. If they want to customize, they'll find out how, but Linux forces the issue from the first boot, and that turns off a lot of people just looking to get work done.

Editing the windows registry is no harder or easier than editing unix config files, the difference is that you don't HAVE to edit the registry just to use the system. You don't even have to know that the registry exists...

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Re:About Microsoft

Open Source creates as much wealth as proprietary products do. The difference is that there is not a huge chunk of that wealth siphoned off to a vendor in the process. Now that in and of itself isn't as bad as it first sounds, because what goes around, comes around. However, when you have to fund the vendor through this mechanism, and if the vendor has a say in how the product behaves, then they will end up putting forth a lot of effort to make the product do certain things strictly to enhance that siphoning. Software vendors like Microsoft have to ensure that customers pay for the products and services and not steal them. The problem is that so much effort is expended to ensure that revenue stream as opposed to other innovations that actually benefit everyone. In the past we have not seen a great deal of this because as the computer market grew, Microsoft's corporate value grew along with it. Now that there is saturation (virtually every office and most homes now have a computer, and the vast majority of them run Microsoft OS products), Microsoft has to find other means to not just ensure a revenue stream, but to also make it grow.

One big difference between Microsoft Windows and Open Source systems like BSD and Linux (the distributions) is what and who the designers are focusing on. I can assure you that for whatever goals Microsoft has in terms of value growth and value siphoning, they are indeed focusing on making software for others. The BSD and Linux community still come across as making something more for themselves than for others. However, that may not be as bad as it sounds. Read on.

With the technology of software becoming ever more complex, it still takes people with intense technical backgrounds to deal with the issues. I'm often quoting Bruce Schneier [counterpane.com] when he says "Security is not a thing, it is a process" and I keep wondering if that shouldn't also apply to virtually everything else in computers and technology, as well.

Business is shifting more and more to a service strategy. Microsoft clearly knows this and are working to position themselves to provide these services. Others will do so as well. It will happen over a broad scale from the largest (Microsoft, IBM, Sun, Oracle, etc) to the smallest (your local contractor). Many new business ideas will come not as products, but as services. The technical community will be the source of a lot of that, if not most of it.

Where Open Source and free software comes into this, and where BSD and Linux have their advantage, is that they are oriented more to the technical person who is deploying these services. They will then be the embedded components not of a product, but of a service, where the particulars matter only to the service provider, not the customer. When businesses stop buying computer systems as products, and start subscribing to them as services, they will be less and less involved in the roles of administering them. The service provider will be doing that, and the focus on making the administrative interfaces easy for the technically inept will become less and less important.

Why should someone, even a sales guy in an ISP, be administering a system? They shouldn't. It will be done for them as part of the service when they shift from buying a product to subscribing to a service. Services are where it's at, and those who do have the tools handy (your collection of free software) are in the some of the best positions to create and offer those services.

Re:I don't know what else I expected...

Does anyone in Redmond think the /. crowd will feel like they got real answers out of this?

You know, apart from question 8, I was surprised to find that I do feel like I got real answers. Of course, it's Microsoft's own special view of the world -- but I still feel that it was answering the questions clearly and coherently. Don't confuse a different point of view from your own with a failure to truly answer the question.

interesting

I liked his last response about KDE and Gnome and deciding on one, or joining the best aspects of both. I know that both of those groups have their differences, and it probably will never happen, but just think of the progress that would be made on one project with double the number of developers, instead of on two completely separate projects.

I'm actually torn between the two. I use KDE 2.1.1 at work, and Gnome 1.2 at home. Sometimes I switch, but I think both have their advantages and disadvantages.

Recently, I decided to write a small app which I'll soon GPL once it's functional. I looked at both Gnome and KDE, and decided that KDE seems simpler to write code for (I'm not a code wizard :).

I probably just started a huge flame thread, but Linux seriously needs one desktop standard that nearly everyone can agree on. Unfortunately, alot of work has been put into each system, and if someone did start a project to merge the two, we'd just end up with Yet Another Alternative, which would make 3 major environments. Lot's of choice for users, but it sucks for commercial developers who want to port to Linux.

You may be a Microsoft Drone if...

I wonder, is there anybody at Microsoft with a somewhat senior position who isn't a drone? This whole thing just sounds like the questions any other senior MS employee would give, with a bit of Unix knowledge thrown in for seasoning.

On question 1 he says "Microsoft has received unwarranted criticism by some for its [in]ability to interoperate with other operating systems" and that "I actually believe we have better interoperability today than any other OS out there". I think just the opposite is true. Linux could read FAT32 partitions when NT couldn't. You can open a Windows formatted floppy in an Apple OS, Linux, or any number of other OSes, but try going the other way. Because MS is the dominant desktop OS, they have no real need to play well with the other desktop OSes. The other OSes, on the other hand, have to play well with MS just to be useful. When MS does make something work well with a competitor's product it's often because that competitor is dominant in that particular area. That's just business.

He could have answered "We're the dominant player in the desktop OS market space, so obviously it adds more value to our competitors products when they make their offerings work well with ours than making ours work well with theirs." That would have been honest and nobody would have faulted him for it. (Well some rabid MS haters would have but they'd fault him no matter what he said). By claiming that MS has better interoperability than any other OS out there he just comes off as yet another MS drone. It really looks like MS is founded on intellectual dishonesty.

Next, on question 2 he seems to lay out a few backhanded attacks like "... Mac OS X, as a result of the new UNIX-like features". Saying that OS X has "UNIX-like features" is like saying that ice has some very water-like qualities. Now it could just be unflattering wording, but it just looks like more incidental MS FUD. "OS X has UNIX-like features but don't get your hopes up".

With the question of MS security WRT outlook and the VBScript viruses he slipped by the question like a seasoned politician. Instead of addressing the issue -- "what caused this horrible security model" he addressed how they fixed one particular problem, then quickly tried to change the focus to something else. It's a model so often used in politics:

Q: Some people are concerned with [LARGE ISSUE W] after [INCIDENT X]. What do you have to say about this criticism?
A: [INCIDENT X] was unfortunate, but we quickly came up with [QUICK FIX Y] and since then there have been no further issues. We'll be doing great things in the future, as evidenced by [DISTRACTING SHINY THING Z].

His answer to the next question tries to take an isolated incident: Corel's poor results in their one and only foray into the Linux area, and turn it into proof of a bigger issue. Corel failed and they had cool stuff, so what hope does anyone else have? Anybody who knows the whole Corel incident well knows that there were a huge number of problems in the way Corel went about doing things, from arguably violating the GPL in their beta test agreements to making their version of Linux look like a bad Windows rip-off.

The next question actually started with a truly honest and straightforward answer "We definitely take Linux very seriously." In less than a paragraph he was again slipping in the FUD: "But looking at Linux technically, there is no real revolution here. Linux looks and feels like UNIX and isn't any better than a commercial version of UNIX."

If Linux isn't better, but is just as good as a commercial version of UNIX then isn't that a revolution right there? An OS as good as a commercial UNIX where every standard component is Free is revolutionary.

Next he tries to dismiss Linux because the concept of a free OS isn't new. But he's again missing what makes Linux such an important thing. Not only is it free (no cost) but it's Free (libre). And not just as a whole, but free *per component*. The GPL, and its widespread use, is revolutionary, and obviously MS recognizes this because they're now lobbying the government to rid the world of this unAmerican scourge.

The next question? Dodged. But if you read between the lines the answer is obvious: "For companies that choose to charge money for their software, there should be ways to ensure they are paid appropriately ... and have some legal or technical assistance to protect their property."

My guess is that as soon as MS builds hardware copy protection into their OS they'll launch a FUD attack against Linux claiming that Linux doesn't care about protecting someone's IP, and that it's a system for "hackers" who only use it so they can get around The Law.

The issue of hardware fingerprints in the next question was ignored completely. He only mentioned RedHat and Caldera enough to insult them. But the end result the attitude was perfectly clear. "We're a propriety software company and that's what we're going to stay, no matter what".

The next answer was actually well written FUD. So well written I missed what he was doing the first time around. He built up a straw man pretending the issue was building software that did what a standard said and nothing more, then showed how ridiculous that was.

At the same time he dodged the real issue of Microsoft breaking standards. Apache can do some really cool things that aren't part of any HTTP standard, but when it comes right down to it, Apache still is a web server that follows the relevant standards. An end-user will never have to know what kind of web server he's using to know if his browser can use it (pages are another matter). Is Microsoft Kerberos truly Kerberos? What about Microsoft's Java? If they had simply added keywords to the language that affected how the code was compiled but the code still ran on all JVMs that would be one issue. But Microsoft's Java extensions made bytecode that could no longer truly be called Java bytecode.

The last answer actually seems like it comes from the heart (I guess his wasn't completly removed when he became part of the collective -- they have it on standby so it can be used in an emergency like this).

Anyhow, I wasn't impressed. Are there any senior level Microsoft employees who can do any one of these things?

• Admit the company made a serious design mistake in a product (say a horrible security model in outlook)
• Concede the company in the past has used shadey business practices
• Say that there are areas they are seriously behind