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Microsoft's Concept Videos From 2000: Why Didn't Ballmer Build Any of It?

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Re: Microsoft's Concept Videos From 2000: Why Didn't Ballmer Build Any of It?

#61

Post by corresation »

riggins wrote: post #43
corresation wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Ideas are worth nothing." While it is seen here regularly -- and is always strangely given a pass -- this remains the most profoundly meaningless, if not outright stupid, thing that anyone in this industry can mutter.

this remains the most profoundly meaningless, if not outright stupid, thing that anyone in this industry can mutter. do you really not understand what this means? here's an awesome idea. A sensor and software that can read your brain waves so you don't need mouse or keyboard. Awesome idea, right? Worthless without the implementation.

Worthless without the implementation.

Fertilizer is worthless. Without water nothing can grow.

Gasoline is worthless. Without a spark it can't provide energy.

A 50" LED 120Hz display is worthless. Without a signal to display it can't provide value.

Are those meaningful or honest statements? Is it of any value for people to constantly parrot the nonsensical "parts of a whole are worthless" prattle?

I fully understand what people think they mean when they trot it out, and that is why I think it is garbage. It is refuse being vomited online.

Many of us are excellent software developers. Most of us bide our time developing projects for other people because we have no idea what to build ourselves. Many of the profoundly valuable changes in our industry have come because someone had an idea that was different and ended up changing the world.

Yes, of course the execution mattered. But without the idea the execution would be worthless. So where does that leave us? Some sort of nihilist everything is worthless depression?

Re: Microsoft's Concept Videos From 2000: Why Didn't Ballmer Build Any of It?

#63

Post by InclinedPlane »

dreamfactory wrote: post #22
InclinedPlane wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of that is due to the way they do employee reviews. People are rewarded more (in the form of control over their own job, promotions, and bonuses) for building new things in a short time frame than they are for fixing old stuff that's broken or flawed.

are you saying they have too much focus on innovation?

Innovation? Hardly. Innovation should not be confused with new projects. Imagine a car with a broken radio and a weird steering problem that causes it to veer to the left too often. At Microsoft the culture and incentives would drive them to put a panel over the old radio and install a brand new radio along side it that did most, but not all, of what the old radio did. Then they'd add rockets sticking out from the left front fender which turned on periodically to correct for the drift. It may seem like this exaggerates the situation a bit but it really doesn't, it's just that bad.

Re: Microsoft's Concept Videos From 2000: Why Didn't Ballmer Build Any of It?

#64

Post by acchow »

corresation wrote: post #61
riggins wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this remains the most profoundly meaningless, if not outright stupid, thing that anyone in this industry can mutter. do you really not understand what this means? here's an awesome idea. A sensor and software that can read your brain waves so you don't need mouse or keyboard. Awesome idea, right? Worthless without the implementation.

Worthless without the implementation. Fertilizer is worthless. Without water nothing can grow. Gasoline is worthless. Without a spark it can't provide energy. A 50" LED 120Hz display is worthless. Without a signal to display it can't provide value. Are those meaningful or honest statements? Is it of any value for people to constantly parrot the nonsensical "parts of a whole are worthless" prattle? I fully understand…

The statement isn't saying "parts of a whole are worthless". It's saying that ideas are plentiful. It's saying that ideas that are astounding and fascinating to laymen and outsiders are just par for the course when taken to experts in the field. It's saying that seemingly novel ideas of solving a "pain point" in first-world life are usually fairly obvious if you'd spent an hour brainstorming with other intelligent people.

Re: Microsoft's Concept Videos From 2000: Why Didn't Ballmer Build Any of It?

#65

Post by ricardobeat »

jessedhillon wrote: post #60
debt wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ideas are worth nothing. Ideas have a mental effect, but execution still has tangible results. I could just do something, literally anything, and me, having done a thing, would be worth way more than me, having an idea. Many people have great ideas, few people have the balls or resources to actually execute them and make them worth something . Just a thought.

I could just do something, literally anything, and me, having done a thing, would be worth way more than me, having an idea. The overall claim has some limited merits, but don't overstate the case. You generating an idea in your seat about a site that, say, scrapes some public resource and presents in a useful way, are more valuable than the you who uses that same time to make yourself a sandwich. And the ideas you c…

You're missing the point. People usually have that brilliant idea about an useful service while making a sandwich. If you don't act on it, it's worth nothing regardless.

> someone who doesn't have your cultural and intellectual resources

Unless you are a scholar at the very top of your field, there are thousands other people with the same background and resources as you, or better. A good chunk of them will have had the exact same ideas, plus a thousand variations. A handful will actually do something.

> choosing which idea to act on there are clearly better and worse ones

The act of choosing is the beginning of execution, and is way harder and more valuable than generating ideas.

