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| Microsoft Lync puts people at the center of communications, connecting in new ways, across the PC, phone and browser. |
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REDMOND, Wash. — Nov. 17, 2010 — Three
years ago, the introduction of Microsoft Office Communications Server
(OCS) changed the way people stay connected. An individual’s identity
and presence became the center of business communication, thanks to the
integration of unified communications across e-mail, voice, instant
messaging, audio- and videoconference tasks — and even desktop sharing.
People could choose how to manage their conversations, redirect calls,
set their level of availability, and decide how and when they could be
reached.
In
2006, Bill Gates talked about the magic of software being poised to
help people manage communications amid the rush of business life, often
filled with an unrelenting combination of conference calls, e-mails,
faxes, voice mail messages, business trips, in-person meetings and
instant messages.
Microsoft
knew the time had come for a communications platform that could help
people navigate through all types of communication with colleagues,
partners and customers — to get work done faster and with less
frustration.
Office
Communications Server has been one of the fastest growing solutions at
Microsoft, experiencing double-digit growth over the past three years.
Fortune 500 companies, top pharmaceutical firms, successful financial
institutions and large communications providers have chosen Microsoft’s
unified communications platform to set their business up for success.
Employees
can connect with others inside and outside an organization in the most
effective way — just by clicking on someone’s “presence” status to tell
immediately whether the person is available for a phone call, instant
message, videoconference or e-mail.
Today, with the introduction of Lync at
a customer and partner event in New York City, communications takes
another giant step forward. Lync is the next generation of Microsoft’s
Office Communications Server, and makes staying in touch with others
even easier, more engaging and more intuitive. Gurdeep Singh Pall,
corporate vice president of the Microsoft Lync and Speech Group at
Microsoft, said Lync delivers on Gates’ vision, using the power of
software to make communications simpler, more open and more
cost-efficient for businesses of all types and sizes.
“Lync
meets the toughest enterprise standards, but was built with the way
people like to communicate in mind,” said Pall. “Any interaction can now
feel like a face-to-face conversation, because it can include video-
and audioconferencing, application and desktop sharing, instant
messaging and presence, and telephony. Lync works with the applications
people already use, so it’s easy to become comfortable with the
technology.”
Organizations
of all types and sizes are already committed to deploying Lync and
benefitting from this next generation of business communications
—including Boeing, Estee Lauder, Shell, France Telecom, Marquette
University, Nikon and Dow Corning.
A.T. Kearney,
a leading management consultancy firm that serves all major industries,
deployed Office Communications Server 2007 R2 three years ago so that
its highly mobile consultants could communicate more effectively with
clients, colleagues and family members. In the process it helped improve
the work-life balance of its consultants who have demanding,
travel-heavy schedules.
The
company recently upgraded its communications solution to Microsoft Lync
Server 2010 to take advantage of Lync’s advanced architecture, enhanced
videoconferencing, and increased ease of management.
“We
rely heavily on our Microsoft communications, collaboration and
messaging infrastructure to help our employees provide the best service
and complete projects on time and on budget,” said Kevin Rice, global
network architect at A.T. Kearney. “We provide the latest technologies
to help our consultants be successful, and we upgraded to Lync for its
communication capabilities, flexible environment and ease of IT
management.”
Lync
provides A.T. Kearney with the communications tools offered with Office
Communications Server 2007 R2, including presence, instant messaging,
robust conferencing and enterprise voice. But Lync also includes
improvements to deployment and management tools. A.T. Kearney expects to
deploy Lync to all its 3,400 employees in 37 locations across the world
by April 2011.
No
matter where they are, A.T. Kearney’s consultants have a familiar and
powerful way to communicate and collaborate using a sleek, simplified
Lync client that works with Microsoft Office, Microsoft SharePoint
Server and Microsoft Exchange, with a platform that allows the company
to embed communications in applications. With a glance, consultants can
tell if the person they need to talk to is in the office and available
to take a call. When consultants are on the phone, they can move from a
two-person conversation to a conference call with a click of the mouse,
or switch to a videoconference that includes colleagues and partners
from around the world.
“Many
of our employees work in small offices, at home or at client sites — so
the ability to communicate from all these locations has delighted our
employees,” said Rice.
Business Savings
Companies expect Lync to benefit employees, plus it also benefits their bottom line. Forrester Consulting recently published a Total Economic Impact (TEI) report that
found Lync 2010 offers customers 337 percent ROI with a total cost
benefit of US$18.6 million over three years. Lync 2010 can save
customers $3.8 million in travel costs while offering over $12 million
in increased worker productivity over the same period of time, with a
payback period of 12 months.
Industry Demand
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Lync meets the toughest enterprise standards, but was built with the way people like to communicate in mind. |
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Gurdeep Singh Pall, corporate vice president of the Microsoft Lync and Speech Group at Microsoft
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Today,
Microsoft partners in practically every industry — from consumer goods,
healthcare and legal and professional services to public safety and
emergency systems — are announcing 70 devices specifically designed for
Lync. Hardware products include headsets, webcams, Internet protocol
phones, telepresence systems and USB endpoints optimized for Lync, from
partners including Polycom, Aastra, Plantronics, Jabra, ClearOne,
Logitech and Radvision.
Microsoft
Lync Online will be available as part of Microsoft Office 365 next
year, for businesses of all sizes. Because Lync’s open platform provides
extensive interoperability across a wide variety of operating systems,
it is expected that Lync-based solutions will develop across a wide
spectrum of personal computing devices, browsers and mobile devices in
2011 and beyond.
“Five
years ago, Bill Gates predicted software would change the way people
communicate,” said Pall. “Lync delivers on that vision. It is a complete
platform built on software — marking the dawn of new communications
possibilities. While Microsoft is excited about this future, the most
important thing is that our customers and partners are fired up about
the technology. Not just about what is here today, but what’s to come
tomorrow.”
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by Ina Fried
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, speaking to CNET reporter Ina Fried after his talk at the Techonomy conference last week.
(Credit: Ina Fried/CNET)
NEAR
LAKE TAHOE, Calif.--Bill Gates says it's gratifying to see the computer
industry that he helped start turn some of its attention to broader
societal challenges.
"I
think there's increased awareness of using innovation to help in more
than just profit making," Gates told CNET in an interview on Friday,
following his speech at the Techonomy conference.
"When I think back to the conferences I went to earlier in the
industry, we were pretty darn focused on popularizing software and
personal computing. Nothing wrong with that, but it's nice to see the
evolution."
When
he wasn't addressing the crowd, Gates had the chance to debate battery
technology with Google co-founder Larry Page, hold several private
meetings, and meet Talia Leman, the 15-year-old chief executive of youth-oriented nonprofit RandomKid.org.
In a car on
his way to the airport, Gates spoke about his most recent efforts,
including last week's announcement that around 40 wealthy American
individuals and families had signed on to his Giving Pledge, agreeing to give half their wealth to charity.
As
for his part-time work at Microsoft, Gates said he's most involved in
search, but talks with CEO Steve Ballmer about a range of issues and
also has been sending messages to the Windows team about how to make
sure Apple's iPad doesn't wipe Microsoft out of the tablet game.
Below
is an edited transcript of the interview. I've also included a brief
video of Gates talking about software modeling--apologies in advance for
the video quality: it's a bit bumpy.
Q:
What was it like to see a conference organized on some of the things
you have been talking about--how technology can be applied to these
broader issues?
Gates: I think there's increased awareness of using innovation to help
in more than just profit making--innovation in education, the fact that
someone like DonorsChoose is here, even international development is
being discussed. When I think back to the conferences I went to earlier
in the industry, we were pretty darn focused on popularizing software
and personal computing.
Nothing
wrong with that, but it's nice to see the evolution. These are guys
I've known forever. I wonder how old Brent was when he first interviewed
me [30 years ago]. It's hard to start a new conference. It was good to
see it got off to quite a good start.
Plus, do you get a lot of opportunity to debate battery technology with Larry Page?
Gates: It was great talking to Larry. Larry is a very easy guy to talk
too. We think a lot alike about a lot of things. That alone was quite
valuable.
One of the things you have been talking about for a while is hoping to convince others who have had similar significant good fortune to share that. how did it feel to see so many sign on to the Giving Pledge?
Gates: We're very happy to see where that stands. It's about getting
people to think about younger in life than they might otherwise, getting
them to get more involved. It's not easy to dive in, pick something you
feel good about. We've good a good size group now that will learn a lot
from each other.
That
to me is actually one of the coolest things about it. We definitely had
people who were putting the issue off because it involves thinking
about your will, kids, hiring professionals and things like that. It's
easy to put it off.
And the money isn't necessarily going to the Gates Foundation.
Gates: To some charitable thing, whether they create their own
foundation or whatever they do. Our foundation has picked a few things
that we focus on, whereas the Giving Pledge celebrates the diversity of
givers. There are many, many worthy causes that our foundation isn't
involved in. The two things are very distinct.
Anyway, it's been fun talking to people.
Are you and Larry Ellison going to hang out more?
Gates: Actually he and I exchanged e-mail. This lets us have
philanthropy as a topic to discuss. I hadn't exchanged e-mail with Larry
for certainly over a decade. Back then it would have been "How is your
Windows version coming" or something. Warren [Buffett] was the one who
talked to him over the phone, but I really thanked him and we had a good
exchange. Of the 40 people, there were a lot of great stories there.
Larry was kind of an exemplar of somebody that you wouldn't necessarily
have expected. He was actually thinking he would be quiet about what he
was doing, but we convinced him both in learning and convincing others
it was great to join [the Giving Pledge].
You
talked about this notion that one of the things that is needed for
combating disease and handling a lot of large systems is better software
modeling. Why is that so important?
Gates: If we want to find new compounds that work, trying them all out
can be a very slow process. If we can model what is going on genetically
with the disease, model the shapes of the proteins...model that
interaction, we can understand what drugs will cause side effects before
we do long, multiyear, $100 million trials. Modeling software will
improve the efficiency in the field. We are seeing that everywhere,
whether it is designing cars,
planes. All this modeling capability is letting design cycles be
better, higher quality. It's really the toolset that is driving
innovation.
Is the foundation going to be designing this software?
Gates: No, no, no. Well, there is this one particular area that I'm
funding in a foundation way, which is this disease modeling software.
There's many different categories. The [disease modeling software]
thing, we've just decided it should be free and available for
researchers to connect up to. A lot of these things, whether it is heat
modeling, or things we used for various innovations for the poor, we're
just using the commercial packages, which are great.
I have a thing called Global Good,
which is how I fund invention science through a group that Nathan
Myhrvold has. Disease modeling, I've funded. Over 2011, we'll be putting
it out for researchers to work with.
Obviously,
most of your time is spent on the foundation stuff. Are there still
specific projects you are deeply involved in at Microsoft
Gates: Well, I am a board member and that is a reasonably serious thing.
Steve [Ballmer] brainstorms with me. When new product milestones come
along, like some planning in Office, I'll be a part of that. Search is
probably the one where I spend the most ongoing time.
I
know tablets are a long-held vision of yours. A certain tablet has been
getting a lot of attention and it's not necessarily one that uses your
software. Is that one area you still want to put your two cents in?
Gates: There's certainly a lot of mail from me to the Windows group
talking about how to make sure Windows is the best choice for all sorts
of new form factors.
 During
her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times,
changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley.
These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina.
View Original Article
|
 There
are few people that I admire more than Mr. Bill Gates. During my
lifetime, he has been by far the most impressive business person in the
areas that are important to me as a business owner. As a teen ager, he
had the creativity and vision to see PC and Operating System opportunity
when most others didn’t. He then had the business sense to leverage
the opportunity to create a successful business. After that, he
succeeded at maintaining an active control of the company thru ought an
amazing growth trajectory over the next 20 years or so, which few
Founders can say. And finally, he has (or is, I should say)
successfully utilizing his successes, both monetarily and politically,
to fuel his passion of making the world a better place for everyone.
How could you ask for more?
|
by David John Walker
Twenty-six
year old Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO of social networking giant
Facebook, was named Time’s “Person of the Year” for 2010. Zuckerberg,
who is one of the world’s first billionaires, owns about 25% of
Facebook’s shares, and has also distinguished himself as an important
new philanthropist.
Zuckerberg
joined Giving Pledge, an organization led by Microsoft founder Bill
Gates and investor Warren Buffet to get the richest people in America to
increase their charitable contributions. Earlier this year Zuckerberg
promised to give $100 million to the Newark, NJ school system over the
next five years.
Time’s
“Person of the Year” title is given to someone who has most affected
the culture and news throughout the year, for good or bad. Time said it
named Zuckerberg “Person of the year “For connecting more than half a
billion people and mapping the social relations among them; for creating
a news system of exchanging information; and for changing how we all
live our lives,”.
Federal
Chairman Ben Bernanke last year was named Time’s “Person of the Year”,
President Barack Obama received the honor in 2008, and Russian Prime
Minister Vladimir Putin was the winner in 2007.
|
By AMY-MAE ELLIOTT - July 20, 2010 (View Original Aritcle)
This 1978 file photo made available by Microsoft Corp. shows the 11 people who started Microsoft. Photo: AP
Despite ever-increasing Mac sales, Microsoft still has an undisputed dominance over the computer industry.
With
such a vast presence, much has already been written about Microsoft:
its history, its products, even its former CEO Bill Gates. For those
itching to know even more, we've dug up 10 snippets of info that you
might not have heard before.
What
experimental musician created the Windows start-up sound? How do they
celebrate anniversaries? Does Microsoft have a “pest” problem? Have a
read of our Microsoft-themed facts, stats and trivia and let us know
your thoughts in the comments below.
1. “Micro-soft's” first ever mention
The
first ever mention of “Microsoft” was in a letter from Bill Gates to
co-founder Paul Allen in 1975. Gates initially wrote the company name as
Micro-soft, which made sense considering it's a portmanteau of “microcomputer” and “software.”
Losing
the hyphen, “Microsoft” was officially registered as a company in
November 1976 in New Mexico where Gates and Allen were working with
their first major customer, MITS. Microsoft didn't move to its current
campus in Redmond, Washington until 1986.
The
Microsoft logo has changed several times over the years, the current
“Pac-Man” logo was introduced in 1987, but previous to that was the
“blibbet” logo that's pictured above. The “blibbet” refers to the
stylised “o” and was apparently once the name of a burger served in the
Microsoft company cafeteria.
2. Brian Eno composed “The Microsoft Sound”
Pioneering musician Brian Eno was the musical brains behind Window 95's start up tune, dubbed “The Microsoft Sound.”
The influential musician, who has worked with the likes of David Bowie and U2, told the San Francisco Chronicle that making such a short piece of music was “funny” and “amazing.” Eno likened the process to “making a tiny little jewel.”
Other
musical trivia from the launch of Windows 95 is, of course, the use of
The Rolling Stones “Start Me Up” in the ad campaign, while a related Eno
fact is that he also composed the music for the computer game Spore.
3. Microsoft's favourite food is Pizza
Although not quite at Google's level
of snack-tastic, free-for-all wonder, Microsoft does offer free drinks.
Over 23 million gratis beverages are downed on the corporate campus
each year.
Apparently
the top two drinks of choice for Microsoft staffers are milk and OJ.
There's also free confectionery on the Microsoft campus shuttle.
As
far as food goes, Microsoft has around 35 cafeterias serving around
37,000 people each day. Pizza tops the list of most popular meal.
4. Microsoft uses codenames
Ever since the company's first operating system, Microsoft has worked on its projects under codenames, of which Wikipedia has a long list.
Apparently Gates was ready to launch Windows under the name “Interface
Manager” before he was persuaded to change it by an employee.
Past
codenames include “Longhorn”, “Lone Star", and “Vienna”. While you
might be tempted to add “Mojave” to that list, it's actually part of a
Microsoft ad campaign. The “Mojave Experiment” was a marketing exercise that battled Vista's poor PR by presenting the software to new users as a fresh product.
5. The average “softie”
The average Microsoft employee, or “Softie” as they call themselves, is a 38-year-old male with the average salary for a developer coming in at $US106,000.
Microsoft
currently employs 88,180 people who work across 32,404,796 square feet
of Microsoft's premises, over 50,000 of which are US-based. The male to
female ratio is very high among Microsoft's American employees with a
staggering 76% male workforce.
6. Microsoft celebrates anniversaries with M&Ms
All
companies have their little in-house traditions, and Microsoft is no
exception. It seems it's customary for Softies to celebrate their yearly
employment anniversaries with confectionery, and more specifically,
M&Ms.
Each
anniversary, a Microsoft employee is expected to provide one pound of
M&Ms for every year they've worked. That means if Bill Gates
observed the tradition, he should have turned up with 33 pounds (14.96
kilograms) of M&Ms on June 27, 2008.
7. Microsoft's stock has split nine times
Microsoft
has split its stock nines times since it went public back in March
1986. Put very, very simply, a company will generally split its stock
when its share price becomes too high.
Since
Microsoft has had six 2-for-1 splits and three 3-for-1 splits, one
original Microsoft share would now be equal to 288 shares today.
Interestingly the price of Microsoft's stock at its initial public
offering was $21 a share, at the time of writing a share is now around
the $US23 mark. One original MSFT share would now be worth over
$US6,000.
8. Microsoft has a huge art collection
No, we're not talking about Clip Art. Microsoft is one of thelargest corporate collectors of
artworks with over 5,000 contemporary pieces including painting,
sculpture, works on paper, photographs, ceramics, studio glass, and
multimedia works. Microsoft gathers arts from local artists, up-and-coming artists and big names such as Cindy Sherman, Chuck Close and Takashi Murakami.
A
large proportion of the works are on display at more than 150 of
Microsoft's many campuses, as the company subscribes to the belief that
art in the workplace reduces stress, increases productivity and
encourages discussions and expression of opinions.
9. Microsoft asks strange interview questions
Microsoft
has a reputation in the industry for asking off-beat, off-the-wall
questions during its job interview. The most oft-quoted question is:
“Why is a manhole cover round?”
Whether this particular example is genuine, or an urban legend, it's
certainly true that Microsoft employs a very unusual and
forward-thinking interview process. It's even rumored that companies
like Google have since emulated the style.
Rather than plain “Where do you see yourself in five years” type questions, Microsoft is more likely to ask you
to solve a logic puzzle or think through a problem like “Design a
coffee maker that will be used by astronauts”. Obviously, Microsoft
isn't planning to go into the coffee-in-space industry anytime soon, but
the process serves to find candidates that can think creatively.
10. Microsoft holds over 10,000 patents
Microsoft holds over 10,000 patents and files around 3,000 every year, ranking as one of the top five patent owners in the US.
Although
a large majority of the patents relate to obscure elements of software,
the 5,000th and 10,000th were consumer-friendly, easily-understandable
ideas. The 5,000th was for tech in Xbox 360 games that lets people
“watch” a video game remotely, while the 10,000th was for the Microsoft
Surface, linking real-life objects with data and images.
Microsoft
also rewards its staff members for securing a new patent. Besides a
$1,500 bonus, they get a wooden plaque and a decorative black “cube”
that features their name, as well as the title and date of the patent.
BONUS: The Microsoft campus is full of bunnies!
Mashable's very own Jolie O'Dell found a great factoid about the Microsoft Corporate Campus she gleaned while on a recent visit.
“So,
back in the mists of time, some people dumped a bunch of rapidly
reproducing pet bunnies — leftovers from kids' Easter gifts — on a
grassy knoll near the MSFT campus,” Jolie said. “The bunnies started
doing what bunnies do best, that is, making more bunnies.
"At
one point, there were so many that MSFT staff had to start catching
them and having them spayed and neutered! Nowadays, you'll still see
lots of rabbits hopping around, though. Way cuter than Google's goats.”
It seems the bunny proliferation has been a long term issue. According to a 1998 Seattle Times article, the “Redmond rabbit problem” does not just affect Microsoft, but Nintendo, Eddie Bauer and other companies in the area.
The problem back then spawned the Redmond Rabbit Coalition group (many members of which are now involved in the current day Evergreen Rabbit Rescue) who campaign for a humane solution to the ongoing pest problem.
Mashable.com is the world's largest blog focused exclusively on social media new
(View Original Aritcle)
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By Michael Johnston
In the San Francisco Bay area during the 1970s, a revolution was
brewing. The emergence of an area dubbed "Silicon Valley" brought about a
surge in technological development that changed the world forever. Two
young innovators at the forefront of that revolution, Bill Gates and
Paul Allen, founded what eventually became Microsoft. Sensing a
tremendous opportunity in the computer market, Gates dropped out of
Harvard to pursue his dream -- no doubt a decision that changed the
course of tech history.
