Speaker 1: Get in Touch with Technology was text Stuff from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Here everyone, and welcome to Text Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan Strickland, and we're going to bring to you
Speaker 1: the second part of our episodes on Microsoft and just
Speaker 1: kind of the Microsoft story and how it developed as
Speaker 1: a company and the big things that shaped it and
Speaker 1: the big things that did to shape the industry, right,
Speaker 1: going from three to over ninety thousand employees in the
Speaker 1: course of just a couple of decades. Yep. And we
Speaker 1: stopped last time at nine when Bill Gates and Melinda
Speaker 1: French tied the knot. So we're picking up with nineteen,
Speaker 1: which was a big year. Big year they released Windows
Speaker 1: shockingly enough, yes, And for those of you who can
Speaker 1: remember the commercials back then, these, of course were the
Speaker 1: ones that featured the Little Band and from across the
Speaker 1: Pond called the Rolling Stones that did a song called
Speaker 1: start Me Up. And it's because Windows introduced a new
Speaker 1: feature to Windows but the start button, which uh, some
Speaker 1: people didn't care for it first. Um. It's kind of
Speaker 1: funny how technology works. Usually a change gets rolled out,
Speaker 1: everyone reacts like it's the end of the world, and
Speaker 1: then within a few years they count on whatever it
Speaker 1: is that was changed, and then it gets changed again,
Speaker 1: and then they act like it's the end of the world,
Speaker 1: Rinse and repeat. We see this usually at a very
Speaker 1: frequent basis with Facebook redesigns. Um so Windows showed a
Speaker 1: lot of new develops, new features that some people kind
Speaker 1: of balked at at first. But Kates sent out a
Speaker 1: memo that same year he was seeing that there was
Speaker 1: a new trend coming up. And this keep in mind
Speaker 1: ninety This is again a couple of years after the
Speaker 1: Worldwide Web start to develop, a couple of years since
Speaker 1: the general public has become aware of a thing called
Speaker 1: the Internet. The Internet itself had been around since the eighties,
Speaker 1: but very few people knew about it until right around
Speaker 1: this time, and he sit on a memo called the
Speaker 1: Internet tidal Wave to the senior staff of Microsoft, and
Speaker 1: he said that he thought that the Internet would be
Speaker 1: the most important thing for the company to concentrate on,
Speaker 1: and that in fact, was going to be the most
Speaker 1: important development since the advent of the PC. Yeah. So, uh,
Speaker 1: it turns out that, you know, he's very he was
Speaker 1: very much right. Uh. It was an early call to make,
Speaker 1: but he saw it. You know, he read a little
Speaker 1: bit of criticism that he could have jumped on that
Speaker 1: a little bit earlier. Yeah, it's actually yeah, the biggest
Speaker 1: criticism is that he waited too long for this, and uh,
Speaker 1: in fact, you could since this is after the World
Speaker 1: Wide Web has become a thing, you could see why.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is before they've had their own web browser,
Speaker 1: so there's no browser. I believe that the summer of
Speaker 1: that year was when first version of I e. Internet
Speaker 1: Explorer was released, So yeah, but when we're finally getting there,
Speaker 1: whereas like everyone else is dependent upon other browsers from
Speaker 1: other companies and Microsoft could have been on the ground
Speaker 1: floor earlier. But at the same time, he definitely saw
Speaker 1: that this was going to be something that Microsoft could
Speaker 1: not ignore and that that sort of set the company
Speaker 1: in motion to really think about how they were going
Speaker 1: to approach the Internet, and they actually held Internet Strategy Day,
Speaker 1: so hooray for that. Also the same year that Forbes
Speaker 1: said that Gates is no longer the richest man in America,
Speaker 1: he is the richest man. They were German apparently that year,
Speaker 1: but I don't know why I said it that way,
Speaker 1: But yes, in the world, in the entire world, Bill
Speaker 1: Gates richest man, and it's a title that he retains
Speaker 1: until two thousand and eight, when he lost it in
Speaker 1: a battle royal against Randy Macho Man Savage. I would
Speaker 1: watch that, I would watch that. I made that part up,
Speaker 1: but yes, he did hold the title of richest man
Speaker 1: in the world from nine to two eight h less successfully.
Speaker 1: It's also the year that he announced one of your
Speaker 1: favorite bits of Microsoft history. All right, Bob, Microsoft Bob,
Speaker 1: Microsoft Bob. We did a full episode about Microsoft Bob,
Speaker 1: and really I meant to say this in the last episode.
Speaker 1: A lot of the stuff we're talking about, we could
Speaker 1: clearly do a full podcast on just any of these.
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, We've done full podcasts on on versions of Windows,
Speaker 1: much less on the Windows operating system itself, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we could. We have done a full episode
Speaker 1: on Bob. So we won't go over it again other
Speaker 1: than to say it was and a special type of
Speaker 1: graphic user interface designed for people who were not at
Speaker 1: all familiar with computers, and it was meant to make
Speaker 1: it a much more welcoming, intuitive experience. But just go
Speaker 1: back and listen to that episode to learn how it
Speaker 1: wounded up. It wounded it wound up being extremely unsuccessful
Speaker 1: and kind of play cating in a way. It just
Speaker 1: wasn't it just was. It was just a massive failure.
Speaker 1: It was a massive failure, and it had some terrible features,
Speaker 1: including a security feature that did not work. So um
Speaker 1: but but yeah, as as of as, Microsoft's overall revenue
Speaker 1: was five point nine billion and the company had over
Speaker 1: seventod employees, so they were doing all right. So by
Speaker 1: Microsoft releases explore three point oh, so they have really
Speaker 1: gotten into the browser biz at this point, and three
Speaker 1: point I was really kind of the first consumer based
Speaker 1: browser that people really get a chance to see. Netscape,
Speaker 1: which was the company behind another browser called Navigator, send
Speaker 1: a little message to the United States Department of Justice
Speaker 1: to say, um, Microsoft's kind of being unfair. They're essentially,
Speaker 1: uh saying that since we're the ones who's provided the
Speaker 1: operating system to all these different computers that various manufacturers
Speaker 1: are building, maybe you should include our web browser and
Speaker 1: not include anyone else's web browser. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: they were saying that they were being anti competitive. They
Speaker 1: were using their influence as an operating system designer to
Speaker 1: muscle out other browsers, including Navigator, and so uh, this
Speaker 1: starts another round of investigations from the Department of Justice
Speaker 1: into Microsoft's business practices. On July fifteenth, ms NBC debuts.
Speaker 1: So that's a news network. It was a partnership between
Speaker 1: NBC News and Microsoft, and at first it wasn't a
Speaker 1: twenty four hour news channel. It would eventually become that,
Speaker 1: but at the time it had a certain block of
Speaker 1: hours that were available on a per day basis, and
Speaker 1: it would grow from there and it became sort of
Speaker 1: a competitor to companies like CNN. UH. And then that's
Speaker 1: the same year that Microsoft stock split. Again we're doing
Speaker 1: so well that, Yeah, and they also launched Windows CE.
Speaker 1: Now whendows CE is different from the other operating systems
Speaker 1: that we're talking about here. This was one that was
Speaker 1: designed to work on devices that had minimal storage. So
Speaker 1: this would become the foundation for future operating systems built
Speaker 1: for mobile devices. UH, particularly the pocket PC, which I
Speaker 1: have fond memories of reading about. I never actually owned one,
Speaker 1: but it was one of those devices that was ahead
Speaker 1: of its time. Pocket PC was sort of the precursor
Speaker 1: to the tablet computers that we use today, but the
Speaker 1: implementation was never quite such that it would resonate with consumers,
Speaker 1: so people didn't didn't buy them, is what I'm getting too.
