Facebook

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With the movie “The Social Network” winning big at the Golden Globe Award maybe it’s a good time to  look at the current landscape in the industry one of the glamor children is without question, Facebook. It’s easy to look at Facebook and see the appeal.  For starters they have 500 million users.   It allows you to connect with people from your past life and your present life. It has the ease of use thing down so any person logging on to the internet can quickly get on to start benefiting from the experience.  Finally it’s fun.  But as always in technology there are bigger things at stake.  Underneath it all is a booming business and an opportunity to define the future of technology.   It has, as I have called it, the velocity of business.  With each wave they come bigger and faster.  We started with Microsoft.  Then Google.  Now we enter the Facebook era.

Like any great business in the technology sector it starts young.  Usually around the college age.  Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg sounds like a Bill Gates clone.  Teenage computer wiz, goes to Harvard, drops out, makes his first billion.  It’s a pretty simple formula.  The thing that Facebook has so in common with Microsoft and Google is that in its early years, and Facebook is still there, the employees of Facebook are young.  If I joined Facebook (I am 44) I would probably double the average age of the company.  All great technology companies in the early days have that singular focus, from top to bottom.  They come in late and stay late.  They eat like crap.  They have no sense of fashion.  They do not have families to go home to,  They have but one mission, create the future of tomorrow.  Watch ant CNBC special, read any Facebook blog, you name it and you will see Facebook’s culture is exactly that.  Do not worry that these young kids will dominate the world for the next  twenty years, because in twenty years they will be middle-aged.

The great things about youth is it envisions a greater and brighter future for the world.That is part of being young, that desire and hunger to make a difference.  Facebook started simply as a way for Harvard Students to connect with one another and then it spread to other Universities.  As is so often said, big things start small.  Then the young guns started to think big.  We can bring people’s past to the present.  Beyond friends we can link companies, provide news, drive political discourse etc..Was there a successful campaign run in 2008 that did not leverage Facebook to some degree?  the fact that Barack Obama had this huge grass-roots movement started by the youth of America was instrumental in getting him elected and Facebook was a big part of that .  These things don’t happen by accident like people would like to think.  In the background is a small office in the Silicon Valley, that is young and thinking big and driving these changes in how society functions.

So why the fear by so many companies of Facebook?  Microsoft may be an investor in Facebook, but they worry. Google is terrified of Facebook.  One thing is mass.  Today depending in who and what day you listen to Facebook has between 500 million and 600 million subscribers.  A great many are active.  they spend time on Facebook and not just a few seconds to type in a search criteria but to share comments, to upload pictures, view others comments, to say the “like” a particular post, play games, etc..When people spend a lot of time at a particular location on the internet than the obvious question becomes “how do we monetize it?”  With Facebook it now has developers writing games for Facebook.  Facebook has its own instant message client.  Looking forward you can see search being a larger component of the user experience, I think this alone would keep Google executives awake at night.  the more developers writing applications for Facebook, the less time for Windows.  I would assume a lot of applications for Facebook would not reside on your desktop, but would sit out on the internet thus making Facebook a really great cloud computing platform and putting it in the early lead of consumer facing cloud based applications (as it currently stands today Facebook is a cloud based application).

Finally Facebook has taken advantage of current technology trends to extend its reach, specifically I am referring to mobility.  If you look at your Facebook posts today how many posts are coming from a mobile device?  As Apple launched a new era of mobile apps (yes there were application for mobile devices before but to find them and load them was painful and that is being kind), Facebook took full advantage.  Now you see posts coming from iPhones, Android Devices and Blackberry’s.  The beauty of mobility is freedom and Facebook seems to add nicely to that user experience.  Because in the end we want our lives, in particular our social lives to be care free.

Looking forward it is easy to project now that Facebook will be a major force, but as is so evident in technology things continue to change and things our changing faster than ever.  It took Microsoft twenty years to get to Windows 95.  It was a singular focus that drove that vision.  That kind of commitment, that type of time line is a thing of the past.  As  is evident with Google then with Facebook the internet gives rise to new power players in less than a decade.  It’s important to have a long-term  outlook in business but the question these days is how long do you look forward?  If you look too far out some company may pass you by before you get there.  For now the ball is in Facebook’s court, is there a young kid with an idea with a vision that will pass Facebook?  In all likelihood, based on what we know, the answer is yes.   With that enjoy I hope you enjoyed this post which many of you will access from…Facebook.

Good Night and Good Luck

Hans Henrik Hoffmann,  January 17, 2011

Generating “Buzz”

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With the Consumer Electronic Show just having been completed I think it is a good time to talk about one of those things that every technology provider strives for which is to generate a certain amount of “buzz” around a future product.  It is so very important to the success of any new product that people begin  to talk about it before the product is released.  Certainly out of this years show there was a lot of noise generated around Google’s Android platform, with companies making a big push to showcase upcoming releases of both phones and tablets.  Companies like Verizon, Samsung and Motorola did a lot to push the new releases of Android based tablets, pinning future success on the release of the product.

There are some good historical examples.  The “buzz” generated around Microsoft Windows 95 or the “buzz” created around the Apple iPhone.  In each case you had people lined up at midnight to get the product.  This is great stuff, but there is another type of “buzz” that gets created underneath all that and that is creating the excitement in the developer community.  The people who make the cool apps for the Apple app store or Google store.   Without developers extending and creating a market place an application can have a very short life span

My last role at Microsoft there was a commitment that everyone had to sign up about creating “buzz” in the development community for Microsoft Developer tools .  To clarify for those with no Microsoft background every employee signs up for a “commitment”, which is a goal that will be either fulfilled or not fulfilled come review time at the end of the Microsoft fiscal year.  This determines salary increase, bonus and promotion.  Anybody reading this probably has the same question is what the hell does “generating buzz”  mean?  Being developer land, my first thought was “good luck…with that”.  How are less than 100 people out in the field going to generate excitement around Microsoft Developer technologies, especially when there are so many dependencies? 

To be fair to create buzz goes beyond assigning a few people it really takes a commitment beyond a few individuals, to multiple organizations to external partners.  One of the keys to Apple’s iPhone success was not just the whisper campaign they were generating.  They also had a behemoth like AT&T behind them and they were fully bought in, up to their neck.  Not like the dipping their toes into the water effort they did with the Windows Phone 7 launch.

Another key success factor is just having a product, because it is the end game , it is where you are trying to take the consumer.  When the product launched there is a certain level of satisfaction in having got there.  Sometimes tech companies are guilty of trying to generate excitement without really telling the end customer what to be excited about.  Usually it is to try to get people excited about the company.  Coming from my background at Microsoft the last years seemed to be spent trying to recapture the glory of yester year.

Having a certain level of “buzz” is the difference between having momentum and not having momentum.  When you have the ear of the consumer and the press then a new phenomena sets in, which is “what is next?”  In todays world Apple certainly has tha momentum.  They have the iPod, iPhone, MacBooks,i Pad, Apple Store…they really are in the zone right now here they are setting the industry direction.  Google now is starting to get beyond just being a search company with first Android and next Chrome. Facebook maybe has more momentum than anybody as under their CEO Mark Zuckerburg, they have that “it’s a young mans game” syndrome going.  Similar to what Bill Gate’s had back in the 80’s and 90’s.  It’s the difference between rolling the boulder up the hill or down the hill.

Finally with regards to CES and why it has become what it has. A big reason is that technology is pervasive in everybody’s lives today.  It is not restricted to the “nerd” or “geek” or “hobbyist”.  We all have technology in some capacity of our lives.  It is our cell phones, flat screen TV’s, Tivo, game console’s, Roomba’s, etc.. The Consumer Electronics Show is about showing off how technology is going to further enhance our day-to-day lives in the near future.  Any company participating better not be showing off what is already available.  Attendees want to see the coming years Christmas purchase, not what they already have.  They want the participating companies to wow them.  In short they want some “buzz”.

Good Night and Good Luck

Hans Henrik Hoffmann January 10th, 2011

Life of the Political Lobbyist – Part 2

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One of the best parts of being politically active was not only the opportunity to meet and hear powerful people, but as the MSPAC matured it began to think about real lobbying, which meant only one thing: Washington DC.   Our MSPAC leaders, Mike Egan (D) and Kim Werdell (R) would organize a group trip to Washington DC to meet with Congressman and Senators on the hill.  Mike was the funny guy and Kim was the organized one.  Political affiliation had nothing to do with that…really.  We pulled people from different Microsoft offices, many came from Redmond but we also had Fargo, North Dakota, Silicon Valle, Irving, Texas and Charlotte, North Carolina represented.  I experienced a lot of cool things the 4 times I went to the hill but here are some of my favorite highlights.

The first trip was a great adventure just because like anything fun in life, it was new!  We flew to Reagan International Airport in DC.    The five-hour flight was non descriptive which is always a good thing when you are flying.  We were than whisked away to the Capitol  Building where we were to meet in Congress Woman Jennifer Dunn of Washington State’s 8th congressional district.  As we boarded our bus I realized I was not dressed in the right attire as I thought we were going to our hotel first.  As we were traveling through DC, our leader Mike Egan was acting as tourist guide.  A highlight being, “..and there is Congressman Patrick Kennedy talking to an attractive young woman”.  He’s a Kennedy.  It’s the expectation not the norm.  We departed the bus and I was putting on my tie as we walked to the Capitol building and found our way over to Congresswoman Dunn’s office.  There was a lot of food and a lot of staffers in the room.  As I learned this is how staffers lived – literally.  This was dinner.  During that time we met Congressman Rick Larson of Washington State.  We went back to our hotel rooms, some went out others called it a night.

The next morning at breakfast was really the first chance I had to meet everyone who was with us on the trip.  Most distinct,a s we did our round of introductions was the boisterous and lovely Jerri Johnson, “from the great  state of Texas!!”,  She was a big Bush supporter and so politically we did not agree on much but she was very nice and fun to hang out with.  We also had a Jewish democrat Rob Dolan with us, passionate about politics and passionate about Microsoft. Tim the lawyer, Matt our Capitol Hill Lobbyist on the Democratic side, John Sampson, the Republican side of the House, Scott, Lobbyist for the Dems in the Senate,  John Newhart from the Microsoft Office Team,  a few guys from the MS mobility team who thought it was a sales call, Meghan our assistant from Redmond, and a bunch more – we were tech people in business attire.  A odd-looking crew.

In year two when we went we went as usual to the Capitol Building and this time to the office of Washington State House representative, Jay Inslee.  After a brief meeting with Jay in his office he took us out on a guided tour of the capitol building after hours.  It was very cool as we were the only ones in the building.  We went by all the statues, each state has two statues of key figures in that state’s history.

The highlight of the second trip would be what is called a departure.  I had no idea what it was, but we went to  the white house and got through security, which was very tight.  Once on the White House grounds we walked by the entry way into the White House.  A car had pulled up to the entrance and the door opened and out popped right in front of me Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld.  He must have recently fallen as his arm was in a sling.   Getting out of the car next was General Pete Pace and has he got out of the car he saw me and said “Hi”.  A small moment in my life but it is cool to see the power players.

From there we were led around and saw a few things of interest.  Where the press corp resides on the White House Lawn and the Press room.  Apparently it was a swimming pool before it was converted to what we see on television today.  What you do not see is that it is very cramped, has no windows and would be a nightmare for the press corp without air conditioning.  We then went by the rose garden, which is right outside the oval office,  Again not very big but pretty.  We then were led to a roped off area outside the residence.  Though we could not see him the Presidents Scottish terrier was in full force barking up a storm inside the residence.  With the doors open he was not hard to hear,

Then all of a sudden out of the sky came a military helicopter landing onto the White House lawn.  We were all behind a roped area, Jerri Johnson was next to me waving the flag of Texas.  As the helicopter waited, we waited.  Then Laura Bush came out followed by twin daughters Jenna and Barbara.  Those two wanted nothing to do with anybody.  No waving or smiling just heads down and straight for the waiting helicopter.  Frankly they looked pissed.  Then we waited a few moments until all of a sudden popping out from the oval office was President Bush and his entourage.  he strode very confidently across the lawn.  Next to him was then National Security Adviser Condalisa Rice and Karl Rove.  They were all followed bu Chief of Staff Andrew Card.  The president waved and immediately picked out the Texas flag, smiled and pointed at Jerri.  It was a cool moment for Jerri and since she was a big Bush supporter I was happy for her.  As the President boarded he salute the Marine standing by the door went to the top of the stairs, turned and did the classic Presidential wave  and disappeared into the helicopter.

The final note on this for those who have not seen when the helicopter takes off from the White House lawn, out of no where come two identical helicopters as a diversion for any potential attack on the President.

In between all these cool moments the MSPAC team did spend time meeting in the halls of Congress visiting with both Senators and Congressman.   Listening to Congressman John Lewis of Georgia talk about Selma, Alabama and the Civil Rights movement will always be a highlight of my life.  Afterwords he and I talked about Seattle artist Jacob Lawrence, whom he had known.  Eating at the Capital Hill lunch room will be a memorable dining experience, the tour underneath the Capital building was also cool – there is a lot of space down there  that few people know about.  Seeing the tomb where George Washington has been invited to lay in rest (he is still in Mount Vernon), Ted Kennedy speaking on the Senate floor, Hilary Clinton on her Cell phone,…there is a lot more but for now I will just say we should all be thankful for the people who lead this country, I just hope those in power never forget why they are there and forget that it is a privilege to serve.

Good Night and Good Luck

Hans Henrik Hoffmann January 6, 2011

The Death of the Word Processor

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The title may be provocative, but there is a reasoning behind it based on current trends I see in the industry.   As I look back on the evolution of one of the very first business applications for the personal computer the word processor, I think we are at a time when the standard word processing application is about to evolve again into a different form (and cheaper) than what we have grown used to with packaged applications that we load on our computers hard drive.

If we look back upon the early days there were a lot of players in the industry WordPerfect, Microsoft Word, WordStar, Wang to name but a few.  But because it had a strong long-term vision tied to the operating system which it owned Microsoft’s Word for Windows would emerge the winner.  The last one standing was WordPerfect, but it would just slowly fade away.  Beyond the Word processor, Microsoft looked beyond and incorporated the spreadsheet and presentation software realizing the long-term vision that many people would use all three and would want seamless integration.  The result was Microsoft Office and the rest was history as Microsoft fought battles on all three fronts while the rest just tried to stay afloat.

As we turned the corner into a new century Microsoft Word basically sat alone, unchallenged.  Every document people opened, every attachment received was in a Word.doc format.  With every new release there were new features, new user interface designs (the ribbon anyone?).  It owned the market. It was a cash cow.  When Open Source came onto the scene it was believed it would challenge Word, but in all reality they were just free copy cat images of Word and did not offer anything new.  I always felt that if they did get any traction Microsoft would open its deep pockets to a bunch of lawyers to file a lawsuit for patent infringement etc..This view is simply based on the fact that if did not seem that these Open Source developers were coming up with a single new idea, it looked like they opened Word for Windows and were intent on creating a copy of the software.

Through this past decade there have been numerous challenges, and in certain regions of the world, some have even gained some traction, but they have never been able to gain any sustained momentum.  With the new business models being driven by companies like Google and the fact that pretty much all of us are always connected to the internet, it brings us back to a fundamental question, “If I only use 10 percent of Words capabilities why do I need to install the rest?” and the follow-up question, “why should I pay for innovation that I never will use?”.

What will the future word processor look like?  In a simple word, Notepad.  If you are running Windows just click “Start”, then “All Programs” , then “accessories” – you will find a little application called  Notepad.  You may say is this all?  No but what I believe could and will happen is for your document application you will be presented with a basic framework that allows you to type and provides a subset of fonts.  Then using the persistent connection to the internet you will be able to surf the web and add accessories to your document framework.  It will look like two things already available in the market.  The Eclipse Framework (developers will know what I am talking about), which allows developers just to grab plug-ins for whatever they are working on  and an online store similar to what most people most are already familiar with, the Apple App Store.  Some of these add-ins will be free, some charged for – but your word processor which for years has been a couple of hundred dollars will now be available to do most of what you want to do for under $20 and in some instances it will be free.

For some companies, namely one, Microsoft, this will be a very painful transition.  Unless they get out in front of the market it will be a missed opportunity that will cost them dearly as more and more end-users spend time outside of the Microsoft software ecosystem.  However like everything else in technology when markets change there will be those who seize the opportunity.  Could you have an ad driven model within a word processor?  Why not?  Could the market for cool ad-ons in the document framework explode?  Sure.  In the end the one thing I am sure of is the one benefit will be a better more affordable experience for both end-users and enterprises a like.

