Steve Ballmer has never been a shy sort. In high school he would have run the Glee Club, done all the morning announcements and told the assistant principal exactly how to run things. So any perception that Ballmer hasn't been running the show at Microsoft are as false as a
Tour de France doping denial (Floyd for now possibly excepted).
But with all the questions about Bill (Gates, in case you were unsure) retiring, Ballmer saw it fit to explain his exact role -- as in "I run this company!" Ballmer will be as aggressive as ever, which is good and bad. Good because we want our tech companies to push the envelope; bad because so many terrific third parties are in Redmond's crosshairs and Ballmer is clearly gunning for them.
Posted by Doug Barney on 08/01/2006 at 1:15 PM0 comments
OK, here's a minor revelation. When we put
Ray Ozzie on our cover last year, I wrote this for a headline: "The Next Bill Gates." I had a feeling that Bill bought Ray's company so Ray could decide the future of Microsoft software. I failed to believe in my own instincts and toned down the headline. I was wrong. Less than a year later, Bill gave Ray the keys to his kingdom.
Ozzie is an eminently trustworthy software guru, and he is staking that reputation on "Live," otherwise known as Windows, Office and other Web services. I'm a skeptic, but if anyone can pull this off, it is the new Bill Gates.
Posted by Doug Barney on 08/01/2006 at 1:15 PM0 comments
Pen computer concern Go Corp., which folded its tent years ago after Microsoft entered the market, lost an anti-trust suit claiming that Microsoft used its market control to steer developers away from doing business with Go.
http://redmondmag.com/news/article.asp?editorialsid=7583
Years after it went under, Go's founder bought back the rights to his company just so he could squeeze some cash out of Redmond. This is nearly the same tactic that former Novell chief Ray Noorda used to sue Microsoft for squashing DR-DOS -- except that Noorda won!
While a federal judge decided that Go waited too long to sue, the European Union keeps on needling and needling Microsoft. Despite previous record fines, EU cops are about to pull out their ticket books again and demand more money, claiming that Redmond violated an EU order two years ago. We'll just have to see how much the EU charges this time around.
Posted by Doug Barney on 07/06/2006 at 1:15 PM0 comments
Microsoft has a new site,
CodePlex, where developers can interact, work together on projects, and even (gasp) post open source software! The site includes tools to help teams build actual products, such as issue tracking and source control, all thanks to Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server. Microsoft itself uses the site to work on projects and even allows outsiders to make suggestions!
http://adtmag.com/article.aspx?id=18822
Posted by Doug Barney on 07/06/2006 at 1:15 PM0 comments