[2008.06.26]Microsoft after Gates微软的后比尔时代 微软, Microsoft, Gates, 比尔, 时代

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Microsoft after Gates

Jun 26th 2008
From The Economist print edition


Microsoft after Gates
微软的后比尔时代/比尔之后看微软
Jun 26th 2008
2008年6月28日
From The Economist print edition

Microsoft knows what it wants to do when Bill Gates leaves—but the road ahead will not be easy
比尔盖茨离开后，微软何去何从了然于胸，但前路并非风平浪静




“DOES Microsoft still have a big, hairy audacious goal?” Not everybody would presume to ask Bill Gates a question like that. But Mr Gates was this week due to remove himself from the firm’s day-to-day business, to become its non-executive chairman, and Tim O’Reilly, a noted internet guru, felt emboldened to commit lèse majesté. Putting “a computer on every desk and in every home” had been the original mission of Microsoft, which Mr Gates founded more than 30 years ago. But now the job is pretty much done, at least in the West, and Microsoft is the world’s largest software company. What is its mission now, Mr O’Reilly recently asked at a technological shindig, called “All Things Digital”—other than just to sell as much software as it can?
lèse majesté：亵渎君主罪，谋害君主罪，危害王权罪。<喻>冒犯，大不敬，大逆不道
微软还会拥有一个远大、刺激而又野心勃勃的目标吗？不是所有的人都会去问比尔盖茨这样的问题。但比尔本周就要从公司的日常业务中卸任，成为微软的非执行主席。人们意识到，提姆奥莱德，这位互联网知名英雄，要“犯上”，成为微软的掌门人了。 30多年前比尔盖茨创立微软的时候，最初使命就是要让每个家庭的每个桌子上都摆上一台电脑。现在这个使命几乎已经完成，至少在西方国家情况如此。
微软成为世界上最大的软件公司。那它现在的使命是什么呢？在最近召开的一个技术峰会上，奥莱德先生宣布，
微软的使命是“一切皆数码”----而不只是追求软件销售的最大化吗？



Mr Gates (pictured with Craig Mundie, Microsoft’s chief research and strategy officer, left, and Ray Ozzie, chief software architect首席软件架构师, right) is leaving Microsoft for the charitable foundation he set up with his wife, Melinda, even as his firm is in some disorder.
盖茨（与微软首席研究与战略官，克雷格·蒙迪，左，和Ray Ozzie，首席软件架构师，右）即将离开微软，从事他与妻子梅琳达共同创办的慈善基金工作，即使此时他的公司局势并不稳定。



Windows, Microsoft’s all-conquering（所向无敌的） operating system, has become so complex, some say, that it is collapsing under its own weight. Its latest version, Vista, is not a complete flop, but it is a huge disappointment. Many users prefer the previous one, XP, and Microsoft is already hyping the next, Windows 7. Microsoft is also struggling to keep up with Google, its main rival. It recently announced a product that pays consumers money if they buy something through an advertisement next to its search results—a gambit that smacks of desperation. And the firm’s aborted bid for Yahoo!, an online giant, has done nothing to reassure investors. As a result, Microsoft’s shares continue to do worse than the industry average. Some observers have started to wonder whether Microsoft should not break itself up—for instance into a legacy business, containing Windows and Office, a service unit, and games, where the company has recently been most innovative.
微软所向披麾的视窗操作系统WINDOWS已经变得如此复杂，有人说，它就要被自己压垮了。WINDOWS的最新版本，VISTA，虽不是彻底的败笔，但令人十分失望。许多用户更喜欢使用以前的XP版本，而微软已经为其下一个版本，WINDOWS7大作广告了。微软还在争取与其主要的对手谷歌齐头并进，微软最近宣布一款产品，如果客户通过微软搜索结果的旁边的广告进行采购，微软将会为客户买单，这有点像一种绝望之举。同时微软竞买网络巨擎雅虎失败，使投资商失去信心。结果，微软的股票持续走低，一直低于工业平均指数。一些观察人士已经开始考虑是否微软应该分解，例如成为一家LEGACY BUSINESS，包含WINDOWS和办公软件，一个服务单元，及游戏单元，这些都是近年来最具创新意义的业务。





