
Ray Ozzie leaving post as Microsoft's chief software architect - Flemlord
http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/archives/225271.asp
======
mixmax
Ray Ozzie is the CEO Microsoft should have had instead of Ballmer.

He actually understands tech, and is a visionary. Ballmer could just as easily
have sold used cars, and doesn't have the deep knowledge and vision of
software that's essential to running a company like Microsoft.

This is a bad day for MS.

~~~
InclinedPlane
Ray Ozzie is not CEO material, imo, personality wise, that's why he didn't
take the position (I'm sure he could have had it). Ballmer is CEO material
certainly, but not _good_ CEO material.

MS is in a bad place currently top-level management-wise.

~~~
hop
In the same sense, would you say Bill G was prototypical CEO material? No, but
look what he built. Ozzie is awkward too, but he founded and sold two software
companies for a fortune. Zuckerberg is introverted and awkward too, but look
what he has built. The notion that a CEO, especially in tech, should be a
business degree toting, people-person, non-technical CEO like Ballmer is
wrong.

~~~
InclinedPlane
I don't care about prototypes, I'm just talking about results. Bill Gates was
an atypical CEO, but he had a combination of business, technical, and personal
acumen that worked effectively together. Neither Ozzie nor, so far as history
has judged, Ballmer have anywhere near that same level of capability. At best
they appear to do no better than J. Average non-tech savvy CEOs. In a world
filled with folks like Larry Ellison, Eric Schmidt, and Steve Jobs that level
of skill is a recipe for getting your ass handed to you in the market.

------
aseem
As Microsoft CSA, Ozzie had to live up to the legacy of Gates while steering
the direction of hundreds of product groups. This is certainly no simple task.

Ultimately, he was doomed to fail. His job was to advocate the right
technologies at the right time. Yet MS rarely makes the right choices in this
area. Technology decisions are made by political GMs who want to hold on to
their empires. They are made by VPs who don't want to sacrifice short term
profits for a longer term vision.

Steve Jobs made an excellent point at the D conference this year about how
Apple tries to pick technologies that are in their "Spring". These are
technologies that are on their way up. Certainly Steve has the luxury of not
worrying as much about backwards compatibility, etc. But he certainly has the
courage of his convictions to pick a path that's best for his company and
customers.

I don't think Ray had that kind of fortitude, and unfortunately, I don't think
he had that kind of power. Ultimately, the CEO needs to push the technological
vision of Microsoft. Leaving it to mid-level managers will only result in
further mediocrity.

~~~
lkijuhygtfd
Technologies in their spring?

A BSD kernel, a gui from Next and a object orientated version of C from before
C++ !

Technology-wise Apple basically takes a steam train, wraps a Bang+Olufson case
around it and makes it emit the scent of roses!

Nice toys, very well made, but cutting edge technology doesn't underpin
Apple's success.

~~~
slantyyz
Can't fault you on your points -- they're all solid, but I would say there's a
glaring omission. Cutting edge user experience (and that includes usability)
does underpin Apple's success.

~~~
lkijuhygtfd
Precisely - it's the user experience that puts Apple out ahead not cutting
edge technology.

In fact their technology is and always has been (when did Mac-0S get real
multi-tasking?) rather conservative.

~~~
rimantas

      Precisely - it's the user experience that puts Apple out
      ahead not cutting edge technology.
    

Would iPhone user experience be the same with resistive touchscreen? Were
there any capacitive touchscreen phones before iPhone?

------
Uhhrrr
Is it relevant to mention that Ozzie was/is one of joelonsoftware's canonical
examples of "Architecture Astronauts" (that is, someone whose idea of minimum
viable product is every app sharing everything)?

<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000018.html>

~~~
lukestevens
Yes, particularly this post:
<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/05/01.html>

_But Windows Live Mesh is not just a way to synchronize files. That's just the
sample app. It's a whole goddamned architecture, with an API and developer
tools and in insane diagram showing all the nifty layers of acronyms, and it
seems like the chief astronauts at Microsoft literally expect this to be their
gigantic platform in the sky which will take over when Windows becomes
irrelevant on the desktop. And synchronizing files is supposed to be, like,
the equivalent of Microsoft Write on Windows 1.0._

