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When did xobni get started,anyone know?
Says in the article. Apr 1 2006. I suspect that was the first public demo, since they were WFP06 and so probably started around Dec 05 or Jan 06.
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Paying millions of dollars for a few talented engineers, who will probably work half-heartedly for a few months/year, depending on the clauses in the contract, then move on to the next startup? Come on, USD is not that weak.
Their value is not just in being there. What they create will likely exceed the acquisition costs.
Why does this stuff get leaked to the press? What happened to confidentiality?
I would guess it gets leaked to the press by people who will eventually want favors in return. Sometimes it might be founders who want to prod other potential acquirers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a lot more to replicating something like Xobni in a megacorporation like MSFT than just the programming. In a lot of cases it's easier to get an acquisition signed off on than a new department to make a new product. And they get more than just code, and people who write code. They get a little street cred back in the hacker community for picking up a YC startup. They get people who have vision, which MSFT app…
I think there is a ill informed mentality that somehow hackers are "smarter" than the coders working at Microsoft. To be honest most of the people I have met at the startup community aren't really all that special in terms of "intelligence" but they do have that drive which is what makes them special. I just think people in this community need to stop ego boosting themselves... yes some of you are probably pretty sma…
I'm not sure how this makes any sense for Microsoft. If they assigned a few engineers to work on this, they could replicate the functionality within few months, especially since they know the internals of Outlook.
Counter-exhibit 1: Vista.
Apparently the MS development process makes it almost impossible to get anything done within the bureaucracy these days.
Their best results are from their research groups (e.g. Haskell) but those are people paid to work on what they want to work on anyway.
You can't just assign developers randomly to something and get the same results.
In fact, given Outlook's bugs and lack of functionality in these areas you could make a pretty compelling argument that, despite their knowledge of its internals, those are about the last people you'd want to put in charge of making Outlook work. They already got their shot and look what happened!
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I think there is a ill informed mentality that somehow hackers are "smarter" than the coders working at Microsoft. To be honest most of the people I have met at the startup community aren't really all that special in terms of "intelligence" but they do have that drive which is what makes them special. I just think people in this community need to stop ego boosting themselves... yes some of you are probably pretty sma…
Perhaps the programmers I've met from Microsoft are atypical, but they've been smart as hell. Whatever Microsoft's problems are (and clearly they have some), it isn't that they don't have any smart people on campus there.
If you want to work at MS you're already lacking in the taste department. And what's the interview process, brainteasers or BSing your way through random estimates like the number of gas stations in the country?
Being good at bluster can make someone seem pretty smart. But the computer doesn't care about that. It filters out what you can really do from what you can fool people into thinking you can do.
I'm not sure how this makes any sense for Microsoft. If they assigned a few engineers to work on this, they could replicate the functionality within few months, especially since they know the internals of Outlook.
There's a lot more to replicating something like Xobni in a megacorporation like MSFT than just the programming. In a lot of cases it's easier to get an acquisition signed off on than a new department to make a new product. And they get more than just code, and people who write code. They get a little street cred back in the hacker community for picking up a YC startup. They get people who have vision, which MSFT app…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Features aren't the only thing they're getting. The guys at Xobni are extremely talented and Microsoft always wants talented engineers.
Paying millions of dollars for a few talented engineers, who will probably work half-heartedly for a few months/year, depending on the clauses in the contract, then move on to the next startup? Come on, USD is not that weak.
That's what 4-year vesting is for. Besides, part-time work from an expert is better than full-time work from the hoi polloi.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps the programmers I've met from Microsoft are atypical, but they've been smart as hell. Whatever Microsoft's problems are (and clearly they have some), it isn't that they don't have any smart people on campus there.
I know a lot of really smart people who can't program worth a darn. If you want to work at MS you're already lacking in the taste department. And what's the interview process, brainteasers or BSing your way through random estimates like the number of gas stations in the country? Being good at bluster can make someone seem pretty smart. But the computer doesn't care about that. It filters out what you can really do fr…
Wanting to work a corporation that has big revenues with job security, stability, steady paychecks, interesting projects (yes, there are still interesting projects everything from online, web, to Xbox), big campus treatment, vacation, healthcare benefits, and et al. Yeah, that's just an outright dumb move.
I'm not sure how this makes any sense for Microsoft. If they assigned a few engineers to work on this, they could replicate the functionality within few months, especially since they know the internals of Outlook.
Here's some data. Outlook's last two major releases were in '03 and '06. In those 3 years they added the following visible features:
- todo bar
- better calendar UI
- RSS aggregator
- search
Xobni might be as useful and interesting as all those combined, and the Xobni team can deliver it today. The evidence suggests that Microsoft would take years to deliver something similar.