| Is Gates' retirement Linux's chance? |
Jun. 15, 2006
 On June 15, Bill Gates announced that he would be retiring from Microsoft in July 2008, and everything changed.
It may be two years away, but when a giant the size of Gates moves, the world moves with him. And, in that movement, in this period of change, Linux may have its best chance ever to seize the marketplace momentum from Microsoft.
Yes, I know Microsoft, even without Gates, looks like a monstrous power; a dominating Goliath with a grip on the desktop and server that can't possibly be broken.
But, we all know what happened to Goliath, though, don't we?
More to the point, many of us can recall when Ma Bell collected every phone bill in the land, and when the Detroit car companies sneered at competition from Japan and Germany. Now AT&T is just one of many companies, and the "big" U.S. car companies are fighting to survive.
Microsoft may actually be especially vulnerable to a fall. Steve Ballmer may have been president and CEO since January 2000, but to the outside world at least Bill Gates has continued to be Microsoft's face.
It was Gates' vision and his win-at-any-cost drive that pushed Microsoft from being just one of many 1970s software companies to being the Godzilla of software. Anyone who has really looked at Microsoft's rise knows it was Gates' business tactics, and not the quality of Microsoft's software, that made the company what it is today.
Can it still be that company without him at the helm?
I don't see it. I don't see it at all.
In fact, I think we've already seen Microsoft starting to drift off course.
Take Vista and its endless delays. Even now, after having missed its drop-dead shipping date, the betas are still, well, awful. Let me remind my Windows-friendly readers that it's not just me, a Penguin-supporter, saying this. Even Microsoft's friends are having a hard time finding nice things to say about its status.
It's not just Vista, though. It's a malaise throughout Microsoft. Microsoft's own managers and developers publicly whine about mis-management. The company can't keep straight what it really means by either ".NET" or "Live". And, saying "Windows security" continues to be an oxymoron, no matter how often the company insists that it's securing its software.
If this was another company, if this hadn't been Microsoft, the analysts would have long ago been shorting the stock and predicting trouble ahead without major changes.
Well, we are getting a major change, but it's not the one Microsoft needed. With Gates walking away, everyone will start seeing that Microsoft has feet of clay, that the giant can stumble and fall.
Consider, for example, who will be taking over Gates' official jobs.
CTO Ray Ozzie is assuming the title of chief software architect. Now, I happen to like Ozzie, but let's face it, the only home-run he had was Lotus Notes, and that started in the mid-80s. A lot of his other ideas, like Lotus Symphony, a do-it-all office program from the days of MS-DOS and the Groove Virtual Office, an online office suite, have turned out to be much more interesting than practical.
Does Microsoft really want a visionary, no matter how bright, as the chief software architect?
Craig Mundie, who is taking on the new title of chief research and strategy officer, has done little of note for the company. Or, to be more exact, he's run the Consumer Platforms Division, which was responsible for developing non-PC platform and service offerings such as the Windows CE operating system and other software for handheld PCs, Pocket PCs, and automotive infotainment, and he also managed WebTV.
I don't know about you, but I'm not impressed. That's a list of also-ran projects, to me.
In addition, one of the complaints that has been coming out of Redmond, is that there are too many layers of management. So, now Microsoft will be headed not just by the one true Bill and his prophet Steve, but by a triumvirate of Steve, Ray, and Craig? That will help!
In turn, this means that now is the time for the Linux companies to strike. It's time to produce the best possible operating systems, to make those deals with PC makers, to push as hard as possible on every business and technical level.
It's also time to standardize. Everyone in Linux should be getting behind the LSB (Linux Standard Base) and the Portland Project. Linux supporters need to present potential customers with a united front of interoperable Linux distributions and applications.
It was Unix's failure to do this in the 80s that helped Gates to establish his original desktop monopoly. If Linux fails to focus its efforts properly, it can still suffer the same fate.
Microsoft's time of transition is Linux's time to strike.
-- Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
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