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Microsoft

Windows Marketing Executive Doug Miller 554

Posted by Roblimo from the everybody-be-nice-now dept.
Doug Miller is Director of Competitive Strategy in Microsoft's Windows Server Marketing Group. Doug is responsible for a team within Microsoft focused on competitive strategy and enterprise interoperability products. He's been spotted at Linux shows. He uses vi. He was a Unix guy for many years. His previous company, Softway Systems, was acquired by Microsoft in 1999. What are you going to ask him today? Up to you, but one question per post, please. We'll send Doug 10 of the highest-moderated questions and post his answers next week.
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Windows Marketing Executive Doug Miller More

Windows Marketing Executive Doug Miller

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  • MS Linux Distribution (Score:4)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @08:09AM (#333469)
    Is Microsoft planning on having their own Linux distribution ?
  • some MS exec (I fail to remember his name)

    Jim Allchin.

    said something to the effect that copylefting software (GNU, open-source, GPL, Free Software, you know the deal) is harmful.

    He said:

    Open source is an intellectual-property destroyer.... I can't imagine something that could be worse than this for the software business and the intellectual-property business.... I'm an American, I believe in the American Way. I worry if the government encourages open source, and I don't think we've done enough education of policy makers to understand the threat.

    In later clarifications, he claimed that he really only meant the GPL, and really only in the context of tax-supported, government-developed software. In other words, tax-paying American companies should be allowed to release proprietary versions of any software developed with tax money.

    That issue has been flogged thoroughly elsewhere [oreillynet.com].

    As a parting off-topic shot: Microsoft pays no taxes [billparish.com], so Allchin's claim that tax-paying companies should be allowed to co-op taxpayer-funded code doesn't apply to Microsoft anyway. Put that in your tax-loophole pipe and smoke it.

    --Patrick

  • It's been well known among most system administrators that Microsoft will blatantly send out unsolicitated commercial e-mail, irrespective of the communicated wishes of the recipient. This deeply impacts any marketing efforts of Microsoft, and makes what even Bill Gates III and Steve Balmer say from their mouths rumor at best. Microsoft's IP addresses are even well known.

    When will Microsoft ditch it's spamlist, and convert to full verfied opt-in, while sending out "We nuked this spammer on our network" for your MSN dialup services? Taking these steps will go a long way towards making Microsoft's reputation belivable.



    --
    WolfSkunks for a better Linux Kernel
    $Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.keenspace.com";

  • 1) It's "Kerberos."
    2) The Kerberos support is standards-compliant. The protocol specifies a vendor-specific field, and Microsoft puts all vendor-specific information in that field, as the standard specifies. Information about their use of that field and interoperability concerns is available on their website.
    3) IE is very W3C compliant. Not 100%, but for a long time it was the most compliant browser in common use. It's been much better than Netscape 4.x for a long time, and Netscape is only recently catching up with the newer builds of Mozilla (and Opera is pretty good these days too).
  • Considering the misinformation coming from *both* sides of the Linux/MS-Windows debate (the general "Windows Sux" vs "open source is UnAmerican"), how can the two operating systems co-exist?

    Do you ever see a time when Linux and MS-Windows will be judged on merit, rather than hype and propoganda? Or is does Microsoft consider this a true "war," with a winner and a loser?
  • The general category for such software is "malware".
    --
  • While print, newspaper, radio, billboard, Web, etc. forms of advertising capture the attention of the general public, it's hard to deny that word-of-mouth is a powerful tool for influencing potential customers. Advertising professionals and public-relations professionals will speak glowingly of word-of-mouth if given a chance.



    Okay, fess up--a lot of the recent news we've been hearing out of Microsoft is carefully designed to sway public opinion, isn't it? It seems a bit odd that you, charged with competitive strategies, would make such a bold statement as "Linux is going down," then not long afterward another of your co-workers decided to go on a crusade against government projects using the GNU Public License. If that was the intent, the Slashdot-reading public performed admirably. Among non-Linux users, I've noted a definite negative attitude toward Linux and Linux users recently.



    Also, would you care to comment on such issues as astroturfing?

  • please do not send this one on. it's a dumb question. it will get the canned response.
    we have a great opportunity here to ask real questions...let's not waste that with this kind of drivvel.

  • I think this would be an interesting question to round off the interview:

    In recent months, we've heard a number of Microsoft executives giving off mixed signals about various issues: for example, you guys can't seem to agree whether Linux is a threat or not. Some might say that this shows that MS is not as paranoid about its press relations as is, say, Apple, but personally I get the impression that the views expressed may have been tailored towards their respective audiences.

    With this in mind, can I ask:

    • In what way do you feel your answers to the questions so far have reflected the fact that Slashdotters are the target audience?
    • Were you able to submit these answers without reference to other units or senior management?
  • This question baits Microsoft with a presupposition that isn't even true. Take a look at the survey [netcraft.net] itself, and you'll see that while Apache numbers continue to outgrow MS numbers, MS actually holds a dominant position on SSL sites within the US. Now, given that a good percentage of the total web traffic is concentrated in the US and that most companies worth a damn have SSL sites, and you'll see that MS isn't hurting as bad as just a simple look at the first graph might tell you.

    The thing none of those graphs show you is a relationship between hit rates and server usage. I'd be willing to bet that a good 60% (probably more) of those Apache servers are just people like me who run Apache at home for a small personal web server. I work for a managed hosting company, and more people request IIS than do Apache, although we generally use Apache more because we feel it's better (that's part of sales, though).

    IIS is not struggling. It's gaining ground and acceptance in the corporate world, and when you pit a Wintel enterprise-class web solution against a Unix-based enterprise-class web solution (note I said "enterprise-class" which I don't feel Linux can really handle yet), they're actually rather competitive.