 Microsoft,
of course, would come to dominate the personal computer market, making
its founders billions of dollars in the process. Gates is counted as one
of the wealthiest men in the world. So what does a billionaire do with
the massive fortune he has accumulated? Invest it, of course. Gates
remains active with his fortune, owning several investment firms as well
as the being the single largest shareholder in Microsoft. He is the
author and co-author of several books and is a well-known
philanthropist. Though no investments have paid off as handsomely as his
initial bet on Microsoft, Gates has built a rather impressive track
record over the past several decades, multiplying his fortune several
times over.
GATES' BETS
Among Gates' recent areas of investment focus: cleaner car technology,
specifically through the engine manufacturer EcoMotors. Gates recently
allocated $23.5 million to this Detroit-based company because he
believes our combustion engines are quickly becoming a thing of the
past. The engines EcoMotors hopes to build "will have less mass, will
cost less to make, will be more fuel-efficient and will generate lower
emissions," Jolie O'Dell writes. The products will be opposed-cylinder
engines, and will use roughly half the parts of the average automobile
engine. Gates' contribution has given the firm the funds it needs to
test and produce a prototype in the coming months.
Through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Microsoft's founder has
pledged support to a variety of philanthropic initiatives around the
world. In 2010, one of the organization's focuses has been Africa. A
partnership with Coca-Cola(KO) is designed to benefit fruit farmers in
Uganda. Gates has visited Nigeria twice over the past two years,
pledging at least $150 million to fight polio there. Beyond simply
donating medicine and food, Gates has taken an interest in helping
African farmers and other workers in improving the viability and
profitability of their small businesses. Gates seems committed to
helping Africa help itself, and he has the money to make quite an impact
(especially in the wake of a recent pledge by a number of American
billionaires to give away half their wealth to charity).
Read more here.
|
  ZoomSo
far, we only know that the company is called Cocomo. There is no office
yet, but just the note that he is hiring and that he won't be able to
talk about the business "for some months". Ozzie indicated that the team
includes people he worked with before. Boston.com reported that former Microsoft executives
Matt Pope is a co-founder of Cocomo, and Ransom Richardson, another
former Microsoft executive, joined the company as well.
There is a first public job posting that seeks a lead UX designer, for both smartphone and tablet iOS
and Android platforms. The candidate the company would consider will
have "had a minimum of several years of experience designing, building
and delivering mobile apps on platforms such as iPhone, iPad,
and Android." There are several notes that the individual will have to
"understand and embrace the conceptual models, constraints and
affordances of the mobile/social design environment", which would
include "Email & SMS, Facebook, Google+, Twitter".
Ozzie
left Microsoft in October 2010 and hinted that he may be looking at
some opportunities to realize a "post-PC world". Ozzie, recently updated
his blog earlier this week with some tweaks, but no new posts. In six years, Ozzie only posted to his blog twice
- when he announced his resignation from Microsoft in 2010 and when his
previous company, Groove, was acquired by Microsoft in 2005.
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Paul Allen says his philanthropic efforts will continue after his death.
msnbc.com staff and news service reports
updated 7/15/2010 2:55:32 PM ET
SEATTLE
— Paul Allen has become the latest billionaire to sign on to a
challenge by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to get America's wealthiest
people to donate the bulk of their riches to charity.
In a
statement Thursday, Allen, who co-founded Microsoft Corp. with Gates,
said he plans to leave the majority of his estate, valued at roughly
$13.5 billion, to philanthropy.
Allen, 57, made the pledge on the same day he commemorated the 20th anniversary of the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, which has handed out more than $400 million in grants and funding for nonprofits in the Pacific Northwest.
Allen,
who announced in November he was undergoing treatment for
non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, said he has planned to give away the bulk of his
fortune for some time, but had not gone public with his intentions
until now.
"Since the beginning, our philanthropy has been focused
in the Pacific Northwest, where I live and work. I'm proud to have
helped fund great work done by nonprofit groups throughout the region.
But there's always more to do," Allen said.
"Today I also want to
announce that my philanthropic efforts will continue after my
lifetime. I’ve planned for many years now that the majority of my
estate will be left to philanthropy to continue the work of the
Foundation and to fund nonprofit scientific research, like the
ground-breaking work being done at the Allen Institute for Brain
Science. As our philanthropy continues in the years ahead, we will look
for new opportunities to make a difference in the lives of future
generations."
Allen follows in the footsteps of former business
partner Gates and billionaire investor Buffett, who last month kicked
off a public campaign to get U.S. billionaires to pledge the vast
majority of their wealth to philanthropy.
Allen, the 37th richest person in the world according to Forbes magazine, co-founded Microsoft in 1975 with Gates and resigned as an executive in 1983 as he overcame a first bout with cancer.
He
has been involved with philanthropy in the Pacific Northwest for 20
years, largely through his Paul G. Allen Family Foundation.
Allen
owns the Seattle Seahawks football team and the Portland Trail Blazers
basketball team and is a minority owner of the Seattle Sounders soccer
team. He created the Experience Music Project pop museum in Seattle.
In addition to Gates and Buffett — the two richest Americans
with a combined net worth of $90 billion, according to Forbes magazine —
others who have taken the pledge to commit at least half their fortune
to charity include Los Angeles philanthropist Eli Broad, former
chairman of insurer SunAmerica Inc. and founder of homebuilder KB Home,
joined by his wife, Edythe; Silicon Valley's John and Tashia
Morgridge, whose fortune came from Cisco Systems; venture capitalist
John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins and his wife, Ann; media entrepreneur
Gerry Lenfest and his wife, Marguerite; and New York City Mayor Michael
Bloomberg, founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent
Bloomberg LP.
