Comment Articles

New job for the ultimate nerd

Guy Kewney AnchorDesk

Published: 18 Jan 2000 16:48 GMT

He says he's going to remain as "chief software architect" . Sorry, Bill, but aren't you in danger of believing your own PR department's hype? Admit it: what you're good at is building an empire.

For example, it only just occurred to me that there's a very easy, sensible explanation for why Microsoft has decided not to ship Windows CDs with PCs any more. The 'official' reason -- that it is to prevent piracy -- can't be disproved. But the real reason, I suspect, is that if you supply Windows on the hard disk, then you've pretty much ruled out the idea of partitioning the hard disk with Partition Magic, and installing Linux on the spare space. That's a typicall Bill-inspired legally marginal manoeuvre.

Oh, sure, Bill; I'll admit you're a better than competent programmer; no doubt about it. I couldn't write a Basic interpreter, and you started your career doing a successful (rather good) one. And I don't doubt that Visual Basic is very largely inspired by your vision. But... well, to be honest, most graduate computer science students could write a Basic interpreter, and there's got to be more to life than Basic. And what you say you're going to do, is innovation.

Recently, I was party to a project, to find the "Millennium Award Winner" for PC Magazine, as part of the Technical Innovation Awards (TINAs). To start with nobody could really agree on the basis for the award. In the end, we decided that it would have to go to the company which had won the most TINAs in the previous years.

Well, that meant that it went to Microsoft. Yet this was a paradox. Yes; they have lots of products, and some of them have indeed been innovative in some way or other -- but most people feel that Microsoft's contribution to the ship of progress, has been to provide the anchor -- to slow it down.

For example, time was when a word processor would cost you real money. Then Microsoft decided to compete in word processors, and did it by stacking the feature table, and cutting the price. Today, you get a word processor virtually free with a PC, and with a spreadsheet and Web authoring package and presentation package and several other packages, all included. Rival companies which used to charge £400 or more for just one of those packages, are reduced to bundling them all together and asking a tenner for the lot. Yes, it's a change; and yes, it's even good for the consumer. But is it innovation? Well...