Hans Hoffmann's Blog

For those consumers of fine film I shall take you back in time to the James Cameron classic “Terminator”. Where Arnold Schwarzenegger  first graced our screen (Conan was first but that was so-so bad) and was single. OK sarcasm aside it was a good film in the sci-fi genre. It had Arnold at his finest, big, buff and with very few lines to say. It was a rather dark film in portraying the future of mankind. Is the future ever shown as happy or is it always glib?  If you remember the movie you will remember the main character, Reece, explaining how the future came to be to Sara Conner (whom Arnold was supposed to come back in time and murder), he  discussed the government defense network (DARPA?) and how at some point the network “got smart” and decided the future of mankind in a nanosecond.  Extermination.  It may seem a bit far fetched but if you think about what was being described,it was a future with a convergence of technologies.  A ubiquitous network, artificial intelligence, robotics, nano technology all running really high end and effective software.  I am not sure James Cameron thought of all these things when he wrote and directed the screen play for the movie.  But if you look at where we are today a lot of those technologies either exist or are being developed.  The idea of a truly smart network is becoming more real with each passing day, with each passing hour, with each passing “nano” second.

Starting with the idea of a ubiquitous network, this piece is not that far-fetched.  In today’s society that is all we are striving for.  The ability to be connected all the time and any time.  Like the movie this is something that we are moving towards and will become a reality.  It all started of course with the internet.   It’s the smart piece that we are missing.. or are we?  The intelligence is a simple term, it’s software.  Software is what made the internet cool.  It was a small company called Netscape that really launched software  to the internet. Software is becoming pervasive in nearly every device we touch today so why not the network?  The reality is it already is.  It always has been in nearly every bit of hardware equipment in the network is running more and more software to provide higher levels if intelligence in how information is routed and delivered

Recently AT&T launched and turned on its 4g LTE (Long Term Evolution) network in Washington State and other parts of the United States.  It provides you a 20mb/s pipe.  To put that in perspective your home wi-fi network only provides 10mb/s.  The US carriers have gotten very good at increasing the capacity of their networks to deliver higher speeds and more content to the device.  It means we can send more and more information across the network.  We can issue commands across the computer,  We tell devices to turn “on” and to turn “off”.  But to date we have limited that to a lot of data center hardware.  More and more we see that capability entering the home.  It also means that the idea of a network is moving away from the physical way we have traditionally viewed networks.  Yes there is and will continue to be lots of fiber in the ground, but increasing amounts of data shall simply pass through the air.  In the not so distant future gigabytes will be replaced by terabytes.

Cloud Computing is on everyone’s mind these days, but that is just yet another example of more intelligence being moved to the network.  As more and more data is moved from company hard drives located in internal data centers to cloud based data centers.  The applications customers run live in the cloud and are accessed via a browser.  Even consumers are moving into the cloud as their digital content does need to reside on local hard drives in an office, but sit in iCloud or on Facebook.  However it is no longer traditional software applications that are being moved to the cloud, but entire network infrastructures are moving to software driven models.  Cisco has a software based router.  Traditional gateway appliances are moving from a hardware based appliance to software.  Load Balancers? Moving to a software based model.

A term we see increasing is machine to machine technology.  The concept is simple which is machines communicating (usually sharing data between one another).  we have companies like Nest and their founder Tony Fadell (one of the men behind Apple’s iPod)talking about the idea of M2M .  Nest today is working ion next generation thermostats.  But down the road the idea of a smarter thermostat will increasing play across all appliances.  Including stronger communications and integration withe the internet.  We see this type of technology being discussed in aviation   When a plane is in flight it can communicate information via wireless network back to a hub for collection and to be analyzed.  Cars can transmit information about driving habits back to your insurance company and be billed based on usage patterns.  These scenarios can and will be done  with n human intervention.  Just machines talking to one another.

We see increasing activity in the robotics industry as they come out with new robots  such as  vacuum cleaners, pool cleaning robots, gutter cleaning robots etc..as they become more pervasive how hard would it be to connect them to the “new” smart network?  Recently Google founders Sergey Brin stated we will be driving robotic vehicles within five years.  Having recently gotten a photo ticket I look forward to this development as a robotic car could actually receive information about motor ways from a smart network and automatically adjust the driving pattern of the vehicle so I can avoid a lovely ticket from local police force.  As Bill Ford of Ford motor stated, the automobile is becoming a platform, it is no longer a mechanical device.

There has already been work done where chips are inserted into humans.  These chips in the future could collect data on the daily activities.  Even Steve Wozniak is getting in on the act.  In a recent trip he talked about the iPhone 45, something so intelligent it will have more data about him than other humans do.  He won’t need friends.  Having read his book “iWoz”, this does not surprise me.  He seems to have an aversion to people.  Woz goes farther saying in 40 years we will have computers with impulses, with feelings.  This is starting to sound like Steven Spielberg’s film “AI”.  In this future that humanoid will be connected to the smart network.  Not to be out done Microsoft founder Paul Allen is funding work to map the human brain.  To understand each pulse and how it creates a human thought or reaction.  Understanding how the human mind works has long been a dream and a goal of science.  Today though it is more a goal and not so much a dream.

Do humans desires to move forward at an ever-increasing pace cause room for concern?  Could the smart network make decisions on our behalf?  Some for us, but some against us?  At this point it seems like fantasy, but had this been written 50 years ago could it have had as much current supporting evidence?   If I come back to this article in 10 years how much further will we have come?  Don’t worry there can be positives that come out of all this.  Our cars will be managed more efficiently as a result of the move to robotic driven auto’s.  Provided we can get alternative energies to scale we should have a cleaner healthier environment.  Our ability to readily and easily communicate across boarders and across cultures will be seamless. We could enter a world where there is no need to learn a foreign language.

Lastly the big question.  As this network grows in size and intelligence, what happens if it learns to reason?  To make its own decisions based on information it receives about the world around it?  That after all has been the goal of man since the inception of science.  The grand experiment started by Galileo in “The Dialog”.  Where science challenged faith.  To not just understand mankind, but to replicate it.  This is not going to happen in the next 5 years or even ten years but it will happen.  The simple reason being technology cannot help itself.  Technology is about ever-increasing pursuit of learning and doing it with ever-increasing speed.  Thirty years ago computing was done on mainframes. Twenty years ago most people did not have a PC. Ten years ago almost no one had a smartphone.  We used to talk about information at your fingertips less than twenty years ago and now we have it, whenever and wherever we want.  All because we are connected in new and exciting ways.  We now are talking about the ubiquitous network.  Being connected by high bandwidth everywhere we walk.

Will the network at some point flicker ever so slightly and start to have its own ideas .  How will it view humanity?  Will it discriminate between good and evil?   Will it even understand the concept which is tied more to human emotion than reason. From a stand point of logic can it comprehend the complexity of what makes us human?  The excitement or horror here is not what a “smart-network” will or will not judge, but the fact that technology is moving so fast that we can even contemplate and have such a discussion.   Whatever your thoughts you cannot stop this high-speed train as it left the station long ago and is whisking on into the future, with or without us.  In the end it may decide our fate.

Good Night and Good Luck

Hans Henrik Hoffmann Dec 4, 2012

Not that long ago a headline like this would have been an obvious April fool’s joke.  To be honest only a real idiot would have fallen for it.  But in his recent letter to shareholders that is basically what Steve Ballmer said.   Sounds Odd. Worlds largest software provider fearing for its life turns to a company it could have killed but instead invested a ton of money into. The circle of life.  With that being said it is a very interesting and historical moment in Microsoft’s history.  With all the talk of Windows 8, tablets and smartphones, in my view this is the biggest gamble Microsoft has taken since it decided to part ways with IBM in the 80’s and ditch OS/2 in favor of something called Windows.

