Friday, September 10, 2004

Allchin's last stand? | Tech News on ZDNet

Allchin's last stand? | Tech News on ZDNet: "But, there is somebody to whom Gates and company can compare themselves-- an updated version of Microsoft, a hungry team of up-and-comers and alumni hitching a free ride on their browser platform, unencumbered by a business model that limits its platform to a subset of the network and innovation around RSS and other disruptive technologies.
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In other words, Microsoft will spend 2005 and 2006 competing against itself with what will likely be a free downloadable (a la XP SP2) pruned version of Avalon and Indigo while delaying a competitive response to the Google-led hosted alternative to the Office 'information management shell' to 2007 and potentially beyond. No wonder Allchin asks: 'Does that make sense?' If Longhorn, the latest incarnation of Allchin's 1995 Cairo unification of Windows and SQL Server, slips again, he may not be around for the answer."

Steve Gillmor's stark assessment of Allchin's future.

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