Gates & Ozzie on the Internet Services Disruption

Microsoft reinvents itself every 5 years in an effort to adapt to an ever changing software world. Last month Bill and Ray Ozzie wrote internal memos directing the company to focus on Internet Software Services. Those internal memos have been made public by The Wall Street Journal, and in the blog world by Dave Winer and others. You can see the full text of the Gates email and Ozzie memo on Dave Winer's blog. Click on these links to go directly to the Bill Gates and Ray Ozzie memos.

It is remarkable that a 30 year old company with 60,000 employees and $40B in revenue can quickly change directions and deliver innovations that the mass market can use. Microsoft listens to customers, partners and employees. I wrote a blog several months ago entitled "The Coming Web Services Tsunami" that got lots of attention inside Microsoft. Microsoft gets it. The employees get it. It just takes time to get everyone on the same page.

Microsoft has come aLIVE again with Windows Live and Office Live. This is just a very small start. There is much more to come.

Comments

[Jeff Tash]

Web Services is proving to be significantly more challenging than Web Browser technology was a decade ago -- the last time Bill Gates fired off a fatwa-like edict. Don, how did Microsoft reinvent itself in the intervening period 5 years ago?.

The most interesting aspect of the Gates/Ozzie memos is the shift from "rich clients" to "AJAX" which is reminiscent of Microsoft's shift a decade ago from "fat clients" to "browsers". See my ITscout blog posting entitled "AJAX: A White Tornado Stronger Than Dirt"

http://itscout.blogspot.com/2005/11/ajax-white-tornado-stronger-than-dirt.html

[DonDodge]

Five years ago Microsoft made a huge bet on .Net and XML creating a whole new application development environment that allowed developers to use a wide variety of languages that could all compile to a CLR, Common Language Runtime. XML is now used throughout most Microsoft products.

Also five years ago Microsoft introduced Sharepoint portal server for the emerging web portal market and web based interfaces to the document repository. Sharepoint today is the number one server for document management.

Both Visual Studio.Net and Sharepoint are delivering new releases this month that extend the lead dramatically.

Today the intent of Windows Live and Office Live is to deliver the best of both worlds to customers. The rich client is still very important and will continue to be. The Live extentions allow Microsoft to deliver new functionality and updates much faster, a few months versus a few years.

This is just a small step forward. There is a lot more in the works that will be delivered in future months.