    I'd rather see non-BS questions coming from the Slashdot community rather than questions that twist and manipulate facts to put the interviewee in a bad position before he even answers.
  • Bah, wish I could mod this up. CowbertPrime is right.
  • "It is still an interesting question as to why they originally released it "

    It's really only an interesting question if you have a corncob shoved up your rear end.

    Honestly, I can't think of any reason why one would continually berate a company for something they did a year ago that was subsequently fixed.
  • What kind of Microsoft shill are you?

    Seriously, this is the first time I've ever seen someone at slashdot actually verify something before posting it.

    Way to go!
  • You're confusing C# with .Net.

    There's a lot more to .Net than just the common language runtime engine.

    A good chunk of the core is the interoperability present with web services. Which has nothing at all to do with Java.

    As far as I've seen, Sun only recently discovered this was a great idea and jumped on board. That was shortly after Microsoft, IBM and the others announced the idea.

    Giving Java credit for something Java didn't do seems odd.

  • 55% of the marketshare is more than 50%.

  • Ok, now that's not true...
  • From everything I've heard, Microsoft is dead serious about adhering to standards. Honestly, they've already done a very good job at adhering to standards over the past several years.

    As far as who is first... Keep in mind that everything new is old.

    Most of what Sun created was done elsewhere by others. Even the web is just a new shell over the old mainframe terminal methods... ok, so it's got pretty pictures instead of just text. :)
  • Yeah right, remote objects over RMI versus remote objects over DCOM. Entirely dissimilar.

    Now SOAP on the other hand is a completely different paradigm, which you obviously know little about.
  • No here we have a situation of a lot of people with corncobs stuck up their rear ends.

    Microsoft didn't modify the standard, they followed it exactly to the letter. The fact that the Kerberos authors now say "oops, I guess we hadn't thought anybody would use that field" says nothing about standards compliance.

    The Kerberos implemention of Microsoft's does interoperate with Unix implementations.

    I know, because I have Unix machines in my home lab authenticating to a Win2k domain controller, the whole 'single signon' realized.

    As far as Microsoft declaring war, keep in mind that the swarm of corncob laden assholes declared war on Microsoft first in full force by spreading lies about Microsoft standards compliance and interoperability. So I don't know how you could possibly take the moral high road on that one.

    And like I said before, the only people who remotely cared about how Microsoft responded were those same corncob challenged individuals.

  • Yes, SOAP is an extension of XML-RPC.

    As far as your other babble... Interesting, but entirely wrong.
  • Well of course 'Web Services' can be tacked onto Java. That's sort of the whole point.

    Sigh, you obviously don't understand the platform independence aspect of SOAP.

    Java with RMI isn't platform independent, it's just a whole new platform.

    Whatever.
  • I'm certainly familiar with The Open Group. I used to admin a number of OSF/1 boxes back in the early 90's.

    I did a quick search looking for such a discussion, but couldn't find it. I assume this must have been used at sometime within DCE or something? Interesting.
  • If the trend continues, hey I'm all for it. But it's considerably wrong for you to imply that this is a long standing tradition of slashdot.

    As you say, I've been reading this web board consistently since 1997 when the userids were first introduced along with moderation. Thus the #2322.

    Unless slashdot has finally gotten rid of Roblimo, we can be certain that the habit of posting stories without verification will continue to some extent. :(

  • Ahh, found an article that mentions it.

    http://www.nwfusion.com/archive/1999/75257_09-13 -1 999.html?nf

    Yep, the field is also used in DCE, exactly like Microsoft uses it. And exactly like Microsoft, the information on how the field was used has been open and published.

    So it does seem that the corncob regiment is a bit questionable in their outrage.
  • Well, considering your posting record, I'd have to say the only person brainwashed is yourself.

    You appear to have at tendency to go off on topics you know little about towing the Linux anti-Microsoft line. This just happened to be another such case. :(
  • Malcontent says "We are BORG! Resistance is FUTILE!"

  • Why doesn't Microsoft port over SQL Server to Linux?

  • What is MSFT supporting SAP? (Score:4)

    by DAldredge ( 2353 ) <SlashdotEmail@GMail.Com> on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @08:08AM (#333508) Journal
    Why is MSFT support SAP (Secure Audio Path)?
    What benefit does this tech provide the consumer?

  • Interoperability (Score:5)

    by moonboy ( 2512 ) on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @10:02AM (#333509)


    Microsoft representatives are often talking about innovation and it is well known in the developer communities that Microsoft often seeks to "embrace and extend" certain technologies. Examples include Kerberos and Java (although I'm sure there are others.)

    Many readers/posters on Slashdot like to joke about this philosophy calling it instead "embrace and extinguish" because it seems that Microsoft, in their "extending" a particular technology, also make it incompatible with the originating technology. This "extending", coupled with Microsofts huge (some would say monopolistic) presence in the marketplace, places the original technology in jeopardy.

    In another interoperability area, the SAMBA software suite has encountered more than a bit of difficulty in making it easier for Unix and Unix-like OS's to interoperate with Windows.

    My question:

    Since your focus at Microsoft seems to be the interoperability of your products with others, could you explain Microsoft's reluctance to "play fair" and adhere to existing standards?


  • Moderators, please do not let this question through.

    Aside from the obvious linguistic snafu (the word "candor" is not fitting here, "inviting manner" is not really applicable when you answer), there are some PR/political concerns here.

    A cheap point for Doug Miller is "we don't consider ourselves enemies of the devoted good folks in the open source community". In fact, he would then strenghten an earlier PR stunt by Microsoft labelling the Linus & Co "Robin Hood and his diciples of the Sherwood Forest". Not to mention that even thinking of "enemies" here is extremely childish.

    Second, using loaded descriptions like "struggling marketshare" about IIS requires some backup - backup that does not exist. IIS is not struggling by any accounts. Despite its many security flaws, it has a solid foothold in a space that's fairly new to Microsoft. No doubt he would refer to Microsoft's many other products with a similar beginning - Microsoft Money, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Internet Explorer, even Microsoft Windows had low market shares during the first couple of releases.

    Folks, please let us give questions in a neutral tone.

  • In the face of competition from open source operating systems like Linux and *BSD, Apple chose to reuse and enhance existing OSS software. With hardware prices spiralling down to sub-basement levels, shouldn't Microsoft consider scrapping win32 and adopt one of the freely available operating systems? Won't the economics of the Operating System market force Microsoft to search for cheaper ways to deliver its software services?

  • Good question.
  • You haven't seen the vi lovers home page [avalanche.nl] have you?

  • EULAs (Score:5)

    by cpt kangarooski ( 3773 ) on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @11:05AM (#333516) Homepage
    Current copyright law has certain interesting provisions. For instance there are statutory exceptions that permit users who have legally obtained software to install and run it, and to back it up, without the necessity of agreeing to a license.

    Fair Use provisions both encoded in law by Congress and recognized by the Courts prior to and regardless of Congress' opinion on the matter permit users to buy, sell and trade software as desired, as well as discuss and review it.

    Yet programmers are still entitled to copyrights on their software - the copyrights simply don't expand into those areas, not at all.

    With this in mind, how do you justify MS's draconian EULAs for single-user software? The laws discussed above negate any need for them to protect either party, after all. Additionally, how do you justify the upcoming licensing scheme that will tie installations closely to hardware, again given that MS would be just as protected under the law if it had no licensing at all. Why is it desirable? If you don't think it's desirable, what specifically are you doing within MS to get rid of these practices?
  • Ah, it's nice to see that, even though Jesse Berst has given way to David Coursey, AnchorDesk's editors and fact-checkers are still...
    • imaginary beings
    • uninterested in journalistic integrity
    • doomed to repeat history (see also "Mozilla doesn't support XML" [zdnet.com], revisionist history*)
    • all of the above
    *: ZD, instead of publishing a retraction, performed an Orwellian edit to the column, changing "XML" to the unqualified statement "key web technologies". They also removed all but one TalkBack post pointing out the error, although, to be fair, most of it was hair-trigger flameage.

    We're not scare-mongering/This is really happening - Radiohead

  • Think about it for a second... would Ford Motor Co. going out of business harm the U.S. economy? Probably. Are they a monopoly? No.

    Your question doesn't really make sense.

  • What's that like, going from Unix to Windows? I mean, used to drive a Porche, but now I have a Razor scooter, so I can sympathize.

    -Waldo
  • How will Microsoft guarantee the privacy and security of documents that are no longer created and stored locally on the client?

  • Lay it out for us (Score:5)

    by FWMiller ( 9925 ) on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @08:11AM (#333541) Homepage

    I'll put is straight on the line:

    Can you ever see Microsoft applications like Office, Visio, and Project being ported to Linux, and why or why not?

    FM

  • OS X (Score:5)

    by neutrino ( 11215 ) on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @08:20AM (#333542)
    With the recent release of MacOS X what are your reactions to it and what plans do you have to compete with a truly user-friendly desktop OS combined with the stability of a UNIX backend?
    --neutrino
  • If MicroSoft has a whole team devoted to interoperability, why was I only able to achieve any level of interoperability through Samba?
  • True, it is *now* freely available. It is still an interesting question as to why they originally released it with the silly click-through license and then sent a C&D to /. to get it yanked.

    It is not a surprise that, after it was widely published and the click-through license was easily averted that they decided to go ahead and publish it after all. If only others (RIAA) were as clueful to give up when the genie (DeCSS) got out of the bottle.
  • How often do you post on slashdot, and do you identify yourself as an MS employee when you do?
  • D'oh. The RIAA's task is to realize that the MP3 genie is out of the bottle.
  • It shows how MS feels about "interoperability". It's not like they just "forgot" to document their PAC, because they did sorta release the docs. And it's not that they "accidentally" left a boilerplate license on the doc, because they threatened slashdot. And another thread [slashdot.org] questions if the MS document ever truly documented the PAC format.

    It's not like this is the first time MS ever took a standard and modified it with the hopes of killing the competition. That's what makes the question interesting. Here we have a case where MS went out of it's way to take a standard and keep others from working with it (while under investigation for anti-trust violations, no less). As an answer to the criticism, they released a document that virtually declared war on anyone that tried to *use* it. After it was widely distributed and unable to stop, they threatened legal action against those that published it. After realizing that they couldn't stop it, they quietly gave up supressing it.

  • The PC* standards are primarily driven by Microsoft.

    Of course they've been widely ignored before (for example, making parallel/serial "optional" before USB support shipped for NT). But they do serve to provide cover for OEMs to do certain things, such as get rid of ISA slots.


    --
  • There's actually a good technical reason for this -- MS SQL is heavily optimised for the NT kernel (or so they say). According to Microsoft, this gives them a advantage on NT that other Unix-centric RDBMS vendors don't have (because they use a portability layer or a subset of Unix-like calls on NT).

    Of course, this is at the cost of making MSSQL non portable, or forcing them to go through a similar compatibility layer, but that was a business decision.
    --
  • The answer will be NO, I'm afraid.

    A better question is "Will Microsoft make your Interix Unix-compability layer part of the standard Windows XP install instead of a add-on product?"

    Or

    "Will Microsoft be adding Linux binary-compatibilty to Interix?"
    --
  • If you are looking for a history lesson, I think he was sort of dancing around the point about the 286. Turns out this was a braindamaged processor, but was insanely popular in the PC AT (1984) and IBM and their subcontractor Microsoft committed to shipping a next gen OS for it. This move politically kiboshed Microsoft's original plan which was to replace DOS with UNIX/XENIX.

    This OS was OS/2 1.0, which shipped in 1987 as a 16-bit 286-specific OS to an enormous amount of hype, but unfortunately was already obsolete because i386 machines were already on the market from Compaq and others. It also put the dampers on IBM's big PS/2 Microchannel rollout, because IBM wouldn't ship a i386 CPU, and this led to the impression that the market leader was falling behind and sigificantly tarnished the sell of MCA as an advanced solution.

