Sticking with XP

I was reading this CodingHorror piece, and for the most part thought it was ho-hum. Windows 7 is nice, and he finds a nice way to dig at it ("Vista service pack"). Clever, or would be if I hadn't heard it a few times already. Maybe it's new to you, I dunno, that's not the point.

There was a bit in it that I totally disagreed with:

It's important to me not because I am an operating system fanboy, but mostly because I want the world to get the hell off Windows XP. A world where people regularly use 9 year old operating systems is not a healthy computing ecosystem. Nobody is forcing anyone to use Windows, of course, but given the fundamental inertia in most people's computing choices, the lack of a compelling Windows upgrade path is a dangerous thing.

Different definitions of "dangerous".

How is slow change dangerous to an ecosystem? It might be dangerous for itself, i.e., the Windows franchise, but the ecosystem seems to have not only survived, but thrived. Not only did Apple take total advantage of MS' lapse, but the Linux desktop looks better and better (typing this on Ubuntu). Within the Windows' desktop universe, there is a huge software library specific to XP, not just Windows. Tweaks, utilities, and documentation galore.

XP was some good shit.

Now? Now I'm going to keep any XP machines around, until they absolutely have to be upgrade to gain functionality. Just out of spite. Er, if I can find any, that is.

Microsofting

Oh boy, coding on a Saturday night! What could be more fun?

Well, there's been a little tempest-in-a-teapot about some MS marketing blog being busted as an astroturfing site.

I like the response of the blog:

As for WordPress, I address using Microsoft competitor tools on my about page. Again, it’s not really a secret. You can see the flickr photos and youtube videos right there on the homepage.

All this is to say — you can hate on Microsoft and its advertising all you want … but I’m not sure it’s fair to act like it’s a big GOTCHA! to catch a marketing site being, well, a marketing site.

There's two bits I like about it. First, the obvious in-your-faceness of it.

Next, admitting that they use tools other than MS tools. You know, like the rest of the world. I've always found Redmond's self-rah-rahing and NIH attitude irritating. Microsoft's biggest weaknesses revolve around its isolation from the rest of the community. This is a welcome change. I wonder how long it will take for it to be beaten down?

What If Microsoft Turned A Corner, and No One Was There?

(Disclaimer: MSFT from 1994-2003)

Ran into this today, which argues that Microsoft has turned the corner. Considering that blog tends to be critical of MS, it was worth a read.

Despite my history with MS, I've been pretty much all over the map when it comes to PC-based server tech. Even at MS, I was an early adopter of Linux, and ultimately started my own hosting service on FreeBSD (which failed, but that's another story).

That said, I recently took a new look at MS' 2008 stack (Windows 2008, SQL 2008, VS 2008). It doesn't suck. In fact, it is pretty darn good.

What I liked:
- Powershell. I don't like to throw the term "game changer" around much, but this one is. Between that, and a very rich .NET model, a lot of previously cumbersome tasks are now trivial.
- IIS7. Much more modular, much more programmable (more Powershell)
- VS2008. I've long like MS' IDEs, and this one kicks much butt. Add in ReSharper, and it totally rocks.
- SQL 2008. It scales better, it is easier to manage, and very configurable.
- C# 3.0. I'm a chump for simple lambda syntax.

The biggest difficulties I ran into stemmed not from Microsoft's tech, but from the ecosystem around their technology.

I have found plenty of neat stuff to use, but a lot of it runs under Java. Sure, I could build various bridges from .NET to those tools, but then I have a whole other chunk to maintain. Many of the projects have .NET client, but they tend to be second class.

Why would I want to do things half-ass like that, when I know all too well of the problems that causes?

There's just more happening in the Java/Linux world. If I want to maintain a competitive edge for my customers and myself, it behooves me to use and recommend the better technology. Right now, that isn't Microsoft - and it isn't because of Microsoft, itself.

When I wanted a search server, I could use MS', which works on Windows, or I could use Solr, which runs on Java. When I needed some form of network monitoring, I ran into OpenNMS, and didn't find a lot for Windows . Lately, I wanted a good message queue. Microsoft has one (and it works fine), Java has a selection.

Thus bringing me to the point: it may not matter if MS is getting it. MS isn't capable of doing everything, no matter how efficient and disciplined they get. They need everybody else in order to be a strong presence. Their heavy-handed tactics of the past may have deprived them of what they needed most: people.

They have a strong presence in the enterprise world, and this latest stack will help cement that position. The large organizations tend to move slow, anyway, so being a little behind isn't too big a deal. MS' best tools are best suited to that environment. They aren't going away.

They have the money to ride out their bad reputation. Maybe they can trim more of the fat, and focus a little bit better. In the meantime, they have a lot of ground to make up.

"Bing"?

Microsoft has announced that the name of their latest-iteration of search is going to be named "Bing".

I get it. Search is important. Of all the different things you can do online, search is probably the most lucrative, directly and indirectly.

I'm sure a lot of thought went into the name. It's catchy, has a good vibe, without actually meaning anything. Of course, it won't work. People will go to Google for the same reasons they have been. It hasn't let them down. It is predictable. It isn't perfect, but people are used to the imperfections, and work around them.

No, Microsoft, you actually have to do a magnitude better than Google to take over search. Look at the effort put into trying to push Microsoft off the desktop. Tons. After spending millions of dollars and man-hours, between Apple and the OSS community, they've shaved off a few percentage points of the desktop share.

Google does a lot of things: gmail (for domains, even), this site, search, photo sharing. A whole bunch of stuff, but it doesn't work together all that well. Didn't Microsoft get in trouble for trying to make stuff work well together just a little too well? What happened to that attitude?

Maybe this time is different. Heh.

What makes this worse is that if/when it fails, it will reinforce the belief that Microsoft is in its waning years. That could easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy.