Why Microsoft May Still Have Game

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At the Mobile Portland meeting Monday evening, Jeremy Foster came down to show off the developer aspects of Microsoft’s new Windows 8 operating system. I walked in skeptical and walked out very impressed. At least from a developer perspective, the developer tools and language integration is very well thought through. Jeremy was demonstrating things like calling native C code from within Javascript without having to do anything special at all, a huge advantage for companies like mine that have a huge native code base we need to use. I always did give Microsoft huge credit for its developer programs and tools [1].

Here’s the reality: Microsoft still has plenty of volume on its side. I heard a report that, if you factor in tablets and smartphones, Windows still has 30% market share. The report indicates that Microsoft will sell about 250 million copies of Windows this year, second only to Android. There is still a large contingent of users who are very happy with Windows and will continue to use it, and there is another group that will continue to use it because corporations said so.

Here’s the weakness Microsoft can exploit: we are now four years into the iOS App Store and about three years into the Android app store. The bulk of developers aren’t making a living on either platform. If Microsoft can demonstrate that typical developers can make a living on Windows 8, they may just find converts.

As much as the press seems to hate Microsoft, there are still some things going for the company. Cross-device support where the core infrastructure is the same and the API [2] calls are the same is a huge advantage for developers. I’ll be watching OS sales closely.

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[1] I give the company less credit for its marketing. In the middle of the meeting I decided the company really needs a Senior VP of Simplicity whose sole job is to veto any products that can’t be easily explained to consumers. The confusion around the different flavors of Windows is particularly bad.

[2] APIs are the calls we make into the operating system to do the things we expect the OS to do. These calls can be anything from working with text to making images dance across the screen to showing a table of data.

The Right People

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Jason Fried of 37signals fame, on a meeting with Jeff Bezos:

He’s observed that the smartest people are constantly revising their understanding, reconsidering a problem they thought they’d already solved. They’re open to new points of view, new information, new ideas, contradictions, and challenges to their own way of thinking.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a well formed point of view, but it means you should consider your point of view as temporary.

Strong opinions held loosely.

The State of Civility

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The primary problem with extreme political partisanship is not the yelling and fighting and general discourse it causes the country, although that is an issue. The primary problem is that the nature of political anger leaks into the rest of society in the same way divorcing parents impact their children. In short, subtly. Thus the vitriol with which we treat each other is a direct descendent of the vitriol with which our civic leaders treat each other.

In the second debate, this exchange took place between President Obama and Governor Romney:

ROMNEY: Production on private, on government, land…
OBAMA: Production is up.
ROMNEY: … is down.
OBAMA: No, it isn’t.
ROMNEY: Production on government land of oil is down 14 percent.
OBAMA: It’s just not true.
ROMNEY: It’s absolutely true.

As Bloomberg Businessweek pointed out (which is where I got the exchange), “It was Abbot & Costello for angry people.”

We are permeated by anger and discontent. It’s customers for wasting our time and government for making life harder and old people for soaking up all the best benefits and young people for being young people. (Get off my damn yard!)

This isn’t a new phenomena, after all. Partisanship was so severe in this country that at one time we split in half. Anger was so severe in this country a few years back that we burned cities and bombed buildings. In fact this country was founded on discontent so the idea of it permeating every facet of our lives should probably be unsurprising.

Personally, though, I’m tired of it. I’m cynical by nature so staying positive is not always easy. (When I was a teenager I used to tease my cousin mercilessly. My aunt asked me why I have to pick on him so badly. I responded, “Because he’s such an easy target.” It started early.)

There is something about having kids that makes a person re-evaluate everything he does and how he does it. In an effort to raise my two daughters in a world less severe then the one I exist in, I have attempted to tone down my cynicism, to focus on positive aspects of this world, and support those who do, too.

That’s why I refer to them as President Obama and Governor Romney. Whether I like the men or not, whether I vote for either of them or not, they still deserve the respect their offices deserve.

It’s not just politics. When Infinity Softworks receives support emails from customers we try to respond quickly and succinctly. Our customers deserve empathy and respect. When I get a random phone call from someone in the community looking for advise on her start-up, I try to meet. When I need to move a meeting I try to do it early and almost always by phone so it is clear that I’m respecting the other person’s time.

I hope that these simple acts are cumulative, that the more I do them the more impact it has on my associates, family and friends. When I started Infinity Softworks, I went to share my business plan with one of my favorite college professors. He read it and asked if we needed some money to help get us started, at which point he handed me a check for $10,000. I offered to repay it or give him a stake in the company. He said no need. Instead, he offered, someday do the favor for someone else.

I will continue trying to hold up my end of that bargain.

2012 Summer Reading List

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Now that the weather has shifted and fall is clearly upon us here in the Northwest, I thought I would post my spring and summer reading list. My goal this past half year was to read more, especially novels. My life had turned into one giant technology snowball. I worked on technology projects all day then read about other people’s technology stuff all evening. This left my brain spinning all night long. So my goal this past six months was to read far more novels and even throw away stuff. In no particular order:

  • George Tindall, America: A Narrative History, Parts I and II
  • John Grisham, The Firm
  • John Grisham, The Pelican Brief
  • John Grisham, The Client
  • Mary Higgins Clark, The Cradle Will Fall
  • JRR Tolkien, The Hobbit
  • Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age
  • Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash
  • Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass
  • Phillip Pullman, The Subtle Knife
  • Phillip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass
  • Dashiell Hammett, The Thin Man
  • Ken Segall, Insanely Simple
  • Adam Lashinsky, Inside Apple
  • Aaron Hillegass, iOS Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide
  • Aaron Hillegass, Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X
  • Aaron Hillegass, Objective-C Programming
  • Sam Ruby, Agile Web Development with Rails
  • RA Dickey, Wherever I Wind Up
  • James Patterson, Tick Tock
  • Erica Sadun and Steve Sande, Pitch Perfect

I wasn’t true to the “no technology” cause. Besides the technology items on the list above I also read a ton of Apple iOS documentation in an attempt to improve my code generating skills. But then again, I couldn’t just stop working for the summer, could I?

Given that, though, and as summer should be, I spent most of my time reading fluff novels, especially novels from my youth. And boy did it feels good!

The Rotted Corpse of Newsweek Goes Online Only

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The news this morning is that Newsweek is going all digital, abandoning its print publication.

Newsweek Global, as the all-digital publication will be named, will be a single, worldwide edition targeted for a highly mobile, opinion-leading audience who want to learn about world events in a sophisticated context. Newsweek Global will be supported by paid subscription and will be available through e-readers for both tablet and the Web, with select content available on The Daily Beast.

To say that Newsweek, like Time, is a storied franchise is an understatement.

It’s 80 years old and through most of that history was known for its high journalistic integrity and output. When I was 18 I subscribed to Time Magazine. In August of 1992, the summer after my freshman year, I was home in South Florida when Hurricane Andrew ripped up Miami. The headline in Time magazine the next week? Mia Farrow and Woody Allen breaking up. I cancelled Time immediately and subscribed to Newsweek.

I remained a Newsweek subscriber through the next 17 years, finally giving up on the magazine when their primary articles became sensationalized pieces of crap. A sad demise.

So now the magazine is trying to shift to being online only, using the same format that used to be on news stands. But this is like taking rotten meat and instead of serving it in a cheap, stale hot dog bun attempting to make it palatable in a fine fresh-baked bread. The content, if you didn’t catch my drift, is the rotten meat.