James Governor's Monkchips

What Happens To Scoble Now? Start Talking Privacy

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His protector is gone?

It will be interesting to see what happens with the “open Microsoft” revolution now that Scoble’s Boss is gone. Lenn Pryor has moved on because he evidently thinks the Skype is the limit.

Lenn says:  “Skype is the evolution of a new generation of distributed network computing technologies that will use the internet as the platform for new scenarios across new topologies, and leave the client to being an abstraction layer for UI and crunching MIPs”.

So its au revoir, Windows, Tere phone! The Redmond brain drain is increasingly palbable, or at least high profile. The timing in losing a key guy running developer evangelism couldn’t be worse for Microsoft, with continued questions over the Longhorn roadmap, a nuts-and-bolts-not aspirations pitch from Jim Allchin (i almost can’t believe Microsoft is citing thumbnails as a differentiator in desktop search, given earlier promises for WinFS).

Lots of folks are throwing rocks. But who is going to catch them and throw them back?

And with Lenn out of the picture what happens next time Scoble starts raving about Skype? Pryor protected Scoble when he made enemies at the firm. I can only imagine these folks are sharpening their knives and sweet-talking Vic Gundotra. Joel A commenter on Joel’s forum asked a while ago: Is Scoble Begging To Be Fired?

In the meantime a couple of suggestions – Vic should maybe make “an offer you can’t refuse” to Joel, just like Bill and Steve have done to other executives. Joel has done the most single most eloquent job of articulating MS problems with respect to APIs. Who better to feed coolaid for a good result in anti brain drain move?

Its also surely time to surface Kim Cameron – if anything is aspirational its an urge to reclaim our privacy from the scumbags currently abusing it, and or just not giving a shit about it. Kim’s thinking shines like limelight onto a pitch black stage when it comes to self managed privacy and the intersection of policy and technology. Bring on the infocard. Bring on self-managed preferences! The timing may have been wrong for HailStorm the first time around, but lord knows we need more control of our digital IDs. Could end user identity management be at a tipping point, now the context has changed? Will Kim and Microsoft get everything right? Of course not – they might even sell out to the increasingly irrelevant Big Media (so willing to pay big big money to friends of protectionism and cartels), when it comes to identity. I am a believer in open metadata. But noone can tell me that end users aren’t concerned and looking for leadership around privacy.

Here’s a multiple choice question for you – who or what would you trust most with respect to your personal information?

1. Your local PC with a dongle

2. A Microsoft service in the sky

3. ChoicePoint

 

2 comments

  1. “The Redmond brain drain is increasingly palbable, or at least high profile.” It seems odd to talk about the various problems at MS on one hand, and on the other lament the departure of people who may not be part of the problem, but were apparently not part of the solution either. Sure, there are a lot of good people leaving, but also a lot of good people coming in.

    Also, it’s becoming a bit of a cliche that MS is at its best when the compeition is the fiercest. Think of the arms race / space race analogy: Google’s success is having the sort of effect on MS that Sputnik had on the complacent US science and educational system nearly 50 years ago, or Netscape and Java had on the grandiose Cairo / Blackbird / etc. visions at MS 10 years ago. Lots of pontifications were issued back then about how the US was losing the Cold War or MS’ glory days were behind it, which looks pretty absurd in retrospect. Of course the prognosticators may be right this time around, but I’m betting that new blood and a new attitude will keep MS in the game.

    Finally, I can’t resist a cheap shot: “new generation of distributed network computing technologies that will use the internet as the platform for new scenarios across new topologies, and leave the client to being an abstraction layer for UI” Ahh, that sure brings back fond memories of the good ol’ .bomb days, when all you needed was a domain name and a phrase like that to get a few million out of the VCs. Of course, actually delivering real value to people who don’t give a rat’s patootie about network topologies and abstraction layers turned out to be a tiny bit harder …

  2. >Joel asked a while ago: Is Scoble Begging To Be Fired?

    You’re confusing a post on Joel’s forums with a post by Joel. In fact, Joel responded later in that thread to counter the original poster who asked the question.

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