    Anyway, the dumping of XENIX for OS/2, and the later (1990) IBM-Microsoft divorce (primarly over OS/2 development and marketing issues) set back the state of PC operating systems by a number of years. Meanwhile, Windows 3, which was always supposed to be a half-assed stopgap solution, got popular, and still to this day most PCs ship a direct decendant (WinME).

    --
  • How does the ninth post, and the first that wasn't a troll, rudundant?

  • Corporate strategy (Score:3)

    by Ravenscall ( 12240 ) on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @08:08AM (#333558)
    We keep hearing rumours that Microsoft will eventually be coming out with this or that for Linux, but on the flip side, Microsoft PR has some very negative things to say about Linux. What I am wondering, is there any truth to the rumours, and given the recent announcement that Microsoft will be developing a product with Transmeta, will we be seeing Microsoft put a kinder face towards Linux?
  • A few years ago, back in the era of the "Microsoft-Digital Alliance," a lot was made of the plans for OpenVMS to be the top-end of the migration path for people deploying Windows NT; if you needed to run something that resembled NT on "big iron," the goal was that you would migrate to OpenVMS on that hardware and be assured of compatibility with data, interfaces, etc.

    Now that Digital, the Alliance, and OpenVMS are all historical footnotes, is there a similar (successor) plan -- using, for instance, Compaq's "big iron" (the wildfire boxes in particular) and Tru64 Unix in place of OpenVMS?

    MOO;IANAL.

  • Microsoft was reported over a year ago to be one of only a very few companies publically supporting UCITA. How could this support be justified?

    Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
  • The number of people who use Linux is not tied to the success -- or failure -- of any single company or organization. Anybody who can afford a computer can become a Linux user, consultant, or provider of value-added services.

    When deciding how to "compete against Linux", how does Microsoft's marketing strategy take this into account?
    --

  • And just how much is a soul going for these days? ;^)

  • .NET (Score:5)

    by PenguinX ( 18932 ) on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @08:18AM (#333571) Homepage

    Balmer recently said that Microsoft.NET will interoperate on multiple platforms, including MacOS X and Linux to name a few. How do you suppose that this will be technically possible? Will Microsoft bring Internet Explorer to Linux or will they create Netscape 6 / Mozilla plugins for what will run Microsoft.NET.

    Furthermore, how will it be marketed? I have learned that consumers typically do not take well to products that are turned into services. From the consumers standpoint they were able to own Microsoft Office, however with .NET it will follow a service bureau model instead.

    Just for kicks I will throw out the 27 million dollar question, what is your opinion concerning the future of Linux in the server / desktop / small devices markets? Do you think that it has been successful, what (of the Linux market) would you improve if you could?

  • -Why did Microsoft choose to support Perl?
    -What are the latest developments with the support for Perl in Visual Studio and the .Net framework?
    -Can we expect alot of proprietary enhancements and extensions?
    -Will we be able to develop code in a Windows IDE for use on a Unix (like) environment?
    -How does your marketing team distinguish Perl from Visual Basic?
    -Any thoughts on support for a mod_perl like embedded interpreter for IIS?

  • Bill Gates coding contribution (Score:4)

    by 5foot2 ( 24971 ) on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @08:21AM (#333586) Homepage
    I've often wanted to meet Bill just to ask him this. Does Bill contribute any code to any of Microsoft's products? If yes, how much?

  • Question from a Small ASP (Score:3)

    by lal ( 29527 ) on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @09:09AM (#333589)
    My (small) company creates web-based applications and delivers them as an ASP. We use Linux, Apache, MySQL and Perl or PHP (LAMP), and we're happy with the results. Our software costs approach zero, and we don't have to worry about per-seat or per-server licensing.

    On occasion, a feature we need is missing from the LAMP toolset. This feature is available in a Microsoft product, and we think about switching. However, when we look at the economics of the situation, we find a way to work around our "need" for the feature.

    I'm no Linux zealot -- I've been in this business for 15 years, and I've used (and been happy with) Microsoft products. But, as a small software shop, the business decision to use LAMP instead of Windows 2000, IIS, SQL Server and ASP seems like a no-brainer.

    My question: How does Microsoft compete with LAMP in this kind of environment?

  • Re:Microsoft wants to discourage system upgrades. (Score:5)

    by jellicle ( 29746 ) on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @09:13AM (#333590) Homepage
    I would strongly suggest people read Microsoft's OEM guidelines before believing this. Slashdot received a submission of this early this morning, and I downloaded and read said guidelines from MS's web site. Microsoft has some suggestions for an "Easy PC", a sort of IMac for the PC world - it should have bright colors, interesting designs, no confusing upgradability, etc. etc. It is clear from reading the specifications that there is no intent for ALL PCs to be "Easy PCs" - this would be just for certain product lines intended for new PC owners.

    So, ZDNet is full of shit. At best they are poor readers. At worst they are intentionally confusing these guidelines for the Easy PC with all of the other guidelines (in the same document) for regular desktops, servers, etc., none of which say anything about expansion cards except for notes like "All expansion slots in the system are accessible for users to insert cards" (that's a direct quote from the general system guide, by the way).

    There are plenty of things going on in the hardware world that people need to be concerned about. Copy protection is being built in at a very basic level. But in this particular case, ZDNet is entirely wrong.

  • Open and compatible protocols (Score:5)

    by scruffy ( 29773 ) on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @08:33AM (#333591)
    Microsoft has a reputation for not playing well with others, both for having closed networking/internet protocols and for making incompatible versions of open protocols. Do you think Microsoft deserves this reputation? What is Microsoft's position on open and compatible protocols? What is Microsoft's position on reverse engineering efforts of its closed protocols?

