If the moons align and I do somehow make it out Robert.. I would like you to hook me up with the guy(s) that wrote the runas command. I really need to understand why Microsoft approached it the way they did. Especially with the huge /savecred hole and the idiotic behaviour of the GUI hooks of runas.
And of course... I do believe we need to hook up to discuss movie rights for Microsoft monkeys. Maybe there is a job for me as an agent or something 
I'd come if you'd answer two questions on releasing the following information.
1). The full documentation for Microsoft Office file formats.
2). Release the MS-RPC IDL files that describe RPC communication between Windows clients and servers.
I don't expect answers to these questions (other than "get lost" - which is the answer I've gotten from all Microsoft executives every time I've asked .
Never mind - maybe the EU will fix this... .
Without answers to these things the PDC will be only worth something to the "Microsoft api-of-the-month" club - useless if your job is to deliver *real* interoperability between Microsoft and non-Microsoft systems.
Jeremy.
"Cost justification about contacts are only sound if during the conference you can actually hook up with these people."
I've been to three MEC events, before it got rolled up into TechEd. At the first 2 (didn't bother to check last time), the Commnet directory didn't have much user information in it, particularly city and state data. I would have liked to find out who else from Montana was attending--if anyone. Think about discovering at PDC that somebody down the street is working on the same stuff that you are. Or having an impromptu "local user group" meeting.
Hunter, we're working on this kind of stuff. Hopefully have some news soon.
Jeremy,
Get lost!
Seriously, I don't know the answers to the questions. I don't think that the PDC would be a good event for you, though, if you expect to get those answers.
You're welcome . Thanks for the consistency .
Seriously though, I hope Microsoft eventually reconsiders on these things. Customers aren't fooled you know - they know real interoperability when they see it. And they know when a vendor is being difficult and intransigent - that's what drives them to competing solutions (if they have a choice). Don't you want people to chose Microsoft because it's better, not because they are forced to ? I'd be very embarrassed to work for an organisation that fears competition so much it has to coerce people into using its products.
Cheers,
Jeremy.
Jeremy,
In a world where everyone can copy you, and does, and gives away that work for free, I'm worried about losing my job more than anything else.
For instance, look here: http://www.xpde.com/shots.php
Is this innovation? Or is it just "let's copy what Microsoft does and give it away for free?"
There's interop, and then there's "handing over the keys to the company store."
I want to go to the PDC.
My employer does not see a benefit in any activity outside of the office.
I need a new job.
Click HOMEPAGE below to see my PDC flair
That's funny - I give all my work away under the GPL and I don't worry about losing my job. I don't think you need to worry about that either. The reason for me is that few people understand the Samba code as well as I do, plus we keep improving and adding new functionality to provide value for people.
Interoperability doesn't mean giving away the keys to the company store. It might mean giving up monopoly profit margins. Are you sure you're not getting the two confused ?
What we don't do is hide protocols and interfaces from our customers. If they want to adapt Samba to do something strange then more power to them - they have the freedom to do that, or hire local programmers to change it in any way they want.
This is very similar to the construction industry. We are a parts supplier - someone else (Microsoft if they want) can take these parts and produce a finished product that they sell to people. What they can't do is prevent others from making the same product, or from using these parts in any way they want.
As for the link - yep - imitation of an XP desktop. If the look and feel of something is the only sellable thing you have then you don't really have a valuable product. But I think Microsoft has more value than that.
Jeremy.
We serve our shareholders. Anything we do, we must justify to our shareholders. Our investors. That's a corporation's first responsibility.
If we're gonna reduce our profit margins then we have to explain that to our shareholders. So far, you haven't explained to me the benefits of doing that. You say it'll help Microsoft, but I don't see that doing such things would help anyone but our competitors who'd turn our products into free things (ala Open Office/Linux).
And, the profit margins around here keep me employed, along with 55,000 other people (soon to be 60,000).
Now, if you wanna give us all jobs, let's talk.