There was a time when the mantra at Microsoft driven by Bill Gates was “You are either a hardware company or a software company, but you cannot be successful at both”.  It held true for quite some time. That certainly seemed to be true up until the iPod.  The iPod was truly the first device I remember where Apple got it right and the Microsoft partner system seemed very weak.  It was literally the thumb wheel, but it was so much better than anything else on the market for music devices.  In addition Apple created the software  Eco system with iTunes around the iPod.  The second of course was the launch of the iPhone in 2007, which launched a device that had great software and great performance.  Even the battery life was much better than anything else on the market.  Not just its longevity but it seemed to charge very quickly as well.  Microsoft was dumbfounded when this happened and stuck to its old mantra of trusting partners to come up with the “iPhone killer”.  It has not happened, despite significant improvements in the software.  Apple is now valued more than twice of Microsoft’s market capitalization.  Microsoft needed to change something.

However pas quarter at the shareholders meeting that need for change has seemed to finally happened.  To be clear it first came to light earlier in the year as Microsoft announced it was creating its own line of hardware under the brand name Surface.  Steve talked extensively about possible missteps and the desire to bring hardware and software closer together.  He was quoted as follows:

“Bill did hold up a tablet a number of years ago,” Ballmer said. “And, not that we don’t have good hardware partners, but sometimes getting the innovation right across the seam of hardware and software is difficult unless you do both of them,” Ballmer said at the meeting, held Wednesday in Bellevue, Wash.

Referring to the company’s new strategy of building its ownWindows 8 tablets under the Surface brand, Ballmer said “maybe we should have done that earlier, maybe [Gates’] tablet would have shipped sooner.”

I think the sooner comment goes without saying.  However it does not come without significant risk to the Microsoft partner Eco-system.  Unlike in times past there are alternatives to the Windows paradise.  You have Google promoting Chrome Books as well as Android devices.  Apple continues to grow, not just in mobile devices but on the laptop as well.  However it has been apparent for some time that this was a route that Microsoft had to consider,now the question will be how committed are they?  We don’t want or need another Zune fiasco on our hands.  How far will Microsoft be willing to go?  Already the upcoming Surface Pro is not being called a tablet but an ultra book.  Is that what the market and shareholders want to hear?

Who are the partners?  They are not small players in their own right.  You have Dell, HP, Lenovo, Acer, Samsung, HTC and Nokia.  Some were literally created by Microsoft, like Dell.  HP is a legendary tech company going through some very significant challenges due to poor leadership.  Acer has been very vocal in their opposition to Microsoft’s change in its OEM strategy   Then there are mobile players like Samsung.  Samsung is like the IBM or GE of Korea, but unlike those two old stodgy companies, of late they have shown a great ability to innovate.  They are, depending on what report you read, the number one provider of smartphones globally and it is not with a Windows Phone but with the S3 built with Android.  Finally you have Nokia, who are cranking out some beautiful Windows Phones, but so far sales are still slow.  Would Microsoft consider creating its own phone?  Buying Nokia?  One thing is evident is that Microsoft is having to play a delicate balance with its partners.  One might say “Hey Microsoft is leaving the Desktop, Laptop and net book business to its partners”, true but what is the fastest growing segment?

This is without a doubt the biggest risk Microsoft has taken in thirty years.  Was it one they had to take?  I think most would argue they had to do this.  Will they succeed?  It is still way t0o early to tell and it is apparent this will take time, at least three years in my opinion.   That in of itself is frightening as the industry changes quickly.    One day a Windows Phone is successful and then an iPhone crushes it over night.  It begs the question can Microsoft hardware change the industry?  What if Microsoft decides to build its own phone?  That would destroy Nokia.  But probably the most important thing said here is about :risk:, not little risk but great risk.  The tech industry is driven by dramatic change and you cannot succeed unless you take those risks.  Right now when it comes to hardware and how far it is willing to go at the expense of its partner channel is in the realm of the unknown.