The principals behind the campaign have set up a website, givingpledge.org, explaining the effort.
"While
the Giving Pledge is specifically focused on billionaires, the idea
takes its inspiration from efforts in the past and at present that
encourage and recognize givers of all financial means and backgrounds,"
the site says. "We are inspired by the example set by millions of
Americans who give generously (and often at great personal sacrifice) to
make the world a better place."
Read full article
|
|
By Thomas E. Weber
Without
fanfare, 2010 marked the 25th anniversary of Microsoft Excel. Thomas E.
Weber tracks down the program's developer and discovers how it almost
didn't make it into stores—and the big idea Bill Gates lost forever. In a
year when big names froExm the digital realm profoundly affected the
world—Mark Zuckerberg or Julian Assange, take your pick—it's appropriate
to add one more: Douglas Klunder.
While
largely unnoticed, 2010 marked the 25th anniversary of perhaps the most
revolutionary software program ever, Microsoft Excel, and Klunder, now
an unassuming attorney and privacy activist for the American Civil
Liberties Union in Washington state, gave it to us.
These
days, with daily life so intertwined with the digital world, it isn’t
hard to acknowledge the ramifications of a Facebook or a WikiLeaks. Back
in 1985, though, most folks still couldn’t understand why they’d want a
personal computer (“Maybe I can keep my recipes on it?”), let alone
contemplate how software might alter the course of human events. Reagan
was in the White House, Wham! had the year’s top song (“Careless
Whisper”), and Microsoft had yet to go public.
Yet
if you had to pick a technological development that has fundamentally
altered society, you could do worse than Excel. Sure, PowerPoint gets
all the laughs for its clichéd role in the corporate environment. But
Excel is the program that has launched thousands of startups and
justified millions of layoffs, planned out household budgets and charted
the course for complex securities that almost took down the economy.
For better or worse, it is the software that has given everyone the
means to play with numbers and ask, “What if?”
For
Doug Klunder, the mission 25 years ago wasn’t so grandiose. As lead
developer of Excel, he was handed the job of vaulting Microsoft—then
known best for MS-DOS, the operating system in IBM’s PCs—to the
forefront in business applications. “We decided it was time to do a new,
better spreadsheet,” recalls Klunder, now 50, who joined Microsoft
straight out of MIT in 1981 (part of the interview process included
lunch with Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer at a Shakey’s pizza parlor).
The
electronic spreadsheet was essentially invented in 1979 by software
pioneer Dan Bricklin, who started up Software Arts with Bob Frankston
and created VisiCalc. The technology took a huge next step in 1983 when
Mitch Kapor’s Lotus Development Corp. rolled out Lotus 1-2-3, which
integrated charts and spreadsheets in the same program. Soon IBM PCs,
loaded with Microsoft’s MS-DOS and Lotus 1-2-3, were pushing aside
mainframe terminals in corporate offices.
Microsoft
already had its own spreadsheet, Multiplan, but lagged in sales behind
1-2-3. And so Klunder and a small team sequestered themselves in the Red
Lion Hotel in Bellevue, Washington, for three days of meetings to plan
out what Excel would look like. The group included Klunder’s friend Jabe
Blumenthal, who was to become the program manager, along with Charles
Simoyni—a Microsoft executive who would eventually become a billionaire
and two-time space tourist—and Gates himself. They had a big paper
tablet on an easel for notes, but spent most of the time arguing back
and forth about how best to respond to 1-2-3, Klunder recalls.
“There
were two things that were the overriding goals,” Klunder says. “One was
simply loading it up with features. The other—looking back know, it
sounds kind of crazy. But at the time it was major. Speed, and speed of
recalculation.” Those early PCs couldn’t crank through numbers the way
today’s powerhouse machines can, with the result that changing a number
in a spreadsheet could bring things to a halt while the change rippled
through all the interconnected calculations.
Klunder
and his team came up with “intelligent recalc,” an approach where the
program updated only the cells affected by the data change rather than
all the formulas in the spreadsheet. Klunder credits Gates with the idea
for how to implement the feature—though he says Gates eventually told
him he hadn’t implemented what he had in mind at all. Klunder thinks
Gates misremembered the discussion, but adds, “Maybe he actually did
have a more brilliant idea that now is lost forever.”
At
the outset, the entire Excel development team was three people, and
Klunder estimates he wrote a third of the original code himself. Before
the program was done, that group had grown to nearly a dozen—still a far
cry from the hundreds of developers teamed together on big applications
today.
But
Microsoft was a much different place then. Its IPO was still some
months away; the Microsoft millionaires hadn’t yet been minted. (Klunder
says the records aren’t clear, but he figures he was somewhere between
employee No. 45 and No. 65.) When Excel kicked off, Microsoft, which
today fills a corporate campus of dozens of buildings in Redmond,
Washington, could still fit in one building (making it possible for
Gates to drop by all parts of the operation). “The whole concept of him
as the big boss was not nearly as much in play,” Klunder remembers.
“This was before Microsoft went public. In many ways he was just one of
the guys.”
The
location was known simply as the Northup building on Bellevue’s Northup
Way, and all the developers had private offices—some with windows, some
on the inside. Klunder recalls voluntarily giving up his window office.
