Gates' Replacement says Microsoft Must Simplify

Javaman59 writes "This article in The Australian newspaper describes the background and the agenda of Ray Ozzie, Bill Gates' replacement as chief architect at Microsoft. The creator of Lotus Notes, he's a high-calibre technologist. From the article: 'Ray's a programmer's programmer .. He's much closer to an uber-engineer, whereas Bill hasn't been a programmer for a number of years.' Ozzie is also driving Microsoft to simplify its software: 'Complexity kills .. It sucks the life out of developers, it makes products difficult to plan, build and test, it introduces security challenges, and it causes end-user and administrator frustration.' He's not the only brilliant programmer in the world, but he does have Microsoft's resources behind him."

Re:Technologist!

[strider44]

I don't get it. Technologist is a real, valid word: http://www.wordreference.com/definition/technologi st [wordreference.com]

Re:From the horse's... uh... well...

[poot_rootbeer]

Then he'll find that Microsoft has become so mired in its own muck that spurring the current crop of programmers who've been indoctrinated in the "Microsoft Way" will prove nigh impossible.

That doesn't sound like such an insurmountable obstacle to me. Microsoft can just do what they've done for the past 20 years -- wait for the current batch of "Microsoft Way" indoctrinees to burn out around age 30, and replace them with a bunch of workaholic recent grads willing to put in 70 hour weeks for the price of some free sodas and a complimentary mountain bike.

There's enough churn in the company that any issues with rank-and-file employee attitudes within the company can work themselves out within just a few years.

Re:He is not a programmer's programmer

[Anonymous Coward]

The company I work for has 20,000+ employees and uses Exchange without a hitch. Why? Because everything is networked and each inbox is 20MB in size. After that, you have a default archive PST that is placed on a Samba NFS mount. Storage is not a problem, which is key because our company is required by the SEC to store every email ever sent forever (literally, forever). While I'm not a diehard Outlook fan (I prefer Thunderbird at home), I'd say that Exchange does just fine when the administrators handle it properly. A good systems administration plan can handle anything the business needs.

GE uses Exchange - 250K people (when I was there)

[Anonymous Coward]

When I worked for GE they used Exchange for 250K people. It was server-side unreliable (at least in our division) but it was a decent user experience.

I have since been involved with a smaller Notes install - Just 12K seats. IT WAS A HORRIBLE PILE OF SHIT.

IT was elated that they pulled off the config (of Notes/Domino), it was (server side) reliable, it ran on Linux, it fit thier needs.

The users were left in the cold with the brutal Notes interface. Tales of its suckage are all true.

I currently use Notes (at a MUCH smaller company) and am constantly amazed of how bad this software really is.

Re:He is not a programmer's programmer

[ralmin]

How is your performance using large PST files over SMB? We have a tiny 10-person organisation doing that. The server is on 1000 Mbit and the rest on 100 Mbit ethernet. When the users' PSTs get over about 500 MB they start to slow down, and performance with 1.7 GB PSTs is atrocious. :-(

Simon.

Re:He is not a programmer's programmer

[Dog-Cow]

Ford Motor Co.

You might have heard about them. 130k+ computer users on Outlook/Exchange. I don't remember email ever being down due to software problems.

Re:He is not a programmer's programmer

[rossifer]

Work at a real company where millions of dollars change hands on a daily basis and Notes/Domino is the only solution.

This is a different conclusion at some places where billions of dollars change hands on a daily basis.

For instance, Disney uses Exchange/Outlook. And not just Disney Parks, Columbia Pictures, ESPN, ABC, Disney Interactive (Kingdom Hearts I and II), Disney Consumer Products, or... but the entire enormous media/marketing conglomerate that is Disney, Inc. uses Exchange/Outlook. There are rare exceptions, usually acquisitions that haven't been fully assimilated yet (*cough* Pixar). I actually don't know how many people that is, but it's comfortably in six figures, probably in the range of half a million people.

Somewhat interesting place to work, if only to watch the people who've seriously partaken of the kool-aid. There are some strange cats in the cubicle farms at Disney. Also there's a suprising number of incredibly hot asian women. If you haven't had a few sips of the kool-aid before starting work, however, it's just another job at a huge US company.

Regards,
Ross

Re:Competitor for Outlook?

[fm6]

Ray Ozzie's theory that email is obsolete [gadgetopia.com] may have prevented Groove from including an email client. But Notes has always included an email client.

Anyway, you're missing the point. Yes, people primarily use Outlook to send and receive email. But if you deploy it together with Exchange, you supposedly have a groupware solution. And indeed, the Outlook/Exchange combination is obviously meant to compete with the Notes/Domino combination.

