Interview with Mary Jo Foley

Interview with Mary Jo Foley

Mary Jo Foley was interviewed by Matthew Ellison for the first session on Day 2 of the 2009 WritersUA Conference. Mary Jo is a journalist who specializes in following the goings on at Microsoft. Her book — Microsoft 2.0: What to expect in the post-Gates era — was also the title of this session. Here are my notes on what she had to say; they’re sort of in the order of the interview, which was wide-ranging and which covered a lot of ground in the 75 minutes allocated.

• Data gathering: Yes, she used to ride the Microsoft employees shuttle bus to gather information, until they found her out and posted her photo around the bus station!
• One time in the very early days when she was interviewing Bill Gates at a trade exhibition, some guy came up and started talking to him. She interrupted and said she was doing an interview. Bill Gates said to her: “Do you know who that was? That was Steve Jobs!”
• In the early days, Bill Gates was rough around the edges, nasty to journalists, incredibly competitive, a methodical businessman. His employees would quake in their boots if they had a Bill Gates interview.
• Ray Ozzie (current Chief Software Architect [“Chief Nerd”], which was Gates’ old job) came via LotusNotes and another company. Gates had always wanted him at Microsoft and bought the company he was with in 2005 just so he could get him on board. He sets the strategic direction for Microsoft and its products, and despite his shyness, is the new public face of Microsoft regarding products etc. He is more amenable to open source and collaborative stuff, but is very shy — ‘an engineer’s engineer’. In Oct 2005, he sent out a now-famous Internet Services Memo detailing the focus on an open, not closed shop. Mary Jo believes Microsoft is now following the ideas set out in that memo.
• People to watch if/when Steve Ballmer leaves: Kevin Turner (COO; ex Wal-Mart; not popular with staff); Robbie Bach (sp?) (Entertainment division and Windows Mobile); Steve Illa (sp?)(Office). Mary Jo thinks that Microsoft may look outside for a replacement. Ballmer has said he’ll stay at least another 10 years.
• Mixture of arrogance and paranoia amongst Microsoft’s 95,000 employees. But good paranoia like they will ask others “How do we suck?”; the older guys are more arrogant.
• Change of focus since Gates: From science to business; emphasis on design and usability; now more translucent than transparent — want to be more like Apple where secrecy surrounds new products until their release.
• Believe that if they can sell products to consumers that business sales will follow. Big breakthroughs are happening on the consumer side (e.g. social networking), then transferring to the business world.
• Anti-trust constraints are affecting Microsoft’s ability to integrate — they are aware that if they put too much in, they will be sued. e.g. Windows 7 will have option to unbundle features like the browser, Windows Media Player etc.
• Instead of focusing on software as a service, Microsoft is following the path of software + services to preserve their user base. They don’t want to be a full internet company as they make money from software (esp. Office). They would prefer to have product on the desktop + Live services. Mary Jo believes this is a good strategy as businesses won’t want to put all their data in ‘the cloud’.
• IPTV (TV programs on demand over the internet): They’ve spent 10-15 years trying to get there but it’s never really gone anywhere.
• Windows Mobile: Fastest growing part of the business and key to their future. But they are struggling to get the mobile strategy working and a lagging behind the iPhone. Mobile 7 is due out in 2010, but they have a lot of catching up to do.
• Ballmer is obsessed with Google. Google has obliterated Microsoft in the online world, especially search and advertising/publishing tools. Mary Jo sees less of a collision in the Office space (Google is a side annoyance to Microsoft in this area, at this stage). Microsoft (Ballmer) is focused on crippling Google in the search area.
• Are Microsoft spreading themselves too thin? It’s a very diverse business — should they be saying ‘no’ in some areas?: analysts say they should step away from search, but Ballmer is stubborn! Mary Jo predicts Microsoft will continue to throw money and resources at it.
• The overwhelming cash cow is the operating system and Office — how can they maintain interest in those?: This is a scary time as so much is moving online. Office 14 will have web applications within the Office suite (e.g. PowerPoint etc. will work on the internet). Windows 7 will NOT be the end of Windows.
• Backward compatibility: Big issue for businesses; possible solution is virtualization, with emphasis on client and server.
• Revenue streams: Advertising is a possibility. They are experimenting with that in Office (e.g. monthly subs model; ad-subsidized so that Office is free; etc.)
• Is the empire still evil?: Microsoft has not lost its competitive nature; Ballmer is not going touchy-feely.
• Developing world: Attractive pricing models; not purely altruistic.
• Apple everywhere in colleges and schools — won’t graduates want to work with Apples when they enter the business world?: Microsoft trying to address this issue; e.g. current ‘I am a PC’ campaign.
• XML v. ODF: People feel that Microsoft tried to ram their proprietary standards down their throats.
• How many more features can they put into Office?: Looking for other ways to add functionality — e.g. Live services.
• Office for horizontal/vertical markets: e.g. ‘Office for Sales’ or ‘Windows for Kitchens’ is possible, but no-one’s talking.
• What is Microsoft’s most exciting innovation at the moment?: They are excited about touch interface, i.e. surface computing. Mary Jo is not so sure.
• Ribbon has mixed popularity — she said that Microsoft always says they use customer research before making big changes like this, but there have always been queries about the validity of this research.

Phew! It was an information-packed session, but was delivered in such effortless style by both Mary Jo and Matthew that it was hard to believe it when the 75 minutes was up.

My other conference links:

• WritersUA 2009: Day 1 (https://cybertext.wordpress.com/2009/03/31/writersua-2009-day-1/)
• Interview with Scott McCloud (https://cybertext.wordpress.com/2009/04/07/interview-with-scott-mccloud/)
• WritersUA 2009: Day 2 (https://cybertext.wordpress.com/2009/04/01/writersua-2009-day-2/)
• User Assistance in Web Forms: Luke Wroblewski (https://cybertext.wordpress.com/2009/04/08/user-assistance-in-web-forms/)
• WritersUA 2009: Day 3 (https://cybertext.wordpress.com/2009/04/02/writersua-2009-day-3/)
• I just spotted a one-legged woman… (https://cybertext.wordpress.com/2009/04/03/i-just-spotted-a-one-legged-woman/)

Related links:

• http://www.writersua.com/articles/news/foley_interview.htm
• http://ffeathers.wordpress.com/2009/04/02/writersua-2009-day-2/

[Links last checked April 2009]