Felipe Rodriquez on Microsoft and the Internet's "paradigm shift"

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

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Cc: politech () politechbot com
From: felipe rodriquez <felipe () xs4all nl>
Subject: paradigm shift
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 12:51:09 +1100
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>

Declan,

Here is a little blurb I wrote yesterday:


I have this image forming in my mind about a cultural change through the 
Internet. Its about a community that becomes increasingly vocal, creative 
and constructive. Feel free to share it with others.

I have observed the Internet since 1989 and loved it myself for its 
potential. That drove me to start my company in '93. I've been virtually 
full-time immersed in the Internet since ~1991. I like it because of its 
community and because of the way people self organize to achieve a common 
goal. I have participated in many communities and usually loved it. In many 
ways it is human evolution into a very different future world, society and 
the international community will change, has changed, because of it. 
National boundaries start dissolving, some traditional legislation can no 
longer be enforced, new international subcultures form, communication can 
not be controlled, the media have a harder time fooling us et cetera. This 
has already happened.

Spontaneous self organization of people is what created the Internet. 
Before it became commercial it drove on academics who donated their time to 
participate in programming projects to develop the technology. The Internet 
was created by the people, not by a business. The US government funded the 
actual hardware network, but the software was mostly a community effort.

As the Internet is growing it is becoming more obvious what shape these 
initiatives are taking. There is a huge Open Source community that develops 
software that is free. That is where Linux, Darwin, FreeBSD et cetera come 
from. A clone for Microsoft Office was also created in that community, and 
a Microsoft emulator for Linux has been in development since 1993. The best 
anti-spam software also comes from it, the world wide web too, email too et 
cetera

Now these little communities move into other areas. I am very impressed by 
the Wikipedia project at www.wikipedia.org This is an online encyclopedia 
by the people for the people. It is completely free and operates on a 
shoestring.

People are opening their wireless connection for the community. With long 
range wireless like 802.16 people will start community networks, bypassing 
commercial companies. It will be like HAM Radio for the masses.

Who knows what happens next. In this world when there is a group of people 
that want something, there is a common goal, and they are online, then it 
simply happens. Geographical location is not that important anymore. The 
way we experience the world is undergoing tremendous changes and this 
causes friction. Governments have already had their anxiety and tried to do 
something about it by setting up censorship, surveillance and anti-spam 
legislation. The censorship laws had no effect at all, the Internet routes 
around it.

Not all fish know how to swim in this pond, it causes a culture clash for 
many people and companies.

Microsoft is wetting their pants because of their angst of the Open Source 
community. Free software is quickly catching up with the sophistication of 
Microsoft. Office has already been replicated. A good writer friend of mine 
in .nl always used Microsoft and has switched to Linux successfully. She is 
not a geek expert hacker chic.

The reason Microsoft is scared is not just because the competing products 
are catching up fast, it is also because Microsoft is increasingly under 
attack from hackers and virus writers. This has been going on for years, 
but now we're at a point that viruses come in by Email every day. Security 
has never been Microsoft's forte.

In the old days when I was a hacker the main problem was that suppliers 
would ship their unix mainframes with insecure settings. As a consequence 
it would be trivial to gain access and get superuser privileges. Most unix 
platforms that are shipped these days are watertight. Microsoft has a long 
road to go to match that kind of security, and many monsters lurk on that 
road to try and derail Microsoft.

Microsoft has a classic problem. Many companies and managers become very 
defensive when there is a threat. They fight tooth and nail to defeat the 
threat. This becomes a problem when the threat is the community at large. 
It is the same mistake Scientology made and is continuing to make. The 
Music industry is in this space too. So is SCO. Business-models will need 
to change in order to survive. Embracing the community is survival, 
coercion, legal battles against many individuals, aggression and 
incompetence are certain death.

Microsoft has always dealt with threats successfully. Most competitors have 
been wiped out. But can they win the sympathy of the community ? Can they 
transform themselves into a pink, warm and cuddly company ? Will they 
cooperate with the community to make a better product ? What other 
companies are adapting poorly ?

Examples of companies that are doing this well are IBM, Apple, Cisco, most 
Linux companies, Adobe. You can usually see by finding out if the company 
provides an open online forum where products and problems can be publicly 
discussed. For some reason many people and companies have a natural 
tendency to not accept these kinds of feedback systems because they easily 
feel threatened, they do not want their customers to organize themselves. 
But it makes economic sense to listen to customers and give them what they 
need, instead of being scared of the customer.

These are dilemmas many companies face. The world has changed much, is 
always changing. Old habits die hard. In some cases the old habit will kill 
the culprit. Darwinian evolution kicks in and takes out the elements that 
do not work. Some companies will die or become obsolete, others will 
mushroom. The trick will be identifying them. Which companies will 
understand that it is better to ride the wave than to swim against the stream ?

Don't invest in Encyclopedia companies :-)

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