Speaker 1: But when does CE was like that, that was sort
Speaker 1: of the that was the operating system that kind of
Speaker 1: started down this this branch in the evolutionary secure and
Speaker 1: it was around that time. And I don't have specific
Speaker 1: notes about this, but but correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 1: That add that like palm pilot and other mobile devices
Speaker 1: were starting to um personal digital assistants were starting to
Speaker 1: pick up. This is this is really before smartphones had
Speaker 1: started to become Yeah, there were a few early examples,
Speaker 1: but really personal digital assistants were more common, and these
Speaker 1: were devices that were very similar to smartphones, just without
Speaker 1: the phone part. They were able to run applications, they
Speaker 1: could hold your contact information, but they weren't smartphones yet. Really,
Speaker 1: the problem was that that that wireless technology had an
Speaker 1: advanced to the point where it was useful. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: you could get basic information like text information, but anything
Speaker 1: like more, anything beyond some text was gonna be it
Speaker 1: was gonna take you a while to receive it on
Speaker 1: these old cellular networks. In seven, they released Internet Explorer
Speaker 1: four point oh and also they released Office, which was
Speaker 1: another one of those product productivity software suites, and the
Speaker 1: company acquired another company called Interse Corporation, which made analysis
Speaker 1: software for web activity. So this is again the company
Speaker 1: following through on that that memo that Bill Gates and
Speaker 1: saying we need to focus on the Internet. That's where
Speaker 1: our future business is going to be. Uh. They also
Speaker 1: agreed to acquire web TV Networks for about four d
Speaker 1: twenty five million dollars in stock in cash. Web Tv
Speaker 1: I remember web Tv had a friend who actually had
Speaker 1: web TV, So this was a way of accessing the
Speaker 1: World Wide Web on a television. You would get a
Speaker 1: remote control that was essentially a keyboard, and um didn't
Speaker 1: really do so well, as I recall. I mean, apart
Speaker 1: from my friend, I don't know anyone who used web TV. Sure, sure,
Speaker 1: well this was I mean, you know, it was a
Speaker 1: kind of prescient move on behalf of of of everyone involved,
Speaker 1: UM because you know, again they there wasn't an of
Speaker 1: an Internet connection for people to really Um yeah, they's
Speaker 1: some find it useful yet. But but it was also
Speaker 1: coming on the tail end of um that Telecommunications Act
Speaker 1: that looped internet services in with cable services and allowed
Speaker 1: a lot of partnerships to start developing. And it's a
Speaker 1: good example was the partnership that Microsoft entered into with Comcast.
Speaker 1: They put invested one billion dollars for about eleven and
Speaker 1: a half percent ownership in Comcast to help deploy high
Speaker 1: speed data and video services. Now, this was in Microsoft's
Speaker 1: best interests as well as Comcast. The idea being that
Speaker 1: we need to build out this infrastructure because the Internet
Speaker 1: is getting more and more important, but in order for
Speaker 1: it to be useful, we need to increase bandwidth and accessibility.
Speaker 1: You know, the more customers have access to the Internet,
Speaker 1: the more product we can sell. So therefore, this makes
Speaker 1: sense from a business perspective. Um. And they also invested
Speaker 1: a hundred fifty million dollars in another company that might
Speaker 1: surprise you considering the fact that they had a little
Speaker 1: kerfuffle in our last episode, Apple back back in with
Speaker 1: Apple to another software development deal for Apple platforms. And uh,
Speaker 1: that's when Bill Gates announced the formation of the Gates
Speaker 1: Library Foundation. Of this was a predecessor to some of
Speaker 1: the philanthropic organizations that Bill and will Inde Gates would
Speaker 1: launch in the future, right right. Uh. This was also
Speaker 1: the year that the Department of Justice announced its intent
Speaker 1: to hold Microsoft and contempt of the decree that they
Speaker 1: had agreed to UMI, which which was one of those
Speaker 1: antitrust decrees which you can go back and hear a
Speaker 1: little bit about in the previous episode. Uh but but
Speaker 1: but I mean to the tune of like a million
Speaker 1: dollars per day. Yeah, until contempt, they stopped bundling I e.
Speaker 1: With their oating operating system. This was this was a
Speaker 1: big deal. I remember this unfolding at the time when uh, um,
Speaker 1: you know, I I had entered into the workforce at
Speaker 1: this point, and I just remember following it and and
Speaker 1: being kind of uh knowing the basic details. But it's
Speaker 1: really in retrospect, being able to look at it more thoroughly,
Speaker 1: you really can see how without this intervention the landscape
Speaker 1: would be very different right now as far as the
Speaker 1: way the Internet and the way browsers work. That was
Speaker 1: the same year that Microsoft also acquired hot Mail, which
Speaker 1: of course is a web based email service. Hotmail existed
Speaker 1: for quite some time. It does technically still exist, although
Speaker 1: now it is officially part of Outlook dot com, so
Speaker 1: it's part of the web based Outlook sweet as opposed
Speaker 1: to its own Hotmail thing. I still have a hotmail address.
Speaker 1: I never had a hotmail address. I shot it, well,
Speaker 1: did you have a yellhoo? Man? I still have? I
Speaker 1: still have. I can't really complain, but no, I have
Speaker 1: a I have a hotmail address. That the only reason
Speaker 1: I haven't just completely told people to stop using it
Speaker 1: because there's there's like three people who know me who's
Speaker 1: still send me messages via hotmail, and I like to
Speaker 1: pretend that I care about what they have to say,
Speaker 1: so I keep it going. That's when things things get real, yo. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The The official UH anti test lawsuit against Microsoft was
Speaker 1: filed by the Department of Justice and twenty state attorneys
Speaker 1: general in the United States. They file an anti competitive
Speaker 1: lawsuit against Microsoft. That's also the same year that Microsoft
Speaker 1: launched Windows and also the year that they decided to
Speaker 1: do away with the office of the President. Now, if
Speaker 1: you remember from our last episode, Microsoft had originally Bill
Speaker 1: Gates had served as the president of Microsoft for a while,
Speaker 1: and then they got some presidents from other companies to
Speaker 1: come in and become the president of Microsoft, and then
Speaker 1: they switched to this the strategy of having an office
Speaker 1: of the President, where the the UH the duties of
Speaker 1: the president were split into three roles, and so three
Speaker 1: different executives held positions within the office of the President
Speaker 1: rather than having a single president. This is when they
Speaker 1: go back to having a single president, and that first
Speaker 1: single president is Balmer. Steve Bomber becomes president of Microsoft.
Speaker 1: Bill Gates remains on as chairman and CEO. And uh So,
Speaker 1: now the corporate structure has changed again, and this would
Speaker 1: be the way that the corporate structure would remain for
Speaker 1: about ten years more or less. Uh. Spoiler alert, please
Speaker 1: stay tuned for the exciting conclusion because we've got a
Speaker 1: lot to say. Uh. That's also when Microsoft launched MSN Search,
Speaker 1: which was a web based search engine. This is what
Speaker 1: would eventually turn into what we now know as Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm glad you said I didn't have to. Um, it's
Speaker 1: perfectly legitimate web search engine. Even if being itself is
Speaker 1: not a cromulent word, but it's a it's a it
Speaker 1: works well. I have no complaints against the way being works.
Speaker 1: I still tend to use Google more frequently, but I
Speaker 1: don't have anything against being. Um N Okay, So when
Speaker 1: something really bad happened, uh and I did. This was
Speaker 1: a virus that broke out so virus called the Melissa
Speaker 1: virus ran rampant across the Internet. Now, this virus was,
Speaker 1: in the grand scheme of things, not that malicious and
Speaker 1: that it didn't try to break your computer necessarily or
Speaker 1: wipe out all your data, although you know, you could
Speaker 1: always tweak the malware to make it do worse things
Speaker 1: than what it was designed to do. What it was
Speaker 1: designed to do was really just copy itself and send
Speaker 1: itself to other computers within a person's contact list. And
Speaker 1: it worked within Microsoft Word or Microsoft Outlook, and it
Speaker 1: exploited vulnerabilities there. So if you were to try and
Speaker 1: open this document either in that Look or in Word,
Speaker 1: what it would then do is copy itself and mail
Speaker 1: itself out to all of the contacts that you had.
Speaker 1: So if this hit an executive who happened to have
Speaker 1: hundreds of business contacts in their Outlook, that's that email
Speaker 1: would go out to hundreds of people, and uh, the
Speaker 1: email traffic alone ended up bogging down parts of the
Speaker 1: Internet during this also really kind of open people's eyes
Speaker 1: to the fact that some that that a lot of
Speaker 1: the software we depend upon heavily from Microsoft could have
Speaker 1: vulnerabilities in it, and that if you were to exploit
Speaker 1: those vulnerabilities, you could cause quite a bit of damage.
Speaker 1: It was not the first example of a computer virus
Speaker 1: by a long shot, no, but it was kind of
Speaker 1: the most propagated at the time. And also, um, it
Speaker 1: received you know, the the internet was was really in
Speaker 1: the news at this point where everyone was very excited
Speaker 1: about what was going on. It was right before that, um,
Speaker 1: that dot com crash and um, and so it was
Speaker 1: it was really big. Yeah. Yeah, this is a point
Speaker 1: where you know, we've finally gotten beyond just the college
Speaker 1: students and nerds who know what the Internet is. Right.
Speaker 1: So I was both a college student and nerd in
Speaker 1: the early days of the Internet, so I was doubly
Speaker 1: aware of it. But this is the point where you
Speaker 1: would say things like, oh, you know, my parents know
Speaker 1: what the internet is because it's gotten that big. So
Speaker 1: when a virus hits, and a virus spreads this quickly,
Speaker 1: it's one of those black eyes against the Internet, it's
Speaker 1: a black eye against Microsoft. This was this was just
Speaker 1: bad news for the company. Sure, although that was the
Speaker 1: year that Microsoft stock value peaked for all time on
Speaker 1: December at a round fifty nine dollars per share. Now
Speaker 1: keep in mind with whenever the stock splits, the value
Speaker 1: of the stock goes down, but the value of the
Speaker 1: company remains the same because you've added more stock. So
Speaker 1: this is not to say that the value of the
Speaker 1: company has decreased over time since then, rather than just
Speaker 1: the price of the shares, the individual will shares themselves.
Speaker 1: Because it gets kind of complicated. But so, yeah, that
Speaker 1: was a big year for Microsoft, and not because of
Speaker 1: product releases. It was just because of the way the
Speaker 1: business was going and also this this virus outbreak. The
Speaker 1: year two thousand, however, was a big year for product releases.
Speaker 1: It was that was when that was when Windows two
Speaker 1: thousand again shocking that those numbers lineup like that was debuted. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Windows two thousand Professional and server business os, very snappy name.
Speaker 1: And also that's the year that Microsoft celebrated its twenty
Speaker 1: fifth anniversary. Uh. They also unveiled the dot net platform
Speaker 1: for web services, and that was the year that you know,
Speaker 1: I kind of lied when I said that Bomber became
Speaker 1: president and Gates remained chairman and then that would remain
Speaker 1: the same till two thousand eight. Not entirely true actually,
Speaker 1: because Bomber then stepped into the role of CEO, and
Speaker 1: Gates became the chief software architect for Microsoft. I think
Speaker 1: most people still viewed Gates as being kind of the
Speaker 1: leader of Microsoft, especially when you consider that at big
Speaker 1: events like ce S it's always the personality I mean,
Speaker 1: was always quiet and well, okay, now that's quite the
Speaker 1: wrong word. You're very correct. Developers, developers, developers, developers, developers.
Speaker 1: Do a search, folks, you've heard me say it before.
Speaker 1: If you have not seen it, go to YouTube. Type
Speaker 1: in Steve Bomber developers and you can see. Now. Remember,
Speaker 1: Bomber comes from this from a salesman kind of perspective.
Speaker 1: Dude gets pretty loud if he wants to be. But
Speaker 1: but your point being that he was not the kind
Speaker 1: of the voice of leadership for excellent reasons. He was
Speaker 1: not really the personality that was driving Microsoft. Yeah, he's
Speaker 1: definitely a very savvy businessman, extremely savvy businessman. That's also
Speaker 1: year that the Department of Justice Judge Jackson ruled that
Speaker 1: Microsoft should be split into two units. That that's why
Speaker 1: today we have two different companies of Microsoft. Why Microsoft
Speaker 1: cannot be us Wait this was struck down later on.
Speaker 1: But but but yeah, but the concept was to Uh,
Speaker 1: to have one half that would be doing the operating
Speaker 1: systems and the other half with what with a software,
Speaker 1: other software, other types of software besides operating system Yeah.
Speaker 1: He Jackson, Judge Jackson actually said that Microsoft was an
Speaker 1: abusive monopoly and uh, like like Lawrence said, this decision
Speaker 1: would eventually be overturned. It's so. So that's why there's
Speaker 1: not like two different versions of Microsoft out there, one
Speaker 1: just doing Windows and the other one doing everything else.
Speaker 1: Revenues from Microsoft that year hit two d twenty nine
Speaker 1: billion dollars with over thousand employees. That's a lot of employees.
Speaker 1: And that's when Bill and Melinda Gates launched the Bill
Speaker 1: and Melinda Gates Foundation. It's also when Microsoft acquired a
Speaker 1: company called Video Corporation, So those of you who are
Speaker 1: familiar with videos products that that will ring a bell.
Speaker 1: And Microsoft introduced the Pocket p SEE two thousand, and
Speaker 1: that's the the one that had an operate system that
Speaker 1: was based on Windows CE and the operating system on
Speaker 1: the Pocket PC two thousand would evolve into what would
Speaker 1: become Windows Mobile, which has we could do a full
Speaker 1: episode just on Windows Mobile as well, because that's that's
Speaker 1: one of those upbring system stories that has its own,
Speaker 1: uh interesting rise and fall narrative. Um, of course Windows
Speaker 1: Mobile not a thing anymore. Uh that instead we have
Speaker 1: Windows Phone. I'll talk about that in a little bit.
Speaker 1: But in two thousand one, that's when the Court of
Speaker 1: Appeal overturned Judge Jackson's decision to break Microsoft up into
Speaker 1: two corporations. They but the Court of Appeal did say
Speaker 1: that the company legally illegally used licensing agreements to lock
Speaker 1: out Netscape from computer manufacturers. Right right. Microsoft ends up
Speaker 1: settling by agreeing to to disclose its application programming interfaces
Speaker 1: with third party software companies. So that that was the
Speaker 1: resolution to that very long process of investigation and litigation.
Speaker 1: Microsoft that same year launched Windows XP, which two one
Speaker 1: Windows XP launches, and it was an incredibly popular operating system,
Speaker 1: so much so that there's probably some machines here in
Speaker 1: this office that are still running Windows XP. I was
Speaker 1: running Windows XP personally until Yeah, well, I was running
Speaker 1: Windows XP on my work computer until I destroyed I
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe three computers ago. I've gone through a
Speaker 1: lot of computers while I'm here at now stuff works.
Speaker 1: I'm a little hard shocking. Yeah, well I did seem Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I take it out on the machine, so when the
Speaker 1: machines rise up, I'll be first. Yeah. So Office XP
Speaker 1: also launched that year, which was another one of those
Speaker 1: Office Suite updates, right and uh and yeah, so the
Speaker 1: Windows XP is up becoming So it's such a strong
Speaker 1: rule lease that it would actually cause Microsoft some problems
Speaker 1: down the line when they tried to move to the
Speaker 1: next generation of operating systems. Um. But this was also
Speaker 1: a year that was very important for both Microsoft and
Speaker 1: for Lauren and myself, for me specifically two thousand one,
Speaker 1: that is the year Microsoft launched the Xbox, the Xbox
Speaker 1: that's and and one of the launched titles for Xbox
Speaker 1: was Halo. Halo, Yes, yes, so the video game that
Speaker 1: Lauren and I both share a deep and abiding love for.
Speaker 1: And I don't think I played it until two actually, yeah,
Speaker 1: well that was one of the It was one of
Speaker 1: the earliest titles for the Xbox was was Halo, and
Speaker 1: it was one of the most successful. I mean clear,
Speaker 1: Halo originally was developed as a game that was going
Speaker 1: to be on the Macintosh or the mac computer at
Speaker 1: that time, and instead, you know, no one had ever
Speaker 1: seen any any uh, AI software quite like that in
Speaker 1: a first person shooter. Yeah, it was. It was. And
Speaker 1: also the capacity to uh to land local area network
Speaker 1: boxes together. It was. It was stuff that people had
Speaker 1: were excited about on the computer front, because of course
Speaker 1: on computers you could have done this for a while,
Speaker 1: and also on games like Golden I for the Nintendo platform. Um,
Speaker 1: it was. It was sort of the next step in
Speaker 1: first person shooters. Now people who are first person shooter
Speaker 1: uh aficionados on the computer looked down their nose at us,
Speaker 1: and we totally understand. But Lauren and I like to
Speaker 1: play with controllers, not with a mouse and keyboard. There's
Speaker 1: not that was. That was the first first person shooter
Speaker 1: that I that I played with a controller, and I
Speaker 1: didn't know how it was going to I could not
Speaker 1: comprehend how it was going to work at first, because
Speaker 1: I was just like, how I have I don't have
Speaker 1: a mouse, how do you make it work? How how
Speaker 1: does it do? But it but it turned out to
Speaker 1: work really well. So although the Xbox you know, it
Speaker 1: did pretty well in the United States worldwide. Uh. It was.
Speaker 1: It was kind of a runner up to the PS two,
Speaker 1: A distant runner up to the PS two really, umny
Speaker 1: had sure, Sony had so many, so many terrific titles
Speaker 1: out at that point that the PS two is one
Speaker 1: of the strongest video game consoles ever. If you look
Speaker 1: at the library of games, it's pretty phenomenal. But yeah,
Speaker 1: that that was where Microsoft said this is we're going
Speaker 1: to get into the console gaming market. And so that's
Speaker 1: that was the first version of that. UM Skipping two
Speaker 1: thousand two because I don't have any real information about
Speaker 1: Microsoft that year. Three, that's when they launched Windows Mobile
Speaker 1: two thousand three. So this is the first operating system
Speaker 1: they had officially called Windows Mobile. Is still mainly used
Speaker 1: for the Pocket PC at this time. They weren't really
Speaker 1: interested in developing smartphone operating systems at this point, although
Speaker 1: you could find the Windows Mobile operating system on a
Speaker 1: couple of early smartphones. Also in two thousand three, UM,
Speaker 1: a new version of Office launched Office two thousand three.
Speaker 1: Shockingly enough, UM and again that really clever naming systems here,
Speaker 1: um and uh and yeah. The company at this point
Speaker 1: had over ut four thousand employees and their net revenues
Speaker 1: were above thirty two billion, lots of money, all the money. Yeah,
Speaker 1: two thousand four, that's when we have another another knock
Speaker 1: against Microsoft. That's when the European Commission because the old
Speaker 1: anti trust hearings against Microsoft. So UM, like we said before,
Speaker 1: you know, the United States government's not the only entity
Speaker 1: that has gone after Microsoft or anti competitive or antitrust reasons.
Speaker 1: Certainly not, no. Uh. In two thousand five, actually South
Speaker 1: Korea UM started to open anti trust hearings. They they
Speaker 1: find them like thirty two million, but ultimately found them
Speaker 1: guilty and dropped the fine. So I'm not really sure
Speaker 1: the purpose of that one slept on the wrist. There's
Speaker 1: more that happens in two thousand five. But before we
Speaker 1: jump into that, all right, back to two thousand five,
Speaker 1: here's where another launch comes in. So two thousand one
Speaker 1: they launched the Xbox two. Five, we get the Xbox
Speaker 1: three sixty. Now, this is, of course, the as of
Speaker 1: the recording of this podcast, the current generation of Microsoft
Speaker 1: console with the Xbox one on the horizon. It's coming
Speaker 1: very soon. We'll we'll talk a little bit about that,
Speaker 1: of course, towards the end of this episode. Two five
Speaker 1: was also the year that Gates Bill Gates received an
Speaker 1: honorary knighthood from the United Kingdom that's interesting. It's very
Speaker 1: rare when someone outside of the UK is awarded with
Speaker 1: an honorary knighthood. There's a particular order, as I recall,
Speaker 1: that's for non U cases, and but I honestly can't
Speaker 1: remember what it is because I don't expect to receive
Speaker 1: one anytime soon. The Queen will not return my phone calls.
Speaker 1: How rude you said it? Not I above such things.
Speaker 1: We are not amused. Two thousand six, Gates at that
Speaker 1: point shocks the world by saying that he will step
Speaker 1: back from Microsoft by two thousand eight. So this was
Speaker 1: a big news. I mean, Gates was very much Yeah
Speaker 1: he was, even though he had only been the chief
Speaker 1: Software Software Architect for a while. Yeah, yeah, he had
Speaker 1: not been in the the official leader of Microsoft. But
Speaker 1: people still thought of him as the leader of Microsoft.
Speaker 1: I mean he was, like I said, at any big
Speaker 1: event like c E S, he was still the guy
Speaker 1: who would deliver the keynote. So this was this was
Speaker 1: kind of big news. And he still was, you know,
Speaker 1: saying that there was gonna be a transition plan and
Speaker 1: he was still gonna be working for Microsoft. He was
Speaker 1: going to scale back gradually. It wasn't like he was
Speaker 1: just gonna quit one day. So but it was it
Speaker 1: was you know, this was when he announced that. That
Speaker 1: was also when when Vista was released, which did not
Speaker 1: as well as they were that. This is one of
Speaker 1: those operating systems that suffered for um for XP having
Speaker 1: been as solid of a system was right now XP.
Speaker 1: You know, like people will even point out that the
Speaker 1: early days of XP, XP was kind of a rough system.
Speaker 1: But they had released patches to XP over time of them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because you had to keep you know, vulnerabilities would be discovered.
Speaker 1: Microsoft would fix the vulnerabilities, release a patch. More vulnerabilities
Speaker 1: would be discovered in the line. But the Internet was
Speaker 1: so widespread at this point it was really easy for
Speaker 1: people to get ahold of those. Yeah, and Microsoft XP.
Speaker 1: I mean it became the foundation for a lot of software.
Speaker 1: And that one of the things we see time and
Speaker 1: again with big businesses is that they'll develop their own
Speaker 1: proprietary software to do business their own way, whatever their
Speaker 1: industry is, and these these programs will be built with
Speaker 1: a particular operating system in mind. And Windows Windows XP
Speaker 1: had been around for a while, so, uh, anything that
Speaker 1: was not going to be compatible with that Windows XP
Speaker 1: platform was not very useful to businesses. So Windows Vista
Speaker 1: when it first came out, there were some compatibility issues.
Speaker 1: There were a lot of driver issues too, Like if
Speaker 1: you had developed hardware four PCs and you had special
Speaker 1: drivers to make it work on a computer, Vista did
Speaker 1: not work with a lot of drivers, which meant that
Speaker 1: people were reluctant to upgrade because they didn't they weren't
Speaker 1: sure that their stuff was going to work with their computer.
Speaker 1: And it was also being sold as a much more
Speaker 1: home PC system, and and at this point, I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people had phased into using, um, you know,
Speaker 1: having multi use computers, not separating their home life from
Speaker 1: their work life, and and and you know, it's just
Speaker 1: there were a lot of problems with Vista, and it
Speaker 1: got it personally, I did. I actually used it early
Speaker 1: when there were still a lot of problems with it. Uh.
Speaker 1: And part of it was that people who were reviewing
Speaker 1: it gave it pretty critical reviews and it never recovered
Speaker 1: from that. Even though they Microsoft would address many of
Speaker 1: the problems that people had with Vista and subsequent updates,
Speaker 1: the damage had been done. Vista was known as being
Speaker 1: a bad operating system because of the criticisms that it
Speaker 1: received and it never recovered. Um there was. That was
Speaker 1: the year that they launched something else that also had
Speaker 1: a very rough life. It wasn't just Windows Vista that
Speaker 1: they launched that did not really ever gained serious traction.
Speaker 1: They so launched another example of hardware. So they had
Speaker 1: had some success with the video game console market. That's
Speaker 1: when they launched the Zoon Player. So the zoon Player
Speaker 1: was a competitor to the iPod and later on a
Speaker 1: competitor competitor to the iPod Touch. UH. It was an
Speaker 1: MP three player media player UH. And it was a
Speaker 1: project that was headed by Jay Allard, who was actually
Speaker 1: the guy who was in charge of the Xbox three
Speaker 1: sixty project before it's launched, so he had already demonstrated
Speaker 1: success in developing hardware for Microsoft. The code name by
Speaker 1: this project was Argo, and it was it was It
Speaker 1: was innovative in many ways. One of the things that
Speaker 1: you could do with the U the Zoom was you
Speaker 1: could share music with someone else who owned a Zoo. So, Lauren,
Speaker 1: if you had a Zoom, uh, I apologize ahead of
Speaker 1: time for actually saying you would own a Zoom. A
Speaker 1: little brown MP three player. They originally just came in Brown.
Speaker 1: I think, I think I had I had Best Buys
Speaker 1: for priet Terry MP three player at the time, so
Speaker 1: I wasn't really had a compact branded MP three player
Speaker 1: for the longest day, it was a brick. Uh. So uh,
Speaker 1: if you had a Zoom and I had a Zoom
Speaker 1: and I had a song that you wanted to listen to,
Speaker 1: you just really needed to hear Jet Boy, Jet Girl.
Speaker 1: I happened to have that and I want to lend
Speaker 1: it to you. I could do that for first that
Speaker 1: period of time. It was like alone. Yeah. Essentially, the
Speaker 1: file would remain viable on your Zoom device for a
Speaker 1: certain number of plays or a certain amount of time,
Speaker 1: and then it would essentially delete itself, so you wouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to copy mufitely. But originally do you remember what?
Speaker 1: You probably don't, But do you remember what this sharing
Speaker 1: service was eventually called Microsoft Prepare Yourself Squirting? No, it
Speaker 1: was not. It was if I wanted to share my song,
Speaker 1: I would just squirt it right on over to you.
Speaker 1: My Zoom would squirt at your Zoom and then your
Speaker 1: Zoom could play that. I think I need an adult Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: not my fault, not my fault. I didn't come up
Speaker 1: with it, it's just what it's called. So anyway, I
Speaker 1: wish I were making that up. So let's move on
Speaker 1: to two thousand seven before any more damages that. That
Speaker 1: was the year that Office two thousand seven launched. Yes,
Speaker 1: strangely enough, Gates also collected an honorary degree from his
Speaker 1: alma mater or what would have been his alma mater.
Speaker 1: Also for reference, that's the year that the that the
Speaker 1: iPhone launched from Apple. Yes, yes, and uh. Later on,
Speaker 1: Steve Balmer would admit that Microsoft did not get completely
Speaker 1: dropped the ball. They didn't move on smartphones when they
Speaker 1: should have because they had been working on their Windows
Speaker 1: Mobile operating system for a few years, and if they
Speaker 1: had positioned themselves properly, there is a chance that they
Speaker 1: could have been the company that brought the smartphone to
Speaker 1: your Yeah, because that's what Apple did. You know? Smartphones existed,
Speaker 1: people were using smartphones, especially executives, and using black but
Speaker 1: they brought it to to two people. Yeah, Apples, what
Speaker 1: not that executives are people? I'm sorry that sounded terrible. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know have you ever eaten with one? So
Speaker 1: that's a producer's joke. Uh so the but yeah, Apple
Speaker 1: was able to succeed where no other company had as
Speaker 1: far as the consumer interest in smartphones is concerned. And
Speaker 1: later Balmber would admit that Microsoft really dropped the ball.
Speaker 1: They could have been the company to do that, or
Speaker 1: they at least had the potential. Uh. That's the same
Speaker 1: year that Bill Gates showed off the Milan surface computer,
Speaker 1: which was later just called the surface table and eventually
Speaker 1: renamed the Pixel Sense to differentiate it from the surface
Speaker 1: tablets that would come out down the line. So this
Speaker 1: was a table that could detect multiple touches up to
Speaker 1: I think ten or twenty touches. It used cameras to
Speaker 1: detect where you were making contact with the screen, So
Speaker 1: cameras were actually mounted below the screen you could not
Speaker 1: see them, and they were measuring light in the infrared spectrum,
Speaker 1: as I recall, So that way it would detect where
Speaker 1: your fingers were and you can manipulate stuff. You can
Speaker 1: even do things like have a digital camera that you
Speaker 1: had taken pictures with, put the digital camera on the surface,
Speaker 1: and then through wireless transfer, it could pull the pictures
Speaker 1: from the camera onto the surface. So it's kind of
Speaker 1: a cool effect. You. It's like setting your camera down
Speaker 1: on a table and something the pictures you have taken
Speaker 1: are on the table. It was a neat idea and
Speaker 1: it was really meant as something that would be used
Speaker 1: in entertainment establishments and retail establishments, not so much the
Speaker 1: average consumer. I mean, we're talking about tables that cost
Speaker 1: like twenty grand. So it's not something that I'm going
Speaker 1: to go out and buy anytime soon unless someone out
Speaker 1: there wants to be really altruistic. Uh. And it's also
Speaker 1: a year that's something that is only it's a story
Speaker 1: that's just now unraveling to a level where we can
Speaker 1: really get a grip on it. Uh. It's something that
Speaker 1: Lauren and I are going to cover in the future.
Speaker 1: Two thousand seven is when my Microsoft becomes the first
Speaker 1: company to be involved in the n s A s
Speaker 1: PRISM program. So PRISM, of course, is part of the
Speaker 1: n s A program to gather data about non US
Speaker 1: citizens related to any form of terrorism activity or or
Speaker 1: any other dangerous activity directed towards the United States and UH.
Speaker 1: To do this, the n SSA gathers a lot of
Speaker 1: information and Microsoft was the first company to become part
Speaker 1: of this now saying that I don't want to give
Speaker 1: the uh the I don't want to imply that Microsoft
Speaker 1: was completely in favor of this. They were required by
Speaker 1: law to participate in this program. It's uh not like
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's not like Microsoft volunteered necessarily. We
Speaker 1: don't know all the details of how each company became
Speaker 1: part of this, but we do know that, you know,
Speaker 1: these were all legal proceedings as defined by US laws.
Speaker 1: So I just wanted to say that because you know,
Speaker 1: we're still learning the details about this entire program. But yeah,
Speaker 1: two thousand seven, that's when they started. It would be
Speaker 1: six years before we would all learn about this program,
Speaker 1: al right, two thousand eight, so that's the year when
Speaker 1: Microsoft gets hit with a little slap on the wrist
Speaker 1: from the European Commission hundred ninety nine million euros. You
Speaker 1: can call that a slap on the road. Don't slap
Speaker 1: me on the wrist with that, because I can't afford it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Microsoft of course appealed that, yep, and they had hit
Speaker 1: a corporate wide head count at this point. Is a
Speaker 1: global company, I mean, they've been a global company for
Speaker 1: a few several years. At this point, their global head
Speaker 1: count is at ninety thousand and uh. And it was
Speaker 1: at that point that Gates, as as promised us, stepped
Speaker 1: down from his daily responsibilities at the company. Yeah. It
Speaker 1: was also the last year that Bill Gates would do
Speaker 1: the keynote for C E S. UH And I remember
Speaker 1: seeing that keynote. I was at that C E S.
Speaker 1: And it was interesting because they also presented a video
Speaker 1: of what Bill Gates is to Cold day was like
Speaker 1: a Microsoft leading up to his retirement because he had
Speaker 1: scaled back so far and h it was totally done
Speaker 1: for laughs. I'm sure it was. It was very amusing
Speaker 1: and involved things like him putting his coffee cup on
Speaker 1: his car and driving off without remembering it, and then
Speaker 1: getting out of this car when he gets to Microsoft
Speaker 1: and picking up his coffee cup from the top of
Speaker 1: the car. Its stayed there the whole time. And lots
Speaker 1: of goofy stuff. In fact, there was a weird year
Speaker 1: for Microsoft. There's a lot of goofy stuff that came
Speaker 1: out in two thousand and eight. For instance, there were
Speaker 1: a series of Impenetrable ads that came out featuring Bill
Speaker 1: Gates and Jerry Seinfeld, Right, I remember those. I showed
Speaker 1: you one of them, the one where the Jerry Seinfeld's
Speaker 1: walking through a mall and he sees that Bill Gates
Speaker 1: is being fitted for shoes and he says, great, googly moogly.
Speaker 1: He comes into the sneaker store and there's Bill Gates
Speaker 1: trying on a pair of conquistadors. They run tight. Uh.
Speaker 1: If you guys are longtime fans of tech stuff, you've
Speaker 1: heard Chris and I have quoted this ad nauseum. I
Speaker 1: mean it's really esoteric. I mean it's such a bizarre
Speaker 1: very data and they and they have there's one point
Speaker 1: where the shoe store asks the ask Bill Gates if
Speaker 1: he has like the customer loyalty card, and Bill Gates
Speaker 1: flashes the card and it has on it his mug
Speaker 1: shot from when he was so he was a teenager
Speaker 1: and he kept getting pulled over and at least on
Speaker 1: one occasion arrested for violation chilling around in his Porsche. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so he um, he had his mug shot on there
Speaker 1: as just a little sly gag. The whole commercial is
Speaker 1: a commercial. It's it's like a Seinfeld episode. It's a
Speaker 1: commercial belt nothing. It's a Microsoft commercial, but they're not
Speaker 1: promoting any particular product. Or service. It was really just odd. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I loved it. But sure a lot along these lines. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, Gates maintained his position as the chairman of
Speaker 1: the board. Um yeah, of of Microsoft, but no longer
Speaker 1: they're on a day DA basis. But but was still
Speaker 1: very much a figurehead. But but at that point he
Speaker 1: was really trying to concentrate on the Bill and Melinda
Speaker 1: Gates Foundation, Right, and that's a year. Uh. The last
Speaker 1: day of two thousand eight, December thirty first, two thousand eight,
Speaker 1: several of the Zoo thirty models all froze. There was
Speaker 1: an error inside the internal clock driver that was running
Speaker 1: on the Zoo models, So anyone who had a Zoom
Speaker 1: thirty there was a chance that their device would just
Speaker 1: freeze and it wouldn't work for another twenty four hours.
Speaker 1: Within twenty four hours pretty much fixed itself. But if
Speaker 1: you wanted to fix it before that, Microsoft did release
Speaker 1: a patch. But that was just one of those things
Speaker 1: that kind of indicated where, you know, a little software
Speaker 1: error could lead to a full hardware failure. I guess
Speaker 1: alternate of glitches. We're not We're not good. I mean,
Speaker 1: it wasn't an infrequent Yeah, I think it's fair to
Speaker 1: say that it didn't hurt Microsoft too badly just because
Speaker 1: the Zoom wasn't that popular. Sure, but it did hurt
Speaker 1: the Zoo. Yeah, well it didn't help. I mean, iPod
Speaker 1: was already so far in the lead that it has
Speaker 1: been really hard to catch up to it. Two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: that's when Microsoft launched. When does seven? A lot of
Speaker 1: us thought that this was a pretty quick launch. I
Speaker 1: mean it went from two thousand and six of Vista
Speaker 1: coming out to two thousand nine with the successor to
Speaker 1: Vista coming out, and a lot of people felt that
Speaker 1: that was a really short window. I think it was more.
Speaker 1: I think it was partially a marketing emloy just because
Speaker 1: Vista had done so poorly. They were like, let's get
Speaker 1: this name out of here and and and you know,
Speaker 1: we can do firmware updates basically. Yeah. It also it
Speaker 1: also confused people There were like, how did Microsoft get
Speaker 1: to seven? And you started counting? And Microsoft has an
Speaker 1: official response to that, which I cannot remember, but I do.
Speaker 1: When I read it, I thought, that's one way to count.
Speaker 1: Uh it was. It definitely confused me because people were
Speaker 1: people were dedicating a good amount of time figuring out
Speaker 1: like where then the last number had been three point one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then you had all the different variations like Windows
Speaker 1: Windows you had, you know, but people were adding it
Speaker 1: up and then thinking I can't get to seven. Depending
Speaker 1: on which way I go, I can either get six
Speaker 1: or eight. But but eventually Microsoft did actually release a
Speaker 1: response saying this is why it's Window seven. That's also
Speaker 1: when they launched a fourth generation Zoom, which was meant
Speaker 1: to UH to compete against the iPod Touch. This was
Speaker 1: the one that had the oh led display and had
Speaker 1: HD video out. It also had HD radio features UH
Speaker 1: and UM. At the All Things Digital conference, Steve Bomber
Speaker 1: announced the BING rebranding of Microsoft Live Search being launched
Speaker 1: an in an official way. UM. Other things that launched
Speaker 1: that year were Russia's investigation into Antitrist proceedings. Yeah. That's
Speaker 1: also the year that that Microsoft would UH enter into
Speaker 1: a deal with Yahoo to provide search results for Yahoo,
Speaker 1: so Yahoo search engine would be powered by the BING
Speaker 1: search engine at that point. This is interesting because the
Speaker 1: year one year earlier, two thousand and eight, something I
Speaker 1: should have mentioned but I forgot to, was that Microsoft
Speaker 1: made a move to acquire Yahoo and actually they wound up,
Speaker 1: They wound up not following through with that. Yeah, because yeah,
Speaker 1: who said that Microsoft had undervalued the what Yahoo was worth?
Speaker 1: And then Microsoft said, well, we don't want to play
Speaker 1: with you anyway. And then a year later they said,
Speaker 1: you want to use our stuff for your surge engine,
Speaker 1: and you know who said yes, y'all who itself was
Speaker 1: going through some pretty serious trouble at this point, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, if you've heard our Yahoo episode, you've probably
Speaker 1: understand more about that and about how you know, the
Speaker 1: company was really struggling for a while. And some would
Speaker 1: argue still is sure um to two nine wasn't necessarily
Speaker 1: a terrific year for Microsoft. It was the company had
Speaker 1: some nine of the UH global operating system market share. However,
Speaker 1: this stock stipped to under seventeen bucks of share that year,
Speaker 1: which which was the lowest basically in their history since
Speaker 1: uh since nine. Now, to be fair, this is also
Speaker 1: right around the time that there was a global depression.
Speaker 1: It was a global economic sessions, but it was it
Speaker 1: was the only year of their negative growth um since
Speaker 1: I love that phrase negative negative growth. Yeah yeah, And
Speaker 1: this was also the first year that Bomber headed the
Speaker 1: CS keynote on his own and Microsoft as the Microsoft keynote.
Speaker 1: The delivery guy. I actually saw that one too. I
Speaker 1: saw the last gates one in the first Bomber one.
Speaker 1: Three interns were eaten that day. Then in the Connect
Speaker 1: was released, and and and the Connect would be what
Speaker 1: would help the Xbox three sixty overtake the PlayStation two
Speaker 1: and the WE consoles, PlayStation three, PlayStation three at that point, Yes,
Speaker 1: it's okay, yeah, and the Connect, I think I think
Speaker 1: what was happening was that Microsoft saw that the Wei
Speaker 1: when they released the We Move, I mean, that thing
Speaker 1: sold like crazy. It was almost impossible to find one
Speaker 1: of those things for months after its release. And it
Speaker 1: was such a such a terrific um kind of non
Speaker 1: traditional market that they were aiming for, you know, a
Speaker 1: k a. Ladies um, which which always fends me a
Speaker 1: tiny wee bit, but yeah, right, um. You know, it
Speaker 1: was just around that time that the consoles that the
Speaker 1: major console players were starting to go like, hey, there
Speaker 1: are people in the world who might want to play
Speaker 1: games who are not year old males. Yeah. Well, and
Speaker 1: and they were also just seeing that the We console
Speaker 1: was out selling the Xbox three sixty three. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it wasn't necessarily that Nintendo was really making groundbreaking games.