Good Night and Good Luck

Hans Henrik Hoffmann December 21, 2010

The end of the Gates Era

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Bill Gates equals Microsoft.  No statement about a corporation is more true than that single statement.  Bill Gates is an industry icon, one of the legends who helped build the industry.  There are many Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, Ray Ozzie, Paul Allen to name but a few.  But possibly, with the exception of Steve Jobs, no one individual has meant more to the success of an individual company than Bill Gates.  Which was why when he left Microsoft it left such an enormous empty space in the company.

In my early days at Microsoft, when I was new to the industry and new to computing, I sat in a cubicle managing the front lines of customer service.  I would receive a hundred calls a day ranging from feature questions about Word for Windows 1.1 to replacement parts for a MACH80 board.  It was trial by fire.  It was fantastic. To educate us the Product managers would often come over from Redmond to our building in Bellevue and provide us the latest details of a recently launched product or an upcoming product release.  In most instances they would talk about a recent product review they had with Bill Gates as during those days of a smaller company he was engaged in every aspect of product development.  Despite not being those meetings, in still felt like everyone in the company had a close personal connection to Bill Gates.

The Gates era did not end when he retired to focus on the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, it really ended when he stepped down as CEO and handed the reigns to his designated number two, Steve Ballmer.  I remember stepping off  of a plane in Atlanta seeing a TV screen right as I entered Hartsfield Airport terminal a  CNN Breaking News Alert with Bill announcing his plans to turn over the running of the day-to-day business of the company so he could focus more on setting the development strategy for Microsoft.    Looking back I could understand.  This was coming on the heels of the DOJ trial that weighed heavily on Bill (and everyone at the company) as it was not so much an attack on Microsoft as it was a personal attack on him.  He was tired.  In some ways it was a good thing as the companies strategy  at the time internally was getting very political as different groups pursued similar goals with different views of what technology to utilize.  Groups were fighting amongst one another. Bill quickly came in and settled those disputes as despite the change in roles Bill’s word was still law. 

During the next 8 years Bill’s voice became much softer at Microsoft. He was  no longer the front man in talking with the press and representing Microsoft.  Steve recognizing the growth at Microsoft set out upon a path of creating a dynamic corporate structure.  While Bill was always focused on technology and the promise of what it could deliver, Steve was reading Jack Welch and how he could create the next GE.  At the annual Microsoft Global Sales Summit, where the highlight was always the closing Bill Gates talk, it was now replaced with the prancing gorilla, Steve Ballmer.  Where the talk was usually a presentation of where Microsoft was technically and where it was going.  It was now replaced with talks of responsible corporate governance.  Technical junkies do not respond well to that type of mantra.  It is no wonder since Microsoft has seen a significant “brain drain” of talent.  The list is long – Paul Maritz, Ray Ozzie, Adam Bosworth, Bill Baker, Todd Nielsen, Brad Silverberg, Cameron Myrvold, Robbie Bach, Brian Valentine, Jim Alchin, Kai-Fu Lee, etc…More importantly since he has left it has been much harder for Microsoft to recruit top-level talent, as Bill was a great recruiter.

When he finally did leave, it was without much fanfare, outside of a funny Bill Gates last day video.  Bill had agonized with his wife Melinda and when he announced he provided a long lag time before he actually left – a little less than 2 years.  He checked out long before that day.  The reigns would be handed over to Ray Ozzie (who has sin ce departed) and Craig Mundie.  What has been left is a gaping hole devoid of leadership.  Microsoft has struggled with the weight of its own identity and its own history.  It was probably unavoidable that without Bill there would be no one individual or group of people who could fill the void left by a legend. 

In the end what has been most missed at Microsoft in Bill’s departure is the calming influence he could have with his words and classic emails.  The ability to craft a strategy that utilized all our assets and take it to the future in a cohesive strategy.  In doing so he inspired those beneath him to follow and follow with passion.  What Bill is doing now with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is monumental.  The fact that he is accumulated wealth that he has decided to try to change some of the big issues and challenges in the world should be admired.   But can Microsoft survive without his guidance may be the true legacy of the Gates era.

Good Night and Good Luck

Hans Henrik Hoffmann Dec 13th, 2010