So what happened to the ethics course you were touting a week or so ago ? Sounds like it's back to "shareholder value uber alles" - isn't doing that what got you into trouble as a monopoly ?
It does fit with everything I've heard internally about what's going on up there in Redmond at the moment - damn the DoJ, full speed ahead to destroy any competition - Linux and Open Source being the competition of course.
Like it or not you have a greater responsibility now than just "maximise value". That's ok when you're an ordinary corporation, not when you're what you are now. You have to play by rules, you have to allow interoperability - like it or not. IBM learned this lesson, now I guess it's your turn.
As a side note I personally think that reducing your monopoly profits would help Microsoft enourmously in the long run. By charging this levy you are storing up an incredible amount of resentment against you - I don't think Microsoft realises how much. I'm running into customers who will do *anything* to get off your platform - even if it costs them more money in the short term. Think about what that implies about your reputation and the responsibility of your position. Long term that's not good.
If you keep squeezing then short term you'll make more money. Long term you'll fall further and harder - is that shareholder value ? Or do you expect to have cashed out by then ?
In my opinion (take or leave it of course, I'm not a Microsoft exec if you move to allow interoperability now and open up, you will increase shareholder value much more in the long run than if you persue this disasterous course.
The problem is this course has been very successful for you so far. But if you don't learn to change, it's going to run you full speed into a brick wall.
Jeremy.
>So what happened to the ethics
>course you were touting a week or
>so ago ?
Nothing happened to it. Corporations exist solely to return value to shareholders. If that's not their goal #1, then they should turn into non-profit entities.
>I'm running into customers who will
>do *anything* to get off your
>platform - even if it costs them
>more money in the short term.
Yes, I'm very aware they are out there. Choice is good.
>Like it or not you have a greater
>responsibility now than
>just "maximise value".
Um, what is that responsibility? And, how do we decide what it is? Microsoft still is a corporation and its number one goal is still to serve its investors.
Now, how do we serve our investors well? Is it by ending up back in a court and getting into legal trouble? No.
So, yes, there is a bit of a conflict there. We can't head off in directions that'll bring us increased legal costs. Our shareholders (and our execs and employees, to tell the truth) don't like that one bit.
But, you bring up a good point. The American capitalistic system does not reward long-term thinking. Why? Because the equity markets look only at "what have you done for me lately and what are you likely to do for me next quarter, or maybe the quarter after that?"
On the other hand, we're gonna deliver a lot of value in the next few years. So, it'll definitely be an interesting time in our industry, no matter what side of the fence you're on.
>Or do you expect to have cashed
>out by then ?
I don't expect to make much, if anything, off of my options. The days of minting Microsoft millionaires might just be over.
Well what I'm talking about is the possibility of you getting fined by the EU for up to 3 billion dollars (I believe their law allows that). This is *not* maximising your shareholder value.
One of the reasons (of the two mentioned in all the articles) is that you have not documented the IDL used in the RPCs between Windows clients and servers (amongst other protocols). So is refusing to interoperate increasing your shareholder value ? Even if it gets you a $3 billion fine ?
Jeremy.
Robert wrote :
> Um, what is that responsibility?
Well, that responsibility is to not use monopoly power to do anything illegal. I work with several IBM people on a daily basis - several of them who went through the DoJ investigation of IBM as a monopoly. They tell me it brought a deep and lasting change to the company, an awareness of what their power was and the legal limits on how there were permitted to use it.
This awareness is completely absent from your statements and the behaviour of Microsoft as a whole. You seem to be behaving as though you got a "get out of jail free" pass from the DoJ (which in many ways is true). This is what I'm talking about when I mention your responsibilities to more than your shareholders.
Jeremy.
Jeremy, have I ever advocated doing anything illegal? Making a profit isn't illegal, is it?
And, yes, I have noticed a deep and lasting change at Microsoft. But, I don't hang out with the execs. That's really where these kinds of things need to be addressed. I'm just an ant looking to make my place in the world.
>So is refusing to interoperate
>increasing your shareholder value ?
>Even if it gets you a $3 billion
>fine ?
I don't know the issues well enough to take a position either way. Usually I try to take a customer-centric view of issues. Is there a way to increase value for customers?
If I was an exec, which I am not, I'd look at ways to increase revenues and contain costs, or the best combination thereof.
Obviously if we get hit with a big fine, that'll be increasing our costs, right? I'm sure the execs will figure out the right thing to do.
Some days I think Microsoft really gets it and others I think they are rearranging the Titanic's deck chairs.
Ryan, it's 55,000 people up here. If we make 55,000 decisions today, and you only like half of them, that leaves 27,500 decisions that aren't good, right? Yeah, I feel like you do sometimes. The nice thing about weblogs is you can tell us all which decisions you like, and which ones you don't.
>> And, yes, I have noticed a deep and lasting change at Microsoft. But, I don't hang out with the execs.
I too, here is an excerpt from the NGSCB weekly newsletter :
-- begin of excerpt
Q. What NGSCB-related information (and software?) will be provided at the Professional Developers' Conference in October?
A. At the PDC, which takes place October 26-30 in Los Angeles, we plan on delivering the first actual NGSCB code for developers to examine and start working with. This will be a basic "developer's preview" and will provide a great first chance to get a look at what we're building. Plus, it will be complemented by a technical session or two during the conference, and opportunities to meet members of the product team.
Q. How will NGSCB affect application development? Do developers have to start fresh with their programs, or will old EXEs run fine?
A. You'll need to rewrite applications so that they call the NGSCB APIs that we'll be delivering. Plus, the apps will need to run on a new Windows PC with NGSCB hardware.
-- end of excerpt
Interoperability you said? What's above makes me more think about a XBOX-frozen PC, with a keyboard and a mouse.
>> I'd come if you'd answer two questions on releasing the following information.
1). The full documentation for Microsoft Office file formats.
2). Release the MS-RPC IDL files that describe RPC communication between Windows clients and servers.
Ironically Jeremy,
1) MS without any fanfare as undisclosed a lot of the tags used in Office 2K3 xml file formats, in a couple of documents freely downloadable. The point is, of course, MS only did this after a raising concern about the xml file format replacing the current Office formats and the closedness, etc. Tell me if you want the url.
2) I have a worked in a company which was large enough to afford to license a fraction of Windows source code from Compaq, and the code included OLE/RPC/COM, etc. It costs us 40,000$ but one could tell that we had the actual source code to play with.
>Interoperability you said?
New APIs, new hardware. New capabilities. Yes, Windows 95 didn't run on a 1985 DOS machine. So?
NGSCB fixes a bunch of problems with Windows. Or, did you not notice how pissed customers are that viruses, and other things like spyware are allowed to run?
>> NGSCB fixes a bunch of problems with Windows. Or, did you not notice how pissed customers are that viruses, and other things like spyware are allowed to run?
Neeeeouuuu ! Busted with a not enough prepared speech.
Soon you'll be back saying that NGSCB is part of TIA and helps fight terrorism. Just like the RFID morons.
PS : customers are pissed with vbs attachments in emails, and html cross scripting in emails. Doesn't Outlook 2003 disable those by default? Why should you need a new hardware? Kidding or what?
Robert - you keep making this comment :
"Ryan, it's 55,000 people up here. If we make 55,000 decisions today, and you only like half of them, that leaves 27,500 decisions that aren't good, right?"
What you miss is that most of those 55,000 decisons are completely irrelevent to customers. They don't effect the character of the organisation, merely the implementation of its policies.
What matters are the decisions of 10 - 15 execs. And those people make decisions that piss customers off. Maybe great for the shareholders in the short run, but you as an employee should be thinking longer term than that.
That's why I come here and rag on you - I want you to feed things back up the chain to the 10 - 15 people who matter and try and give them a little longer term thinking . And no I don't want you to get fired .
Jeremy.
Jeremy, I hear that a few of those 10-15 people read my weblog occassionally.
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