Speaker 1: It was that the hardware itself was creating a totally
Speaker 1: different way to play. And so the connect and the
Speaker 1: move we're both kind I would I would argue those
Speaker 1: would have to be kind of responses to Nintendo's approach.
Speaker 1: I'm sure both companies would argue saying that it was
Speaker 1: you know, that this was always part of their strategy,
Speaker 1: but that it was the hardware capacity at the time
Speaker 1: when you see when you see a company just run
Speaker 1: away with it like Nintendo was at the time. Now,
Speaker 1: of course Nintendo is in its own serious amount of
Speaker 1: trouble right now, but at the time it was doing
Speaker 1: really well. It just didn't have a lot of staying power,
Speaker 1: Like people got tired of their wee consoles in general.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's a generalization. There's a game deficiency.
Speaker 1: Game deficiency as well. UM also was the year of
Speaker 1: the Windows Phone seven UM, Microsoft Link and the Office Suite.
Speaker 1: So now we're getting into this this era where Windows
Speaker 1: Phone has taken over for Windows Mobile operating system. Uh.
Speaker 1: In fact, that that had really started back in two
Speaker 1: thousand eight. The Windows Mobile Operating System was showing its age,
Speaker 1: and rather than continually trying to upgrade it, Microsoft made
Speaker 1: the decision to start with a brand new operating system
Speaker 1: designed specifically for smartphones and for tablets that they were
Speaker 1: calling Windows Phone rather than Windows Mobile. So that's you know,
Speaker 1: now we're seeing Windows Windows Phone seven, which I guess
Speaker 1: is to mirror the Windows seven operating system as opposed
Speaker 1: to show that this is the seventh version of Windows Phone.
Speaker 1: I don't even know. I can't tell. Counting is fun? Yeah,
Speaker 1: sure is. That's when Microsoft announced that it would discontinue
Speaker 1: the Zoo hardware development. So the Great Zooon experiment ended
Speaker 1: in failure. They could not replicate the success they had
Speaker 1: in the console market. I know a lot of people
Speaker 1: who listened to this show listen to it on Zoom.
Speaker 1: In fact, we had people, uh, whenever there was an
Speaker 1: issue with RSS feed or something that was not properly
Speaker 1: going to the Zoom marketplace, people would write in Uh.
Speaker 1: Not a lot of people, but the people who did
Speaker 1: were very much, very vocal about it. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, it was a it was a decent MP
Speaker 1: three player. There was nothing wrong with it. It just
Speaker 1: never got the traction that other hardware had sure. Well
Speaker 1: also also for you know, yeah kids that were PC
Speaker 1: versus Mac. Yeah, yeah, wait, that's the thing. Next, you're
Speaker 1: gonna tell me that pirates and Ninja can't get along.
Speaker 1: Steve Bomber delivers Microsoft's final keynote address at C e S.
Speaker 1: I did not see this one. I missed. I was
Speaker 1: at CS that year, but I didn't go. But um,
Speaker 1: the company also said it would no longer maintain a
Speaker 1: space at CS, it would no longer have a booth there,
Speaker 1: and um, which which you know was it was a
Speaker 1: came off like a like a big step. But was wasn't,
Speaker 1: I think overall surprising in the industry because you know,
Speaker 1: all of these large companies had for a while started
Speaker 1: kind of going like, well, why am I going to
Speaker 1: let all of these other places steal my limelight when
Speaker 1: I can just hold my own press conference and talk
Speaker 1: about anything that I want to, kind of following the
Speaker 1: same route that Apple and Google were doing, which is
Speaker 1: hold hold your own event and that way you can
Speaker 1: why not, Yeah, you can announce things on your terms,
Speaker 1: on your schedule. Because the big issue with CS is, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a huge spotlight that's on you because the whole
Speaker 1: world is there. It feels like at times, but one
Speaker 1: you're sharing the stage with everybody else, and two you
Speaker 1: have to have your stuff ready to announce at that
Speaker 1: particular time of year. If it's a product that you
Speaker 1: aren't ready to launch for another five six months, announcing
Speaker 1: it early can sometimes be harmful. We saw that with
Speaker 1: the Palm Pre. The Palm Pre came out at CS
Speaker 1: one year, and everyone thought, this is the most amazing
Speaker 1: smartphone I've ever seen. I can't wait to get my
Speaker 1: hands on it. By the time it came out June
Speaker 1: of that following year, no one cared anymore. So this
Speaker 1: way Microsoft could terms in better strategy exactly, so they
Speaker 1: left c E S and uh. They also launched a
Speaker 1: new product in a brand new version of their operating system,
Speaker 1: Windows eight. Yeah. Windows eight. This was the the tablet friendly,
Speaker 1: the multi platform friendly operating system. Yeah, to the point
Speaker 1: some people would argue that it wasn't so friendly if
Speaker 1: you had a desktop or laptop, especially if you had
Speaker 1: one that did not have a touch screen. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I was designed so that it could work on both
Speaker 1: touch screens and on traditional computers, and um uh, it
Speaker 1: definitely is very easy to use if you have a
Speaker 1: touch screen interface. If you don't have a touch screen interface,
Speaker 1: it takes a little bit more. Yeah, it takes a
Speaker 1: little more effort to navigate through. It also had a
Speaker 1: desktop version where or a desktop setting where you could
Speaker 1: switch from the tiled view of Windows eight to the
Speaker 1: more desktop look to it, although the start button was
Speaker 1: missing at the time. But more on that in just
Speaker 1: a little while. Um but it got mixed reviews, I
Speaker 1: would say mixed to negative. There were a lot of
Speaker 1: people who found it, um difficult to to navigate it first.
Speaker 1: There were people who were missing a lot of the
Speaker 1: features that they had become used to. Again, this happens
Speaker 1: every time you updated. But it's still pretty fresh and recent.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and and and again. Like not everyone. You know,
Speaker 1: people are starting to get touch screens for their home
Speaker 1: PC or laptop. But um, but that's not widespread enough
Speaker 1: to really be I think the Microsoft might have jumped
Speaker 1: to the gun on that one might have. I mean
Speaker 1: they were in a way, they were really trying to
Speaker 1: push this forward. In fact, they've been doing that more recently.
Speaker 1: I think they're trying to become a leader in various areas,
Speaker 1: like a thought leader, not just not just an industry leader,
Speaker 1: but a thought leader in these spaces. But that that
Speaker 1: means you get pushed back, because it means that you
Speaker 1: are are abandoning certain things that people have, you know,
Speaker 1: come to rely upon, or at least be used to.
Speaker 1: And it takes a while to convince folks that no, no, no,
Speaker 1: go with us, because this is going to be great.
Speaker 1: You just have to let this other stuff go. And
Speaker 1: I think it's really hard to do when you're when
Speaker 1: you're this big, when you've got this much of a
Speaker 1: of an os market share UM and telling you know,
Speaker 1: perhaps over half of the world that that they need
Speaker 1: to catch up to the times and get a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of new hardware is a difficult sell. There are
Speaker 1: different ways of doing it. Like Steve Jobs was very
Speaker 1: good at doing this Elvert Apple stee Jobs. I mean,
Speaker 1: he could tell you essentially what it was you wanted.
Speaker 1: That was his job, and and the thing was, he
Speaker 1: was good at it. By the end of the by
Speaker 1: the end of a speech, you were convinced you did
Speaker 1: want the thing he told you you wanted. Um and uh.