Bill Gates used to talk about competition a lot in the early days .  The fear that a younger and hungrier company would come along and clean Microsoft’s clock.  Today that is more evident than ever.  There are a lot of sharks in the water.  What is clearer now is that the reason every large company should be afraid of these younger companies is that they have no track record of revenues.  While large companies fear them, smaller companies have no fear.  They are forced to take risks.  They throw caution to the wind as they have no choice in the search for steady cash flows.  Microsoft is finding itself being pushed into a corner.  Despite their revenues they are viewed as old school and not relevant.  Steve i spitting himself and Microsoft on the line, he may not be around to see its conclusion.  Microsoft is being forced to do the one thing they have yearned for and that is a necessary ingredient to succeed, they are taking risks and what ever the outcome we will all be better for it.  Good luck Microsoft.

Good Night and Good Luck,

Hans Henrik Hoffmann Dec 2, 2012

It does not seem a day goes by where the tech news is not lit ablaze with news of the latest tablet coming to market. This week alone there is news about the pricing of the Microsoft Surface. The impending release of the Apple iPad mini. The newest version of the Amazon Kindle Fire. The Samsung Galaxy. Google Nexus. A dozen or more Windows 8 tablets coming. We are truly in the age of the tech savvy consumer.It is a very exciting time in technology. as what we knew, the desktop, is dying and being replaced with more functional and more fun devices.

One thing is clear in all this haze of devices is that the enterprise IT departments have lost control of the ability to define technology,  Truth be told this has been going on for sometime.  We could probably pin point it to the release of the iPhone.  When the iPhone came out corporate execs were even telling their IT departments to provide support on the corporate network for the iPhone.   At my former employer. Microsoft. who despised the iPhone were being pushed about by disgruntled Windows Phone users, to the point that there were over 7,000 iPhone’s on the Microsoft network.  Apple even had to license Microsoft Active Sync so Microsoft Outlook users could get their email on their iPhone.T hen the iPad was released and before you knew it a new acronym was created BYOD (Bring Your Own Device).  Users were fed up with waiting for corporate IT to deliver devices that yielded productivity they had their own ideas.  Users today are not waiting for IT to deliver on their needs they are driving IT to meet their needs.

What does this have to do with the holidays?  This year is shaping up to be a significant year as the tablet craze will drive into high gear and cause more challenges and pain for IT managers. When people come back from the Christmas break they will be armed with a slew of new devices, not just tablets but new smartphones.  The Chief Security Officer will face a dilemma, ban BYOD or face rebellion.  The market is changing and evolving.

Do I see a winner in the technology race?  Windows 8 launches on Oct 26th.  However in an attempt to mute the noise Apple will look to launch the iPad mini on Oct 23rd.  Not to mention that there are plenty of Android based devices out on the market.  However this week Apple released a whole new line of iMacs and Tablets and they are slick Each device has its advantages.

I do foresee the Amazon Kindle Fire having a big holiday as the device has now matured as it has had a year to grow and improve and at a price of $199 it’s hard to beat on cost alone.  I like the Amazon approach which is more like which is similar to game consoles, lose money on the device and sell additional services.  Amazon is that dark horse in this category that I see being very successful in this category down the road.  Companies that succeed in today’s tech world seem to understand the intersection of the consumer and the internet.  Being the world’s largest online retailer seems to have helped Amazon understand this and they are quickly learning how to profit from this intersection.

On the Apple front I am curious as they now have two devices the iPad and the iPad Mini, if one will be wildly more popular than the other.  Steve Jobs was fond of saying, “If you do not cannibalize your product, someone else will”. Unlike the iPad the mini is not breakthrough, in fact it looks like Apple is following others lead, in releasing a smaller form factor.  Which for Apple is not the norm. It is also priced higher.  But Apple as a loyal base of users, and though I think it will ship millions, can it meet its own lofty expectations?

With the Microsoft Surface there is something fundamentally different being offered, kind of.   I had a Toshiba Tablet about ten years ago which could flip between laptop and tablet.  It was not very good,  It used a stylus.  It looks like Microsoft has engineered something far superior and it is inf fact Microsoft hardware.  It has colors and it uses the new Windows 8 touch screen UI.  Some are calling this a new category of device.  I don’t need a new category between laptop and tablet, but try they will.  It’s a tablet and it’s a good one, what Microsoft needs is a product in this category to catch fire.  They so want so desperately to be hip, they are like the aging Rod Stewart of technology.  They need Surface to be a home run.

Finally the Samsung Galaxy.  On the tablet side Galaxy has always seemed to trail badly to the iPad.  This is despite being the most popular mobile platform on the planet.  They have a lower price point and with each release they seem to get better.  It also does not hurt that like Apple they have a huge app store.  Samsung as a company is starting to look like a modern version of GE, but unlike GE who looked to the past Samsung looks to the future for growth. As good has they have been I would be more worried for them than Apple as it seems likely the main tablet competition will aim to knock them off as Apple is too far in the distance in this category.

The one thing that is clear whomever comes out the winner this holiday the real winner will be the consumers.  The free market will win  as competition will drive down prices and increase innovation.  I wish the health care industry worked this way, but being sick does not seem to be a choice.  There are going to be some losers come earnings season as some of the vendors will not see the increases they desired in profits and market share.  If I had to go out on a limb I think Kindle Fire will be hot and I think Apple will sell a lot of mini’s as I still feel they are in the hot zone (though I do not view the mini as anything great).  I am a bit torn on the Surface.  It is an exciting entrant from a technical perspective, but will it capture users imaginations?  I don’t think a new touch screen UI is enough. The keyboard is cool – I guess the question are people looking for an all in one device?  I think the Galaxy may see a drop this holiday, but that is more based on my gut than any real market data.  I will try to come back to this in January and see where everything landed and how my predictions came out, in any case I want to wish everyone this holiday season, Happy Shopping!!

Good Night and Good Luck

Hans Henrik Hoffmann October, 266, 2012

One of the legendary technology relationships is hitting a bump in the road. Like in many existing marriages it starts with poor communications.  Usually by poor communications we mean silence.  Things are not being spoken.  Then when spoken it comes as a surprise to one party or both.  That has been the case of late between two of the industries legendary companies: Intel and Microsoft.  For so many years the term Wintel has been synonymous with the PC industry. If you bought a desktop it would simply come with the Windows operating system and the microprocessor would be a Intel x86 chip.  With each new release of Windows Bill Gates would meet with Andy Grove to talk about the future of computing and what type of power he could expect with next microprocessor.  How could Microsoft software best leverage increased processor capabilities.

