Every few years, Bill Gates sent out a memo talking about the highest priority for Microsoft. His memo is not insignificant because it indicates the overall focus of the computing industry. Ten years ago, he wrote a memo entitled The Internet Tidal Wave which described how the internet was going to change the landscape of computing, defeating Netscape as the market leader in the browser-war era. In 2000, he outlined the .NET strategy to embrace software connectivity, which challenged the leadership position of Java. It was followed by “Trustworty Computing” memo in 2002 that established new demands for the security industry.
This year, Bill wrote another memo titled “Internet Software Services” which outlined software service model as the next evolutionary step for software industry. He noted that this coming “services wave” will be very disruptive and highlighted
The broad and rich foundation of the internet will unleash a “services wave” of applications and experiences available instantly over the internet to millions of users. Advertising has emerged as a powerful new means by which to directly and indirectly fund the creation and delivery of software and services along with subscriptions and license fees. Services designed to scale to tens or hundreds of millions will dramatically change the nature and cost of solutions deliverable to enterprises or small businesses.
This memo was accompanied by Ray Ozzie’s (the new Microsoft CTO) memo on “The Internet Services Disruption“. This memo is interesting because it outlines in more detail, Microsoft’s direction in the so-called service era. Despite its achievements in embracing Internet technologies, Microsoft, according to Ray, was not always achieve the degree of success that perhaps it could have. Despite facing the ever increasing competitors, he noted the untapped opportunity in providing fast, simple and loosely-coupled platform capabilities to developers which is important to support rapid innovation. This important message here is “seamless experience” to customers enabled by services and service-enhanced software.
To achieve this seamless experience, Ray pointed that operating system should be designed for today’s “multi-PC, multi-device, work anywhere, web-based world”. Internet service-based, enterprise server-based and directly peer-to-peer will work together to create the ‘shared space’ that enables productive working environment within and across homes, small businesses, virtual workgroups and enterprises. He indicates that Microsoft will transform itself to deliver products faster, achieving seamless user, developer, and administration experiences and addressing lightweight model of development and solution composition for all classes of development. All of this will be done, interestingly, in the context of “responsible competition”
We will compete energetically but also responsibly and with recognition of our high legal responsibilities. We will design and license Windows and our internet-based services as separate products, so customers can choose Windows with or without Microsoft’s services. We’ll design and license Windows and our services on terms that provide third parties with the same ability to benefit from the Windows platform that Microsoft’s services enjoy. Our services innovations will include tight integration with the Windows client via documented interfaces, so that competing services can plug into Windows in the same manner as Microsoft’s services. We will compete hard and responsibly in services on the basis of software innovation and price – and on that basis we will offer consumers and businesses the best value in the market.
I was heartened to note this because it indicates that Microsoft is lowering the barrier of participation from their products. By making their products more accessible, I believe interesting and new innovations will be able to flourish. Isn’t it exciting?
Remind me if I didn’t. Meanwhile, you might want to visit