"Microsoft was built on innovation, has thrived on innovation..."

"We are filing for over 2,000 patents a year for new technologies..."

These are about the funniest and most ridiculous statements about Microsoft one can make :-) (Hint: the first one is a lie, the second relies on the idea of patenting trivialities.)

It's quite obvious that Jan has a bone to pick with MicroSoft. Hey Jan, how about a comment with substance???

They got off too lightly with the antitrust case.

Hey E., look at that!

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,748,582.WKU.&OS=PN/6,748,582&RS=PN/6,748,582

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,727,830.WKU.&OS=PN/6,727,830&RS=PN/6,727,830

Got the meaning of "patenting trivialities" ? Or need a few more examples ?

Cheers.

Didn't Billy "borrow" the concept of "Windows" from Apple? From what I remember of "Pirates of Silicon Valley" anyway...

Instead of "working to change perceptions", why not work to fix the reasons people think Microsoft software is bloated and insecure ? There's a novel idea...

Good one Francois.

Microsoft has lost the battle with software complexity. They have mistaken marketing goals with engineering principles. Microsoft's development of software is very nearly ad-hoc. This is not a sustainable development model. A simple comparison of Lines of Code (LOC) for Microsoft vs. Linux hints at the problems facing them in the future. My guess is the ratio would be 100 to 1. I predict they will be unable to produce new products in the future in a reasonable amount of time due to the extremely poor quality of the existing windows code base. Longhorn won't be better - just different!

What a joke. MSFT has earned the reputation that they have for selling bloated, buggy code.

"Microsoft was built on innovation, has thrived on innovation..."

This is a joke no ?
I don't believe Microsoft even know what innovation means.

The anti-Microsoft party line consists of gross generalizations and flat stereotypes. It's actually laughable to see the hordes of drones come out of the woodwork to take their shots. It seems to be a combination of jealousy and group think in some of these techno-circles that perpetuates the M$ is eeeeeeevvviiill meme.

I'm tired of it. Yes, Microsoft has imitated, yes Microsoft has behaved in less than sterling fashion at times, but overall it's an incredible company, that has turned out some amazing products. Get over it. There's not a major company in the world that isn't guilty of some of these actions, singling out Microsoft is just plain silly.

LOL! If that isn't trolling, I don't know what is... But everyone has their right to their own opinion AC.

M$ isn't evil, but the stockholders are. Guess who that is... Probably M$ employees who have stock options and every other one of us who own mutual fund shares that own M$ stock. It's all about the bottom line, your's or mine.

Yes, M$ is ALL about innovation, they just like to aquire it and remarket it under M$. Innovation relabeled. What do you think?

I scoured this document and found no mention of words like

quality
secure
security
customer satisfaction
trust

As they say with the Cubs every year in Chicago, "Wait till next year!"

I would take it a step further and tell you that based on what I have seen, read, experience, etc., that what we are seeing is that Microsoft has become a company with a critical mass of people (Gen-Xers *) who are more fixated on their personal stock options and the present value of Microsoft stock, than on the quality, and security of the software that they produce.

The pity is this: they fought so hard for the majority share of the world's computer market, but the based on the quality of their software, they don't really deserve this position of prestige and trust with the public. So the end result is that we have a group of technicians and managers outside Microsoft contantly doing one of two things: patching their substandard, poor quaility software, or making excuses, on WHY in light of hundreds of security and quality issues, with no end in sight, do we keep staying with Microsoft, instead of moving to something like SecureBSD or the secure version of Linux.

By the way, at the tender age of 23, I was responsible for all the source and object libraries for a huge command control system that supported a major command post and the National Command Authorities. I was also responsible for all the procedures and system utilities that went into maintaining, and building about 500,000 lines of code that comprised this system. That is one reason I take a dim view of what Microsoft gets away with.

It's fine to lust after market share and have a big sizzling marketecture, yet living up to the responsibilities that come with this position is a whole other challenge that Microsoft falls flat on.

Consider: if TCP/IP, which most of us can agree is a technological marvel, performed as shakey and poorly as most Microsoft software, the Internet never would have taken off the way it did, and we wouldn't be sitting here in an online classroom. And if all this sounds like a harsh judgement of Microsoft, consider the existence of and the justification for the following versions of software:

MS DOS 5.0
MS DOS 6.22
Windows 3.1
MS Word 6.0c
Windows 95b
Windows 98 SE
Windows ME

(and that's just the tip...)

ANONYMOUS

* OK, Gen-Xers - It's time for your little trademark gesture: Roll your eyes and yell. "Whatever!!!"

"Our stock was around $25 then, as it is now, and we have more than doubled our operating profits since. Shareholders then were betting we would work hard for all these years to make the company worth that mid-98 stock price. We have done so."

Steve, take the crack pipe out of your mouth. Investors who bought the stock in 1998 didn't do so with the hope that you and the rest of MSFT would work hard for 6 years to justify that price. They did so because they hoped to make money on the stock - which they haven't because your attempts to increase shareholder value over that period have been a complete and total failure.

I just want two features from windows or longhorn or whatever the code name is:

1. Instant boot
2. No crashes, zero, nada. 100% reliability!

get it ?

A quote explaining the innovator's dilemma from Clayton Christensen:
"The dilemma is that the criteria that managers use to make the decisions that keep their present businesses healthy make it impossible for them to do the right thing for their future. What's best for your current business could ruin you for the long term. They've been trained to listen closely to customers and do things that improve their margins. Those things are mandatory to keep your present business healthy and stock price high."

Pull The Innovator's Dilemma off your bookshelf (you do have a copy, right?) or pick up The Innovator's Solution, both by Clayton Christensen and you will see the problem Gates and Ballmer have.

In the 'Solution, the cycle that Microsoft is entering is explained. Cut costs, go for profit. Then cut prices, go for volume. Cut costs, raise prices, to restore profitability. Cut prices, cut costs, go for profit. Along the way, every potential growth program, which will necessarily start really really small, will be killed off. The most creative people who are not expensive boat anchors will be laid off or quit and then go on to form a disruptive competitor.

Throughout the process, Microsoft will be asking customers and stockholders for advice, and one or both of these groups will be cheering each new initiative which will ironically be destroying the company.

On the one hand, the FY98 bit is a joke: people were speculating back in those heady dot-com boom days that MS stock prices would continue to spiral. Nae luck them, but Stevey-boy should know better than try to spin a flat 7 years.

On the other hand, the people saying that MS never innovated are just as guilty of crass party-line-toeing (just the opposite party): Microsoft were traditionally best at taking an idea and making it wonderfully usable and powerful, I admit (Excel is the best example of that), a result of the massive investment in the usability labs in the mid 90s. But they also sometimes came up with real, blue-sky winners. Visual Basic revolutionised the IDE, and everything from VS.Net right through to JBuilder and Eclipse owes it a debt.

Let me alienate anyone not yet loathing me by saying that a great many Americans (and I speak as a true Americophile) these days can't seem to have a balanced opinion, seeing both sides, crediting where due and critical where necessary. This applies to operating systems and it applies to partisan politics, and everything in between.