Microsoft's 'super optimistic' chief
Published: 07 Apr 2004 13:15 BST
Let me come back to Windows. With Windows, I think we have a lot of Windows releases that are very important. We had Windows XP. We had a new mobile form factor, Tablet PC; we have a new entertainment form factor, the Media Center -- and those are both important steps forward. And we have XP Service Pack 2.
Now, it does not have what I would call the sizzle marketing name, and it shouldn't, frankly. But if you ask, "do I think that has a big, important impact on customers?" In the spirit that I talked earlier about responsiveness being as important a part of the game these days as sort of de novo innovation, yeah, I think XP SP2 is a big darn release. We made a huge prioritisation step to say that even if we need to take some things out of Longhorn or push Longhorn back -- or some mix of those two -- we will do that in order to prioritise XP SP2.
So, I think we are making the right decisions, and I think XP SP2 will be part of that. Then, we will get Longhorn, and it will be the kind of bigger generational advance for consumers and developers that we want it to be. Maybe customers want some incrementalism between big bangs, as opposed to big bangs every two years, and I guess we will get some experience with that kind of cycle as well.
Does that slow Longhorn's debut, because you did that?
It changes Longhorn's debut. Maybe we will carve (off) a couple of features around the edges. Jim (Allchin) and the team are still doing some of the rework of the plan.
Are all the major security features that you are going to be coming out with, though, pretty much in SP2?
There is more in Longhorn. There is another wave of very significant stuff that will not come until Longhorn.
Behavioural-blocking stuff, then?
Yeah, some of the behaviour-blocking stuff does not come until Longhorn; some of the stuff we are doing to be secure, down to the hardware level, only comes with Longhorn.
You came out and said, "Oops, we screwed up on search, we should have done a better job."
I would not say "better" job but "sooner." We did not commit serious research and development effort as soon as we probably ought have.
Does that go back to the organisational issue that we talked about earlier?
Well, it has to do with a lot of things. We had a lot on our plate, and we did prioritise, for better or for worse. In a funny way, we made the same prioritisation as our No. 1 competitor at the time, Yahoo. I mean, as bad as I feel, I hope they feel even worse, because they actually had the lead in search, and they didn't invest, and Google came out of nowhere relative to both of us.
I think we were having a hard time, frankly, sorting through exactly what our MSN strategy was. At the time that we should have been making maybe more of the investment, we were still thinking more about the possibilities of Internet access and broadband Internet access as being part of our business, and that was wrong-minded. If we had seen that sooner, I think we probably would have freed up more capacity for search sooner.
There is a perception that you get in the game only after it is hot.
Sometimes, we get in when it is still cold. TV software -- believe me, we have been investing in software for the television experience long before we can make money, anyway. The number of people who will be there when that thing takes off who were there when we all started is very small. Pen-based computing -- I think we got in early. We've sold hundreds of thousands of Tablets. We haven't sold millions.
Media Center -- I think it is an example of something we were early on. We are not going to be early on everything, and we are not going to be late on everything. What we have to do is be best at everything. Even if we are not first, being best matters. Being the guy who figures out how to really make it an incredibly strong value proposition is important. Sure, it is always nice to be first, but it is essential to have the best offering.
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