With Bill Gates’ retirement this week, there’s been an excuse for lots of chatter about his career with Microsoft, and what they have done in the world of computers over the years.
I came across this post about “Things No One Gives Microsoft Credit For (But Should)“, which I thought seemed a bit… uninformed. But I was surprised to realize that it was posted on Gizmodo, which I had expected to post more accurate and educated content. So, as there is nothing good on TV right now (or more specifically, nothing good on “my” TV right now, thanks to my wife) I thought I’d pick it apart;
1. Windows is on the vast majority of the world’s computers, creating a virtually ubiquitous platform that anyone can develop for. That actually breeds innovation and development. Yes, Microsoft fosters innovation. While it’s much easier for griefers to be mean if everyone’s on the same platform, that ubiquity gives us a common ground to drive forward on.
Well, as a starting point, this one is perfectly true. There is now an almost ubiquitous platform for software developers to work with. (Although you could question whether the array of Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows NT, Windows ME and Windows 98 which are all currently supported by Microsoft, is really a single ubiquitous platform.) But while this cycle of new versions can make life difficult, there is this common ground that we can all work on and drive forward from. That is, provided that you have the sort of computer that can run the latest versions of Windows (which rules out all those things like TVs and mobile phones that happen to have computers inside them), and that you’re not bothered about buying licence(s) from Microsoft to use it.
But what’s happened more recently? Well there’s the idea of a new ubiquitous platform that anyone can develop for; the World Wide Web. By following the open standards of how this works, instead of a ubiquitous desktop platform, we now have a ubiquitous global platform. One which Microsoft have repeatedly tried to dominate and turn into an extension of it’s ubiquitous desktop platform by closely tying it in with Windows-only technologies.
Stan Seiler, senior docent at the Computer History Museum, credits Microsoft for creating the common UI concept—”a common look and feel across multiple applications,” something that “couldn’t be pioneered until somebody had a whole suite of applications,” which Microsoft was among the first to do. They dragged third-party developers into following it as well, and voila, now most stuff works and looks the same across an OS.
But in saying this, he does a massive discredit to the operating systems that came before; firstly Xerox for creating the basic user interface that we now take for granted; WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get- the idea of what something looks like on the screen is the same as what it looks like if you print it out) and WIMP (Windows, Icons, Mouse, Pointer.) Then there’s Apple’s work using WIMP in a commercial personal computer and popularising it. But, you know, it’s true that Microsoft built today’s homogenous PC platform. Whether they created all the parts that they built it from depends on what you think of ideas like intellectual property, but can you really say that they came up with the idea, or that it was necessarily a good thing for the world? More on that later…
But the idea of giving credit to Microsoft for creating the ubiquitous platform that “the world’s computers can use as a common ground to work forwards from” is something I find hard to agree with.
2. Microsoft is basically responsible for the two-button mouse. Will Smith from Maximum PC (but not quite Hancock) gives the Gates machine props for really bringing the mouse to business computing with “the one-two punch of Windows 3.0 and Office.” More than that, it created a simple standard for two-button mousing: left-click equals action, right-click equals choices. Love your scroll wheel? (I do.) Microsoft, baby. Apple’s mouse philosophy is just silly.
Well, when Douglas Engelbart invented the mouse in 1969, it had one button, but subsequent versions had three buttons (with the idea being “as many as can fit on”- 3 was as many as could fit at the time.) The idea at the time was that it would be used with one hand on the mouse and the other on what’s called a Chord Keyboard- where different combinations of buttons are used to enter letters with one hand. (Apparently when it was tested against the standard typewriter keyboard, typists found that they could type faster using a chord keyboard with minimal training.) Then that idea was taken by Xerox, who developed the idea of a mouse you would grab when you needed it, using a standard 2-handed keyboard for most of the time, creating the basic idea of the mouse that we have today. (At a time when light-pens, trackballs, joysticks, tablets and cursor keys were all being trialled as ways to operate a computer.)
Here’s a picture of the Xerox Star- the first commercial system that used the mouse, released in 1981 (4 years before Microsoft’s first version of Windows.) Count the buttons.