Speaker 1: Whereas Elver a Microsoft that doesn't necessarily always work out
Speaker 1: that way two thousand twelve is also when Microsoft launched
Speaker 1: the surface tablet, So this was interesting because again they
Speaker 1: were getting into the hardware area. So they had they
Speaker 1: had the consoles, they had the failed Zoon. Now they're
Speaker 1: getting into creating tablets. And it also was a little
Speaker 1: controversial because Microsoft is providing the operating system for other
Speaker 1: surface tap will not surface tablets, but other tablets running
Speaker 1: Windows eight. So then the question was are you actually
Speaker 1: entering into competition with your own partners and that was
Speaker 1: that was a tough question. Um. Microsoft I think was
Speaker 1: mainly saying that the reason they were developing surface tablets
Speaker 1: was to inspire other but needs to also build Windows
Speaker 1: eight tablets and to just uh start that start the market,
Speaker 1: to establish a market that other companies could sweep in
Speaker 1: and take advantage of. Um. I don't know, it's still
Speaker 1: early days, but I surface adoption has not been huge
Speaker 1: compared to things like Android tablets, and I think I
Speaker 1: think partially because of a little bit of that bad,
Speaker 1: bad press about Windows eight. Yeah, I'm sure that has
Speaker 1: something to do with it. Uh. Then we get into
Speaker 1: this year, we're not We're not finished at the end
Speaker 1: of June, but as of yet, Microsoft has announced the
Speaker 1: Xbox One for release at the end of the year.
Speaker 1: They announced it and then they showed it off at
Speaker 1: first a couple of weeks before E three, and then
Speaker 1: at E three they went into more detail. It initially
Speaker 1: got a lot of people raising criticisms for some of
Speaker 1: the decisions that the Microsoft made. They wanted to go
Speaker 1: with a version of the Xbox One where you could
Speaker 1: buy games over over digital lines, so you would just
Speaker 1: download the game, or if you buy it on disk,
Speaker 1: you would just use it to copy the game onto
Speaker 1: your drive. Then you would never need the disc again.
Speaker 1: So it was a way to try and move away
Speaker 1: from physical media. But it meant that there had to
Speaker 1: be a from the game developer perspective. There needed to
Speaker 1: be a way of verifying that the game itself was
Speaker 1: a legitimate registered copy, which meant that your console had
Speaker 1: to check in with servers on some regular basis, which
Speaker 1: they said was going to be every twenty four hours
Speaker 1: certain games. If you were playing a game, you would
Speaker 1: have to check once an hour, but the system itself
Speaker 1: would be once every twenty four hours. UH. There was
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of resistance on the gam
Speaker 1: or movement for that, and eventually UH they clarified and
Speaker 1: or rent contact. Well, the Xbox president essentially said, we
Speaker 1: heard what you had to say, and we now are
Speaker 1: going to change these policies so that now you can
Speaker 1: play a game on a disk just like you you
Speaker 1: could ever before you could you could sell that disc
Speaker 1: when you're done with it, you can trade it. If
Speaker 1: it's a digital copy, then you cannot do that because
Speaker 1: that's just the way digital works. But if it's a
Speaker 1: physical copy and you're done playing, you can totally sell
Speaker 1: that back, or you can buy a used copy and
Speaker 1: there will be no restriction. Um. There were some other
Speaker 1: changes that they made that were really to mollify gamers
Speaker 1: who were complaining about the changes that were being made.
Speaker 1: So um So that was a big story in with Microsoft. Also,
Speaker 1: just recently, Microsoft launched Windows eight point one, which is
Speaker 1: the newest update to the Windows eight op bring system,
Speaker 1: and it brings back the much beloved start button. It
Speaker 1: doesn't behave exactly the way it did in Windows seven
Speaker 1: and earlier versions, but you know what, it's the behavior
Speaker 1: of the start button has changed from version to version anyway,
Speaker 1: but it is back. It had been removed and now
Speaker 1: it's back, and you can customize things like start and
Speaker 1: lock screens. Uh. It also Windows eight point one adds
Speaker 1: support for three D printers, which is kind of cool.
Speaker 1: It also deeper sky Drive support. Sky Drive is Microsoft's
Speaker 1: cloud storage solution. UM and this they also sold off
Speaker 1: their I P TV divisions. That's that's internet TV. Remember
Speaker 1: when they bought web TV way way way back. Now
Speaker 1: they're getting rid of all that. They sold it to
Speaker 1: Rickson right, and and this is really a move I
Speaker 1: think to UM to focus on their Xbox Internet TV
Speaker 1: related departments. I would imagine so. And they also have
Speaker 1: entered into a lot of partnerships with cable companies and broadcast. Sure,
Speaker 1: it's it's not that they're trying to get out of
Speaker 1: Internet TV. It's just that they are focusing their efforts
Speaker 1: on on the hardware. I'm selling a lot of Xbox, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the plan. I think they're gonna sell a lot
Speaker 1: more now that they've reversed their position on several of
Speaker 1: the issues that gamers found particularly troubling. That brings us
Speaker 1: up to date what Microsoft's been doing and what the
Speaker 1: company is up to. And you know, it's funny because
Speaker 1: I think every year since Balmer has essentially become the
Speaker 1: the head of Microsoft. There have been rumblings that the
Speaker 1: company would look for someone else to replace him because
Speaker 1: people seem to feel that Bomber is not the right
Speaker 1: guy to be in charge, that he's not leading the
Speaker 1: company in an innovative way. I'm not the one to
Speaker 1: say that, but I've certainly heard it. And every time
Speaker 1: any discussion about Microsoft's corporate structure comes into play, I
Speaker 1: always hear somebody say, when is the board of directors
Speaker 1: going to demand a different CEO? Um. You know, Bomber
Speaker 1: has been there a long time and he knows the
Speaker 1: business really well. And it may be that his public persona,
Speaker 1: the idea, you know, the way that he comes off
Speaker 1: in these presentations, like I said, like a super intense dude,
Speaker 1: may not be uh indicative of his actual leadership style.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Never worked with a man, I'm terrified
Speaker 1: of him and I hide uh. But it'll be interesting
Speaker 1: to see what happens with Microsoft in the future. I
Speaker 1: I am curious to see how the Xbox one shakes out,
Speaker 1: as well as the fact that they plan on continuing
Speaker 1: to support the Xbox three sixty. I'm also curious to
Speaker 1: see how Windows eight shapes up now that we have
Speaker 1: eight point one out there, and whether or not they
Speaker 1: were they were again kind of prescient and their decision
Speaker 1: to make this, say a touch heavy. Yeah, we'll have
Speaker 1: to see. And of course Windows Phone is one of
Speaker 1: those things that there there. I've seen some projections that
Speaker 1: it could have as much as seventeen percent of the
Speaker 1: market in like seventeen, but that's a very small slice
Speaker 1: of the market. They're still really battling Android and iOS.
Speaker 1: I mean, those are the two juggernauts there. So but
Speaker 1: when those phones is a a good mobile operating system.
Speaker 1: I've used it a little bit. I mean I don't
Speaker 1: own a device that runs Windows Phone, but the times
Speaker 1: I've used it, I thought it was pretty sleek and
Speaker 1: everything seemed to be working really well. I thought was
Speaker 1: very pretty Um, I just I'm already really well invested,
Speaker 1: already entrenched Android. Yeah, yeah, that one. It's the one
Speaker 1: I'm entrenched in sometimes up to my neck. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: that wraps up our discussion about the company Microsoft. It's
Speaker 1: a big, big discussion, and obviously we could do episodes
Speaker 1: about lots of the different things that we talked about here,
Speaker 1: and maybe we will in another few weeks. After this
Speaker 1: is crested when we can talk about something else in
Speaker 1: the meantime, something fun, silly, like in the n s A. So, guys,
Speaker 1: if you have any suggestions for future topics for tech Stuff,
Speaker 1: let us know. Send this an email. Our addresses tech
Speaker 1: stuff at Discovery dot com, or drop us a note.
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