Scoble Bites The Hand That Fed Him 178
An anonymous reader writes "The Times Online points out a post that Robert Scoble, former Microsoft blogger, put up on his site recently. In essence, Scoble has moved 180 degrees from his former blogging tone, saying that 'Microsoft Sucks'. More specifically, he is highly critical of Microsoft's online policy. In Scoble's words: 'Microsoft's Internet execution sucks (on whole). Its search sucks. Its advertising sucks (look at that last post again). If that's in it to win then I don't get it. ... Microsoft isn't going away. Don't get me wrong. They have record profits, record sales, all that. But on the Internet? Come on. This isn't winning. Microsoft: stop the talk. Ship a better search, a better advertising system than Google, a better hosting service than Amazon, a better cross-platform Web development ecosystem than Adobe, and get some services out there that are innovative (where's the video RSS reader? Blog search? Something like Yahoo's Pipes? A real blog service? A way to look up people?) That's how you win.'"
It's a trap! (Score:5, Insightful)
MS Profits on Ignorance (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think they can (Score:5, Insightful)
The web's been around a few years now. While they were late in recognising it, Microsoft have been taking the Internet seriously since before Google left Stanford University.
IMO, if Microsoft were able to develop "better search than Google.... better hosting than Amazon..." - they'd have done so long ago. As it stands, they can't even implement searching in their own OS (certainly not in XP - even with the Search addon, it's trivially easy to dig out something which returns zero results when it patently shouldn't) - and they've got far more control over that than Google has over the Internet.
Fact is, Microsoft's business plan has never been "build a better OS/office suite/mousetrap". It's been "build one that's good enough and market it as being better". But such marketing doesn't work so well in the Internet age because it's much easier to find out how much truth there is behind it, and AFAICT Microsoft still haven't worked that one out.
Dunno about trap (Score:5, Insightful)
It's funny how a lot of people previously were taking it as the truth, _whole_ truth, and nothing but the truth, just because he's such a hip blogger. I even remember getting modded down and getting some annoyed responses before, when I pointed out that it was his paid job to show the good parts only. "Noo, it must be all spontaneous and 100% the complete uncensored, unbiased picture, because he says so! He's so hip and irreverent that he even bravely told Ballmer to write a memo that's good for PR! He said that MS lets him write whatever he wants, good or bad, so if he doesn't show anything bad, surely nothing bad exists at MS." Not an exact quote, because I'm too lazy to search for the thread right now, but that was the general gist of it.
Now it turns out that when his paycheck no longer depends on MS, he suddenly discovers some bad things about MS too. Who would have imagined that?
So let me just say again, to everoyne: Look folks, do exercise some healthy skepticism when a conflict of interest is _that_ blatant. When people's paychecks depend on the King (or CEO, or whatever) liking what they write, there's rarely even a need to put an explicit "thou shalt present me as the Messiah" clause in their contract. Either they figure it out on their own (like this guy seems to), or natural selection takes care of it.
You can see that from ancient times to the present day. From the Pharaoh's scribes in the Old Kingdom to Pravda (or Faux News) journalists in the 20'th century to paid corporate PR/astroturfing/whatever, the same theme is there: the Pharaoh/Emperor/King/Beloved President/CEO/whatever is nothing short of perfect, and the enemy/competition/etc are a bunch of vampires or sloped-forehead orcs. And that those who didn't figure out that that's what's expected from them, found themselves "restructured" out. (Though, depending on the time and place, that could mean more fun HR personnel management methods, like beaheading, feeding someone to the crocodiles, or putting them at the top of a sharp stake. How's that for upwards mobility in the organization?;)
And that when you're interviewed by the CEO's/president's/etc personal pet PR guy, you put on your best smiling face and proclaim yourself happier than a dog in a cat show. When the guys from Pravda came to Ivan Ivanovich's door, what do you think Ivan said? "Oh, I'm so unhappy under the communist party's rule"? Heh. Most of those interviews weren't scripted either, just everyone knew that it's not like it would even make it to print if they don't say what's expected of them. So what makes anyone think that when Ballmer's personal blogger entered someone's office anything fundamentally different happened?
Briefly, take your infos from less biased sources.
Re:No one can describe it (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft seem king of the pick a lame name and promote it strategy. I think they'd have been better sticking with the established MSN and improving it beyond recognition.
That's never been their plan (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you really think they will spend all that money and effort to produce better products than google/yahoo/etc ?
