Barbarians Led by Bill Gates
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"Bill Gates will love this book. Bill Gates will hate this book. This insider's tale of survival at Microsoft makes a strong argument that the U.S. Department of Justice has no antitrust case against them—but only because antitrust requires intent, and intent suggests strategic thinking. This convenient defense also comes at some cost, derived, as it is, from a view of the world's richest man as technically out of touch and groping his way blindly through business—not the image of Bill Gates-as-Superman that Microsoft PR has spent nearly two decades trying to project. Chairman Bill, it turns out, is just like the rest of us. I love it!" —Robert X. Cringely, author of Accidental Empires and host of the PBS series Triumph of the Nerds "If you ever doubted that Microsoft plays to win, or ever wondered how they do it, you'll learn a lot from this lively memoir that takes us inside the walls at Redmond. In the press we see what Microsoft wants the world to know. Here, the programmers in the trenches let us in on how they see it." —Howard Rheingold, author of The Virtual Community "A fascinating, smartly written insider's perspective. Marlin Eller and Jennifer Edstrom paint a vivid, entertaining picture of how the gears are turned inside the mighty Microsoft machine." —Lise Buyer, Wall Street technology analyst n the past fifteen years Bill Gates has evolved from High-tech Poster Boy I to Richest Man in the World; more recently, he has emerged as the Embattled Corporate Leader in the signal industry of our time. But only now, in this insider's account, do we get beyond those brilliantly crafted images to unearth the real story of Gates's Microsoft, told not by the suits, the flacks, or the lawyers, but by the people who actually design the software and write the code. From the epoch-making 1983 Las Vegas launch of Windows to the ongoing Internet Explorer v. Netscape antitrust suit, this "developer's eye view" sets the record straight on any number of hotly debated—and often hotly litigated—turning points in the short but colorful history of the Information Age. The federal courts have been trying for months to figure out just how interrelated— or unrelated—Windows 95 and Internet Explorer truly are, the larger issue being whether or not Microsoft violated antitrust laws. Gates has told his version of events in court and before the U.S. Senate. But here, through exhaustive interviews with Microsoft developers—some tape- recorded just days before the Justice Department announced their inquiry— we get Windows developers talking with complete abandon, describing the actual play-by-play. How did Microsoft miss the Internet boat in the first place, letting Netscape capture the lead in Web browsers? How exactly did they—or didn't they?—rip off the Macintosh in the development of the Windows interface? What's the real story—the truth that eluded even GO Corporation CEO Jerry Kaplan in his own book—of how Microsoft came from behind in pen computing to drive GO out of business? And how did Microsoft get all those "Windows" pillowcases all over Las Vegas in their first, half-million-dollar launch of the product that didn't exist? Truth is decidedly stranger than a press release or a carefully worded court document, and here we get the funny, offbeat story of life inside the belly of the beast, following the circuitous path of one central figure, former Microsoft developer Marlin Eller. The picture that emerges of Gates and company is certainly not the apotheosis of innovation his admirers see, nor is it purely the "evil empire" seen by his competitors. In fact it has more the feel of a Dilbert cartoon, except for one crucial fact: Microsoft's hold on an invaluable core asset that they can, and do, wield like a club against any and all competitors. JENNIFER EDSTROM, a journalist, is the daughter of longtime Microsoft PR guru Pam Edstrom, also known as "Gates's Keeper." MARLIN ELLER was from 1982 to 1995 Microsoft's lead developer for graphics on Windows, development lead on Pen Windows, and a central figure in the company's first foray into Internet communications. JENNIFER EDSTROM AND MARLIN ELLER BARBARIANS LED BY BILL GATES MICROSOFT FROM THE INSIDE: HOW THE W O R L D ' S R I C H E S T CORPORATION W I E L D S ITS POWER Actually, my only complaint is that I wish somebody had written a decent book. I just don't happen to like the ones that exist. They're incredibly inaccurate. Worse, they don't capture the