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October 11, 2005
That's a pretty long time to make customers wait for a new release. Too long, concedes Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.
"We just can't make our customers wait three or four years for the things which should have been on more interim cycles," he said at last week's Gartner Symposium/IT Expo in Orlando.
Although many Microsoft products have grown long in the tooth, the company is headed into a cycle that will see a flurry of big releases over the next year and a half. In addition to the new SQL Server, Microsoft is launching a revamp of its Visual Studio developer tools on Nov. 7. Next year will bring new major releases for both of Microsoft's core franchises: Office and Windows.
The company has been touting its coming attractions and is likely to do so further during its earnings report on Thursday. Microsoft is "at the beginning of 12 months of the greatest innovation pipeline we have ever had," Ballmer said.
However, the coming splash of new products could be the last such "big bang" for Microsoft. Many expect the company to offer more measured, but more frequent releases in the coming years.
"I think they have to do this," said Paul DeGroot, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft. "With things like Windows Client, we are now looking at least a five-year product cycle. Man, a lot of stuff has happened in five years."
Ballmer last week outlined a path in which the company tries to make both big and small releases simultaneously, as well as deliver more frequent updates. While he didn't say so explicitly, online services loom as a distinct possibility for the most rapid innovations.
"The key is to make sure that for every line of business, we have the things that pop every six or nine months, pop every couple of years, pop longer than that," Ballmer said.
The company has tried to get more frequent with its server operating system launches. Windows Server 2003 debuted about two years ago, and a fairly modest, but paid, upgrade known as Windows Server 2003 R2 is due by year's end. The next major release, still known by its Longhorn Server code name, is slated for 2007.
Smaller bites
Microsoft has also done more consistent, incremental releases with its Dynamics small-business products, such as Great Plains and Navision. DeGroot sees Microsoft's approach with those products, which Microsoft bought from other companies, as a model.
"I would expect that the company will try to train the market to accept this notion of major and minor releases," he said. "If Microsoft takes smaller bites and makes sure that stuff gets delivered in time with a known feature set--that would be very useful."
The challenge, DeGroot said, is there must be enough new features to make the minor releases compelling. At the same time, if changes come more rapidly, they have to be digestible enough that the costs of training and supporting the new software don't outweigh the benefits.
That so-called "legacy" problem has bedeviled Microsoft for years. Regardless of how frequently the company upgrades its products, it still faces the challenge of encouraging customers to move at all. Even with its comparatively slow pace in recent years, many customers have been slower still to upgrade, with generations-old programs
See more CNET content tagged:
Steve Ballmer, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Windows Server, Microsoft Windows Server 2003, small business
Yes, it was about features being added, but "new features" as such, it seems reasonable to postulate, represented something more for the end user individuals and companies.
In the days when "new features" prompted buying a new release of a software package, the new features often extended this or that capability more deeply, perfecting more and more the ability of the software to meet a specific need that a company wanted to fulfill.
Microsoft's software up to Office 97 was built this way, with features like the spell and grammar checkers evolving, becoming more seamlessly useful and intelligent. And then these and other features, rather than evolving to ever deeper levels of operative value, simply sat still. So the grammar checking isn't much improved, and voice recognition, which by now should allow perfect transcribing of even recorded lectures, isn?t going anywhere fast.
My sense is that when MS decided to do .Not (oh, sorry, .Net) web services to drive perpetual pay rentalware "subscription" computing (which they are still struggling to get out the gate), the firm realized that its complexly featured deep functionality approach was unsuited to over-the-web program control, which implies light and fairly simple functionality, to maximize evident app speed. So MS was more or less hoist by its own petar here, having to all but abandoned depth for the promise of "renewable revenue." In so doing, they stripped their product roll-outs of apps with the rich and deep new features needed to inspire rebuys of software, because comples depth isn't suited to apps that are constrained by Internet bandwidth.
Never mind that, though, as all MS has to do in a few years is note that XP is a "legacy" product and discontinue Activation, so that reinstalls after Windiws crashes cannot be done (ditto for older office releases). That will restore the need of the market to repurchase subscription Windows and subscription Office fast enough to revive profits. Yes, it is a long-term investment, but innovation along these lines does take time.
Yes, it was about features being added, but "new features" as such, it seems reasonable to postulate, represented something more for the end user individuals and companies.
In the days when "new features" prompted buying a new release of a software package, the new features often extended this or that capability more deeply, perfecting more and more the ability of the software to meet a specific need that a company wanted to fulfill.
Microsoft's software up to Office 97 was built this way, with features like the spell and grammar checkers evolving, becoming more seamlessly useful and intelligent. And then these and other features, rather than evolving to ever deeper levels of operative value, simply sat still. So the grammar checking isn't much improved, and voice recognition, which by now should allow perfect transcribing of even recorded lectures, isn?t going anywhere fast.
My sense is that when MS decided to do .Not (oh, sorry, .Net) web services to drive perpetual pay rentalware "subscription" computing (which they are still struggling to get out the gate), the firm realized that its complexly featured deep functionality approach was unsuited to over-the-web program control, which implies light and fairly simple functionality, to maximize evident app speed. So MS was more or less hoist by its own petar here, having to all but abandoned depth for the promise of "renewable revenue." In so doing, they stripped their product roll-outs of apps with the rich and deep new features needed to inspire rebuys of software, because comples depth isn't suited to apps that are constrained by Internet bandwidth.