  • interoperability (Score:4)

    by Malcontent ( 40834 ) on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @09:16AM (#333621)
    MS is now running commercials stating that the SQL server database "plays nice with others". OTOH MS has no JDBC drivers, UNIX ODBC drivers or any other tool to connect to a SQL server from a unix environment. MS also does not support the Freetds project which attempts this. In fact MS is moving away from TDS which will render this project useless.

    What exactly does MS mean by "plays nice with others?". What does "interoperability" mean to you and to MS. Does MS plan on providing JDBC drivers for any of it's databases.

  • Two questions... (Score:3)

    by JimDabell ( 42870 ) on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @08:33AM (#333624) Homepage

    1. What has been the hardest thing for you to deal with from a marketing perspective? The DOJ trial, or something else? What do you think the next difficult thing is that's coming up?

    2. Do you view Windows as a competitor to Linux? :)

  • Copy protection at the hardware level (Score:5)

    by iamsure ( 66666 ) on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @08:44AM (#333643) Homepage
    What are the current, and future opinions at Microsoft about Copy Protection at the hardware level?

    If a spec is developed that has TRUE hardware-industry support, would Microsoft utilize it in its software, would it ignore such abilities, or would it give consumers the right to check a box to turn it on or off?

    (And if you choose the check option, what would the default be) :)

    Thanks for your time.

  • AARD... (Score:5)

    by mwalker ( 66677 ) on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @08:19AM (#333648) Homepage
    Dear Doug, could you clear something up for me once and for all?

    Was the "AARD detection code" [ddj.com] bug a true self-modifying virus, intentionally planted by Microsoft? And if not, how did self-modifying, XOR encrypted code get into Windows?

    Here's the link to the AARD code:
    http://www.ddj.com/articles/1993/9309/9309d/9309 d. htm

    Thanks for your reply! Microsoft's years of silence on this have really had me wondering whether MS really unleashed a stealth virus on its users. Please tell us they didn't!

  • Embrace and Extend... (Score:5)

    by mwalker ( 66677 ) on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @08:26AM (#333649) Homepage
    Dear Doug,

    Much of Microsoft's strategy in the past has involved embracing a standard, and then changing it in such a way that specific interoperabilities (specifically, MS client to non-MS server) are disabled.

    Some examples of protocols that have been adapted in this manner are HTML, SSL and Kerberos.

    Which protocols, in the future, do you intend to apply this paradigm to?

    Thanks for your input!

  • Competitive process (Score:4)

    by drin ( 83479 ) on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @08:14AM (#333676)
    I regularly see published diatribes about the monopolistic attitudes inside Microsoft and the "crush 'em" competitive strategies used by the company to dominate markets (not to mention the DOJ case and subsequent initial ruling...).

    Can you give us some insight into how you (personally and as a Microsoft-employeed individual) approach the generation of a competitive strategy when entering a new market? Do you consciously set out to eliminate all competition, or is there a deeper, broader, more long-term strategy at work?

    -drin

  • Re:Loosening the Golden Ring from Microsoft's fist (Score:3)

    by cworley ( 96911 ) on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @11:14AM (#333706)
    I wish you were right. It would be great if an Intel clone maker could get out from under Intel's IP grip (wait... Transmeta does an emulation that's supposed to do just that).

    Anyway, I believe Intel's got parts of their x86 instruction set patented -- if you implement those instructions, you pay Intel.

    You are correct that the old license agreement ended last year, and AMD is not currently paying Intel. The problem is: they have not yet negotiated a new agreement:

    "
    Our current patent license agreement with Intel expired at the end of 2000. We are currently negotiating a new agreement with Intel but there can be no assurance that a new agreement will be successfully negotiated. The lack of a patent cross-license with Intel could lead to expensive and time- consuming litigation the outcomes of which could have a material effect on our business."

    source [edgar-online.com]

  • Loosing the Golden Ring from Microsoft's fist? (Score:4)

    by cworley ( 96911 ) on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @08:41AM (#333707)
    When Compaq (later followed by others) loosened the Golden Ring from IBM's grasp by reverse engineering their proprietary bios, the Open Hardware PC platform revolution was ignited. Motherboards, memory, adapter cards, etc... could be made by anybody; hardware innovation increased at a rapid pace, and prices plummeted.

    That left only two proprietary pieces atop the Open Hardware PC: the Intel CPU and the Microsoft OS.

    Intel's been loosing ground, especially with clone maker AMD (but, AMD still has to pay Intel royalties for every clone processor).

    The OS, though, has proven tough to emulate. Not only does it reach the pinnacle of complexity (where chaos kicks in), but any emulator must chase Microsoft's tail: the emulation will be worthless come Microsoft's next OS patch (i.e. the DRDOS settlement).

    Ballmer has recently stated that he thinks Linux is Microsoft's biggest potential competitor.

    Could Open Source be a revolution similar to the PC Open Hardware
    revolution of the early 80's, bringing true competition and innovation to PC software, or is Ballmer's statement just a ruse?

  • Oxymoron: "interoperability" at Microsoft? (Score:5)

    by cworley ( 96911 ) on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @09:09AM (#333708)
    I would think someone in charge of "interoperability" at Microsoft would be akin to the guy at the NRA whose job it is to promote new gun control legislation.

    Software has traditionally been a 1-player game: the "proprietary lock-in" (using proprietary formats, protocols, and standards to assure incompatibility) captures customers in the vendors grasp. It's not just Microsoft's game, the Unix vendors play too (not as well). Once a customer is hooked, they have to stay with that vendor; switching software risks loosing old data, and requires a steep/expensive learning curve. As if once you bought a Ford, you'd always have to buy a Ford (or have to completely relearn how to drive on a totally new road system). Open Source has the promise to allow true competition in software, not allowing any vendors' proprietary protocols, standards, or formats (at least with the foundation of the distribution).

    This "interoperability" could be an attempt to show the Justice Department that Microsoft is committed to competition.