 _It's Groove, rewritten from scratch, one more time. Ray Ozzie just can't
stop rewriting this damn app, again and again and again, and taking 5-7 years
each time._

 _And the fact that customers never asked for this feature and none of the
earlier versions really took off as huge platforms doesn't stop him._

------
sunjain
Ballmer should have been gone instead of Ray. I will not be surprised if Bill
comes back(aka like what Jobs did when he came back to Apple). Granted
Microsoft may not be in as bad a shape as Apple was when Jobs came back and
Gates is no Jobs, but I am sure with Ballmer incharge for few more years, it
might get that bad.

~~~
seldo
Very unlikely, I think. Jobs was forced out and felt he had a lot to prove.
Gates left voluntarily as the richest man in the world. There's very little
chance of him coming back.

~~~
cubicle67
Yes, Gates has nothing to gain by returning, but an awful lot to lose

~~~
slantyyz
With all the philanthropy he's involved in, I would say the developing world
would have a lot to lose also.

~~~
larrywright
I have little respect for the company he created, but a lot of respect for
what he's doing with his money.

~~~
brudgers
Microsoft Unlimited Potential program

[http://www.microsoft.com/About/corporatecitizenship/en-
us/ab...](http://www.microsoft.com/About/corporatecitizenship/en-
us/about/unlimited-potential/)

Microsoft offers volume discounts for charities and Education.

[http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/licensing-options/for-
ind...](http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/licensing-options/for-
industries.aspx#tab=4)

[http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/licensing-options/for-
ind...](http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/licensing-options/for-
industries.aspx#tab=2)

------
karzeem
I know it's fashionable to beat up on Ballmer's buzzword-filled, meaning-
deficient prose, but man, the guy sure doesn't make it hard for people.

------
keithwarren
As a shareholder I hereby nominate both Steve Sinofsky and Scott Guthrie to
the role of Chief Software Architect. Either would make me happy.

~~~
kenjackson
Scott Guthrie would be great for the role. He's one of the few people I've met
that is actually an exceptionally good developer, understands vision, and has
strong leadership skills.

I have heard the knock that he is a bit "empire" focused. But moving him to
CSA would force him to view the company as his empire rather than an org.

~~~
portman
_he is a bit "empire" focused_

What does that mean? I've only ever heard stories about his legendary
niceness, and that makes him sound political and, um, not-nice.