“I was literally living in my office, sleeping just a few hours a night
and cranking out code around the clock, and the window office got too
cold at night.”
Odd
as it might seem now, that first version of Microsoft Excel was
designed for the Apple Macintosh. Originally it was to be a DOS program,
but the industry was moving to graphical interfaces—the Mac had debuted
in 1984, while Microsoft would introduce the first Windows late in
1985. With Excel already behind schedule, the decision was made to
switch to Mac—a tumultuous change that prompted Klunder to leave
Microsoft temporarily. “It caused a bit of a problem when I left in the
middle,” he recalls. “Rather than trying to write everything down, I
presented what was essentially a three-day lecture on Excel’s design …
that was videotaped for reference.” Fortunately for the project, he
returned.
Endless
“beta” versions and elaborate testing procedures were still in the
future. Microsoft had announced Excel earlier in 1985, promising a ship
date of Sept. 30. Racing to meet that commitment, Klunder and his team
worked late into the night on Sept. 29 and into the earlier hours of
Sept. 30. “We were doing our last bug tests. We made our master disk and
my boss drove to the disk duplicator to get it into a few stores so we
could say we made our Sept. 30 date.”
While
preparing the disks in the middle of the night, someone had the idea of
changing the time stamp on the computer to disguise how close they were
cutting their deadline. Then someone else loaded a copy of Lotus 1-2-3
and saw that it too had been finished in the wee hours of the morning,
Klunder says.
They
worried greatly about making the program error-free. “Even being kids
and mainly doing what’s cool, we still had some awareness that people
were putting in real dollar values [into spreadsheets]. The thing we
thought could kill Excel and the future or spreadsheets was a math
error,” Klunder says.
Looking
at Excel today, despite the many changes and elaborate features that
have been added over the years, Klunder still sees the foundation that
he and his teammates worked on. He says he doesn’t necessarily notice
things he wishes he had changed. “It’s more some of the things we threw
in that I look at and wonder, why did we bother?” For instance, he says,
some of the options in the “Paste Special” function still seem obscure.
“We did them because it seemed really cool that we could,” he says.
Klunder
went on to other roles, including lead developer of Microsoft Money,
the personal-finance program. But by 1992, he was ready to move on. Long
interested in how technology was affecting personal privacy, he began
volunteering for the ACLU. “After a few years of that, people started
assuming I was a lawyer. So I decided, what the heck, I’ll be a lawyer.”
He earned a law degree from the University of Washington and has
remained active on the privacy scene ever since.
“I
thought it was pretty obvious early on the danger presented by
technology and computing in terms of losing our privacy. I always had
somewhat of a love-hate relationship with technology, and I still do,”
Klunder says. On balance, though, he sees the personal-computing
revolution as positive for privacy. “Prior to that, it was only large
entities with technology. So at least there’s something of a level
playing field. But now as we move to the cloud, all that may be
reversing,” he says.
As
for Excel, Klunder still considers it a powerful tool. But he harbors
no illusions about how it can be abused. “It’s the same thing with
PowerPoint—Excel lets things look professional, and people assume
there’s substance behind it.”
Thomas
E. Weber covers technology for The Daily Beast. He is a former bureau
chief and columnist at The Wall Street Journal and was editor of the
award-winning SmartMoney.com. Follow him on Twitter.
|
By Mary Jo Foley
It’s been a while since the Redmondians have talked up “Dryad,”
Microsoft’s answer to Google’s MapReduce and Apache’s Hadoop. (I think
the last time Dryad got any coverage outside the research community was
when Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates mentioned it to the New York Times in
2006.)
Dryad is an ongoing Microsoft Research project
dedicated to developing ways to write parallel and distributed programs
that can scale from small clusters to large datacenters. There’s a
DryadLINQ compiler and runtime that is related to the project. Microsoft
released builds of Dryad and DryadLINQ code to academics for
noncommercial use in the summer 2009.
It looks like Dryad is ready to take the next step. Microsoft is
planning to move the Dryad stack from Microsoft Research to Microsoft’s
Technical Computing Group. The plan is to deliver a first Community
Technology Preview (CTP) test build of the stack in November 2010 and to
release a final version of it running on Windows Server High
Performance Computing servers by 2011, according to a slide from an
August 2010 presentation by one of the principals working on Dryad.
Read more here.
|
29 Dec 2010 08:54 AM
-
by Janice Vanos, Contributing Writer; Image: Facebook and Twitter,
along with other social networking sites, are facing an SEC
investigation that may require them to go public
Social
networking giant, Facebook, is facing an Securities and Exchange
Commission (SEC) investigation that end with the company having to go
public. Twitter, Zynga, and LinkedIn are also facing a similar investigation.
The
investigation is centering on the private stock holdings of the
companies in question. By law, no privately-held company can have 500
or more stock options available.
Recent websites, such as SharePost and SecondMarket, facilitate the share trading of privately held companies, such as Facebook.
Many
executives and company officers who have been with Facebook, and the
other social networking companies, for several years have begun selling
their private shares of the company through these sites and through
other methods. According to sources close to the investigation,
reported by the New York Times, this sharing is likely to have pushed
some of these companies over the 499 shares threshold, meaning that they
must make a public offering and disclose financial information
publicly.
The
same happened to Google in 2003 and to Microsoft in 1986. Bill Gates,
CEO and founder of Microsoft, originally opposed the move for the public
offering but was forced into it and wound up becoming one of the
richest men in the world.
