Strominator.com p.1
David Strom
June 18 2008
Giving thanks to 20 years of Bill Gates:And what the future of IT will be without him
Strominator.com p.2
Bill Fairchild introduction
David Strom
1972: Enters Union
1976: Receives BA in Math
1978: Receives MS in
Operations Research
Today: networth, priceless,
salary: > $10/yr
Sergey and Larry
1972: Not yet born
1976: Toddlers
1978: Don’t know much about
O.R.
Today: Networth: > $18B
each, salary < $10.yr
Strominator.com p.4
We began preparations years ago
Letterman video about Bill’s retirement
http://youtube.com/watch?v=V_o9isZY5h0
Strominator.com p.7
The Web has become a dynamic place, especially for our students
Send in your homework
Find last year’s exam answers
Plagiarize your assignments
Find a date
Find a roommate
Sell their stuff
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One reason for Bill’s retirement: Demos!
http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9804/20/gates.comdex/gates.30.240.mov
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Words in the Microsoft lexicon
Fear, uncertainty and doubt We are on a product death march Our software is now code complete And is now released to manufacturing Buy a Vista-ready PC We are not monopolists Cut off Netscape’s air supply Abort, retry, reboot
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Thanks for killing off
DOS 4.0 Windows ME OS/2 (all versions) Lotus 1-2-3 Netware Word Perfect Netscape Bob WebTV [Your favorites here]
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Back in 1982, Bill said in PC Magazine Issue #1:
“We’ll be able to write big fat programs. We can let them
run somewhat inefficiently because there will be so much
horsepower out there.”
“300 MB hard drives in the $10-$15,000 range”
“We are still not at a stage where I would tell my mother
just to go out and buy a PC”
“You have to be a real bits and bytes man to get that
Apple to play any kind of decent musical tone”
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My daughter’s dorm room today
Three laptop computers (Mac and Windows) w/ wireless Internet access and built-in Web cams
Five iPods (two to workout with) with 4,000 tracks Two digital cameras Two cell phones and one landline that is rarely used TV, DVD and cable hookup Microwave, mini fridge supplied by the college Stacks of DVDs and a few CDs to complete the p2p
downloaded tunes
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Price drops
10 years ago, a typical PC base price was $5,500
1 MB RAM, 40 MB disk, 16 MHz CPU
Then add 2 MB RAM for $1,700
Monitors were around $750 - $1,000 (12” VGA)
You were at $10,000 before you knew it!
This doesn’t mean we should cut our fees, though!
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What has succeeded despite Microsoft
Spreadsheets, and not just for numbers either
Linux and all that open source stuff
Apache and the Web
Apple’s iPod
Macintoshes
Windows NT and now XP
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Thanks also to Google!
Web-based email: Gmail (vs Hotmail)
Search (vs MSN)
Web mashups (maybe Silverlight and Popfly)
Strominator.com p.32
Size of Microsoft’s OSs
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
MB
DOS 1DOS 6Win 3.1Win 95Win 98Win XPVista
Strominator.com p.33
20 years of lawsuits too!
1989: Apple sues over Windows UI 1994: Dept. of Justice, Windows 1994: Stac, disk compression: wins $126 million 1995: Wang, OLE: wins and then disappears 1996: Caldera, DR-DOS: annoys entire Linux world 1997: Borland, their ex-employees 1998: Dept. of Justice, browser tactics 2003: Real Network, media player Various: Sun, $2 Billion payout!
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Overall, lawsuits have cost Microsoft $9 Billion!
At one time,
more than 130
concurrent suits!