Longhorn - Feature Phishing Nightmare

The feature set of Longhorn has been reduced several times. To my mind this is a good thing as it prevents more buggy software from entering the Windows ecosystem. WinFS is a by all internal reports, not ready for prime time as it is the first pass by MS. One continuing problem is that Microsoft's annoying and dangerous tendency to integrate new features into the OS that serve business purposes rather than technical purposes. The most horrific example is of course Internet Explorer which resulted in thousands of viruses being spread at the cost of billions of dollars to corporations. To date no one has really held Microsoft responsible for the enourmous costs they forced on the world in their efforts to destroy Netscape. Every decision has unforeseen consequences but in the case the consequeces where pretty obvious. Of course Microsoft is protected by their EULA which means they do not bear the financial cost of their huge mistake. I mention this as an example as MS is about to do it again. This time with the new and improved desktop search integrated into Longhorn. Once again here's chairmen Bill Gates from the same article I quoted the other day.

". . .-our research agenda will allow us to take today's search from ourselves and Google, and make what we have today look like a joke. And a lot of that will be built into applications like Office or the Windows shell. I see our desktop search offering--I think every review I've seen has rated it far better than what Google is coming out with.
When you get to Longhorn, it will even have deeper integration, and we'll have the same index format. So anybody who wants a smooth transition to Longhorn where you don't have dual indexers and everything--the commitment we're making at our desktop search is that same indexing, same format, and we'll make that very smooth for people."

The first error that Mr. Gates makes is mistakenly equating his companies search product with Google. As my last post pretty clearly demonstrates, Microsoft has a LOOONG way to got to even match Google's current offering.

The compelling business case for this integration that it allows MS wrap the "search" experience from files to the Internet into a MS branded experience. This will allow them to "choke off Google's air supply," by owning the entire search experience. Really this is about ending a competitive threat and much less about. While there might be some debate about this. Some people may think I have got far too much crap on my hard drive. I need MS to help find stuff. For those people I recommend X1

Of course the real problem is the unintended consequences of this integration. While a technical case could be made for improving finding files - it's not really a hugely compelling case feature wise. The unintended consequence is that is provides crackers and other associated eavil doers with the capability to quickly find what they are looking for in a cracked server. Now passwords, credit card files, documents and anything you want to keep private will be quickly found. The feature will undoubtedly ship active from MS which means it provides a universal access point for all data on a machine. MS will undoubtedly bundle a server component which will also prove open to attack and rooting the machine and thus all machines on the network.Every time I hear integration from Microsoft, I think ok, how many viruses/root exploits will developed because of this integrated "feature."

Time will tell if I am right but for now I recommend actually buying X1. It's fast, secure and is much better than either Google or MS for desktop search.

Bill's Gates' Search Comments

In this same article Bill Gates also made some interesting comments about search. I have linked to the pagewhere he begins to talk about search. I wanted to take a look at these as they are very revealing about Microsofts's plans and more importantly failed thinking about search.
Here's one quote,

"We've been in the search business even before Google was around"

This is quite true. MSN search has been around for years, powered by Inktomi, with ads from Overture. Despite being in the search business before Google they have not made a single innovation in web search. That said Bill thinks the business opportunity here is in "search." It's not. It's in "finding." It's about finding the right information. It's about finding the right business. It's about finding the right quote. But that's search in another word you might say. What search is really about is information and providing it within a contextual framework that makes sense. Google knows this which is why local search works at Google. That's why Google's digital library is so important. Google knows that being the gateway to reference material and trustworthy information is the future of search. MS doesn't. If they did, they would roll out Encarta as free resource. Instead they are keeping Encarta gated behind a subscription model with 4,500 articles for free. This makes Encarta much less useful than the Wikipedia. You cannot share the information (unless of course they have a Encarta subscription). Google realizes that web search is the end to the means of finding the right information - NOT finding the right web page.
Here's a money quote

Oh, sure, everybody is working on those things, but just take the idea of finding your local pizza place and doing that right; search doesn't do that well today. Search is really crummy today--it's just that it used to be really crummy, and now it's better, and there never was anything like this before. So most of the results people get back today are irrelevant results. Deep analysis can take us much further, and that's why we're investing a lot, and you'll see us more(sic) very rapidly.

This is a money quote because it shows Bill is certainly (eating his own dog food/drinking his own Kool Aid) because local search works perfectly at Google. Let's try a test case. I live in Las Vegas, NM. It's a small town with a population of roughly 19,000.

So I want to find the local pizza place at Google I type the following;
"Las Vegas NM pizza"
or
"pizza las vegas nm"
or
"pizza las vegas new mexico"

and I find all three pizza places in their local results section at the very top of the page with their addresses and phone numbers. This is because Google has thoughtfully bought a database from Axciom which contains all local United States businesses and preloaded their database.

When I try that at the MSN preview site I get total garbage. Result #1 is pretty close at USdiners.com but I actually have to go to the web site to actaully see. The next two results are for Las Vegas, NV. This despite the fact that I explicitly told the search engine where I was located. For those of you who want to try it here's a Las Vegas NM pizza on MSN search

What's even more interesting that there is a "Were you looking for 'pizza' near Las, Vegas, NM" at the top of the page. I think ok, this should enable me to narrow down the selections as it really understands that query. Clicking this link instead shortens the search term to just pizza so they can show me ads that they are hoping I click on. The #1 organic result is the OahuWiki followed by free pizza notice at UNM. Keep working MS. Realize that search is just about finding the information you need, not searching web pages. I was going to tackle search embedded with Longhorn, but this post is getting somewhat long. Soon I promise.

Bill Gate's "Communist Comment"

Bill Gates has again taken to calling open source programmers, and advocates "communists."
Bill has launched ad hominum attacks on the open source community using this very same term. The problem is that by attacking the open source community in this manner, he completely misunderstands the economics of open source software. I imagine Mr. Gates believes that by repeating the "communist" mantra enough, it will undermine adaption of GNU/Linux in the corporate environment. The problem with this statement is that it makes Bill look very silly. No one is really worried about communists anymore Bill. Furthermore when IBM is pushing Linux do you expect your communist comment to strike a chord in the market? Do you think the business world is suddenly going to believe that IBM has become a communist collective ala 1955? The answer is obviously of course not! It's just one more comment that allows IBM's salesmen paint Bill Gates as a man who has lost touch with reality. When Microsofts's chief software architect and chairman says utterly ridiculous things like that it hinders MS's competitive advantage in the marketplace.

It also shows that Bill Gates doesn't yet understand the economics of open source yet. This is a somewhat remarkable as the open source revolution has been going on for 21 years, and covered by the computing world extensively for the last 7 years. Open source developers do their work because of the economic advantage of doing so. By adapting the GPL or other similar license developers given up certain rights in return for certain others and these have a definite economic benefit. The best way to think about it in traditional corporate terms is cross-licensing of patent portfolios . You cross license because it makes economic sense, provides protection and allows you to leverage your patent portfolio.

By improving a GPL'd product you gain an economic advantage, you don't have to build from scratch. When a project has reached a critical mass of developers, the economic advantage is tremendous. At the institional level open source makes even more economic sense. By co-operating in development, companies can leverage development efforts, avoid the much dreaded vendor lock-in and as a result of the open source process itself, a much better product. For Bill not to even understand the economic reasons behind Microsoft's greatest threat and attempt to throw the "communist" label on it, shows a tremendous problem and blind spot with Microsoft's leadership.

Microsoft Integration Takes it Toll

Hackers use DRM to infect machines. I suggest anyone who make the argument that tight integration is a good thing, take a good long read at the article. This follows a long tradition at Microsoft of rapid and sudden bundling of features with little concern of the security consequences. We had a discussion two years ago about how this little hole could be exploited and this was exactly what we predicted what would happen. Frankly I was suprised it took this long for people to capitalize on this huge hole. Where is the security team at Microsoft? How can such badly designed features make it out the door?

Frankly security has never been a concern at Microsoft, even after the much vaunted security turnaround dictated by Gates. When MS integrated IE into the operating system into the operating system, they set the ground for thousands of viruses and BILLIONS of dollars in damages to companies. What I find amazing is that no one is holding MS liable for these damages. Of course the EULA prevents you from suing MS for this sort of thing. In an effort to stay ahead, Microsoft bundles competing products into the operating system. While this was fine during days when you were just bundling a windowing system into the operating systems; given todays's networking environment, it's a recipe for disaster.

By bolting new products onto the core product, you can certainly strangle the competition however with each new product you add to the OS, another security hole is added. Given that the security model of Windows 2000/98 lacks granularity and control you can expect a new species of virus for each bundled product.

So what to expect for MS virues in future. Here's my short list.

1. Media/Audio/Video Virii.
2. Messenger Virii.
3. Antispyware Virii - (only if Giant gets integrated into the OS)

Cringley's Crystal Ball

Every year Robert Cringley's starts off the New Year with a set of predictions about the coming future in technology. He usually bats around 75% so it's a good read. I suggest giving it a quick read. You can give it a read I, Cringely.

Voice Genesis - Redefining Text Messaging

A friend of mine started a company called Voice Genesis. The web site could be much clearer about what a revolutionary product this really is. It works this way. You get an email which shows up on your mobile phone. Instead of painfully texting a reply back using that damn phone pad, you simple speak a reply and this message is then converted to text and emailed back to the sender. The translation & mailing is handled on their servers so it's entirely transparent to the users. This is a big one people - This makes checking and replying to email on your mobile phone a snap. While the site currently doesn't yet offer the software for download, I know for a fact that it works. Check it out at Voice Genesis. They should be shipping the software in the next two weeks. This one is gonna be big.