Steve Ballmer
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
It's the Mac with the monitor turned on its side.
Right. So you should have a little bit more generosity for the East Coast management at Xerox for failing to commercialize this.
Right. So you should have a little bit more generosity for the East Coast management at Xerox for failing to commercialize this.
No, these are DOS applications. It's all character mode.
No, these are DOS applications. It's all character mode.
In fact, the year that Microsoft went public, Lotus had more revenue than Microsoft at the IPO.
In fact, the year that Microsoft went public, Lotus had more revenue than Microsoft at the IPO.
Wild. Yeah, it's crazy. So Lotus 1.2.3 had some graphics, but it was still in character mode. It was a powerful spreadsheet that could start to do some graphics, even though there wasn't actually a GUI operating system yet, which is interesting. So Lotus 1.2.3 was faster, it had bigger spreadsheets, and it was just more powerful. Microsoft Multiplan was still targeting the older 8-bit.
Wild. Yeah, it's crazy. So Lotus 1.2.3 had some graphics, but it was still in character mode. It was a powerful spreadsheet that could start to do some graphics, even though there wasn't actually a GUI operating system yet, which is interesting. So Lotus 1.2.3 was faster, it had bigger spreadsheets, and it was just more powerful. Microsoft Multiplan was still targeting the older 8-bit.
And so Multiplan, despite Microsoft's best efforts, is completely left in the dust. Microsoft's trying to figure out, what should we learn from this? And in talking with Pete Higgins and Mike Slade, who were both early leaders in the development and the marketing of the applications division—actually, Mike Slade went on to work directly for Steve Jobs at Next and Apple for many years—
And so Multiplan, despite Microsoft's best efforts, is completely left in the dust. Microsoft's trying to figure out, what should we learn from this? And in talking with Pete Higgins and Mike Slade, who were both early leaders in the development and the marketing of the applications division—actually, Mike Slade went on to work directly for Steve Jobs at Next and Apple for many years—
But in chatting with both of them, what basically became apparent is Microsoft learned with our applications, we should not be targeting the current platforms at all. The lesson to learn is never leave yourself open to the next generation of technology. They're learning the Moore's Law lesson again.