    Then again, it could a ruse to throw the Justice Department off your trail.

    When I think of other "interoperability" attempts at Microsoft (i.e. Posix and Streams compliance), it was really a bait-and-switch tactic: Microsoft produced half-baked software in order to lure unix-based customers with the promise of NT compatibility. Once the customers were committed, they found that the "compatibility" was nonexistent, and they had to hurriedly switch to Microsoft proprietary API's in order to cover their poor decision to switch to Microsoft.

    So, are you:

    making Microsoft look like it promotes competition, or,

    part of the bait-and-switch team?

  • Mr. Miller, thanks for taking the time to address this forum. I'm sure you've realized that you jumped into a snake pit here.

    My question is this: Most Slashdot readers have been around long enough to have witnessed some of what has been referred to as Microsoft's "Embrace and Extinguish" strategy.

    With .Net, Microsoft is pushing the idea that Microsoft technologies will play well with others. In the past "interoperability" at Microsoft has seemed to mean, "we'll make our products work with yours just long enough that we can match your featureset then bury you with marketing and add many new features that only work in a homogeneous Microsoft environment."

    What about .Net is different in this regard, over the long haul?

  • Mr. Miller, again thanks for fielding questions from all of us.

    Given that Microsoft now supports Win3.1, Win95, Win98, WinNT, Win2000 in its various flavors, WinCE, EmbeddedCE, and probably other OSes I'm not even aware of, how do you intend to differentiate these OSes in a way that doesn't confuse people?

    To me it looks like these days Microsoft is doing what Proctor and Gamble has been doing for years - competing with its own brands against its own brands. It's hard not to chuckle when I see an ad comparing Win2k performance to WinNT performance. It's just like those "more whitening power" ads for Tide, but there are actual numbers behind the claims, and they don't make NT look very good at all.

    My understanding is that at companies like P&G, separate brands are handled as separate profit centers - small companies inside larger companies, competing against each other. But Tide doesn't have to be interoperable with Clorox - you buy one, or you buy the other.

    How do you think MS will deal with this going forward?

  • What about the Breakup? (Score:3)

    by zpengo ( 99887 ) on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @08:11AM (#333715) Homepage
    What are your thoughts about the "Microsoft Breakup Theory?" Is it really going to happen? If so, what will the future look like?

  • Historical Differences (Score:3)

    by zpengo ( 99887 ) on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @08:13AM (#333716) Homepage
    How has Microsoft's marketing strategies evolved over the years? How have the software market, competition, and social trends affected how Windows is packaged, advertised and sold?

  • The Real Bill Gates (Score:3)

    by gvonk ( 107719 ) <(moc.knovtterrag) (ta) (todhsals)> on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @08:10AM (#333729) Homepage
    William Gates III is, no doubt, the most hated figure among geeks and at the same time can be revered and honored by the press/media for the innovations of the last two decades. While his popularity is dubious or at least dichotomous, his fame and fortune are unquestionable. My question is: What's it like working with the second richest man in the world? [cnet.com] What's he like as a person? (man behind the mogul, as it were) Any personal anecdotes that you feel obliged to share? What does Mr. Gates really think of Open Source etc...?

  • Marketing Linux (Score:4)

    by Mr. Sketch ( 111112 ) <mister DOT sketch AT gmail DOT com> on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @08:16AM (#333735)
    Hypothetically, if Microsoft was working on it's own version of Linux, how would Microsoft market it to the public?

    Would they emphasize compatibility with Windows or would they try to make it stand on it's own merits or what other strategies would be used?

  • Marketing Advice (Score:4)

    by Mr. Sketch ( 111112 ) <mister DOT sketch AT gmail DOT com> on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @08:20AM (#333736)
    Since the Linux community suffers from poor to no marketing, what advice would you give to the Linux community to improve their marketing? Keep in mind that the Linux community does not have unlimitied marketing funds what would be the most effect ways to market Linux to the public?

  • Why does MS not play ball? (Score:3)

    by (void*) ( 113680 ) on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @08:13AM (#333743)
    Why did MS have to add their own stuff to Kerberos, and why did they have to release documentation under a click-through agreement that says you can't use it to make an equivalent product?

    Every OS has a place. I don't dispute that MS wants to be the the popular OS. But why must MS engage in business tactics that do not give the consumer choice?

  • When is Windows superior? (Score:5)

    by Smitty825 ( 114634 ) on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @08:30AM (#333744) Homepage Journal
    Since you are the "Server Marketing Guy" at Microsoft, and not the director of corporate strategies, as so many people seem to think, here are a few questions that you might be able to answer. :-)

    In what situations have you found that Microsoft Windows NT/2000 servers preform better on similiar hardware than Linux/Unix/BSD systems? What situations do Unix servers work better?

  • T-Shirt (Score:4)

    by Morocco Mole ( 121389 ) on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @10:01AM (#333751)

    I'm still waiting for my "I survived service pack #2" t-shirt. Do you know when they will be shipping?

    --Richard

  • The "services" model (Score:5)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @08:38AM (#333752) Homepage
    When I see Gates saying "all Microsoft software will be rented in ten years", I see IT managers scheduling exit strategies from Microsoft products. Clearly, a services model benefits Microsoft, but do you really think corporate America will go for it?

  • Microsoft and KDE vs GNOME (Score:5)

    by Karma Sucks ( 127136 ) on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @08:45AM (#333766)
    Has Microsoft evaluated the latest Linux desktop technologies such as KDE2.1.1/Qt2.3.0 and Ximian GNOME 1.2? Well, we know you probably did because you mentioned KDE/KFM extensively in your anti-trust trial.

    The advances that these projects have been making is incredible. And at the same time differences between these projects is amazing. So what is Microsoft's evaluation of the situation. What does Microsoft think of KDE vs GNOME, in terms of the consequences for Microsoft and Linux?

    Thanks Doug! Here's to an entertaining answer.

