Debunking the Microsoft myths
Published: 26 Mar 2002 17:05 GMT
Whenever I visit Microsoft, I'm always reminded that the Microsoft of reality -- at least the Microsoft I see when I talk to the people who actually design, build, and market the company's technologies and products -- is very different from the Microsoft of myth.
Before I calculate my Microsoft Report Card, based on my trip to Redmond earlier this week, I'd like to address some of those myths and explain how they vary from the reality I've seen firsthand.
Myth: Microsoft can bowl over any company it chooses.
Reality: While Microsoft could theoretically use its Fort Knox-sized quantities of cash to take down the competition, the company is too conservative to do so.
Consider all the markets in which Microsoft is an also-ran: consumer financial software (losing to Intuit), databases (IBM and Oracle), enterprise computing generally (to several competitors), game consoles (Sony), game software (again, to many competitors), and Internet services (AOL).
Sure, Microsoft controls the desktop operating system and office productivity applications businesses -- and those are substantial. But that control hasn't translated into the total domination of the digital marketplace that many people have imagined.
Myth: Trustworthy Computing will be accomplished soon.
Reality: Contrary to what some uninformed reporters might have you believe, Microsoft has never claimed that its products will become more "trustworthy" in the near term.
Most people, when they hear Bill Gates say he wants to make his company's products more trustworthy, think he's talking about stopping hackers and data thieves. That's certainly part of the plan. And making sure computers don't crash -- for any reason -- is also an important part of it. The real goal is what I'm calling "always-there computing."
But making its products more secure, reliable, and available is going to take time. The people I've met with this week in Redmond treat Bill's Trustworthy Computing memo as a major change in what they do. But making applications and systems more secure and reliable doesn't generate immediate, dramatic results. One of the leaders of the corporate-wide effort to make security Job No. 1 quotes Sir Winston Churchill to describe the task at hand: "This is not the beginning of the end, it is the end of the beginning."
Myth: Microsoft wants to capture and sell your personal information.
Reality: One of the problems here is that people confuse security holes in Microsoft products with a lack of concern about privacy. Just because old software wasn't secure doesn't mean Microsoft is the enemy on the privacy or security front
For the time being, I'm taking Bill Gates at his word and believe he's much closer to offering a solution to the privacy problem than being the problem itself. I expect to see Microsoft use its leverage and influence to convince or coerce companies to adopt privacy policies that are easy for consumers to understand, and to accept or opt out of. I have nothing but Bill's assurances so far. But I expect to see some actions that bear them out soon.
Myth: Microsoft doesn't care what you think.
Reality: Yes, Microsoft is large and even monolithic. But they spend a lot of time seeking, and responding to, customer input. They don't always do it as well as they'd like to, or even as well as they should. But they do it.
Microsoft customers are, for example, winning some key battles in the .Net arena. Where Microsoft once planned to introduce its controversial My Services (previously code-named Hailstorm) as part of MSN, the services are now very likely to be available from a variety of providers -- banks, for example -- right from the beginning. And where the Liberty Alliance, founded by Sun to challenge Microsoft's Passport authentication scheme, once looked like the challenge to a range war, I now expect Microsoft will find a way to make everyone happy.
The company has learned that it needs to better communicate with -- and include in its plans -- a variety of stakeholders. That awareness is creating some vague sense of glasnost in how Microsoft is implementing its big-picture plans.
While here, I've seen Microsoft's vision of how computing and entertainment will change and how a variety of new technologies, being introduced in bits and pieces, will combine to make good the tarnished promise of the Internet. But it's going to take me a couple of days to digest it all. By about this time next week, after I've thought it all out and run it past some respected colleagues, I hope to share my conclusions with you. For now, I'll just say there are very exciting times ahead.
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