Joel Spolsky gives us hell for Live.com. Tags us with “Marimba effect.” I don’t think it was clear. This was the beginning of a major rudder turn on Microsoft.
This was Bill Gates and Ray Ozzie and others (Steve Ballmer internally) yelling at all of us to “turn, turn, turn.”
Yesterday will be remembered not because of what we announced. But because of the direction we’re now headed in.
Microsoft is no longer an applications company. It is a services company.
Don’t get caught up in the badly-pulled-off demos yesterday.
There is something a lot deeper happening inside Microsoft than that.
Yesterday I talked with Jenny Lam. You might not know her. But she’s one of Microsoft’s new leaders. To me, she’s the face of where Microsoft MUST GO.
She’s an experience designer. She designed the visual experience for the PDC. She does lots of the graphics you’ll see on the desktop of Windows Vista.
Everytime I see her touch a project, it turns into something interesting. She adds emotion. Art. Humaness. Romance. Kindness. Playfulness. And a distinctly female touch. No, stupid, not pink or flannel sheets (you’re missing the point). But the kind of touch that my wife adds to my home.
Joel: you’re right, if we just announced only Live.com it’d be tagged with its unusable and broken state. But you’re all paying attention to the wrong thing. What really was happening is Bill and Steve and Ray are saying “it’s a new day at Microsoft and everyone here better pay attention.”
Oh, I’m paying attention, all right. This whole thing is ALL about attention.
Robert Scoble is the founder of the Scobleizer blog. He works as PodTech.net’s Vice President of Media Development.
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