No, they will leverage their desktop monopoly to push their search. Their search engine may be crap, just like IE is crap, but when 95% of desktop computers sold comes with their search engine as the default, very few people will ever bother looking for anything better.
Aside from that, how will they find something better when the search engine they use is designed to lock customers in?
Re:Dunno about trap (Score:5, Insightful)
If something goes wrong, I don't want it spun to the nth degree to make it look like a good thing or to cover a CEO's back so they can be sure of their bonus. I want it to say what happened and what they're doing to fix it.
While we're at it, most CEO's bonus's are based around them being able to lie and mislead as much as possible - they're petrified of admitting to any sort of failure or error. That is a crazy situation. They should earn it for doing a good job, not their ability to hide a bad one.
All you need to know is (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't think they can (Score:5, Insightful)
What was their problem was 'getting it'. They added 'Internet' but didn't understand what or why so most of it was of no real use to anyone. The fact that they seriously thought they could puish MSN as a better and quite seperate Internet shows how wide of reality they were. I remember trying it out when it first went live - tons of unique content, online magazines, software etc but all quite seperate to the rest of the world. Sort of AOL without access to the Internet. Quite crazy.
Re:Dunno about trap (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree, just one comment to add (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't think they can (Score:3, Insightful)
Which partially, if not totally, explains their godawful security track record. "Security" isn't something you can download or bolt-on.
Had to...and it's actually relevant... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I don't think they can (Score:2, Insightful)
Their XP search tool (and the search tool add-on), rely heavily on the Indexing Service to be run before the search tool is used (and continuously thereafter).
Another reason is that (in particular) the case with system files and other files deemed "important" by MS, they were attributed with an extra "Secret" flag, that the search tools and indexing service were programmed to skip over/ignore. The same thing happens when you use the Find function in the Registry editor, certain key types won't be found because of the way the searching function was programmed. It also happens from a "Command Line Window" to the "DOS" subsystem. Even if you use the DIR command, it will refuse to show you certain files, even if you remove the hidden flag from every file on the disk.
This was all done intentionally, to supposedly "protect" the end-user from themselves. Heck, if you want something really frustrating, just try removing all of the attribute flags (especially the read-only) flags from the files in the C:\Windows and its subfolders once...always fun to use attrib or even by doing it from the GUI, only to find the OS has automagically reset them back to what they were before you changed them
criticism != biting (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I agree, just one comment to add (Score:3, Insightful)
Hah (Score:3, Insightful)
They still do.
Crisis, hunger, and denial (Score:5, Insightful)
John Kennedy once said:
Microsoft is in crisis, but they are not willing to acknowledge it. It seems to me that they would rather spin everything so that no one notices it. The last time they had a crisis (being late to the Internet and world wide web) they responded admirably.
But that was a different world. These days their monopolistic practices have been exposed. Competitors are not afraid of them. Microsoft is defending too many fronts, many of which they created (Xbox, Windows CE/Mobile, etc.)
More importantly, Microsoft isn't as lean and hungry as they used to be. They are living off the the wealth of Office and Windows income. However in other areas, they have not produced. Windows and Office are their crutches but if those products start to fail, MS has nothing to fall back upon anymore. As with the release of Vista, it is apparent that they have lost focus of their core products. With Office, Microsoft's problem is that older versions of Office are good enough.
A decade ago, Apple faced a similar situation. Except Apple didn't have reserves MS has today. That forced them to get lean. Whole product lines were cut while the company refocused. They scraped their old OS and developed a new one. Some credit Jobs with getting the company's comeback as he was the driving force behind it. Right now, there is no one at MS that seems is doing that. If the recent relevations from Allchin are true, his managers (Ballmer, Gates) are not focused.
Re:MS Profits on Ignorance (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, I would argue the average consumer is intimidated by any software regardless of who makes it. Secondly, they most likely really don't know how to use Windows/Office as enough to get by to what they specifically want to do (surf, email, write printed letters).
The only reason most consumers use what software they use is because either:
A.) It came with the computer
B.) It was on the shelf at Best Buy/Stapes/Target/Walmart.
C.) Their relative/friend gave them a "copy"
Seeing that Windows and MS Office apply to all 3 rather easily it is a no brainier to why it is successful. It isn't that people are too familiar with MS products so much that they are unwilling to move on, but rather there is really no need.
Of these three reasons... Only C provides the opportunity for Linux and Open Office if they happen to have a relative/friend who is in the "know".
Re:MS should focus on core (Score:3, Insightful)
That's like saying Lucas should direct more movies like The Empire Strikes Back.
(go look it up on IMDB)