excitement, the fun. What were the hard decisions? Why did things work out? Where was the luck? Where was the skill? —Bill Gates CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi PROLOGUE 3 1 • THE ROAD BEHIND 5 2 • THE MAKING OF THE M I C R O S O F T MARKETING MACHINE 21 3 • BE LIKE THE MAC 45 4 • DEATH MARCH 59 5 • ANYTHING F O R IBM 71 6 • THE CLANDESTINE EFFORT 87 7 • BAD M A R R I A G E S E N D IN D I V O R C E 97 8 • PEN ULTIMATE WARFARE 113 9 • G O - I N G DOWN 129 10 • MEET THE JETSONS 145 11 • HIGH ROAD TO M E M P H I S ---------LOW ROAD TO MSN 161 12 • DODGING BULLETS 181 13 • WINDOWS 95 — POWER IN N U M B E R S 189 14 • CONTINUAL CHAOS 207 E P I L O G U E 229 N O T E S 233 INDEX 245 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS undreds of millions of copies of Microsoft software have been H distributed across the planet, and it is a safe bet that you would not be holding this book if you were not already somewhat familiar with the company. My familiarity is of a different sort. I started as a programmer when Microsoft employed barely a hundred people. I stayed with it as a software developer and manager for the next thirteen years, as it evolved and grew to the point that it was hiring several people a day. When I left the company in 1995, it was about twenty thousand strong and still growing, its impact and influence continuing to expand. During that time I watched the public perception of Microsoft go from ignorance—"Never heard of it"—to admiration of the fleet little upstart, and then on to fear and loathing of a seemingly un- stoppable corporate juggernaut. As an insider, reading what the press and the analysts wrote over the years was a peculiar experience akin to hearing one's own voice recorded: "Is that really what I sound like? Is my voice really that gravelly?" There was a great disconnect between the view from the inside that my compatriots and I were experiencing down in the trenches, and the outside view, which tended to be a stew of company- xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS generated PR, promptly rejected by industry pundits as biased, only to be replaced with rumor and speculation. While rumor and speculation have their own esthetic, my overall impression is that sound bites are too succinct and tidy, too neatly wrapped up—they miss the essentially chaotic nature of the enter- prise. In their quest for causality they tend to attribute any success to a Machiavellian brilliance rather than to merely good fortune. They lend the impression that the captains of industry chart strategic courses, steering their tanker carefully and gracefully through the straits. The view from the inside more closely resembles white-water rafting. "Oh my God! Huge rock dead ahead! Everyone to the left! NO, NO, the other left!!!" This book is offered to provide some balance to that outside view. I do hope however that no one will mistake this report from the inside as an attempt at a balanced historical account, for indeed, items have been chosen primarily for contrast with the more com- monly known perceptions of Microsoft. It is intended that the in- formation contained herein will augment and temper your views of the company, help you see that reality is rarely a simple story and is probably more like a Dilbert cartoon. The life cycle of a thrashing beast with twenty thousand heads is not something that can be captured in any single document, including this one. Caveat emptor. The production of a book such as this is the work of many hands. Many people have freely given of their time both in providing us with a wealth of material and insight and in helping us pare and trim it all down to fit in a single volume. The parade includes in no particular order or completeness our editors, parents, friends, co- workers at Microsoft, spouses, and immediate and extended families. There is not the slightest hope of naming them all, and rather than slight the majority who rightfully deserve praise and recognition, let me simply offer a collective thank-you. And finally, dear reader, if you have made it this far, I would like ACKNOWLEDGMENTS • xiii to dedicate this book to you. If there had not been hundreds of millions of you out there willing to purchase our software, willing to play with it, to use it, to crash it and swear at it—sharing your time and your money and sharing with us both the wonders and the frustrations of this ongoing microcomputer revolution—then there would have been no Microsoft, there would have been no story and no audience.