Facebook
executives insist that they are opposed to a public offering of a
company that, with 500 million users, might prove to be highly
lucrative.
Paul Allen Lawsuit
Paul
Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, has added to Facebook's woes by filing
an amended lawsuit on December 28. Allen, whose original lawsuit was
rejected for being too vague, is suing Facebook, and Apple, AOL, eBay,
Google, and others for patent infringements.
The
lawsuit is primarily targets Google's Android platform and the apps
related to it. Furthermore, the suit targets Facebook for its "related
photos" feature, along with AOL for its own "related news" feature.
Apple (through iTunes) is also being sued for its own "related albums"
feature. The other companies have similar features, for which they are
being sued.
Google's
Gmail and AOL are also being sued for their spam filters which,
according to Allen, infringe on Microsoft's email patents.
Most
importantly, if the lawsuit is successful, Android users will lose a
lot of the apps that they currently use and the Android system may be
heavily damaged.
For now, however, Facebook is entering the new year following a dramatic ending to 2010.
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NEW YORK | Wed Aug 4, 2010 12:34pm EDT
(Reuters)
- A total of 40 U.S. billionaires have pledged to give away at least 50
percent of their wealth as part of a campaign by investor Warren
Buffett and Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
Gates
and Buffett launched "The Giving Pledge" in June to convince hundreds
of U.S. billionaires to give away most of their fortune during their
lifetimes or after their deaths and to publicly state their intention
with a letter of explanation.
Here are some excerpts from letters written by billionaires taking the pledge:
*
Laura and John Arnold, hedge fund manager: "We view our wealth in this
light -- not as an end in itself, but as an instrument to effect
positive and transformative change."
*
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg: "If you want to do something for
your children and show how much you love them, the single best thing --
by far -- is to support organizations that will create a better world
for them and their children. And by giving, we inspire others to give of
themselves, whether their money or their time."
*
Philanthropist Eli and Edythe Broad: "Those who have been blessed with
extraordinary wealth have an opportunity, some would say a
responsibility -- we consider it a privilege -- to give back to their
communities, be they local, national or global."
*
Investor Warren Buffett: "Were we to use more than one percent of my
claim checks (Berkshire Hathaway stock certificates) on ourselves,
neither our happiness nor our well-being would be enhanced. In contrast,
that remaining 99 percent can have a huge effect on the health and
welfare of others."
*
Microsoft founder Bill and Melinda Gates: "We have been blessed with
good fortune beyond our wildest expectations, and we are profoundly
grateful. But just as these gifts are great, so we feel a great
responsibility to use them well. That is why we are so pleased to join
in making an explicit commitment to the Giving Pledge."
*
Hotel magnate Barron Hilton: "It is my hope that others are inspired by
my father's story, and by our family's steadfast adherence to his
charitable philosophy."
*
Corporate executive Jon and Karen Huntsman: "It has been clear to me
since my earliest childhood memories that my reason for being was to
help others."
*
Banker George Kaiser: "I had the advantage of both genetics (winning
the 'ovarian lottery') and upbringing. As I looked around at those who
did not have these advantages, it became clear to me that I had a moral
obligation to direct my resources to help right that balance."
*
Media entrepreneur Gerry and Marguerite Lenfest: "The ultimate
achievement in life is how you feel about yourself. And giving your
wealth away to have an impact for good does help with that feeling."
*
Business Wire founder Lorry Lokey: "There's an old saying about farmers
putting back in to the ground via fertilizer what they take out. So it
is with money. The larger the estate, the more important it is to
revitalize the soil."
*
Moviemaker George Lucas: "My pledge is to the process; as long as I
have the resources at my disposal, I will seek to raise the bar for
future generations of students of all ages. I am dedicating the majority
of my wealth to improving education."
*
Tashia and John Morgridge, former Cisco CEO: "The more personally
involved we have become with the causes we support the more effective we
seem to be."
*
Peter Peterson, founder of Blackstone Group equity firm: "As I watched
and learned from my father's example, I noticed how much pleasure his
giving to others gave him. Indeed, today, I get much more pleasure
giving money to what I consider worthwhile causes than making the money
in the first place."
*
David Rockefeller, patriarch of the Rockefeller family: "Our family
continues to be united in the belief that those who have benefited the
most from our nation's economic system have a special responsibility to
give back to our society in meaningful ways."
*
Jeff Skoll, former eBay executive: "The world is a vast and complicated
place and it needs each of us doing all we can to ensure a brighter
tomorrow for future generations."
*
Asset manager Tom Steyer and Kat Taylor: "Surely the pleasure we derive
from St. Francis' active verbs of consoling, understanding, loving,
giving and pardoning far outweigh any selfish and passive pleasures of
owning, having, or possessing."
*
Media magnate Ted Turner: "I'm particularly thankful for my father's
advice to set goals so high that they can't possibly be achieved during a
lifetime and to give help where help is needed most. That inspiration
keeps me energized and eager to keep working hard every day on giving
back and making the world a better place for generations to come."
*
Former Citigroup executive Sanford and Joan Weill: "Our Pledge is this:
We will continue to give away all of the wealth we have been so
fortunate to make except for a very small percentage allocated to our
children and grandchildren between now and the time we pass because we
are firm believers that shrouds don't have pockets."
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