  • What's wrong with consistent version scheme?
    --

  • It's obvious what all this is leading to... (Score:4)

    by StoryMan ( 130421 ) on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @09:20AM (#333778)
    Well, there's two ways to interpret this "no access" policy.

    The first is that it's not a requirement of WinXP per se but is instead a recommendation for builders like Dell and Gateway: that the ideal, low-cost, affordable "WinXP" box should be an all-in-one solution. As has been pointed out, this is probably good news for Dell and Gateway since obsolecence will happen much, much faster.

    So it's not so much an ex cathedra pronouncement as it is a goal: make the box in such a way so that the user will get X months out of it and not worry about having to muss and fuss with video cards, sound cards, and nics. (I imagine this is way MS will spin it. They'll say that this "no-access" policy is actually a thing that their basic users have been wanting for a long time: "Hey, all we want is a low-cost computer to browse the web. We don't want to have to worry about added a sound card."

    Moreover, the sentence here says that *end-users* won't have access. The alternate way of spinning this is that MS here is trying to throw some business over to those wonderful Best Buy tech wizards. Maybe MS is looking to create a series of "Authorized Service Centers" -- Best Buy, for example -- that can install all the sound-cards that the user wants. But, dammit, if you break this "seal" then you null-and-void your warranty. (Because, as you'll note, there are "no user servicable parts" inside.)

    Obviously, this is a way to keep the WinXP experience "pure" -- sorta the same way that Apple tried to keep the "Macintosh" experience pure (at least in the early days) and, say, the way that TIVO attempts to deter folks from tinkering. (Obviously it hasn't worked in the case of Apple or TIVO, but that's never the point with these kinds of corporate dictums.)

    THe second -- and certainly more sinister -- view is that this is the first murmur of the "secure box." MS is working on the "secure box" and it could be that their in the beginning stages of "molding the customer experience" away from the do-it-yourself box of today to the "all-in-one" box of the future -- complete with the RIAA, MPAA, and NSA (for crypto) stamps of approval.

    I'm *sure* that MS is in fairly intense negotiations with the RIAA and MPAA (and probably the NSA, too) to begin crafting the specs of the secure box that will be most probably be released in 2002/2003. Signed drivers only, no analog outputs, secure video and audio paths.

    My theory is that they'll position this as the "consumer box". Windows XP 2002 (or whatever it will be called) will only work on the "secure box". Authorized service centers will appear that will service the box. The "professional box" will be the computer that we're using now, but if you want to run Windows on it, you'll need the "professional" version of Windows XP 2002 which will be prohibitively expensive for the ordinary consumer. (It will probably cost more than the hardware itself and be subject to hefty licensing restrictions. In fact, MS might only offer Windows XP 2002 in some sort of corporate multi-pack. You will not be able to purchase 1 copy of Windows XP 2002 Professional.)

    They'll also make sure that whatever new browser they release -- IE 7.0 -- will only run on the customer or pro versions of XP 2002. Users who continue to use Win2000 or WinME will find themselves unable to browse sites "optimized for IE 7.0". (MS will implement some wacky signing/bizarre crypto that forces non-MS browsers to either upgrade to the 'secure path' or stop browsing.)

    Now here's the kicker. I'm almost positive this is what will happen within the next 12 months:
    Ballmer -- around the time of the XBOX release -- plans to leverage the "complexity" of Linux (a blatant falsehood, but it will be something that we'll hear more of once we start hearing about Windows XP 2002 -- the "Next Generation of Net") and will force ordinary users to choose between the all-in-one MS "secure box" or the more "complex" Linux option. Ballmer won't denigrate Linux, but he'll gradually shift his spin to indicate that, yeah, Linux is an option. It will always be an option. But we at MS have the monopoly on the low-cost, easy-to-use compute r-- our secure PC running XP 2002. Sure, go ahead and get Linux. But why? It's complex, unwiedly, and cannot be easily supported. (Again, all of this isn't true, but this is the direction of future FUD: complexity. There might also be a salvo of FUD -- and this is trickier -- which will focus on the "legality" of the secure PC running XP 2002. Copyright violators will be targetted, and part of the allure of the secure MS pc will be that it will be the "legal" choice. Mom's and Dad's: don't worry that that your kids will get arrested. Get a secure PC and we guarantee that they'll be safe. This will tie into MS's positioning of themselves as a friendlier, "family" option.)

    It will be interesting to see how XBOX fits into the scheme here, but my guess will be that somehow it will be the "satellite" PC -- the main PC in the home will be the secure box running XP 2002 with some sort of secure datapath going to and from the XBOX which will -- in two years -- turn into a dumb terminal since most homes will have several XBOXen, all of which will communicate with the secure-box.

  • What is your take on Microsoft's "corporate culture" versus that of other companies you have worked with? Does it resemble the all powerful Empire of Star Wars that oh-so-many Slashdotters seem to believe in - or is it just another company with all the action items, BS initiatives, and corporate doublespeak that we have all come to know and love? (Note: feel free to present your own alternative answer to the choices - should you feel compelled to do so).

    Thanks for your time,

    Jay

  • Wine (Score:5)

    by GNUman ( 155139 ) on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @08:12AM (#333800)
    How does Wine development fit in with Windows development? Is it seen as a threat or as an advantage?

  • Change in piracy strategy? (Score:5)

    by Pinball Wizard ( 161942 ) on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @08:55AM (#333805) Homepage Journal
    Microsoft has since its inception "looked the other way" in regards to the average home user copying its products. Ever since Bill Gates famous Open Letter to Hobbyists [blinkenlights.com] became such a debacle Microsoft has vastly benefitted from its products being standardized in no small part from them being spread due to piracy. High school and college students could easily obtain(BASIC, DOS, Windows), and later became customers when they could afford the software. Countries like China were referred to within Microsoft as "one-CD nations". Microsoft went after corporate abusers, but largely left the home user/hobbyist theives alone. And it benefitted them tremendously.

