October 25, 2001
By ROBERT X. CRINGELY
SANTA ROSA, Calif. -- Bill Gates comes to New York
today to tout the wonders of Microsoft's new operating
system, Windows
XP. To hear him talk, Windows XP will improve our lives in almost every
way. What he'll talk less
about, I suspect, is how Windows XP will advance Microsoft's domination
over the world of personal computing. Then
again, he may see the goals as identical.
Certainly Windows XP will improve the experience for the average user
of a personal computer. For your $199, your
computer will become somewhat faster and markedly more stable. Based
on the code from Windows 2000, which is an
industrial-strength system marketed to corporate America, Windows XP
is sturdier all around than its consumer-class
predecessor, Windows ME. With Windows XP you'll be able to edit home
videos, share digital photographs and make
your own music CD's without having to buy extra software. These new
features may well cause dismay among smaller
companies that sell such programs as stand-alone products.
But this is, after all, Microsoft, so Windows XP is driven by more than
one agenda. XP is the first real product in
Microsoft's ".Net" campaign to redefine how software and services are
provided over the Internet. As envisioned by
Microsoft, .Net will deliver data and applications to users as needed,
turning us all from buyers of software into renters,
giving Microsoft more regular income and freeing the company forever
from the embarrassment of missing its deadlines
for shipping new products.
Thus does XP lay the groundwork for a new version of Microsoft's MSN
online service. With on-screen messages, the
new software will relentlessly push users to register to use Microsoft's
revised Passport ID technology, which the company
hopes will become the de facto standard for recording and retrieving
customer information, allowing users to avoid having
to remember several passwords or enter credit-card information at every
Web site selling something they want to buy.
With Passport, most purchases will be completed with a couple mouse
clicks.
The flip side of this convenience is that the goods and services you
buy will mainly be from those companies, like
Buy.com, that are willing to pay Microsoft to be introduced to you.
Microsoft's competitors naturally don't like this. They see Windows
XP as a further attempt by a monopolist to dominate
and control the market. Even before Microsoft is punished for its last
transgressions, it is piling up new ones, according to
competitors like AOL Time Warner and Sun Microsystems, which of course
want to sell their own ID technologies and
commercial services that aren't all that much different from Microsoft's.
But even Microsoft's rivals hope XP will succeed at spurring sales of
personal computers and leading the technology
industry back to, say, 1999, when everyone was projecting double-digit
sales growth as far as the eye could see. Certainly
the easiest way for a customer to enjoy the new software is to buy
a new PC on which it comes preloaded, and the PC
companies are hoping we will buy their products in the millions, reversing
a sales decline.
Yet history teaches us that new operating systems have technical difficulties.
Even if the fears of some experts about the
vulnerability of Windows XP to hacker intrusion prove unfounded, it
will have problems — because there are always
problems. Operating systems are among the most complex consumer products
ever designed. There is no way to know
how they work, really, until millions of users start playing with them.
The most amazing part of Windows XP, though, is its aggressive marketing.
Not only will Bill Gates be in Times Square,
but Sting will be giving a free, Microsoft-sponsored concert in Bryant
Park, while Microsoft representatives "will be at
hundreds of stores across the U.S. to show off Windows XP," according
to the company. Windows XP will be
everywhere and everything.
Has Microsoft learned nothing from its legal problems of recent years?
Any other company in its legal position might be
expected to tread carefully, but Microsoft is pushing, as always, for
more power, more control. Its rivals will want to push
back, not just to resist the monopoly but because they're envious.
In other words, in times of bust or times of boom, it's business as usual in the high-tech industry. Microsoft still dominates.
Robert X. Cringely writes and hosts programs about technology for PBS
and is the author of "Accidental Empires," a
book about the business and culture of Silicon Valley.
------------
"The
Dark Side of XP" from Anchor Desk.
---------------------
"Creating Tools for the Digital
Decade" from Microsoft.
Creating Tools for the Digital Decade
Twenty-five years ago, when the personal computer industry was in its infancy,
most software was developed in
a matter of weeks -- or even days -- by small teams of developers. Microsoft
products were distributed in
plastic bags with typewritten labels. Customers who called with support
questions were often put directly in touch
with the programmer who wrote the software -- sometimes a young man named
Bill Gates.
Today, more than 500 million PCs are in use worldwide, and they have become
an essential multipurpose tool
in the workplace and at home -- for communication, productivity, e-commerce
and entertainment. PCs manage
everything from the operation of giant corporations to family finances,
and the software that makes it all
happen is, in its complexity, elegantly sophisticated.
This week in New York, Microsoft will launch Windows XP, the most advanced
operating system it has ever
released. Over the last three years, hundreds of thousands of hours of
research, planning, development and
testing have gone into building a product that sets a new standard for
efficient and dependable computing. It
puts the exciting experiences of the digital age at people’s fingertips,
and creates opportunities for tens of
thousands of companies around the world.
But it wasn’t just Microsoft that built this new operating system. Today,
creating rich, reliable and secure
software is a partnership between many companies, big and small. In fact,
nearly three-quarters of a million
developers and users worked on the project; truly a number for the record
books. Seldom, if ever, has a
product been developed that has incorporated the ideas and creativity of
so many people.
Software companies and developers helped make sure that the new operating
system provides a flexible, yet
powerful platform for thousands of other exciting products and services.
Hardware manufacturers worked to
make sure that devices such as digital cameras, portable music players
and printers worked perfectly. And --
most important of all -- more than 300,000 individual product testers helped
ensure that the software was easy
to use, reliable and compelling.
This spirit of openness and collaboration pays off for everyone. Customers
get cool, exciting software.
