I was there...

I was there when you accessed your computer from a dumb terminal. It was an IBM 360/370. The printer room could have been a garage for a Volkswagen Beetle. Needed a full time printer operator 24/7 just to feed it processed trees called green bar. And all terminals lead back to the fifth floor in another building with a raised floor and glass walls. That is where IT legions serviced the Emperor IBM.

I was there in 1977 when Poly Morphic Systems's Poly 88 came on line. It was a kit and you had to assemble it yourself. Or, since I was working in the oil fields of Saudi Arabia, I could afford to have an engineer in the US build one and ship it to me in Saudi as an electronic typewriter. Had 16k of ram on two boards. Basic took up 11k leaving 5k for working memory. WOW, but it was Freedom from the IBM Romans that controlled all the WAYS to the mainframe in Rome.

I was there in 1983 when Gavilan Mobile Computer came on line. Had a battery and floppy disk, unlike the Grid also available at the time. Your applications were now able to go where they were needed. Untethered and free to roam. Well, at 11 pounds, short battery life and a list price of 4,000 USD (in 1983 dollars), a few of us were allowed to roam. No one then could imagine where this would go. But indeed, go somewhere it has.

I was there when a small group of developers from Sausalito, CA brought Web NOS to market about 20 years ago. Josh, Delfin, Kim, Luc, Steph, and others were on to something. Trade marked WEB before anyone else realized that networking could become a web. It was a Peer to Peer networking system so there was no need for Rome. But if you wanted to build an empire, you could use it as a PC SBC platform.

The beauty of the WEB NOS was the simplicity. The brilliance was it allowed ARC-net based IPX/SPX to share the same network with TCP/IP on Ethernet. Old an new coexisted in harmony.

Everyone knows what happened next. The technologies were acquired by Microsoft. Became the foundation for Windows for Work groups. Asked Delfin what he was going to do next. He told me he was off to Hawaii and that Josh was going to Redmond.

Citrix popularized SBC computing with its ICA protocol. A desktop experience over a dial up connection. And it worked well for the niche it was designed to reach. I was slow to convert. Reminded me of Rome and Romans.

Some of us also remember the dark days back in the 90's when it was thought that Microsoft was going to introduce its own protocol RDP and cast Citrix out to sea. Did not happen and that was the right thing to do. Then.

Early in this decade I had a “ah ha” moment. I was siting at a bar over looking a bay that flows in to the Gulf of Mexico. A few sailboats moored just off shore with a single aging shrimp boat listing to port. Wish I could say there was a steel drum band playing in the background and young beauties on every bar stool swaying to the music. Nope. Country music playing on the jukebox with five year old smoked covered NASCAR posters on the walls. If a tourist walked in, they were very, very lost.

But there I was using my Microsoft based mobile phone accessing a web based management service for a cluster of MS 2003 servers. On my mobile phone screen was the log in screen for a server. Closest thing to an IT Corona moment I have ever had. Microsoft was on to something.

But Microsoft let it go. Was told by a Microsoft representative that this did not fit into the their “Ecosystem”. Sad because that log in screen contained some residual from the original Web NOS that had been carried over for those many years.

Very early one morning I was calling in the results of my previous few days testing of a new release of Web NOS to Sausalito expecting to get the answering machine. Josh answered the phone. After the briefing I remember asking Josh what was the purpose of that log in code. He told me and thought to myself that he made complexity visually simple. Not many people know what it did. But I still remember that morning talking with Josh and the Corona moment 15 years later. Bittersweet. It was the beginning of the end for Microsoft.

I think just about every one that follows IT has seen Mr. Ballmer on stage accusing everyone else of being a one trick pony. Often at the same time admitting maybe Microsoft does not get it right the first time, but by the second or third time they do get it. The era of three chances getting it right is over, for everyone. If everything you sell is PC centric, then your are a one trick pony. The shoe fits, wear it.

In a publicly held company, it is thought the responsibility of the Board of Directors is to represent the shareholders. That is the way it was. Changes in the way business must operate in the future, suggest that Boards must also represent stake holders, consumers and society. Ask Union Carbide after Bhopal. Ask just about anyone and everyone after Bhopal. The era of Directors cashing checks four times a year and nodding their heads in concurrence is over. Maybe not at Microsoft.

Good financial news today does not mean good business news for the future. Sometimes figures lie and liars figure. But it is the responsibility of the Boards to look over the horizon on behalf of management and provide them with safe harbor to weather the short term financial pundits, nay sayers and agents of the enemy, sorry, anyone that does not agree with management. But these same Boards have a fiduciary responsibility to warn management when there are tides, storms, reefs, shoals and darn big rocks out there. When the Boards are not capable of fulfilling their responsibility, then it is time for shareholders, stakeholders, customers and society to stand up and vote with their feet, voices, and all other available actions.

I believe Microsoft's' Board of Directors is letting Microsoft drift fatally on to the rocks. But I am just one voice. But this I also know. When 800 pound gorillas die, they get really big headlines. For one day.

This too shall pass.

Until the next post,

Steve