But this also overlooks what Apple did with bringing the mouse to the market and making the mouse a part of a more usable and commercially successful user interface; simplifying the mouse to a single-button concept, and successfully turning the focus of the user interface from a string of text to a 2-dimensional, graphical interface.
So I don’t think that you can really give Microsoft credit for the two buttoned mouse- either for creating it, or for making it popular.
3. Microsoft popularized the concept that software has value and is worth paying for it. Seiler says “it might sound obvious… but it was an important change in the mindset of people.” No one had done it on the scale Microsoft did. Today this leads to some weirdness: There’s a different price for each version of Windows. But this theoretically based on how much value Microsoft think is packed into each version of Windows (you can debate this, of course). But unless you’re a freetard, you probably don’t think the idea itself of paying for software is insane.
This is one that I wouldn’t disagree with. In a commercial market, putting a software suite together while any competitor would be free to re-use your work, making sales incredibly difficult, would of course slow down growth and development. Software has value, and the fact that it’s easily copied shouldn’t be allowed to detract from the value of the software, and the effort that goes into it’s creation.
Similarly, we’re in a position where the value of music and video needs to be recognised today; the same fight over how this value should be recognised is going on at the moment- is the answer in money from subscription services, advertising revenues, state funding… or something else? I don’t know.
But if someone buys a piece of software and then gives it away to other people for free (without the original developer getting some sort of payment that matches it’s value) then it would be incredibly detrimental for the original software developer, which would be bad for innovation.
I’ve blogged before about Bill Gates’ “Open letter to hobbyists”, in which he was asking people to stop copying software as it devalued the work that went into making it, at a time (way back in the 1970s) when the right to copy software was being seen in a similar light as the scientific community’s right to share information, understanding and knowledge.
So I’m utterly, 100% behind the idea that software has value. But there is also that argument about free software- not software that doesn’t cost money, but software that you’re free to modify, because you have access to the source code. If it doesn’t work, then anyone with access to the source code can make it work. Yes, it means that you can’t stop it from being redistributed once you’ve let it go. But it also means that if you want to learn how to program, then you can study existing programs and learn from them.
Is studying computer science the best way to prepare to be a programmer?
No, the best way to prepare is to write programs, and to study great programs that other people have written. In my case, I went to the garbage cans at the Computer Science Center and I fished out listings of their operating system.”
According to ‘Programmers at work’ (Microsoft Press, Redmond, WA [1986]) - note- I found that quote online and haven’t read the book), that’s Bill Gates’ answer to the question.
If you’re the only ones who have access to the source code for your operating system- that ubiquitous platform that Point 1 talked about- it also makes it difficult for other people to compete when making applications that will run on that operating system. Especially when not only is the source code not available, but the full detailing of how it works is not even published (the subject of an ongoing fight between Microsoft and the EU.)
So- credit for establishing the concept of value of software- sure, I’ll give Microsoft credit for doing that. Shame they didn’t make sure that other people could benefit from the value of that work in the way that they benefited from the value of other people’s work. Maybe they didn’t recognise what they were doing themselves?
4. Microsoft’s intimidation leads to innovation. The flipside of Microsoft’s scale and success is that everyone hates them. (Duh.) While this sometimes results in unproductive pissing and moaning, it often drives companies to try to outdo the behemoth, after which Microsoft strives to catch up before getting leapfrogged again. This process benefits everyone.
Everyone except those who try to drive innovation which conflicts with Microsoft’s interests, that is. I mean, I agree that a consistent user interface is a good thing (but disagree that it was a Microsoft idea/creation), but Microsoft have attempted to block other companies from using elements of the same user interface. Not allowing anyone else to improve on Microsoft’s platform doesn’t exactly drive innovation.
But it’s the example of Internet Explorer that I found an odd choice to illustrate this idea. Sure- Internet Explorer drove Netscape to develop and improve their browser, but it also forced them to play Microsoft’s game when they did it. (The quotation “never argue with an idiot, because they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience” springs to mind.)
The most famous example is the Browser Wars. Netscape Navigator pushed Internet Exploder forward (not only feature-wise, but leading Microsoft to bundle it with the OS, a big step in and of itself) before IE killed it and achieved a virtual browser monopoly.
