"Stephen, I have a message for you from your son, Bill. Would you like me to play it for you?"
Stephen Doors inserts his uPad into the receptacle in his apartment’s entry way; the receptacle connects the device to the apartment’s cMac (Centralized Mac) where security is checked and data is synced. The process had actually started wirelessly when Stephen had entered the building, this is the final check where biometric data freshly gathered by the uPad is compared to the last stored record. The whole process takes 5 milliseconds after the uPad is placed in the receptacle.
Stephen ignores his apartment’s query (he calls the artificial intelligence ‘Robot’ after the man-made being in the 1927 movie, ‘Metropolis’). A nasty virus got into the software that controls the air conditioning at work, Stephen is hot, sweaty and irritated, and he wants nothing more than to relax. He answers Robot with a question of his own, "How’s the beer today?"
"As always, I can provide you with a fresh brew of your choice," Robot replies.
Stephen frowns and wonders when NouvoSoft will finally get around to giving the software that runs on the cMac enough intelligence to know when its being asked a rhetorical question.
Instead of grousing about it aloud, which would only confuse the system even more, he tells the apartment to make a pitcher of J.W. Dundee’s Honey Brown Lager. Robot chimes its acknowledgment of the request and sets into motion a series of events that ultimately result in an glasstic pitcher filled with a dark brown liquid sitting on the counter top in the apartment’s small kitchen.
As Stephen showers and dresses for the evening, he is not thinking about the processes involved with making his beer, or the pitcher for that matter. Nor does he care that the same company that wrote the software and algorithms that control the food creation system in his kitchen (called a For-Matter) that makes the beer and everything else he eats and drinks in his apartment is the same company that ruled the computing world 20 years before. He has heard of Microsoft, but only in passing conversations between techs who deal with low level software, applications that control the myriad devices that make the modern world livable, like the air conditioner at work.
Now comfortable, Stephen grabs the pitcher of cold beer and a glasstic mug, and settles into his chair in front of a large blank wall. He pours himself a mug full of lager, takes a sip, and grimaces. He curses to himself under his breath, then says to his apartment, "Robot, do a diag on the For-Matter, I think it’s picked up another bug."
Robot chimes its compliance. A moment later it says in its unemotional sing-song, asexual voice, "A virus has been located in a For-Matter sub-program that relates to liquids. The CDC has classified this virus a medium threat: illness may result from consuming any product made while the virus is active. I have eradicated the virus and have put into place the latest protocols to guard against reinfection. Please discard any liquids generated by the For-Matter within the last 24 hours. I have created a new pitcher of beer for you. I hope it is to your liking."
Stephen disposes of the old pitcher and fetches the new one. He takes a sip from the pitcher and smiles as the familiar bittersweet liquid washes down his throat. He settles in his chair again and tells Robot to play the message from his son.
It’s been a good day a good after all.
——
Now that Bill Gates has decided to turn over the scepter of his kingdom to others I have to wonder what the world will be like 20 years P.G. (Post-Gates).
It is interesting that one man who has no direct political or social influence can affect the entire world in such a fundamental way.
Think about it: Through Microsoft, Bill Gate has literally affected nearly every facet of the day to day lives of the majority of the people in every developed nation on the planet, and a good portion of the people in under-developed nations as well. Whether you like them or not, the company that Gates built is the epicenter of information technology for the entire planet; from Krakow to Kansas, from Capetown to Kalamazoo, Microsoft creates, and therefor controls the ebb and flow of the information and data that keep our world running.
That, my friends, is a lot of power.
Now, the man who has thrust himself into the center of the Information Age is stepping aside.
What will the world do?
Well, hard as it may be for some to believe, the world won’t implode, data won’t stop flowing, banks won’t crash, and the sun will continue to rise. The vacancy left by Gates will be filled and Microsoft, at least on the surface, will continue to be the (evil?) empire that it is today; for a while at least. What Big Redmond will be like a few years down the pike is a different story.
When IBM ruled the computing world no one would have believed that the ‘personal computer’ would unseat the room-filling behemoths that crunched all of the data that ran our increasingly IT-dependent world. Back then, if you needed a computer your choices were limited to which vendor you decided to buy your room-filling behemoth from. True enough there are room filling data cruncher still being sold by IBM and others, but these systems are not the be-all and end-all of the computing world that they were in the past; they are niche players catering to globe-spanning companies that require a bit more horsepower than PCs can provide. Today, businesses as well as consumers have a far broader range of computing options to choose from. This is a good thing because now you can get exactly what you need, scale it up when your needs expand, and spend a lot less.
Chalk one up for the average Joe.
Something similar, I believe, will happen to Microsoft once Gates steps aside. Though there will be promises to the contrary, Microsoft will change. It will be slow at first, but I think it’s bound to happen.
Why?
I propose that image, as much as anything else, is what keeps Microsoft first in everyone’s mind; the carefully cultured image of a large company with a leader firmly in control. People respond to such images for good or ill, because they believe that, as a whole, the company has to be doing something right to remain in such a position, after all, everybody else uses their products.
IBM had it 20 years ago. They created an image of data stability as solid as granite; you could bet your career on it. As the saying went, "No one was ever fired for buying IBM."
The image of IBM as the solid, blue suit and tie company gave businesses the idea that the company would be at the top of its game forever. Microsoft is in pretty much the same position.
The problem with Microsoft’s image is that it is built on a house of cards. There was substance behind IBM’s image, it had the technical prowess, if not the marketing aptitude to back up its image of industry leader. Microsoft is merely proficient, which is hardly enough to maintain the notion that it is an industry leader. And if the perception of the leader changes then the precariously stacked cards that its industry leading position rests upon will come tumbling down.
I can’t think of any real reason why people insist on buying Microsoft products in the number that they do; the products are no better, and have often been proven worse than products from other vendors in the same categories, and the company has certainly made as many enemies as it has friends. What friends it does have may only be around to suckle at the power teat and may not be counted on for support should Big Redmond falter.
With Gates gone, despite who steps in to take his place, the image of Microsoft as the world IT leader may be irrevocably changed, and Microsoft may not be the juggernaut it appears to be today. People could start to take a more serious look at other, less expensive and more robust options, and soon, Microsoft might find itself a few years down the road where IBM is today; not THE industry, but a player in the industry, trying to stay relevant in an ever changing world.
The world 20 years P.G. will be, I think, a far more interesting place. New players will rule where today’s IT sovereignty once held court, and that’s got to be a good thing, right?