Re: 17 Minutes With Bill Gates

I'm assuming you're a developer, someone who employs logic on a daily basis.
If so, I am puzzled by the following statements, which you assert as
"reality" -

1. He is someone we love to blame even though he has little or no power
any more

Who is "we?" Thinking people don't "love to blame" anyone for whatever it is
(not mentioned) that you say "we love to blame" him for. There is no place
for "blame" in logic, nor is there any place for loving to do so. There is
certainly the element of diagnosis and identification of the source(s) of
*specific problems*.

What is this "power" you speak of? And what makes you think he has more or
less of it?

2. His vision of reality lives a separated life

I cannot even parse this sentence. A vision does not "live a life." You
might mean that Bill Gates "lives a separate life," but you don't identify
from what it is separate, nor why it is separate. And your reference to "His
vision of reality" therefore is ambiguous at best. In fact, I would
postulate that every human being on the planet might be said to have a
"separate vision of reality." Only the young, the ignorant, and those who
are lazy in their thinking imagine that their "vision of reality" is exactly
the same as someone else's. My guess is that you are young. Young people
have a desire to "belong" to a group of some kind, with which they can
identify. This is part of the social nature of our species.

The older and wiser one becomes, the less important this sort of distinction
becomes, and as one matures, one realizes that the arbitrary divisions we
place upon people and our perception of them are just that - arbitrary. In
fact, people are like snowflakes - no 2 are exactly alike. So, the only
logical division is to divide us into 2 groups: Human beings, and
individuals. Therefore, this abbreviated utterance is meaningless, except to
yourself.

3. His vision of a better end user experience gets destroyed by "the
machine" known as Microsoft
4. Microsoft like all large organizations through out history have become
too large for their own good

Taken together, I see these 2 statements as alluding to some idea that is
more or less true. All large organizations experience the danger of becoming
beaurocratic in nature, due simply to the nature of human beings to do that
which is expedient to the individual instead of that which is best for all.
Microsoft has been struggling with this problem, and lately there has been
some evidence that they are not entirely succeeding.

However, the statement that "His vision of a better end user experience gets
destroyed" is not accurate. Perhaps a more accurate statement would be that
Bill Gates' ideas are on a conceptual scale, and often are tainted or in
danger of being tainted in the process of being filtered down to the
specific application development level, due to the size and encroaching
beaurocracy that endangers Microsoft's ability to maintain its innovative
and agile nature.

I think what Microsoft need to do is diversify - if nothing more than to
gain an education of the real world.

Here we go again with the "real world" stuff. Who among us has "an education
of the real world?" The statement is so broad and non-specific as to be
meaningless. It implies something, but you never explain what it is supposed
to imply. As to a need to diversify, that too is ambiguous, and not
explained. In what way would you recommend diversification? There are all
sorts (or perhaps "diverse" sorts would be more appropriate a term) of
"diversification."

Make money by making your products more simple, not more complex so you
can charge a "subscribed" premium.

Now, this is one of the statements that makes me believe that you are either
not a developer, or are very young. The word "simple," when applied to
software, is ambiguous at best. There are several different types of
simplicity that one may use when describing software as simple. One is
"simple to use." The problem with this is that to truly make software
"simple to use," one must restrict its functionality. A "simple to use"
calculator, for example, cannot do scientific calculations. Depending upon
how simple you wanted it to be, you might restrict it to addition,
subtraction, multiplication, and division. But how would you handle rational
numbers? Where does one draw the line at what is "simple to use" and what is
not?

In "the real world" people want their software to do every possible thing
they can imagine with it. This is because they are ignorant of the
consequences of this extended functionality. First, it means that the
software must have a user interface that accomdates all of these features.
How is that supposed to be "simple to use?" Second, it means that the
software itself must contain a huge amount of code to perform all of these
various operations, in a variety of configurations. And that costs a lot of
money, and take s alot of time, to produce.

The second type of "simple" is "simple in functionality" and this means less
features. Again, you're talking about a Catch-22 situation. Microsoft
actually has aimed at solutions for these problems, by releasing various
different versions of software for differing purposes. There are a
half-dozen different versions of Visual Studio.Net available, and some of
them are free. Now, how would you solve these problems? It is well and good
to identify problems, but to criticize the solutions of others without
offering your own is hypocritical.

I don't have the time to critique the rest of your post, but let me just say
in conclusion that if you want to be a success as a developer, you're going
to have to discipline your thinking process. The thoughts expressed in this
post (1) are not well-thougt-out, from a logical standpoint, (2) are
therefore not convincing, except perhaps to the ignorant, the undisciplined,
and the weak-minded, and (3) are hypocritical, as you do not offer any
well-explained, well-thought-out, realistic, or viable solutions.

It may be popular to put Bill Gates down, but is popularity all its cracked
up to be? I still see an awful lot of SUVs on the road in America these
days, and for the life of me, I can't figure out the thought process that
spawned them. They are apparently some kind of "status symbol," but the only
status I see is that of an unthinking person with the wrong sense of
priorities, who is apparently wanting to impress other unthinking people
with wrong senses of priorities. That's popularity for you.

--
HTH,

Kevin Spencer
Microsoft MVP
..Net Developer
To a tea you esteem
a hurting back as a wallet.


"Rob R. Ainscough" <robains@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:u7Is1E$NGHA.2884@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I'm sure Bill does have grand plans of where software will go and his
commitment to make computers work for the end user ... BUT the reality is:

1. He is someone we love to blame even though he has little or no power
any more
2. His vision of reality lives a separated life
3. His vision of a better end user experience gets destroyed by "the
machine" known as Microsoft
4. Microsoft like all large organizations through out history have become
too large for their own good

I think what Microsoft need to do is diversify - if nothing more than to
gain an education of the real world.

What I would like to see from Bill and Microsoft, is someone that
understands what we need by recognizing their flaws and stop blaming end
users & developers. Do not elevate a vision that just happens to
incorporate a highly profitable business model that provides "just enough"
of what we need at a premium cost. Make money by making your products
more simple, not more complex so you can charge a "subscribed" premium.

1 in 5 people have computers and actually use the Internet - if Bill needs
to do something, he needs to realize something went wrong along the way
and ask the question why do only 1 in 5 people have computers 28 years
after they were introduced to the masses? If he wants to grade how well
he's done, this is a failed score IMHO.

"John Bailo" <jabailo@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:JJGdnaMhtPImFGbe4p2dnA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

What does he do all day?

Find out here:

http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=163166







.

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