After watching the second keynote from PDC last week, I’m now puzzled by Microsoft. In the first keynote, they seemed to get everything right. Embrace open source. Embrace cloud. Embrace what their customers want and need. Embrace strategic change. In the second keynote they seemed to do the opposite. Steven Sinofsky, in a somewhat self-congratulatory ‘review’ of the ‘lessons...
WordPress running on Windows Azure. You can see it announced, discussed and showcased from the 23:56 minute mark in Ray Ozzie’s opening keynote at Microsoft PDC this week: The reason this is so significant is because it represents an important strategic shift in the ‘yes we do support open source’ talk that Microsoft has been peddling pushing. This announcement is much more than Microsoft...
UPDATE: I’ve been using the AquaNotes Aqua Notepad for the last few weeks, and highly recommend it! I think best when I’m standing. And particularly well when I’m having a shower. In fact – but don’t picture this – some of my best ideas have been captured only as a result of me rushing out of the shower to excitedly explain a thought to my wife before they were lost in post shower...
Have you ever been involved in the hiring process for your company or team? If you have, then perhaps you’ve been astounded at how terrible the CVs of many highly intelligent candidates you interviewed were. Senior developers who excelled at their craft, were recognised as brilliant by their peers, and yet, couldn’t seem to put together a coherent CV to save themselves. Why? It’s a little...
If you’re like me, then you probably cringe when you see people referring to themselves as a ‘social media strategist’. And if they point to Gary Vaynerchuk as their main example of why you too should embrace social media then I really despair. Too often it seems, we’re told of the wonderful success stories, with scant mention of the hard work, sweat and perserverance these overnight...
One of the core building blocks of Microsoft’s success over the past decades has been its close relationship with partners. The Microsoft Partner Network (previously Partner Program) has helped Microsoft reach (via their partners) every conceivable sector of the myriad markets they service. And in return, Microsoft was known to be very loyal, supportive and even protective of its partners...