As for Sharepoint, I think you're a little confused as to exactly what it is. Sharepoint is server side software, and it's meant to be used in conjunction with Outlook [microsoft.com], not in place of it. Of course Sharepoint has a web interface too — which I guess is what you're thinking about. Which isn't supposed to be the primary interface. Though perhaps folks use it anyway, rather than deal with Outlook's weirdnesses.

Groove was conceived as a P2P alternative the above. Hence my assertion that Groove and Outlook compete.

Re:From the horse's... uh... well...

[Listen Up]

"I think it's been widely acknowledged that the biggest problem with MS is the sheer scale of what they've tried to do in recent years. There's little experience in the industry of how to develop projects on the scale of Windows or Office effectively, no handbook of how to keep the bug count down and avoid introducing security flaws, performance hits, or whatever other scalability problems in software with dev teams of the size they use."

Not even close. Just off the top of my head I can think of any major operating system today (Solaris/AIX/etc.), programming langauges (Java), any major distributed computing environment/banking/etc. (CapitalOne, Bank of America, DOD, etc.) that are equal or greater in complexity to any software written by Microsoft. There are hundreds if not thousands of programs and systems being programmed, debugged and run every single day that are of extremely large scalability and complexity. While Microsoft does make large and complex software, they do not make the largest or the most complex software, and there is PLENTY of experience and resources available out there for even companies like Microsoft to learn from.

I'm an Exchange/Notes administrator

[Poohsticks]

I've been an email admin now for about 8 years as my primary focus. I've administered ccMail (back in the day), Netscape mail, Exchange (5.5 through E2K3) and Notes (4.0 through 6.5). I've done migrations and architecture design for all systems as well. Over the years I've learned a few things about SMTP, databases and email. Each product has it's benefits and each product has it's faults. Here are a few things to consider if you're comparing Exchange to Notes:

Exchange

Benefits

1) It's not Notes! (sorry couldn't resist)

2) Mail handling is it's primary function and it does it pretty dang well.

3) Outlook and Outlook web access work pretty well. Say what you want about the client experience, but compared to Notes... Outlook/OWA rocks.

4) Tight integration with all other Microsoft OS/applications and AD. This is pretty important for user authentication and security.

5) Fast and reliable SMTP engine.

6) Connectors to every system under the sun. If it isn't a built-in Microsoft code connector, then the manufacturer of the third party system will have one (think Rightfax, Call-Pilot, you name it).

7) Backwards compatibility for a whole mess of clients. Although it's a toss-up on whether or not you want to call this a benefit vs a fault.

8) It scales LARGE if you design it properly. It takes a lot of experience and time, but you CAN scale Exchange for a global 100K plus environment (a heck of a lot easier than Notes if you ask me, but YMMV)

Faults

1) Database replication for redundancy is non-existent. This one is a true SUCK. Notes really gets this right.

2) Application level clustering is non-existent. Again, Notes gets this right. Clustering in an Exchange world means OS level Windows clustering, which is complicated and delicate (although it gets better with every patch and OS upgrade).

3) Encryption is an afterthought. S/MIME while supported is a mess to manage in an AD infrastructure and you can forget PGP completely.

4) An awful lot of infrastructure dependencies with E2K and later. DNS, WINS (god help us), AD, the list goes on. That's an awful lot of infrastructure to put in place for one or two servers.

5) Email archival and storage management is weak to non-existent. You'll have to go third party for cradle -to-grave data lifecycle management.

Notes:

Benefits

1) Database replication. Notes works pretty damn seamlessly in replication.

2) Application level clustering. It just works. One of the nice things about Notes.

3) Console window. I love being able to watch the internals of the Notes server scroll through that CLI. Watch the server console for 15 minutes every day and you'll get a REALLY good idea what's going on in your environment.

4) Encryption is strong and built in to the app at every level. Pretty dang easy to admin too.

Faults

1) Horrendous client UI. This is the biggest SUCK I've ever seen in a client UI. God this thing is horrible.

2) Terrible email engine. Notes does application database work fairly well, but it is NOT an email server. I don't care what anyone tells you, email is never supposed to get stuck in a queue the way that Notes does. Have to restart the internal mail queue routers constantly just to keep messages flowing. Second biggest SUCK in relation to Notes.

3) Terrible web experience/access to email. I thought Exchange 5.5 OWA was bad, but it looks like paradise compared to Notes.

4) Client manage-ability from an admin perspective. GPO's and Outlook work pretty well. Notes doesn't have anything close. And again, we're back to the Notes client SUCK.

Look, I'm an admitted Exchange guy. It's what I do. Even more bizarre to most people... I like it. Not just like it, I've made a career out of it. That said, I'm not blind to the fact that it's not the only solution or the best solution. Honestly, there are things that Microsoft Exchange can do a LOT better. I'm encouraged by the direc