Ray Ozzie's cloud hangs over the Valley
Ray Ozzie, speaking Thursday at the Churchill Club in Palo Alto, in a discussion moderated by Wired's Steven Levy.
(Credit: Ina Fried/CNET)PALO ALTO, Calif.--Ray Ozzie tends to see things much like a Seattle meteorologist--always cloudy.
Making a trip to sunny Silicon Valley, Ozzie addressed Silicon Valley's Churchill Club, outlining the transformational role that cloud computing will play.
As he discussed that vision, moderator Steven Levy asked if Microsoft itself was sufficiently cloudy when he had arrived.
"The Hailstorm had passed," Ozzie quipped, making a reference to Microsoft's widely panned first attempt to offer cloud services.
In seriousness, though, Ozzie said that Microsoft wasn't really cloud-focused when he joined the company, following Microsoft's purchase of his Groove Networks.
"Respectfully, they were very busy working on things that would become Vista and Office 2007," he said. "There was a lot of 'PC' thinking. I worked with Steve and Bill on change management and that's what I have been doing."
Ozzie declined to agree with Levy's assertion, however, that perhaps packaged software was the buggy whip of our times.
"No," Ozzie said. "Different market segments want to consume value in different.
The goal of the cloud era, he said, is to create a world in which applications are sandboxed like the browser, cached like Javascript and all the data fully synchronized.
Levy suggested that perhaps that kind of world might be bad for Microsoft's Windows business, but Ozzie disagreed.
"We'll always need an OS," he said. "Every device needs an OS. The programming model on top's of that OS is what's changing."
Ozzie said the key is making sure that operating system is "contemporary and relevant."
The Netbook factor
Netbooks really are an opportunity, he insisted. "We have to write an OS other than XP runs on it, and we've done that with
Windows 7."
He expanded later on, noting that what most users really want in a Netbook is actually a full-fledged PC that can do more than just browse the Web.
"The Netbook as consumers have spoken for it is a laptop," he said. "People expect Office for it. They expect to be able to go to Download.com...and download for it." (Editors' note: Download.com is a property of CBS Interactive, which also publishes CNET News.)
As for ARM-based devices, or other non-Windows products, Ozzie noted that historically consumers haven't bought keyboard-based devices that weren't full computers.
"I'm not writing it off," he said. "If it happens and if it happens in volume it will be a different type of device."
But he said. "I believe the X86 instuction set and Intel and AMD Netbooks...they are going to be the majority of what's out there."
Levy also pressed Ozzie on what it's like now that Bill Gates has been gone from full-time work for just about a year.
"He writes, he calls, but infrequently," Ozzie said. He said Gates remains involved on a few key projects. He's also just an e-mail away, when he or others have concerns.
Some things have changed, he said, such as the company's review process as well as its famed ThinkWeek in which employees from all over Microsoft would submit hundreds of papers for Gates' review.
"Bill has an amazing ability to consume very quickly," Ozzie said. "A thousand some papers would come in for each Think Week. He would go off to a cabin and sequester himself. He would probably read a couple hundred of them. People loved it."
However, Ozzie said that ThinkWeek, as it was set up was "a very Bill-unique thing"
"I don't think that's something we want to reproduce," Ozzie said. The replacement for that, he said, is a process in which a broader set of technical people offer their thoughts on new ideas.
"People like feedback--senior technical feedback," Ozzie said.
Steering the ship
Ozzie noted that Microsoft is a bigger company than the one he competed against during his time at Lotus and Groove.
"We always were amazed at how quickly the ship could turn," Ozzie said. "But that was a different era. It was a smaller company."
In trying to change Microsoft, Ozzie said he has tried both things very much in the company's tradition--his Internet services disruption memo was modeled on Gates' missives--as well as in ways that are less familiar, such as trying to break down the company's well known organizational structure, with software developers working in offices and corresponding over email.
Levy asked Ozzie how many companies have the ability to build the kinds of data centers that Microsoft and Google are building.
"Not too many," he said. When asked about who will be there for the long term, Ozzie wasn't ready to include Amazon in that list.
"I don't know about Amazon," he said. "They are the leader. They have done amazing work, but the level to which you need (to invest) to build it out...it's very substantial."
Ozzie credited an unusual source for Microsoft's position to be able to deliver cloud-based services--its much maligned MSN consumer services. He noted that it was Hotmail and Messenger that gave Microsoft the skills it needed to ultimately build Windows Azure.