~~~
kenjackson
I should be clear, I've also heard he is very nice and the guy that you want
to work for. But I've also heard that he's not afraid of replicating another
groups work if he doesn't like how its done. Of course this is all second and
third hand, and maybe "empire" was the wrong term. But my point was that with
all of MS under him, he would push to consolidate redundant projects, rather
than taking them head-on.

~~~
commandar
>But my point was that with all of MS under him, he would push to consolidate
redundant projects, rather than taking them head-on.

Which is something Microsoft desperately needs, IMO. Just look at their mobile
division -- WM6.x, WP7, and the Kin were projects that should have drawn from
Microsoft's strengths and just went totally disparate directions. In the Kin's
case, Microsoft spent hundreds of millions of dollars acquiring Danger Inc
only to totally squander the Sidekick brand, drive off many of the developers
from the acquisition, and then ultimately ditch the entire project shortly
after launch.

Then you have things like how they're only just now trying to integrate Zune
into their handset strategy after they've all but killed that brand, as well.

Microsoft has just struck me as an incredibly schizophrenic company for some
time now. They tend to develop multiple overlapping technologies that really
ought to be approached as a single platform, but at the same time try to
shoehorn their existing technologies into places where they just aren't going
to work.

Frankly, what Microsoft desperately needs is somebody that can step in, say
"this is going to be the Microsoft Way of handling X" and get the company on
the war path. Microsoft owns so many genuinely great technologies that it's
almost heartbreaking to see the way they perpetually fail to come up with any
real, cohesive way of bringing it all together.

------
mjfern
Given Ray Ozzie was the mastermind behind Windows Azure (launched in 2010),
Microsoft's cloud computing offering that competes with Amazon's Web Services
and Google's App Engine (and Google Docs), this can't be a good sign.

In fact, this is a further indication of Microsoft's struggles in each key
market that represents the future of computing: cloud computing, thin devices,
and online media.

First consider cloud computing, with Windows Azure. I found it difficult to
find any concrete data on how Azure is performing in the market, but I suspect
it’s not performing well. Put simply, it’s hard to imagine that Microsoft is
aggressively developing or marketing Azure, since cloud computing offerings
directly threaten Microsoft’s revenues and profitability in the PC market,
especially its Windows and Office products.

Next, consider Microsoft’s performance in thin devices, especially
smartphones, video game consoles, and portable media players. With a current
global market share of just 4.7% (Gartner, 2010), Microsoft is behind every
other major mobile OS developer, including Symbian, Android, iOS, and
Blackberry. In video game consoles, the Xbox 360 is trailing far behind the
Nintendo Wii in market share, despite the fact that the Wii is using older
generation technology (VGChartz, 2010). The Zune portable media player has a
paltry 2% market share, compared to the iPod’s 70% (NPD, 2010). And Microsoft
hasn’t revealed a clear strategy to compete in important and emerging thin
device categories, such as tablets and connected televisions.

Moving on to online media, consider Microsoft’s performance in search or in
online music or video. According to comScore (2010) Google has a 66.1% share
of the search market, compared to 11.2% for Microsoft. And while Google
generated $23.65 billion in revenues and $6.5 billion in income from search
related advertising in 2009, Bing generated just $2.2 billion, with a $2.35
billion operating loss in its most recent fiscal year. Meanwhile, Microsoft is
well behind Google and Apple in the online music and video markets (e.g.,
Microsoft’s Zune marketplace versus Apple’s iTunes or Google’s YouTube versus
Bing video).

In closing, Microsoft’s financial performance since its initial public
offering in 1986 has been nothing short of phenomenal. But if Microsoft wants
to remain a leader in the future of computing, it must quickly and
aggressively shift its focus and investments away from desktops and packaged
applications to a combination of cloud computing, thin devices, and cloud
computing. Given a bulk of Microsoft’s financial performance ($4.5 billion in
quarterly profits!) and its core capabilities rest with Windows and Office, I
am pessimistic that it has the interest or ability to make this fundamental
transition.

I just posted this to my blog and submitted the post to HN. If you enjoyed the
read, I'd appreciate an upvote (the article title is "Is Microsoft in
trouble?"). Thanks!

~~~
elblanco
One of the things Jobs did when he returned was cut all the distracting crap
and refocus the company on what it was good at.

One of the things that's always mystified me is the vast _vast_ software and
hardware product lineup that Microsoft has to service...mostly in areas it's
not terribly good at. If you really look at where Microsoft has done well,
it's not in consumer electronics devices like music players or phones, online
services like search, consumer software like flight simulators or whatever and
unlike Apple, Microsoft doesn't make computers (and probably
shouldn't)...Microsoft does one thing and one thing really well, productivity
software and providing centralized management of the enterprise. Both areas
that they really don't have any serious competitors in. Apple doesn't care
much about the enterprise, and iWorks is just a passable replacement for
Office.

For my money, I still can't buy a comparable office productivity suite
anywhere. iWorks is not bad, OO.org stinks, and everything else is distant
also rans. Outlook on the Exchange ecosystem simply is awesome. And Windows
these days ain't half bad.

Why are these pieces of software great? Because they can be abused beyond all
recognition to do tasks so far off script that it can sometimes be jaw
dropping, and still they function exactly fine...and the path to that madness
isn't really all that long...and in a pinch, you can MacGuyver together an
Office solution to many real world problems in a snap and the software will
see you through the day. It's not great software, it's generally poorly
designed, and full of feature creep, but it gets you through some serious
pinches. Some of these user patterns are so common that they've become the
defacto use for the software. Does anybody balance their checkbook in Excel
anymore?

Microsoft needs to stop mucking about in areas that they'll never have a
credible presence and focus the entire company on this core competency. We
will always, always, always, need email, a word processor, a spreadsheet and a
presentation tool.

Questions they should be asking themselves:

Why doesn't Exchange and Outlook expose enterprise IM better? This should be
standard everywhere.

Why does collaboration with Office products still stink?

Why don't I have an instant file name search tool with optional content index
built into the OS better than the crap they already provide? Something like
everything <http://www.voidtools.com/> with a Lucene index for full text
search. This stuff doesn't have to drag the entire OS down.