But over the course of the past few years that relationship has started to become a bit fractured. One of the big shifts in the industry over the past decade has been the increasing fast paced move to mobile devices.  Today this comes in two primary flavors: Smartphones and Tablets.  The shift to the mobile revolution has happened quickly led by Apple Computers and followed by others.  We have lot’s of choices we as consumers can make.  Do I want to go down the Apple path?  What about Google?  Amazon Kindle Fire?  A Nook anyone?  With choice comes competition and the rules of ninety percent market share are being changed.  With that partnerships are being challenged.  What was once cozy and friendly is being cooled over with thin sheets of ice.  It is dangerous in the world of business to get comfortable.  Comfort is usually something that happens with time and understandably or not, Microsoft and Intel got too comfortable. Microsoft recently has seen the wedge driven by Apple and in particular the iPad.  The iPad’s power management and instant boot capabilities really changed consumer expectations in how a PC should work.  the idea of instant on has been around for a long time.  I remember in the days of running WindowsNT at Microsoft the pain of booting up every morning.  It seemed like a five-minute process (I am pretty sure it was).  Not to mention the number of times I had to reboot during the course of the week.  I am sure over the course of a year a day or two of productivity was lost just due to the Windows boot process.  Then along comes the iPad and with the touch of a button and a swipe of a finger I am on the internet.  How?  Well it is interesting in the Steve Jobs biography that originally he was going to build the iPad with a Intel based micro processor.  He viewed the partnership Apple had developed with Intel since moving off the Motorola chip as important and working well. However some smart people at Apple said we can get a lot better performance if we go with a RISC based  chip versus the Intel CISC based chip.  The power management capabilities and over all performance trumped the partnership.  Apple had the right idea, in the end customer experience outweighs all. The success of the iPad and creation on a new market, the tablet space, created disruption in the industry.  However you define it, make no question that many people postponed a laptop purchase and decided to buy a tablet.  Thus requiring no Microsoft software and no Intel chip. The result has been both companies pursuing  individual market opportunities.  Intel has sought out Google to try to forge a closer relationship to support Android based tablet devices and pursue the other larger player in the tablet pie.  Microsoft announced over a year ago its pursuit of supporting and later creating a tablet based on ARM (RISC based chip).  As PC and Laptop growth slows it will be vitally important for each company to have a play in the mobile market place.

In fairness to both companies it is a testament to their legendary status in the industry that the relationship has been so harmonious for so long.  Over two decades.  In any industry to have such a long-lasting relationship that has been both cordial and successful is quite amazing.  However in technology things move quick and to get too comfortable with the future is to be the surest path to making certain your demise.  In this regard both Microsoft and Intel are guilty.  I have felt for a long time that both companies felt in the computing industry that they felt the hub of all technology experiences would be the PC.  In the age of the internet where everything is being decentralized and it is being distributed across he network , keep in mind it knows no boundaries.  That includes our homes and businesses.  Our homes have wireless networks distributed between desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones.  The future will only bring more devices.  Where I once could say 100% of my internet time is on the PC, in a distributed environment the number continues to shrink.  That is why smartphones and tablets are disruptive technologies.  It is also why Intel and Microsoft are dimming stars gradually fading and reaching out to grab a last strand of light that once was.

Good Night and Good Luck

Hans Henrik Hoffmann October 11, 2012

Steve Ballmer was interviewed by the local Seattle Times newspaper during the annual Microsoft company meeting. This event was held in Seattle’s Key arena and was attended by 15,000 Microsoft employees.  It creates traffic hell in town.  Steve called this an epic year for Microsoft. With the release of Windows 8 Microsoft will compete on the desktop (ok they still own the desktop), the tablet and the smartphone (Windows Phone 8).  Not to mention releases of Office and new games for XBOX.  There is no question that what he says is true.  Windows 8 is really the first true big change in the Windows UI since Windows 95 was released almost 17 years ago.  In an industry that moves so fast it is rather mind-boggling that the “Start” button has lasted so long.  It also brings a unified operating system across all devices to reality.  The desktop, the tablet and the phone will all have a standardized OS, so for developers this should in theory make life easier.  Steve was going good until he said bigger that Windows 8 will be bigger than  Windows 95.  That particular reference seems to come up a lot among Microsoft executives.

In one  of my early blogs I wrote about the launch of Windows 95.  I can honestly say that was a big day in my life.  To have participated in such a great event was truly fantastic.  Any of my former co-workers at the time I would be so bold to say, would agree.  It is a fantastic part of the Microsoft legacy.  It has also proven to be something that Microsoft has wanted to desperately repeat and do again. To somehow have another such event that launches the company into the technology stratosphere.  To make it the envy of the tech world once again.  To be loved and feared, again. It is not far-fetched.  There still is talent at the company.  They still work very hard in Redmond.  Despite critics they do innovate.  Windows 8 will generate more money than Windows 95, just by virtue of the huge distribution machine that Microsoft has created.  Despite all this apparent success in the end Windows 8 will not restore Microsoft glory.  It will not be bigger than Windows 95.

