Bill Gates on iTunes Store: another interesting memo

I wonder if the way he phrased it -- the idea of a "windows download service" -- indicates he was thinking about what it would do for Microsoft (especially versus Apple) rather than what it could do for potential customers. I can sympathize as I certainly find it baffling to empathize with average users, especially the ones with warped mental models who think Yahoo or Google is the Internet.

Anyway, Bill Gates knows Apple has better design (as indicated in this memo) and that Steve Jobs has better taste than he does (he's said publicly he'd give a lot to have it).

The Zune marketplace wasn't even Microsoft's first entry. They started with PlaysForSure as a way to elbow in on a market despite not having a player (not to mention a music store).

The Zune isn't an answer to anything but "What would an iPod look like 8 years ago, if the morons who designed your crappy washer and dryer from 1986 worked on it?"

Or Microsoft itself. It's probably a collection of small mistakes and bigger ones that agglutinate together in a couple HUGE ones.

How very convenient it would be if all huge failures could be attributed to a single person!

I don't know. Who is "We all?" I think people who know have been saying Bill Gates is smart for ages. I really do truly hate Microsoft, from the bottom of my heart, because how bad and ugly most of their stuff is weighs deeply on my sensitive aesthetic sense. Just knowing I have to share a planet and 99.9% of my genome with people who are happy with that crap causes me deep existential anxiety. So there aren't many people who hate Microsoft more then me. But, I always thought Bill Gates was really smart. As much as I hate Microsoft, that kind of evil is a smart evil.

The problem is, first of all, that all this evaluation doesn't mean shit if you don't fire the people responsible for your crap sucking, and second of all, that no one is really responsible for things not sucking. The problem with MS is the MBA's, and that anyone with a strong enough vision to make stuff not suck will have to bump heads with very powerful institutional forces that pull MS towards suckage.

The problem isn't quite someone at microsoft as the fact there is no one there with power AND taste who can make a big difference. (there are maybe a few at low levels, there are some of microsoft things that don't suck, and that even evidence taste, but it's the rare exception not the rule.)

This is probably from discovery from a legal case. In those situations, paper is usually shuffled around and then scanned into PDFs. Sending the original electronic form would make it easier for opposing counsel to work.

insightful? yes. surprising that he's insightful? no.

I'd rather see a daring fireball link with some commentary then a direct link to a pdf

Gruber found it. He doesn't deserve to be disintermediated.

Besides, I think his commentary is often spot on.

According to guidelines for this site, you can get rid of the "preface" before the link.

On one hand, I'd rather read Gruber then the seattle PI.

On the other hand, I read his blog daily.