molly.com
Friday 16 September 2005
No Mr. Ballmer, Microsoft Will Not Win the Web
Reading through an article about Microsoft in Business Week, I was not shocked but oh so enraged by this bit from an interview with CEO Steve Ballmer:
“We won the desktop. We won the server. We will win the Web. We will move fast, we will get there. We will win the Web.”
In the past months, WaSP and Microsoft have been working together in the trenches to improve standards support in Microsoft products. While this is certainly a very positive move on Microsoft’s part, critics of both Microsoft and WaSP have pointed out Microsoft’s long history of aggressive business practices and ideologies. As a member of the WaSP / Microsoft Task Force, I’m extremely confident that the developers we’re working with get it and it’s been my take to separate Microsoft business practices and ideologies from the day-to-day software development work. And I stand by that perspective.
What I cannot stay silent about when reading these words is how blatantly uncaring a statement this is. How ignorant and arrogant and just plain wrong.
The Web is not a prize to be won, and Mr. Ballmer’s attitude is deplorable in the light of what the Web means to the world, to users, to designers and developers and to put it into Microsoft parlance, customers.
The Web belongs to everyone. The Web’s core vision and value is to be platform independent. Microsoft has no right to think it can win a tool that is for the people, of the people, and ultimately – by the people.
No Mr. Ballmer, you will never win the Web for one very good reason: We the people will make sure you never do.
Filed under: WaSP, software, standards, web design and development
Posted by: Molly | 14:47 | Comments (135)
[...] One thing that will come across loud and clear is that Microsoft isn’t about to 0wn the web. We’re featuring sessions owned by some of the biggest web companies on the planet, many of whom compete with us and use competitor platforms. We’ll be showing lots of Microsoft technologies, but we won’t be shy about showing scenarios where Firefox, Linux, PHP, or similar play a part. We’ll be focusing largely on user experience (which is technology agnostic), and specifically on what attendees can do today to get business value from the new models and technologies on the web. [...]
[...] We will win the Web : own3d! Quelle déclaration de guerre assez étrange, vu les efforts déployés par les web designers pour aider Microsoft à ne plus être le vilain petit canard des standards. La réaction de Molly Holzschlag est déjà citée çà et là. [...]
[...] Molly: On behalf of the constituents that I represent . . . standards-oriented developers and Web standards supporters around the world, I think they see a tremendous leap forward in IE7 and the work that has been done as well as the evangelism, the outreach. What would you say to the people that remain skeptical about Microsoft’s agenda in terms of committing to the implementation of standards for the browser and other development tools instead of this paranoia that seems to be out there that Microsoft wants to own the Web. What would you tell the skeptics out there regarding your commitment to the implementation of open Web Standards in your products? [...]
[...] Molly is simply awesome. She recently asked Bill Gates about his Commitment to webstandards and didn’t let him play it off. meta-send-pingbacks=truemeta-auto-trackback=true Technorati Tags: billgates, browsers, ie, ie4, ie7, microsoft, molly, standard, standards, webstandards, w3c, wasp [...]
i hope google will win the web. no microsoft please
Well Hostel, I’m afraid that the final decision is not ours to make. It is all in the green my friend. Who rules online will be decided by the almighty dollar.
J-
Thanx for your works.I hope you well be best
bye………..s
Fk Ballmer, such idts make this planet a really annoying place
“We won the desktop. We won the server. We will win the Web. We will move fast, we will get there. We will win the Web.”
Hah! It’s not so easy man!
Thanks for this good article..
thanks for works
Successful website
Thanks for such an exclusive contribution. i am a big fan of this useful site due to its quality content.
thanks!
So many microsoft’s shareholders are web professionals!
very nice
thanks…
Nice thinking, I really like it……
[...] So, Mister Ballmer said, two years ago, that Microsoft will “move fast” and “win the Web”. The web is not something anyone can just “win”, as Molly said, still even if it were, Microsoft’s efforts are far from what would make anyone win something. Yes, Microsoft bought “live.com” and made stuff on this and has a whole herd of 13 year old using MSN and writing blogs there, but if this is what you would call “win the web”, then Skyblog is just the same. [...]
thanks for your sharing
selamss
Besides other things, they are good in propaganda.
Web belongs to everyone!
thank you admin..
I moved to serving all internet and intranet documents from Linux boxes because I felt that critical applications like PHP, Apache and MySQL server were better supported there.
Working with IIS is really roughing it out on your own, you need a degree in neuroscience to control the thing. Seriously… It’s slower, harder to configure, and runs less content (at least in the PHP world).. Apart from being preinstalled in the OS, what’s to like about ISS?
I don’t even know anybody who uses it – except this one particular place where I work, where it’s used on the intranet. But then, that was set up in what, 1899. IIS is not a mistake we would make again.
Worse, development is so much easier (I don’t have a 10 million dollar budget here) with tools native to *nix, I have been unable to stay with the relative desert that is Windows.
I could concede that they have won the desktop for now, but they have not and never will win Servers, Mobile or the Web.
Still, I guess I can understand Ballmer saying what he said. Everything he sees sounds ridiculous to all webmasters all over the world, but I’m sure it sounds good to someone – am I right?
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/main/microsoft.com
78% of websites are faster than Microsoft.com – this demonstrating just how exactly Microsoft has won the server – by imagination alone.
Thank you very much
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Thanks so much!!
[...] Ook op Steve Ballmer’s statement "We won the desktop. We won the server. We will win the Web. We will move fast, we will get there. We will win the Web." wordt (door consumenten) links en rechts fel gereageerd. [...]
Thank you very much. Really useful.
Thanks.
Working with IIS is really roughing it out on your own
Seriously… It’s slower, harder to configure, and runs less content (at least in the PHP world)
Thanks.
I support author’s viewpoint, hoped that will have later also more better articles, I will read the first time, thank!
Thanks.