"Had we not kept MSN alive...we wouldn't have had those competencies in-house," he said.
It was a rare public speech for Ozzie, who also spoke at an investor conference last month.
Ozzie also spoke about the business side of cloud computing. I captured his answer on video. (Apologies in advance for any quality issues--I'm multitasking).
In the question-and-answer period, Ozzie was asked for his thoughts on Google Wave, the company's recently introduced tool for combined collaboration and messaging.
He praised Google for taking on a big task, but also took issue with their approach saying it is "anti-Web."
"As a system, I think the complexity is an issue," Ozzie said. "The problem, the way the defined it is a complex one."
That said, it will offer insight into whether people want messaging that is distinct, such as e-mail or instant messaging, or whether there is demand for a more integrated product.
"I hope we learn, as an industry, an awful lot from Wave," Ozzie said.
Other questions from the audience ranged from what computer science professors should be teaching to whether Internet Explorer would support HTML 5. Ozzie said he had nothing to announce on the latter front, but added, "It is our commitment to be a world class Web browser, what our competitors like to call a modern web browser. I think you can expect us to do the right thing."
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina. 
Consumers aren't stupid and that's why they are saving their dollars buying netbooks, 'cause all they want is to access the net. But sorry in that area Google's king.
BTW: Ray's team also changed the ultra robust FreeBSD Hotmail, to the buggy, ever changing Windows based WLH.
The corporate speak assumes we are idiots. Hearing Ray Ozzie talk like this is insulting.
The corporate messaging is:
- Redefining SaaS to be Software + Services - so you need a Windows Client
- Redefining Netbooks to be a low cost PC - so you need a Windows Client
- When something as stunning as Wave arrives, and lays bare the lack of innovation with Microsoft email clients server for 10 years say it's too complex. This interview is significant as the "Wave is too complex" is being rolled out for the first time. Ray seems barely unable to mask his bitterness that Wave is being talked about broadly and no one knows what Groove is/was.
This lack of innovation from Microsoft is becoming more and more obvious as web innovations are accelerating. Office still lacks the real time collaboration we take for granted now in Google apps. While prettier does Office 12 foster any more productivity than Word 95?
The 2-3+ year release cycle for daily use applications like Office is out of sync with what's happening on the web.
I think Microsoft needs to:
* Make the client stay relevant by delivering stunning collaborative applications that leverage installed software. Finally Office 14 may start to do that. Building a stunning Wave client would be a good example.
* Accept that the Operating System is no longer relevant and they need to invest in sophisticated web delivered services that make life easier for consumers and businesses.
*Ship products faster
There are still very broken scenarios for Enterprise Mac users. People who are still in corporates running Microsoft Servers (Exchange mainly) but have fled to a Mac. Office for Mac is just bearable and there are few robust alternatives for Mac productivity. Office 14 for Mac will be way later than Windows so the most innovative tech savy executives are going to have to make a decision when Office 14 arrives. They will want collaborative Word and Excel.
This makes sense for Microsoft. If the collaboration features in Office 14 are good enough then they may win back enterprise Mac users.
If I was Apple I'd be making Mail.app and iCal work great over Exchange 2003+ and be building collaborative support for Office 14 into Pages and Numbers.
In my perfect world they develop a Wave client that can also connect first class to Exchange.
There is a great opportunity for an ISV to nail this problem.
Based on my 15+ years of experience on the World Wide Web, I hereby conclude that the network and server infrastructure is not ready for cloud computing primetime. Just look at previous Google outages as a reference point.
As a GOOG, AAPL, MSFT, ORCL, YHOO shareholder, I can honestly say that none of these companies are currently capable of providing cloud computing services that I would pay a dime for. That's right: I don't pay $24.95 for a Flickr Pro account, I don't pay $99 for a MobileMe account, I don't pay for extra Google Picasa storage space.
As far as I'm concerned, cloud computing proponents can go back to the drawing board and figure out how to provide better availability for their services before I even remotely consider spending a dime a day for their services.
- by MSFT_GlenF June 8, 2009 9:34 AM PDT
- Ina,
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(7 Comments)Thank you so much for the updated information you have provided regarding the release of Windows 7. For future references, the best site for all the up to date news on the product is found at the Windows 7 support forum, at micorsoft.com/springboard. The site will also give you all sorts of useful information, such as the ?what?s new in the RC? feed?.or you can also you use talkingaboutwindows.com as an additional resource
Thanks,
Glen