Why doesn't Microsoft have a centralized and updated on-line repository for
driver management (redirect-able to a local Enterprise server)?

Why does every Windows computer not ship with an IDE and half a dozen
languages? How come I don't have Perl & Python installed by default?

Why the hell is Visio so poorly integrated with the other Office tools? This
seems like a no brainer to me. The amount of half-assed diagram and chart
building people do in PowerPoint is absurd.

Why doesn't Microsoft control the end-user software distribution channel by
now? Why do I have Steam installed when Microsoft built _everything_ to
support gaming on my PC except for that last bit? Seriously, what the hell?

Why does the built in defragger suck so bad? Why do I have to defrag at all?

Why do I have to get virus scanning software? Why does Microsoft make virus
scanning software and hardly promote it? Why isn't that just part of some
Windows update? Don't look for something to certify protection status, and
then not be the provider of that software.

Why does IE consistently suck? If there's ever a productivity tool that needs
to be the best in class like Word and Excel, it's IE.

Why does Office not have photo and video productivity software? It doesn't
have to be great, Paint.net is pretty good for photo editing. Ditch Paint, and
get with it. There's some upsell opportunity here, everybody needs a paint
program. For that matter, make a variant of PowerPoint as a stupid simple
Vector Graphics tool...everybody uses it for that anyway, just formalize it
and turn it into a revenue opportunity.

How can we better integrate our Office products? Everybody routinely uses the
other tools to build content for Word documents, and Word to edit text for the
other tools. Cut all the overlapping crap out and just use those tools
instead. I shouldn't have a table and a drawing editor in Word, but I should
be able to paste something from Excel into Word without the formatting getting
screwed all to hell and the table running past the edges of the document
margins. Just open the appropriate tool for the job when needed.

And then I should be able to use the copy and other assets I make in Word to
better feed Publisher (which is also something strangely absent from most
Office installs, but does a passable job for simple Desktop Publishing).

Basically, make your content generating tools generate content for each other,
do it really well, and then open the APIs so other people can play in this new
productivity ecosystem.

You know what I routinely need? I need a best in class OCR tool to mass OCR
lots of scanned documents. That would make me super productive. Why isn't that
part of Office? Why am I stuck with an absolutely unusable and ancient format
designed for digital faxes?

You know what I would have given a left foot for in High School and College
and Grad School? A decent, highly integrated CAS (not Excel), at least on par
(and preferably compatible with) with my TI-89, but at better resolution with
more features and functionality, and that let me copy and paste equations and
such from-to the tool.

Microsoft already owns this area, they should be looking for more ways to
monetize on it. I just gave them 3 or 4 new products they could sell as part
of a bonus back for Office and make some cash off of it. Instead, we get Bing,
Zune, Windows Phone, Songsmith, Streets, WorldWide Telescope, Autocollage and
other useless, aborted or otherwise DOA products.

Why the hell does Microsoft still have Works? Even the webpage for Works
<https://www.microsoft.com/products/works/default.mspx> looks like an
abortion. Seriously, who is the target for that? Just sell a cheaper Office
and keep everybody in your one software ecosystem.

~~~
mistermann
A simpler question is, why doesn't Microsoft have people like you working for
them? My bet is, someone that came into an interview talking like that would
be considered by someone, somewhere, eventually in the hiring process to be
"too ambitious" and feel their job is threatened.

Supposedly Windows usability is tested up the yin yang, but I (as could
millions of other people) could easily come up with a list of 100+ items that
could make a real, tangible improvement in the windows user experience. Anyone
with similar ideas I suspect would also fail the interview process at some
point.

I'd say its a fair speculation that one difference between when Bill was
running the company and now, is that people used to be hired based on what
they could do for Microsoft overall, and now they are hired based on what they
can do for the career of the person at Microsoft hiring them. Bill used to run
Microsoft with an all seeing eye and an iron fist, just as Steve does now with
Apple.

~~~
elblanco
> A simpler question is, why doesn't Microsoft have people like you working
> for them?

> Supposedly Windows usability is tested up the yin yang, but I (as could
> millions of other people) could easily come up with a list of 100+ items
> that could make a real, tangible improvement in the windows user experience.

