Text 10478, 180 rader
Skriven 2006-04-03 17:40:30 av Mike '/m' (1:379/45)
Ärende: Hidden Dimensions -- Apple's focus vs. Vista Vision
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From: Mike '/m' <mike@barkto.com>

Interesting commentary...

http://www.macobserver.com/columns/hiddendimensions/2006/20060403.shtml

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And it comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don't get on the
wrong track or try to do too much. We're always thinking about new markets we
could enter, but it's only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things
that are really important.

-- Steve Jobs to Business Week, Oct. 12, 2004

Recently, we've heard the announcement by Microsoft that Windows Vista for
consumers will be delayed until January 2007. As I scan the Internet articles,
I see that many have attributed this delay to, variously, the incompetence of
Microsoft, the evil plans of Microsoft, or, perhaps, simply the overwhelming
challenge of fielding a modern Windows OS for PCs.

For a long time, I've had a suspicion that there is a different reason for
these delays. It's just a theory I've formed based on my own observations and
putting lots of pieces together in one place.

Bear with me for a paragraph or two while I set this up. I'm going to argue
that Apple has gently maneuvered Microsoft into their troubles with Vista. Of
course, Microsoft is solely responsible for its own problems, but the history
of the relationship between Bill Gates and Steve Jobs has, I believe,
contributed to those Vista delays.

The first thing we all know is that during 1995-97, Apple lost control of the
business market. Back when the character of the competition between Apple and
Microsoft was simply the OS, Apple felt that it had the upper hand. But as
times changed and the business market matured in its use of computers, IT
managers needed something Apple wasn't able to supply: a capable back office
system with authentication and management tools. Apple appeared to be
ambivalent about this loss of the business market, and a series of poor CEOs
failed to understand the evolution of business requirements and failed to bring
clarity to Apple's vision.

As Microsoft seized control of the enterprise in the late 90s Apple flailed
about because its own OS was becoming obsolete, and they lost further ground.
And since there was a lot more money to be made doing business with business,
Microsoft prospered. Finally, however, Apple started getting its OS act
together with Mac OS X as a result of the purchase of NeXT. Steve's return
combined with a modern OS allowed Apple to lay out a vision, and the vision
would be to focus on the consumer. It's was Steve Jobs' vision to do one thing
well instead of being all things to all people, and that vision would lay the
ground work for Apple's OS success.

It's not enough to have a vision. One must analyze the expected results of that
vision and make decisions that exploit the projected outcomes. I believe a
decision was made to drive Microsoft into a bind with Apple's disciplined
consumer focus. This was because Steve knew that Bill hates to lose and wants
to one-up everything Apple does. Knowing that weakness, Apple decided to:

 - Exploit Microsoft's greed and over-confidence
 - Exploit Mr. Gates' fascination with Apple's nimbleness and innovation
- Leverage Apple's consumer orientation unfettered by business
   constraints
 - Leverage the fact that Apple's sales are fueled by the purchase
   authority of individuals and the emotional reaction customers have
   to Apple products
 - Emphasize OS security - knowing that the consumer Internet would
   likely become a more and more dangerous place.

I don't think this was a war plan written out in detail. I think it was the gut
instinct of a very smart Apple CEO who nursed the plan along and let it
flourish.

That maturation of the business use of computers that I just mentioned happened
to come along at a time when the Internet was maturing itself and brought with
it grave security issues. The timing couldn't have been worse for Microsoft. It
forced businesses into monumental measures to protect themselves at the very
time when Microsoft's Windows 98/2000 was unprepared to deal with it. And so,
divided between the lucrative and cushy-safe business market and the consumer
market won by default, Microsoft mismanaged their response to the threat to
consumers.

Many business customers don't know how easy they've had it with their PCs. Tons
of hardware, routers, firewalls, proxy servers, expensive software tools, spam
filters, SMTP server dictionary attack defenses, anti-virus tools, all paid for
by businesses to protect their operations, can create a false sense of security
in the work place. However, when the average Joe buys a beautiful Sony Vaio
notebook for home use, he is, generally, quite unprepared to duplicate all the
hardware and software that protects his office PC. About five years ago, it
didn't matter.

Now it does.