Never mind that, though, as all MS has to do in a few years is note that XP is a "legacy" product and discontinue Activation, so that reinstalls after Windiws crashes cannot be done (ditto for older office releases). That will restore the need of the market to repurchase subscription Windows and subscription Office fast enough to revive profits. Yes, it is a long-term investment, but innovation along these lines does take time.
Too many Windows versions were useless. Win98SE was what Win95 SHOULD have been when it was released. But, Microsoft got all of the idiots to pay again and again for what they should have gotten in the first place. WinME was such a POS, it should never have seen the light of day. Win2K, though, was a nice update to WinNT4. That upgrade was worth the price of admission. When NT4 was developed, USB was not on the list of implementations. DirectX wasn't either. Although NT4 was stable, it lacked many things that the modern business needed. Those that needed that functionality were forced to use Win9x and, let me tell you, it sucked for network managers.
I personally think, at least in the business market (forget the wannabes that just have to be the first in line to get that new version of Windows!), that Microsoft has finally learned that businesses do not need perpetual updates. In fact, the time spent testing and rolling out new versions of Windows are prohibitively expensive. I have enjoyed the last few years of stable WinXP workstations and Win2K3 servers. The next round of OS releases is only going to cause me a headache.
On the other hand, as soon as my Visual Studio 2005 DVD arrives, that will be the new office standard around here. That's the number one area where Microsoft leads the pack. The biggest dissapointment there is only that it's taken so long for Web and Windows development to get to this level. And I'll have Vista installed on my workstation sooner than later, mostly because it's my job to keep current with technology. But a company rollout? Not likely to happen.
Too many Windows versions were useless. Win98SE was what Win95 SHOULD have been when it was released. But, Microsoft got all of the idiots to pay again and again for what they should have gotten in the first place. WinME was such a POS, it should never have seen the light of day. Win2K, though, was a nice update to WinNT4. That upgrade was worth the price of admission. When NT4 was developed, USB was not on the list of implementations. DirectX wasn't either. Although NT4 was stable, it lacked many things that the modern business needed. Those that needed that functionality were forced to use Win9x and, let me tell you, it sucked for network managers.
I personally think, at least in the business market (forget the wannabes that just have to be the first in line to get that new version of Windows!), that Microsoft has finally learned that businesses do not need perpetual updates. In fact, the time spent testing and rolling out new versions of Windows are prohibitively expensive. I have enjoyed the last few years of stable WinXP workstations and Win2K3 servers. The next round of OS releases is only going to cause me a headache.
On the other hand, as soon as my Visual Studio 2005 DVD arrives, that will be the new office standard around here. That's the number one area where Microsoft leads the pack. The biggest dissapointment there is only that it's taken so long for Web and Windows development to get to this level. And I'll have Vista installed on my workstation sooner than later, mostly because it's my job to keep current with technology. But a company rollout? Not likely to happen.
Apart from the above was the Microsoft's dealings with IBM with regards to the OS/2 Operating System which in Microsoft's own words was destined to be a better Operating System than Windows. Added to these (from an earlier post) will be the whole question about Microsoft's plans for its server-based "Excel Services" abilities which will come as part of a future version of the company's SharePoint technology and its "relevance and ability to interoperate" with applications such as ones developed and offered by the Colorado School of Mines whose Division of Economics and Business offers a M.S. and Ph.D. in Mineral Economics and a M.S. in Engineering and Technology Management:
http://www.mines.edu/academic/econbus/gradcoursedescriptons.htm
Apart from the above was the Microsoft's dealings with IBM with regards to the OS/2 Operating System which in Microsoft's own words was destined to be a better Operating System than Windows. Added to these (from an earlier post) will be the whole question about Microsoft's plans for its server-based "Excel Services" abilities which will come as part of a future version of the company's SharePoint technology and its "relevance and ability to interoperate" with applications such as ones developed and offered by the Colorado School of Mines whose Division of Economics and Business offers a M.S. and Ph.D. in Mineral Economics and a M.S. in Engineering and Technology Management:
http://www.mines.edu/academic/econbus/gradcoursedescriptons.htm
John O'Rourke
John O'Rourke
- 5 Years sounds good to me!
- by maniakmx3 October 28, 2005 6:52 AM PDT
- even though 5 years does seem like a long time, but people like me who are skeptical of newer opertating systems like me like the 5 year cycle. Me personally I waited to upgrade to XP with the release of SP2. and I didn't upgrade to Windows2000 from 98SE until SP3. Operating systems are way too buggy on inital release and need time to have the kinks worked out of them. Such as security holes, compatability issues, etc. We as the consumer understand that it takes time to get an OS ready to go, as far as my stand point goes, XP has been around for 4 years, 2 Service Packs, and a load of updates for the big OS, Yet still every day we hear of more security holes and bugs in the OS! 4 years!!!! and it's still not patched up! Microsoft needs to think about this before shortening the time between their software products.
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