Malek's Moorish Tales

I am restarting a blog... again. I will be restoring my old blog posts gradually in the coming weeks.

All the people who know me know that I like Microsoft technologies. That is something that can hardly change.

However, my trip through the arcane rows of Microsoft employees have opened my eyes to other dimensions. I now believe that Microsoft has some fatal weaknesses, and that anyone who, like me, is a technologist, has an imperative to open up to alternatives...
The issues and problems started long ago (I would think that sometime in the late nineties Microsoft started behaving like they owned us, but they actually did then, so it is only surfacing now that real alternatives are slowly starting to make sense). As someone that was internal to Microsoft not long ago, I think Microsoft is behaving exactly as it shouldn't... Microsoft has lost track, and is now lead by people that have little if any understanding of their customer and partner base. The main problem with Microsoft is not technology, it is leadership. To make myself clear, let me give some examples :

- I had been envolved with mobile development since 2002, and Microsoft basically created the concept of smart phones back then. Everything the iPhone or even android are doing was already there then. What pisses me off the most is that Microsoft didn't miss on "ergonomy" or as my US friends like to call it "user friendliness"... They mostly missed on timing. And as the world was starting to embrace it, Microsoft stepped down on R&D in this field because the US was not reacting... The need was there, just not in America, and the technology was there... and we were there to do the field work... but because there were no strong case studies in NY or Chicago, it was left to die...

- Integrating systems from multiple vendors has always been a nightmare. Microsoft started trying to tackle the problem since Biztalk 2000 and started getting it right since around 2002/2003 ( Biztalk 2004, SFU 3.0 ...etc.) However, Microsoft managed to make it so low key that it didn't make any difference...

- You may have noticed (depending on geography, you may have noticed a huge difference or none at all) that Microsoft Marketing has switched in the last few years to a pure online communication model... Back in the days ( up to about 5 years ago) we used to quantify and bet on a person's reach and influence. Now Microsoft treats audiences as the same be it online or in person, and to value the reach in terms of audience rather than actual real influence. A conference speaker that impresses you on his speech and as you go to him at end of session, resolves a problem that you have been having for the last couple of years is seen as an equal to a blogger that happens to talk about Microsoft Tehnologies (and eventually incite you to look at something you didn't know existed)... The level of influence went drastically down...

Although there are so many other things I think Microsoft is doing wrong, I am trying not to exploit anything I only know because I was inside it, so I will not say anything about the sales or marketing strategies, but there is plently in that area that shows extremely bad management...

I remember back in the late 80s how I felt about "prolog" and "ada". They were languages that offered the best technology could do at the time, but had a lot to prove "business wise" before they became viable. Microsoft, with all it has in terms of brand and knowhow, is unfortunately getting itself into the same spot...

Can it recover ? in theory it can, but I strongly doubt the same people that got it so low will fix the problem... So, will there be a Microsoft in 20 years ? well, only if it is lead by different people...

Just that, I am leaving Microsoft...

   I promised I will be telling stories about Cairo, so here it goes ...

    Sleeping by the Pharo's tomb: Patrick, Cigdem, Shiraz and I were down inside the Mycerinus pyramid, and there was a nice guide showing us around the sarcophagus and treasures room. Before going back up, they all tipped the guide (I must confess, I was a bit miserly on that one). The guy was so happy with the tipps, and was telling us if there was anything else he could do for us … Well, Patrick asked if we could sleep by the toumb, and I seconded his joke … off course, everybody laughed and we left. Later on that day, Patrick found out he had made a mistake while tipping the guide, and gave him more than he thought he did. So we figured we had a good start on bribing him into letting us sleep by the tomb … Maybe next time, who knows ?

   Can I have some Hummus please ? on Sunday, Steven was going crazy about Hummus, and not accepting to have been in Cairo for more than 24 hours without having it. The problem is that we were at an Indian Restaurant at the Oberoi hotel in Giza (close to the pyramids). So he kept asking for Hummus, and they kept telling him again and again that this was an Indian Restaurant. Since he wouldn't stop asking for Hummus (which is simply the arabic word for Chick Peas), they brought that bowl with Chick Peas in a sauce ...

    Cigdem’s pyramids : The first day, when we went to the pyramids in Giza, we didn’t really buy any souvenirs (except for the perfumes I will talk about later on). When we (I believe it was Cigdem, Patrick and I) went to Memphis and Sakkara on Tuesday, she needed to get some presents for family and friends, and was looking at pyramids. She finally closed a nice deals on some small pyramids, and since she thought she got a nice deal, she took two sets of three pyramids each. Later on the same day, at Khan El Khalili (After the closing session at MDC), she was thinking she would need more presents, and spontaneously started thinking of getting more pyramids … after strolling about a certain number of shops, she finally found one that had the same pyramids she had bought in the morning, but they wouldn’t sell them to her for the same price. There came Stephen, who started to bargain for her. To make the story short, he started, at one point, to propose a Yukon DVD for the pyramids, and the shop owner refused. Well, it was a great laugh, and Cigdem got her 3 new sets of 3 pyramids each (I joked about her using them as Lego pieces) …

   The American selling souvenirs at Khan El Khalili : this story actually started when Stephen started to bargain for the rest of the gang. At one shop, he started (again) to offer Yukon and Whidbey DVDs for souvenirs, and while squeezing the shop owner so much on the prices, the guy simply told him that he would like to see him selling the stuff and whether he would still be talking about the same prices (I spare you some details that I have to sensor, both to avoid wrath from Steven, and because this blog is not adult only content …). Anyway, here is Steven selling the souvenirs, trying to get the walkers by to buy his stuff, and making the bargaining a blast … one great moment was when another shop owner (or so he said) stopped by, and Steven offered him a Yukon DVD for his entire shop (we never saw the shop or even knew if it existed), and the guy accepted …

   Party to Damascus: Throughout the trip, Steven has been evangelizing … a song. He finally got both me and Goksin singing it with him. So let’s all hum together : Its Official, Raise Your Glasses, We’re Gonna Party to Damascus …

That is just part of the story, and I will probably be blogging about Cairo for quite some time ...

What is the Sphinks looking at (the credits go to my friend Patrick Hynds for thinking of it)

Pizza Hut and KFC ...