Simultaneously, we have the "envy effect" of Microsoft. Whatever Apple does,
Microsoft copies. Why? Microsoft is a needy company. They don't have the
charisma of Apple. The monopolistic company nevertheless wants your love and
admiration. Sparked by Apple, the traditionally stodgy business company now
wants to be a fun company and sell you fun toys -- an Xbox, a music player, a
video player, a home entertainment system -- and have an OS that supports all
the cool digital life integration things that Apple's iLife does.

But to do that, Microsoft must make grotesque engineering compromises in its
OS. After all, Microsoft's enterprise OSes are so darned complex that a healthy
business can be made with MS certification programs. They are so complex that
IT managers can keep their jobs by bludgeoning the CEO with complexities that
only an army of specialists can manage. For years, IT managers have been proud
of the fact that they have a no-nonsense business architecture from Microsoft,
not fun toys that employees love to love. Now, how can you take this Windows
Vista OS, cleverly designed to cater to all the business agendas that Microsoft
has built, and then have it work well on a small notebook computer in the hands
of, say, a technically inexperienced young professional who just wants to post
vacation photos on the Internet for Grandma to see?

It's hard. It's really hard.

But small potatoes for America's largest, most powerful software company,
right?

Occasionally, current and former Apple employees wonder about Apple's
enterprise focus. What I think I have learned is that Apple will not allow
organizational structure or engineering decisions to emphasize business needs
in preference to the consumer needs -- so that the products and OS can remain
lean, unfettered, and consumer focused. Not, however, because Apple cannot be
competent in the enterprise; rather, it's because of a strategy to avoid the
trap that Apple wants Microsoft to fall into.

Namely, how is that nominally formal and high-brow business OS from Microsoft
going to be re-engineered to cater to an ever-increasing consumer market for
music, videos, and the digital lifestyle. It'll be a tall order to shake XP's
reputation for leaking like a sieve, allowing all kinds of malware in,
destroying people's privacy and finances. And it'll have to sit behind
consumer-grade defenses that pale in comparison to modern business hardware.

Of course, Vista's improved security for the consumer is good for the
enterprise. But, I think, all of a sudden, Microsoft realizes that if they are
going to compete in the high definition living room, earn back consumer trust,
be a viable OS that can live on an 8th grader's notebook computer and coexist
with an iPod, and on top of that, be a platform that can engage in unrestricted
warfare against Apple, the scope of their nominally business OS has to creep
much more than they had planned back in 2001 when the iPod was first launched.
As a result, that perceived pressure to out-do Apple put stress on the design
of Vista.

This management understanding (such as it is) of the scope of what Windows
Vista must accomplish is what causes the frustrations of the Microsoft bloggers
who just want a focused, lean, and reliable OS.

I strongly suspect that Longhorn's ambitious business projects had to be
simplified or thrown out to cater to fun consumer projects. Security emerged as
a new priority. Meanwhile, concerns might have arisen that simple, beautiful
GUI philosophies to entice consumers might not sit well with no-nonsense IT
Managers. Conflicts likely cropped up between internal consistency, Win-32
backwards compatibility, and third party security tools. The need for different
versions of the OS, catering to different customer classes, emerged with
corresponding support and software maintenance issues.

The bottom line is that Microsoft's success and pre-occupation with business
puts them behind the power curve with respect to OS security and the digital
lifestyle; and maybe that's okay, but when that's combined with their covetous
desire to compete with Apple's well-thought-out, consumer focused OS and fun
consumer technologies, it has caused them to build a highly compromised OS. A
split-personality OS. A kitchen sink OS.

What's the impact of that decision? To be all things to all people with a new
OS? How does consumer support of an OS of this magnitude drain the resources
and morale of Microsoft? How will consumers react to an OS so large and
complex? How much longer can a monster PC OS with roughly 50 million lines of
code contain and fulfill the business ambitions of one company that tries to be
everywhere, do everything, and compete against everyone?

That's the bind I believe Apple, with its "just-say-no" OS strategy and
fabulously successful music and digital lifestyle business, has seduced
Microsoft into. And that's the reason, from my perspective, for the continual
delays and problems with Vista.

But small potatoes for America's largest, most powerful software company,
right?
===

  /m

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