Sensible Perspectives from Microsoft's Steve Ballmer
Published March 22, 2006
Too often Microsoft gets bad publicity. For a change, let's look at some of Steve Ballmer's recent interviews — full of sense, it appears to me.
Speaking in New York this past week, he highlighted the fact that Microsoft may have a TCO (total cost of ownership) advantage over open source software. As he sees it, there's little innovation happening in the open source world to empower people and improve productivity. I have to agree to a large extent (if we agree to exclude Google apps from the list).
Look at the open source share of applications in desktops — it is getting increasingly hard to spot any clear winner (widely accepted - not within in a community). I have long felt that for the open source movement to succeed, it needs many killer apps in the desktop world — this is the segment in which mass acceptance will most assuredly be reached. Where are the widely accepted and used open source equivalents of Microsoft Office, mail server, and other apps, with millions and millions and downloads and having one third of a market share like that of Firefox? Mind you, these are not innovative products — we are talking about products that are in mass use.
In a News.com interview, Ballmer points out, "The truth is that the way information technology decisions are made in a company is really complicated. You really have four points of view, and we have to work with all of them- end users, central IT, line-of-business executives, and then the business leaders, who could be the head of sales, finance or operations". Ballmer is again spot on. Talk to enterprise software vendors - these are definitely the key stakeholders in any enterprise software decision.
Too often, we see that enterprise vendors are focused on just a fewer number of the constituencies that come into play in the process of decision-making. We see a different focus in established industries where business relies too much on vendor talk (too often their trust in IT is low - as their mail server clean-up did not happen very well, or the last roll-out got delayed, or the nth departmental extension could not get supported, or plainly it's the case that the competition is showcasing the adoption of sophisticated technologies, and so on). In contrast we also see smaller/new age enterprises focusing too much on technology with very little concern about the outside world/business.
Software vendors give differing or skewed emphasis to these constituents - the affected/ignored lot would work overtime to slow down or damage the initiative. While on paper, good management and governance could help overcome these obstacles, in reality they are far more costly solutions. So it's time for vendors to look at All Constituent Satisfaction (ACS) as a measure to focus on.
- Sensible Perspectives from Microsoft's Steve Ballmer
- Published: March 22, 2006
- Type: News
- Section: Sci/Tech
- Filed Under: Sci/Tech: Computers, Culture: Business and Economics, Sci/Tech: Software
- Writer: Sadagopan S
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all i can say is that statements coming from microsoft are mostly self-serving in nature. when you talk of opensource, you should not limit yourself only on desktop. for one, apache, an open source platform, dominates the web server field. there are many commercial quality web applications, cms, crm, etc (mambo, sugarcrm, etc.) that are evolving on a daily basis in terms of upgrades, plugins, etc.
I second what post 1 has said.
People dont move to Linux desktops because they have to start learning it again from the begging.
Putting this into an analogy, yourv learnt how to type on the qwerty keyboard, you can type fast and realible, But theres another keyboard called the Dvorak, and susposibly you can type faster and more arrcurate with it.
Now why when u already know how to type on one keyboard would you change to another for what someone said would be better in the long run.. you will have to go through all the effort of learning to type again!
I think the Linux world is all set to go application wise, they just need to bend the learning curve down.
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I must say that your interpretation of open source is quite off ... opensource is a thorn it the eye of MS and other *major labels* mostly becouse it vouod if widely accepted give smaller shares to different programs not emphesisisng a single design concept to be so much better then the other ... that vould force the other companies to set up standards that are broader defined unlike Word or PDF taking away the main bussiness advantage they claim to have ... as we know from the katastrofic case of Word, even the same interpreter on a standard created solly by one company the displayed results vary differently, form version to version ...with that said, ms is the second company on the list not to be able to meet its own marketing hype... 90 % of the computer users around the world are not like us ITguys. They know how to type a page in office and how to send a mail in outlook ... thats it ... these people are NOT flexible enough to addapt to rapid changes the industy is going trough ... they dont do months of free beta testing for a company that wants to charge 199$ for a product. Opensource is comparable to homebrew on consolse ... its gradually increases its posibilities and inovations at an ever accelerateing pace the more users become *aware* of their systems posibilites and gain basic understaning on how the stuff behind the page on the screen works... These people will find a way in the digital realm unfortinatly it is joe avorege who will fall victim to mass media manipulation and propaganda in the end ... the said part is that that is what the execs want ... no free information age , like the labels in the music industry... there satus quo is starting to shake and that is there main consern .. not the users rights ... In my belief enforcing a control strictning in the internet trough variouse TCM and DRM like skeems that deprive users of their own right of choice is going to backfire on the industry .. specially the big wendors and software companies... in recent years i migrated from XP to Linux and from Adobe to open source like GIMP... i work in the media sector and i can assure u that with current open source software you can do exactly the same things u vould with Adobe Photoshop that costs 200 bucks. I wont even mention productivity management where linux and other unix based OSes have surpassed the windows interface years ago ... but even if one has the tools .. one has to adapt to use them .. learn ... and that is the only thing that keeps windows afloat... the *joes* were tought how to use word on win 95 and its the same on XP ... they are just unable or unwilling to adapt to the changes .. but when the price of stayin in the same old shirt will become to great to bear people will start looking elseware... besides u cant get better customer support than in an open source forum .. its free and the poeple who answer are well avare and knowledable ... unlike on Microsofts and Atis expesive hotlines...
I wont even go into the legal aspect of owning no rights to the product the user aquiere ... a speciall priviledge the Industry has enjoyed for to long ...and another fine example of why intellctual property law is nothing more then a tool for the big wigs these days*
There are many aspects that make open source so open, and I dislike the notions coming mostly form ms employes that there is no inovation where infact the features u will see in Vista are mostly already present in Opensource and i wont even go into the user interface where microsoft will *reinvent the well* form looikng at GNOME, KDI and MAC OS *wich is not open source*
I know that microsofts agenda is to get rid of the GNU public licence that really needs to be upgraded in regards to the coming rape of out privacy in the enforced TCP platform otherwise it will be nothing but a worthless piece of paper ..
If we are to become an mature information society the greed for profit will have to take the second place ... there will still be enught money for everyone .. even the littleonce ... unfortionatly the people calling themselves exectuives dont like the notion that they vould acctually have to work for there money and start earning the amounts that they should ... so no more Porche GT and no more island in the caribean ... a price they will try to avoid paying at any cost.