being a dilatant is not necessarily a bad thing, but having a dilating business model is completely FUBAR.
in this interview (supposedly about Google, but mostly about whatever pops into Gates's head), Gates manages to one-line the following topics:
Google
software-as-a-service (almost web services)
open source
CRM
Voice Recognition
IPTV
I'd first like to talk about Google because I'm currently on the "honeymoon" WITH Google, and I like how our life-long relationship is starting.
Responding to the question, "Do you feel you're in competition with Google, Yahoo and other Web properties for developers' attention?"
Gates: "No, I don't think so. The architecture we are interested in we call server-equals-service, so that we will have the full Exchange capability that you can subscribe to, where we run it, or you can have it on-premise with the traditional licensing approach. At this conference, we do give out APIs (application programming interfaces) for the MSN Search and the MSN Virtual Earth capability, so things that have been cloud-based services, you can have client applications that other services can connect to. So, I'd say the evolution is server to service, and bringing that symmetry in."
in what I imagine could only have been about 10 seconds, Bill has moved from the topics of "web as a platform" and "developers' attention" to Microsoft Exchange Server. this is pretty formulaic of a Microsoft response to any question or comment relating to anything in the software industry that's NOT Microsoft - quickly and baselessly brush aside whatever meaningful question was asked, and then prattle on about Microsoft ______ XP like it's the answer to every question, meaningful or not. his innovative idea (which I guess he's trying to relate to "web-as-a-platform") is one in which you pay Microsoft to host the physical machine on which your Exchange server runs? I'm not an expert, but I think this kind of "virtual hosting" has been around at least since last year or so. also of interesting note is that the service-like API's to those MSN features were only just released last week.
this post is being cut short because some major news re: Microsoft hit while I was writing this, so I have to write the follow-up post now.</div>
Here's my all time favorite non-response-where-I-just-blubber-my-head-off-etc. This is Darl McBride in a Q&A at Harvard:
"(Q)... I have a quote here from you on December 4th where you said, "SCO asserts that the GPL under which Linux is distributed violates the US Constitution and US copyright and patent laws." I'm curious why you would say that?
McBride: So, if you take a look at, go back to the notion again, we basically would say, from a voluntary standpoint, to the extent that people put this in there, then great. God bless you. When this thing moves into, what this whole thing is ... The crux is, with Linux, it's the operating environment. And when the operating environment becomes standardized, and there aren't choices out there for people that have to play. An operating system is a unique beast, because you're not just talking about an application. You're not talking about a widget or a piece of hardware . You're talking about something that a lot of people have to play into."
...wow. Just. Wow.