Microsoft Services: Windows Is the Hub
link: original article - section: windows
Microsoft's chief software architect surely isn't its chief orator. Ray Ozzie's sentence construction makes his speeches great generalizations bereft of real details.
Ray had lots to say during Microsoft's annual Financial Analysts Meeting today. But like past speeches, this one had a disjointed character. He talks about "the mesh"—well that's how I would describe his keynote. A mesh. Maybe smart people don't think linearly.
But through all the miserably winding sentences, something startling emerged. Microsoft's Web services strategy is Windows-centric after all. Whatever "the mesh" is going to be, Windows or Windows Mobile will be required.
Ray started his keynote by speaking about his three years at Microsoft and how in the early days he saw that "a large industry shift was on the way." Part of the shift: "service-enhanced software."
I wouldn't describe the shift that way, but it makes sense that's how Ray sees it. Ray stated the obvious by saying that disconnect devices "would look increasingly isolated and less relevant as we move forward. Teams across Microsoft have begun to reshape their software using services to deliver seamless, cross-device experiences."
That's why he spoke about "service-enhanced software." Microsoft is extending what it started during the browser wars more than a decade ago: Bake the Web into its software. But there are a few conceptual differences:
* The approach is a way of trying to maintain the relevance of desktop software, even as the computing cloud threatens to wash away the PC model in a thunderstorm.
* Microsoft realizes that all software, all hardware must be IP-network connected to thrive.
* Microsoft can use network connectivity and synchronization to extend its integration strategy into Web services.
* Synchronization is the killer application for the connected world. Microsoft wants to deliver better sync across many devices.
The industry transition now under way would "take us from a world where the dream was a PC on every desk in every home into a world where it won't be uncommon for families and individuals to have many, many PCs in their homes and in their lives as well as many other Net-connected devices, such as mobile phones, set-top boxes, game consoles, digital picture frames and so on," Ray said.
Ugh. The way Ray strings phrases together reminds me of translating Julius Caesar's writings in high school Latin class.
Perhaps the best way to understand Microsoft's future Web services strategy is the one sensible analogy made by Ray: Xbox 360. Ray said that the game console embodies Microsoft's model for delivering software plus services. I disagree. Microsoft goes further: software plus hardware plus services.