    Now, with Windows and Office XP, it looks as though Microsoft is finally going to make it difficult for the home user to copy the software. Do you really think home user piracy is damaging to Microsofts' business? In reality, it has done more to estabish Microsoft as a standard than it has to reduce revenue. Why the change?

  • Future Marketing Problems (Score:4)

    by dthable ( 163749 ) on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @08:09AM (#333806) Journal
    Microsoft recently announced that .Net would provide support for Linux and Unix servers. How will your group present this given the intergration problems and lack of standard support in the past. (i.e. The non standard use of Kerebose, the lack of W3C conformance in IE, etc.)

  • Transitions (Score:3)

    by Fervent ( 178271 ) on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @08:05AM (#333823)
    Do you feel Windows is becoming more like the Unix world in recent years (in terms of protected memory, process management, etc.), or is the Unix world becoming more like Windows (in terms of usability, graphical interfaces, etc.)?

  • Linux/FreeBSD competitor or tool? (Score:5)

    by Fervent ( 178271 ) on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @09:52AM (#333824)
    We know the spiel with the marketers, but from within Microsoft do the programmers view OSes like Linux and FreeBSD as a bonefide competitor to the Windows platform, or a tool to help improve the platform? Is the GPL'd source code ever looked at and used with some modifications?

  • Re:Corporate strategy (Score:3)

    by JCCyC ( 179760 ) on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @09:02AM (#333826) Journal
    Speaking of "negative things", some MS exec (I fail to remember his name) said something to the effect that copylefting software (GNU, open-source, GPL, Free Software, you know the deal) is harmful. Do you have an opinion on that opinion? Are you free to state it here?

  • Okay (Score:5)

    by java_sucks ( 197921 ) on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @09:48AM (#333848)
    Have you ever taken part in a meeting where there has been discusison of *breaking* an interface or an API to reduce interoperability or backwards compatability with other products?

  • What about Kerberos? (Score:4)

    by Decado ( 207907 ) on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @08:16AM (#333861)
    Being in charge of Enterprise Interoperability products you must be aware of the (some say deliberate) incompatibilities that Microsoft introduced into the Kerberos protocol. Why were these changes made and is there any intention of rectifying them at Microsoft?

  • Impact of DOJ case (Score:5)

    by skoda ( 211470 ) on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @08:15AM (#333869) Homepage
    In what ways, if any, has the DOJ anti-trust case affected Microsoft's "competitive strategies", as well as the work towards "interoperability"?
    -----
    D. Fischer
  • Those two concepts - interoperability and competitive strategy - seem difficult to conciliate. What can the developers expect to make their work the most interopereable possible ?

  • Re:Alrighty. (Score:5)

    by Auckerman ( 223266 ) on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @08:41AM (#333895)
    "...A Web service provider can expose their system (programmed using .NET) using SOAP and UDDI and then you can leverage those services through your site/application very easily...."

    This is a bunch of meaningless techno babble and doesn't answer the question. The questions should have been much deeper anyways, so I'll rephrase it.

    What is .Net from a End User point of view, how is it different for the features Java, Macromedia, and W3C Compliance can offerer developers TODAY, and why whould I can about it as an MacOS X user?

  • Why does it seem that Microsoft routinely ignores glaringly obvious security concerns in favor of "convenience"-related features? Is this a false impression, and if so, why is that the impression so many security professionals form when confronted with the history of security in Microsoft products?

    As an example, I'd single out (though it is by no means the only example) Microsoft Outlook. The inclusion of active code (scripts, ActiveX controls) in what was formerly static data (SMTP email) combined with defaulting to the least secure configuration (opening and running emails without user intervention) left the door wide open for the Melissa virus and its desendants. What happened here?

    OK,
    - B
    --

  • Microsoft Office ports (Score:3)

    by cavemanf16 ( 303184 ) on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @08:59AM (#333958) Homepage Journal
    Being a Linux user for only a little while I have noticed that it lacks two things: a consistent, easy to use graphical interface, and a powerful, interoperable "Office suite" set of software that is being used in the workplace. What work is being done to port Microsoft Office to Linux/*nix while maintaining cross platform interoperability, since that has been one of Microsoft's most successful software pieces to date?

  • Mr. Miller (Score:3)

    by UltraBot2K1 ( 320256 ) on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @08:24AM (#333980) Homepage Journal
    First of all, I would like to commend you for your candor in answering all of our questions. Regardless of our opinions of Microsoft as a company, your willingness to respond to "the enemy" in such an open and inviting manner deserves recognition.

    And now my question:

    Mr. Miller, a quick trip to Netcraft's site [netcraft.net] shows that Microsoft's IIS is struggling for marketshare among web servers. Considering that corporations and businesses are a large source of Microsoft's revenue, I was wondering what Microsoft has in store in the future to help entice more business customers into using Microsoft's own products. I must admit that I'm impressed with Win2K's stability and uptime, but what else does Microsoft have in store for it's users that would justify spending several thousand dollars on a Microsoft based infrastructure as opposed to a quite capable free alternative?

  • Licensing (Score:5)

    by Phoenix_SEC ( 409842 ) on Wednesday March 28, 2001 @09:10AM (#333997)
    Doug, I was reading a review of Windows XP today, and came across some interesting information on the new licensing scheme. From what I read, the XP will use the current hardware configuration to generate an id string (I believe they called it a fingerprint), which you then tell Microsoft, over the phone, to get the license key for your machine. In an end-user environment (especially laptops), configurations change constantly, and thus the user would be calling in regularly to get a new key.

    At the same time, several OS developers (e.g., Apple, various Linux distributions) are moving in a very different direction by open-sourcing their operating systems.

    How do you feel this difference in policy will affect Microsoft in terms of new computer purchases (e.g., choosing a different OS - even a previous version of Windows) and upgrades to existing systems?

    Thanks in advance,
    Phoenix_SEC

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