Microsoft's view

One of Microsoft's advertisement for its Visual Studio product bothers me. For a while, didn't know why. After a bit of thought, I may have identified the cause.

The advertisement (a two-page ad) has in large, all-capital letters: "IT TOOK A THOUSAND YEARS TO BUILD ROME; YOUR DEV TEAM HAS A MONTH" In smaller type, it says "DEFY ALL CHALLENGES" "Your challenge: finish big projects eons faster." "Defy it: communicate and collaborate better with Visual Studio Team System."

I will overlook the grammatical and idiomatic errors in these claims. Instead, let's see what this advertisement tells us about the thinking in Redmond.

The ad shows a view of four modern-day individuals (one assumes that they are project leaders or "software architects") overlooking the construction of two large buildings in a city that one is apparently supposed to believe is Rome.

The "project leaders" are viewing the work from an elevated platform. They are high enough to see all of the work, or a broad scope of the work. They cannot see details. While Microsoft has armed them with a laptop and a cell phone, they have no telescope or binoculars to get a detailed view of the work.

The work is performed with wooden scaffolding, ramps, ropes and pulleys to move heavy stones up the ramps, and cranes with large-scale hamster wheels in which men walk and thereby power the crane. Individuals doing the work are small, numerous, and indistinguishable.

Here's what I get from this advertisement:

- Projects are big
- Managers are important
- Managers must see the work being done (but they don't need to see details)
- Managers use modern tools
- Managers ought to be at high levels

OK so far? Here's the next batch:

- Workers use primitive tools and methods
- You need few managers for many workers
- Workers are interchangeable
- Individual workers are unimportant

The ad repeats the 'think big' philosophy that Microsoft has had for some time. Microsoft has focussed on solutions for large companies and has lost the mindset (and the ability) to deliver solutions for small teams.

I thought that this attitude was driven by greed and arrogance. Greed, in that larger companies can afford larger and more expensive technologies. Arrogant, in that Microsoft was walking away from the individuals, the hobbyists, and the small companies that made them successful.

But perhaps Microsoft did not discard the ability to provide solutions for small teams. Perhaps it was taken away from them. Small teams can use open-source tools and technologies (Linux; Apache; MySQL; and Perl, Python, or PHP) and deliver effective solutions. They don't need Microsoft, and Microsoft is hard-pressed to compete with those technologies. The small guys may have been the ones to walk away, leaving Microsoft with nothing but the big guys.

If that's the case, then it is not greed and arrogance. It is desparation.