Technology companies create even more opportunities for success. And the
entire economy benefits from the
amazing productivity, communication and entertainment capabilities of the
PC. It’s this very cycle of feedback
and innovation that has made the PC industry so successful over the last
25 years, and such an important part
of the nation’s economy.
Today’s computer programmers aren’t much different from the people who
wrote the very first PC applications.
They may be a bit older and their hair may be a bit thinner, but they’re
every bit as passionate about how
technology can improve people’s lives -- at work, at home and in school.
Building great software is based on a
foundation of enthusiasm, partnership and creativity -- some of the many
essential and enduring qualities of
our great nation.
One
in a series of essays on technology and society. More information is available
at microsoft.com/issues.
------------
October 25, 2001
By STEVE LOHR
After his sophomore year at Stanford University,
Chris Jones showed up at Microsoft for a summer job
in 1989 and was escorted to an office with a personal
computer running MS-DOS, the operating
system that helped make Microsoft the dominant PC software company.
Mr. Jones sat down, turned on the machine and stared at the dark screen
illuminated only by the MS- DOS
command line, a cryptic C:\> that required the user to type in a series
of programming commands to make
the computer do anything useful.
"Oh my Lord," Mr. Jones said, recalling his reaction. "I had no idea what to do.
"I was a Mac person," he added, referring to the Apple Macintosh and its point-and-click system.
But Mr. Jones quickly mastered DOS and then Windows, Microsoft's operating
system that mimicked the
Macintosh graphical style of computing.
Today, Microsoft is introducing Windows XP, and it was Mr. Jones, now
32 and a vice president at the
company, who led the 1,000-member corporate army that designed and
built the new operating system.
For nearly two years, he stood between the marketing people, who typically
want every possible feature
included in Windows so as to appeal to the broadest possible market,
and the software developers, who
say the marketing wish list is impossible.
Mr. Jones was responsible for settling disputes and setting the course
for Windows XP, giving him a great
deal of influence over the look, feel and features of the software
that will inevitably be used by hundreds
of millions of people as their portal to computing and the Internet.
The job would only be given to someone with a proven track record and
someone deemed to have the
potential to be one of Microsoft's leaders. "Chris has the right stuff,"
said Brad Silverberg, a former
senior executive at Microsoft. "He's one of the company's rising stars."
According to colleagues, Mr. Jones has the portfolio of talents necessary
to succeed at Microsoft. He
majored in mathematical and computational sciences at Stanford University
and has done his share of
programming. A bridge player and crossword puzzle addict, he said that
programming "worked the way
my mind worked, the logic of it, like math problem sets.
"It clicked with me, and just sucked me in," he added.
Mr. Jones may have been a DOS neophyte in 1989, but he got the summer
job after being grilled by a
Microsoft engineer on the intricacies of the 68000 assembly code —
the programming for the Motorola
68000 microprocessor, the chip that powered the Macintosh. He has the
programming gene, vital to
command respect in Microsoft's programmers' culture.
Colleagues say he is a good manager and leader, respected and fair,
clear-thinking and able to
communicate priorities.
"He makes sure the team is driving on asphalt instead of on mud," said
Joe Belfiore, a senior member of
the Windows XP group.
Belief and loyalty also count for a lot at Microsoft, and colleagues
say Mr. Jones is "true blue Microsoft,"
smart, earnest and focused. His entire career has been spent at Microsoft.
Windows XP is regarded as the most significant improvement in Microsoft's
industry-dominant operating
system since 1995. It incorporates the more robust Windows 2000 code,
developed for corporate desktop
machines and data-serving computers, and machines running Windows XP
crash less often. The XP is
also designed to be easier to use. Experts who have reviewed the new
operating system had applauded the
efforts.
But it arrives on the market surrounded by controversy. Digital photography,
music, online identification
and the technology for a number of new Internet services are tightly
bound to the operating system.
And Microsoft's critics say that Windows XP is part of Microsoft's drive
to protect and broaden its
monopoly, despite the fact that a federal appeals court has found that
Microsoft repeatedly violated the
nation's antitrust laws. Microsoft, the Justice Department and states
that joined the suit are in settlement
talks, but little progress has been made.
"XP is a new and improved operating system, but it is also part of the
company's effort to further bias the
future of computing and Internet commerce in Microsoft's favor," said
Timothy Bresnahan, an economist at
Stanford and a former senior official in the Justice Department's antitrust
division.
Before Windows XP, Mr. Jones worked for four years on Microsoft's browsing
software, Internet
Explorer. The company's practices and tactics in the browser market
are at the center of the antitrust case.
According to Microsoft, Windows XP is an effort to deliver a new generation
of uses to PC users, as
computing moves beyond handling numbers and text to images and music.
So the operating system should
deliver the technology to make handling digital photography and online
music easier.
In that regard, Microsoft is following the direction Apple has been
promoting for more than a year, as the
next wave of consumer uses for the personal computer.
"Apple has done some very, very good work," Mr. Jones said. "It's nice
to have innovation in the industry
in a variety of different ways."
While some industry experts say the PC is a mature industry, Mr. Jones
says the PC is ready for new
waves of growth. He sees Windows XP as an important step in helping
to make PC's more accessible and
easier to use.
"We are in the stage in the PC industry as the auto industry was when
you had to be an auto mechanic to
drive a car," he said. "Now, we're starting to make PC's for ordinary
drivers."
But Windows XP's leader concedes he still has a fondness for old DOS-style
command line. And with a
few keystrokes, the command line — a visual anachronism — appears on
Windows XP. "It's still the
fastest way to do things," Mr. Jones said.