Microsoft — Page 6

News.com’s article and interview

April 19, 2001 by Michael Boyle

with Dan Bricklin (The man who saved “blogging”?) is a pretty good read, overblown title and all. The interviewer manages to catch a certain spirit that I think is very real – a certain seriousness that attends Interesting Projects.

But the article is totally bizarre at the same time. Lots of nice questions about his thoughts on Blogger and the place for personal sites and small companies in the world… and then right at the end blammo: “There’s some skepticism out there about whether Microsoft can resist coming up with a lock-in regarding SOAP. Do you think the big companies will support something like XML-RPC in addition to SOAP 1.1?” An editor’s note longer than the question itself was required to give enough context to readers!

Microsoft get its wish

September 26, 2000 by Michael Boyle

. They’re going to the appeals court not directly to the Supreme Court in the Microsoft anti-trust case.

Joel Spolsky has

July 24, 2000 by Michael Boyle

a weblog called Joel on Software. He wrote a really good analysis of the Microsoft .NET stuff the other day entitled Microsoft Goes Bonkers. He’s right too – there’s no there there with dotNET. I would only add that the big problem is not a technological one, it’s cultural. That’s why I like Deepleap and sites like it. Companies like Deepleap are addressing the central question of how people will use the web in a more fundamental way than most others – it’s not about information, it’s about relationships. [link via calebos.org]

That was a bit

June 26, 2000 by Michael Boyle

of a rant this afternoon and glossed over lots of stuff – in the post about MS. So let me clarify one or two things. First, yes, I do think it’s a complete smokescreen, that MS has no real intention of doing any of this, at least in the complete, all-encompassing way they are trying to sell. Second, for 99 percent of companies in the world I agree that it’s a GOOD thing not a negative that there are tons of others in this space already. Microsoft just doesn’t seem to be one of them, based on past performance. Third, if they were really serious about this, practically the whole presentation would have been about wireless. dot-NET type systems only make sense when you’re talking about a radically different landscape made up of massively-deployed wireless networks using standards-based protocols like IPv6. Microsoft has a good record with their browser to date, but I don’t see them betting the farm on external standards. Which means, to me, that it’s either not serious or will never happen regardless.

Boring news of the day (II)

June 26, 2000 by Michael Boyle

OK – this isn’t news today. But this whole Microsoft dot-NET thing – uh, a bit behind, aren’t they? I think it’s bs masquerading as a strategy. Let me repeat – I think it’s total bs – everything about it. It’s ONLY there so that if the Supremes do break them up, they can “legitimately” say, “well, see, we had this whole revolutionary strategy, but you bastards in gov’t won’t let us do it so it’s all your fault”. They’re simply trying to up the ante a little bit – or a lot – to make it harder for the Supreme court to uphold Judge Jackson’s decision.

That might sound cynical, but it’s not – it’s simply realistic. Two things. One, if MS wanted to make this work in “the MS way”, even a little bit, their actions would make the stuff that’s already been ruled illegal look like jaywalking. That’s why everyone else is having so much trouble in this space – it’s a very delicate thing to get a system like dot-NET working. Second – everyone else is already there. Netscape/AOL – been there for a year or more. Sun – been there for years, spent hundreds of millions already (can you say ‘Jini’?). Nokia/Motorola/Ericsson/etc – they’re there already, taking baby steps. Apple is there, in a way. WAP is there. Userland (and particularly Dave Winer) is there, and has been for ages. IPv6 – something like dot-NET is precisely what it’s about – only more ambitious, more open, and maybe even more realistic. Oh – don’t forget Loudcloud, Andreeson’s new-ish project – which definitely treads on similar ground.