When Microsoft decided that they wanted a web browser, they bought Internet Explorer (from Spyglass- who are still credited in the “About” info), then promptly gave it away for free- making it impossible for Spyglass to carry on selling their browser and making any money. (See point 2…) They then threw all they could into it’s development, with more people working on Internet Explorer than Netscape had in their entire company.
Meanwhile, as Netscape gave their browser away for free, making their money from selling server software, Microsoft were incorporating server software into Windows (that ubiquitous platform that point 1 talked about), meaning that once you’d paid for that, you didn’t need to pay for server software. In devaluing Netscape’s work (as talked about in Point 3) by funding from other parts of the company, they drove them out of business.
Then, as the original point mentioned, they included Internet Explorer with Windows, putting the nail in Netscape’s coffin. If they had continued to develop and improve Internet Explorer, the kinds of advances that we have seen in web browsers in the last few years could have appeared much sooner. But while between 1995 and 2001, Microsoft released six versions of Internet Explorer, between 2001 and 2006, they didn’t release a single upgrade.
What else should we give credit to Msft under Bill’s watch?
How about the way that, back when the Personal Computer was killing the idea of timesharing business machines (where computer terminals allowed many users to use a single machine- meaning that the idle milliseconds when a computer wasn’t actually working, it could be working for someone else), Microsoft were promising that their users would be able to work collaboratively on documents on their systems too— just like their competitors’ timesharing systems were already doing— in just a couple of years. That was back in the 1980s. Microsoft delivered on this promise with Microsoft Office in 2007.
Then there’s the way that they lock in their market with their file formats- if someone sends you their work in Word, Excel or Powerpoint format and you haven’t bought a copy of Microsoft’s software (and often the operating system to run it on) then you can have some serious problems opening and editing it.
Going back to Internet Explorer, there’s what they did with the idea of the World Wide Web. When computers were first connected to one another on a network, you had to understand how both computers worked if you wanted to access information on one from the other. The idea of the World Wide Web was a common language that would let people access information between computers, no matter what sort of computer it was. Microsoft did their best to tie their web browser into the operating system, using functions that were only available to Windows- defeating the intention of the World Wide Web. (Not a problem you will have seen, unless you’ve found that a website that uses this for something like security checks won’t work outside Internet Explorer- something that happens pretty rarely these days, but for years was a huge problem for non-IE users.
As for the standards of the web, Microsoft have an interesting time ahead with Internet Explorer 8, which is apparently going to start showing pages according to standards that were set back in 1998 (for CSS 1). Which means that anyone who relies on a web page that they’ve only used with Internet Explorer 6 might want to make sure that it’s not going to be affected by the newer version. (If you thought upgrading to Internet Explorer 7 caused problems, then it looks like you might have a rough ride ahead.)
I’m sure there’s more, but that should do for starters…
The ultimate problem is that whatever market forces and dynamics do, it’s still difficult to move from a mediocre platform to a better one. People are confused by technology, and often scared of it, so moving someone from what they are familiar with and (relatively) comfortable to something new is a difficult job at the best of times.
This means that when something better than Windows (Outlook, Excel, Word etc.) is out there, the additional complications that Microsoft have put in place can make the effort of moving platforms greater than the benefits you get from the better platform.
It’s the kind of thing that you see in keyboards; the QWERTY layout (named after the first keys along the top row) was designed to stop typewriter keys from jamming. Typewriters were designed for blind people to be able to write with (it was about 100 years until someone had the idea of moving the mechanism so that you could actually see what was being typed.) Today, we use the same layout on virtually every computer keyboard- even though better keyboard layouts have been designed that allow people to type faster. But re-learning how to type is more effort for all but the most efficient secretaries that few people are going to bother trying, so the standardised layout we are all familiar with will probably be with us for as long as the idea of the alphabet under your fingers remains.
Hell- it’s hard enough adapting to a foreign keyboard, where one or two letters or punctuation marks are in a different place. Or using an unfamiliar keyboard when buttons like delete or page up/down are moved around. (Especially if you’re a touch-typist.)
So not just the idea of paying for software, but the idea of paying Microsoft every time you want a computer to work in the way you are familiar with is looking likely to be with us for a while yet.
So there’s something else they should probably be getting credit for…
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