Re: Microsoft's Concept Videos From 2000: Why Didn't Ballmer Build Any of It?

#66

Post by corresation »

acchow wrote: post #64
corresation wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worthless without the implementation. Fertilizer is worthless. Without water nothing can grow. Gasoline is worthless. Without a spark it can't provide energy. A 50" LED 120Hz display is worthless. Without a signal to display it can't provide value. Are those meaningful or honest statements? Is it of any value for people to constantly parrot the nonsensical "parts of a whole are worthless" prattle? I fully understand…

The statement isn't saying "parts of a whole are worthless". It's saying that ideas are plentiful. It's saying that ideas that are astounding and fascinating to laymen and outsiders are just par for the course when taken to experts in the field. It's saying that seemingly novel ideas of solving a "pain point" in first-world life are usually fairly obvious if you'd spent an hour brainstorming with other intelligent pe…

The statement isn't saying "parts of a whole are worthless".

Yes, most of the time that is exactly what it is saying. Though when engaged on it invariably the definition will start oozing around amorphously to the point of complete and utter meaninglessness.

Firstly, we aren't talking about laymen and outsiders. In this case we're talking about the company that was far and away the largest technology company. Secondly, ideas may be plentiful, but so is absolutely banal, no-value-added execution. If the quantity of poor examples qualifies the statement, saying that execution is worthless is just as viable, as the overwhleming majority of execution in virtually any domain is terrible.

I have to chuckle at bit at the notion that ideas are so bountiful, though. It's a bit like how everyone is going to write the great American novel...they just need to think of the plot...but anyone can think of a plot so...

It's saying that seemingly novel ideas of solving a "pain point" in first-world life are usually fairly obvious if you'd spent an hour brainstorming with other intelligent people.

This is what people without ideas say. Seriously. As someone who regularly struggles to find ideas that are worth executing on, I seriously wonder what imaginary world so many on here live in.

Re: Microsoft's Concept Videos From 2000: Why Didn't Ballmer Build Any of It?

#67

Post by venus »

Like all MS concept videos, it's all very pretty but useless except for the most shallow kinds of collaboration - it's not so much promising any specific technology so much as a future in which you don't actually have to do any work. How many people do companies really need whose role in its entirety consists of quickly slapping together pretty-looking "reports" full of 3D graphs?

These superficial concept videos have about as much relevance to the world of actual usable technology as porn has to the complexity and compromises of married life. The encyclopaedia we have today is Wikipedia, not Encarta, and no-one cares that it doesn't have embedded videos of antelopes bounding or the galaxy turning.

Re: Microsoft's Concept Videos From 2000: Why Didn't Ballmer Build Any of It?

#68

Post by pohl »

jgreen10 wrote: post #11

Because they did. Windows-powered touch-screen Pocket PCs and Tablet PCs existed years before the iPod. Microsoft just didn't find mobile devices important enough and wasn't willing to re-invent Windows for it. Windows Mobile was pretty terrible to use.

...and wasn't willing to re-invent Windows for it.

And thereby, being unwilling to disrupt themselves, made themselves ripe for it.

Re: Microsoft's Concept Videos From 2000: Why Didn't Ballmer Build Any of It?

#69

Post by educating »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #34
dreamfactory wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are you saying they have too much focus on innovation?

He's confusing Microsoft and Google, it sounds like. At Microsoft you're rewarded primarily for stabbing your co-workers in the back.

Backstabbing happens everywhere, unfortunately. The main problem with MS was that it was too profit driven for too many years instead of trying to do what was best for the users. Making profit eventually has a direct correlation to providing consistent quality that is better than the next guy or more consistently better. It all comes back to happiness; customers are happier when they get what they expect (intuitive) and what the need (low bugs, fast), not what they want (shiny UI).

They had some really shitty code. http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/2/15/71552/7795

My fav:

  private\ntos\w32\ntuser\client\nt6\user.h:
  * The magnitude of this hack compares favorably with that of the national debt.

Re: Microsoft's Concept Videos From 2000: Why Didn't Ballmer Build Any of It?

#70

Post by maratd »

venus wrote: post #67

Like all MS concept videos, it's all very pretty but useless except for the most shallow kinds of collaboration - it's not so much promising any specific technology so much as a future in which you don't actually have to do any work. How many people do companies really need whose role in its entirety consists of quickly slapping together pretty-looking "reports" full of 3D graphs? These superficial concept videos hav…

> and no-one cares that it doesn't have embedded videos of antelopes bounding or the galaxy turning.

I care. I think Wikipedia would be greatly improved with relevant embedded video content. Unfortunately, getting high quality relevant public domain video is virtually impossible. It is nice to think about though.

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