First it will not surprise anyone as there is already so much about Windows 8 that is known and that has been seen already out in the marketplace for sometime via the beta program, MSDN Subscriptions, etc…  The biggest change in Windows 8 being the new UI formally known as Metro.  Which is not really new since it first appeared and is borrowed from Windows Phone 7, which has been out for 2 years.  Windows 95 also boasted a new UI, but it was different in several regards.  It was much more user-friendly than previous versions of Windows, it was a 32 bit OS and it’s price point was much lower than the alternate Macintosh, which had been floundering since Steve Jobs was ousted.  It was a big leap forward for the company and the industry.

Second Microsoft had done a really effective whisper campaign prior to the launch of Windows 95.  Yes there were beta’s out in the market, the new UI had been reviewed.  But it was just the tip of the iceberg and consumers had read enough and were interested enough and wanted the new OS.  In fact they really wanted it.  There were launch parties, lines at midnight.  There was just a lot of excitement.  The press was on board as it seemed every news station was covering the launch.  Showing people lined up at midnight to buy the new Microsoft OS.  The people in line were smiling and laughing.  Microsoft at the time was very much like Apple is today.  It was generating excitement about their products and about the company.  It was the coolest pace to work on the planet.

Third and most importantly it was fulfilling a dream, a vision.  A PC on every desktop and in every home.  The dream had been there since the company launched in 1975 with the birth of the Altair Computer.  The PC was moving from being a toy, an interesting gadget, a confusing to device,  to becoming a mainstream product that everyone had to have.  The products had matured and were being more and more used in corporate offices, small businesses, schools, and homes.  It was also releasing at a time that another significant event was taking place, the dawn of the internet to the consumer society.  The timing was right for success of Windows 95.

As I said make no mistake, Windows 8 from a revenue perspective will generate the billions of dollars.  Wall Street will be happy with its performance on laptops and desktops.  On tablets and smartphones we will just have to wait and see.  But maybe the bigger point is the OS is just part of a bigger picture, the device.  People will only be truly excited if the hardware is exciting.  The OS is still very important it is just not as exciting as it was 17 years ago.  It is a welcome change, it shows how far the industry has come.  But what excites the industry has changed in a big and positive way.

If you think about what the operating system is there to do, what it was originally designed to do was to take commands from the hardware and interpret them into images (letters) one the screen and over time it evolved to allow developers to write applications and generate new lines of business.  It was software that was creating this magic.  It created a lot of millionaires.  And, yes, it created a few billionaires.  No one understood the meaning of the operating system and what it could do and what it did do  better than Bill Gates.   Windows 95 was a fulfillment of a journey, started in his youth at Lakeside School.  However between Windows 95 and Windows 8 even more exciting stuff has happened as the rate of innovation increased and technological advances were made in hardware and software that would dwarf what had been created in the first 20 years of Microsoft’s existence  The competitive landscape for Microsoft has changed and expanded.  Windows 8 remains a core piece of that competitive Microsoft advantage but it is under ever-increasing pressure from all sides as desktops morph to Lap[top to Netbooks to Tablets to Phones .  The latter two have appeared within the last 5 years, what new form factors will the next five years bring.  What OS will they run?  What OS will they need?

In the end Windows 8 will be big, but as big as Windows 95?  Not a chance, the stars are just not aligned like they were in 1995.  The idea of a OS making that significant of a change in how society functions will not happen with a new fancy UI.  The big releases in tech industry are few and far between.  Windows 95 was a big one.  The launch of the first Apple iPhone was another huge one.  You saw society and their interaction with their cell phone change what was seemingly overnight.  Windows 95 had a similar impact as the PC was an accepted device and was everywhere.  In the end Microsoft can have the impact they want again, but it just will not be the OS, it will not be Windows 8.  Society has moved on and awaits the next big change.

Good Night and Good Luck

Hans Henrik Hoffmann Portland, OR September 19, 2012