Where does Ray Ozzie lead Microsoft?

What does Ray Ozzie consider?

Do you remember the keynote of Microsoft Professional Developer Conference(PDC) 2009 held in Los Angeles in November, 2009?  In this keynote, Rey Ozzie who is CSA (Chief Software Architect: president software designer) of the company explained the situation and plan of Windows Azure. It is orderly logic so that it may be usual, and it seems to have obtained an understanding of audiences. However, he sent the message to collaborate with open source products. It surprised all the people and made vague expectation hold.

The following logos are projected on the screen of a PDC keynote. Then, Ray Ozzie invited Matt Mullenweg of WordPress on the stage. And, there was the demonstration which deploys WordPress to Windows Azure. In the demonstration of this WordPress, it is displayed to the message that MySQL and Apache are prepared for the polite thing. Where is Rey Ozzie’s intention?

For the leaders of the company to send a certain message about a theme called the open source in Microsoft which everyone’s has watched interestingly is that it is very exceptional. Steve Ballmer visited Japan early in November, and played the keynote speaker of Microsoft Developer Forum. However, he did not touch on an open source at all.

On the other hand, the engineers of the company are seen as if they were asking for interoperability with an open source. First, PHP SDK for Windows Azure in Codeplex was announced around May, last year. It is an open source project which ties up PHP developers and Windows Azure, and is a part of the interoperability which Microsoft commits. Then, Azure Team announced Windows Azure Tools for Eclipse late in October in front of PDC. Furthermore, Simon Davies introduced Ruby on Rails, as an open source project on Windows Azure late of November.

Here, I will return to the PDC keynote of Ray Ozzie. He projected the above mentioned logos on the screen, and hinted TomCat running on the demonstration of WordPress. However, he is not explaining positioning of those open sources in Windows Azure Platform. Furthermore, Codeplex which is an open source repository, and each engineers’ blog are private for Microsoft. That is, although the pliability of Windows Azure was proved by engineers, this directivity may tone down.

The great transformation of Microsoft

I think that there are three big points of argument in present Microsoft. 1) Microsoft should maintain the present profit profile which consists of software package products. 2) The company should make the new profit profile which consists of on-line services. 3) The company should make public cloud who cooperated with the open source. The last one is an excessive actual theory. Needless to say, the pillars of the profit of Microsoft are packages, such as a Windows client, Office, Windows Server and SQL Server. And it seems that the sales by on-line services, such as BPOS, are less than 1% of the whole.

Should Microsoft be converted into the business centering on service in such a situation?  Is essentially this conversion required?  Probably, the leaders of Redmond have repeated such self-question answering themselves like every day. However, the user is honest. And the market is cool. Remember the determination of a Los Angeles city at the end of last year. In this city, as a result of examining 14 kinds of candidates about the application with which 34,000 city personnel are provided, Google Apps was chosen. Microsoft Office is given to the personnel engaged in creative work. And Google Apps can be given to a great portion of personnel.

If you are an employee of Microsoft which lives in a Los Angeles city, is judgment of such administration refuted?  Probably, applause should be sent from a taxpayer’s position. And commoditization of IT is not having restricted to administration and there is same tendency also in private enterprises. Remember that the news that the Panasonic group shifted to Lotus Live enlivened the space of each media even in Japan. That is, when a large-scale organization provides all the personnel with PC, the user corresponding to the price of Windows 7 or Microsoft Office will become a minority group.

The price of Windows 7 Ultimate in the United States is 319.99 dollars, and the price of a notebook PC called Mini10 of DELL which run Ubuntu is 299 dollars. The leaders of Redmond should face this reality squarely. An organization like a Los Angeles city gives the personnel PC of 300 dollars or less, is paying Google the countervalue of a small sum, and will complete the investment of most. As everyone knows, the measure of the profitability of an enterprise system is the cost effectiveness. Therefore, all the enterprises take in cloud computing and Microsoft is also following in footsteps using Azure.

Observe the keynote of Tech-Days 2010 in Tokyo

Is charm felt for this company if Microsoft does not have Windows Azure?  If such a question is carried out, most people will answer it as no. Windows Azure is expected as a pillar which bears the future of Microsoft. However, if interoperability with an open source is not taken in when promoting cloud computing, the market size will be restricted by itself.  The idea of Ray Ozzie and members of Azure team is removing old restrictions of all Microsoft products and accepting an open source.

Tech-Days 2010 will be held in Tokyo at next week. You should observe the message about interoperability with an open source in the keynote. The future of Windows Azure and Microsoft should be able to be divined by whether it is forward or retreated compared with PDC.

Akihiro Oba who’s an officer of Microsoft and Developer & Platform Director will be on the keynote stage. From Redmond, Steve Marks, the technical strategist for Windows Azure, will participate as a demonstrator. The logo of the open source camp which Ray Ozzie showed by PDC should be shown once again. Many people desire explanation about the open source correspondence for these three months.

James Hamilton who wrote the paper which was excellent about the container data center has pointed out private cloud’s nonsensicalness by the own blog just recently (Private Clouds Are Not The Future). For example, there was no vendor which is easier to sell the imperfect product like a private cloud construction kit than Microsoft. However, Microsoft has raised Azure, without carrying out it. I wish Microsoft making public cloud successful.

Also for the reason, Microsoft should tell a Japanese developer and a Japanese user Rey Ozzie’s message, the necessity of interoperability with an open source. It does not only remain in Japan, but becomes the voice which support Rey Ozzie who promotes an unprecedented great transformation, and should be fed back also to Redmond.

Microsoft of Japan should support your wonderful chief architect strongly. It will be allowed even if an outsider like me approves of the message which the chief architect of Microsoft emitted.