I'm not even saying that my particular ideas are very good...I think you hit
the nail on the head...that these ideas are pretty universal and _obvious_.
Microsoft is floundering in almost every area it's in. Why doesn't the board
also see these obvious ideas and question why they aren't happening?

Lots of people are lamenting Ozzie leaving, but I think he's just as much part
of the problem. Nobody at all cares about Microsoft's cloud computing
initiative. Yet he's credited as the architect and a major force for good
within MS. I'd be hesitant to lavish all that much praise on him, I mean, this
is the guy that was the brain behind the wretched Lotus suite (I've yet to
meet anybody who's ever liked using it) and Groove, which sits largely unused
on most people's systems, and was a major force for the endless money hole for
many of Microsoft's distracting web initiatives. I'm focusing on these because
these are the things that he's touted for by Microsoft...yet I'd call none of
those things major successes.

Perhaps reading this:
[http://www.scripting.com/disruption/ozzie/theinternetservice...](http://www.scripting.com/disruption/ozzie/theinternetservicesdisruptio.htm)
I'm lamenting how little of this actually has come to fruition and it's not
materially all that different from what I've said.

------
maguay
Does anyone else find it to be odd timing for this move? Ozzie just started
blogging again on the 14th (<http://ozzie.net/2010/10/14/hello/>), and here 4
days later it's announced that he's leaving Microsoft. Maybe that's why he was
trying to build his own unique audience again...

~~~
xtho
He blogged about cleaning up his (home) office.

------
city41
Perhaps I'm just naive/ignorant, but I can't tell if this is a positive
progression for Ozzie? Ballmer mentions Ozzie's retirement, is Ozzie just
transitioning out of the workforce? Or did MS decide Ozzie's leadership is no
longer positive for the company? The article does say "His leadership not
particularly well-respected among employees in the trenches"

~~~
contextfree
My impression is that there's never been a particularly good relationship
between the product groups at Microsoft and the more long-term focused
researchy groups (not necessarily limited to MS Research proper?). A lot of
"employees in the trenches" of the product groups seem to perceive the
researchy guys as useless, impractical, a waste of money, etc.

Ozzie's concrete responsibility at MSFT, so far as I can tell, was running a
bunch of medium-term focused groups to try and bridge that divide. They seem
to have been generally regarded as unsuccessful in that respect so it's not
too surprising that he would eventually quit/be pushed out/whatever.

------
hello_moto
Maybe it's time for Sinofsky to take his shot being the CSA of MS?

~~~
checoivan
That'll be cool, but the mail says: "The CSA role was unique and I won’t
refill the role after Ray’s departure".

~~~
keithwarren
That assumes Ballmer will be around long enough to enforce said policy.

------
mattiask
The problem with Microsoft and leadership is the same as in every big company.
To truly do something different and innovative you need a benevolent dictator
that can put down their feet and say "I don't care what you think, we're doing
this and it's going to be great".

You need both the political power within the company to get things done and
have the visionary skills to know what needs to be done. Steve Jobs and Bill
Gates both obviously has/had this to some degree and could coax, bully and
motivate people to see their way. Radical change needs radical leaders.

Ray Ozzie is a great technical visionary but he probably wasn't enough of a
dictator to accomplish the radical changes Microsoft needs to stay lean and
current. If you could put Ray's technical acumen into Steve's bullying body
you would have the perfect CEO :)

------
darrenkopp
Could anyone tell me what exactly Ray Ozzie has done since bill gates left? I
honestly can't think of anything, but I don't think that is true. I just think
he's been a bit more low key. Everything MS is coming out with has Ballmer's
face on it.

~~~
contextfree
My understanding is that the projects he was most directly associated with
have been Windows Azure, Live Mesh, and (some of?) the various "Labs" groups -
Live Labs, FUSE Labs - which have released a variety of smaller projects.

------
brisance
The timing of this release couldn't have been any worse; Apple reports yet
another record-breaking quarter on the exact same day this gets airtime.
Ballmer must be trying really hard to destroy MSFT shareholder value.

------
protomyth
There is an old Gillmor Gang podcast that has an interesting conversation as
to what the panel thinks Ray Ozzie would bring to Microsoft. It looks like it
all turned to ashes though.

------
uptown
"the CSA role was unique and I won’t refill the role after Ray’s departure."

Seems like a position that would still prove useful in a company with so many
interconnected moving parts.