Mr Gates’s reply to Mr O’Reilly was not entirely reassuring. The firm, he said, now has dozens of “quests”—revolutionising television, automating data centres and creating software ten times faster. Perhaps this fragmentation of Microsoft’s ambition is only natural. In its 33 hectic years the company has swollen to nearly 90,000 employees (see charts); revenues this year should exceed $60 billion and net income reach almost $18 billion. Even Microsoft’s own senior executives struggle to grasp its growing empire. The firm now sells 75 different products, many of them in lots of versions.
针对奥莱德的问题，盖茨没有给出完全可靠的回答。他说，公司现在已经有很多东西需要去探求了-----广播电视的根本性改革，数据中心的自动化以及软件创新的速度要提高十倍等等。微软的这些雄心壮志多半只是自然而然发生的，在其33年辉煌岁月里，公司员工已经迅速扩大到9万名（见表格）；今年的税收会超过600亿美元，净收益接近180亿美元。甚至微软的高级执行官们都在努力控制这个宠大帝国的膨胀。公司现在销售75种不同的产品，这些产品又有很多版本。




In fact Mr Gates could easily have given a more pointed answer. Of all that Microsoft hopes to achieve in the post-Gates era, one goal dominates all others—even catching Google. That is to become the dominant force in the forthcoming era of cloud computing—or, to refresh Microsoft’s original mission: “to supply services to every desk, to every home and to every hand”. That ought to be big and hairy enough to satisfy even Mr O’Reilly.
事实上，盖茨能够轻易的给出一个更加直接的回答。微软在后比尔时代希望实现的所有目标中，有一个目标就是要凌驾其它对手之上----甚至要赶上谷歌。就是说要在即将到来的云计算时代取得主导地位，或者使微软的最初使命赋予新的意义：为每个家庭每张桌子上的每个人提供服务。那个使命够大，够险，甚至奥莱德先生也无话可说。




To understand what that means, and the difficulties it poses Microsoft, start with the idea that computing is undergoing one of its great periodic shifts. In its early days, most computing took place on mainframes. Ever-falling costs led computing to shatter—first into minicomputers, then into personal computers (PCs) and, more recently, hand-held devices. Now communications is catching up with hardware and software and, thanks to cheap broadband and wireless access, the industry is witnessing a pull back to the middle. This is leading much computing to migrate back into huge data centres. Networks of these computing plants form “computing clouds”—vast, amorphous, delocalised nebulae of processing power and storage.
要明白那个使命意味着什么，微软要实现这个使命所面临的困难，就要先清楚计算正在经历着一个重大的时代转折。计算时代的早期，大部分计算机都是大型机。随着计算成本的日益降低，首先演变成成小型机，然后变成个人电脑，而最近又变成了手持装置。现在，由于宽带与无线网关价格低廉，通信正在与软件和硬件的发展齐头并进，计算机工业回到发展的中期。由此导致大量计算融回到巨型数据中心时代。这些计算工厂的网络形成了云计算-----庞大，无形，不受局部限制的计算处理与存储的星云。




Service with a simile
Marc Benioff（马克·贝尼奥夫）, a cloud-computing pioneer and the boss of Salesforce.com, which helps firms manage their customers on the web thinks this will spell the “death of software”. Rather than being a bigchunkof code sitting on a hard disk on your desk, software will come “as a service” over the internet through a browser. This idea is also espoused by Google. Although the online giant is best known as the world’s biggest online search and advertising firm, it now also offers many other services—plenty of which compete with Microsoft’s PC programs.
云计算的先行者，马克·贝尼奥夫创立了帮助公司在互联网上管理其客户资源的SALESFORCE。COM公司，他认为这意味着软件的终结。与过去使用电脑硬盘存储大量编码相反，软件会通过互联网浏览器提供服务。这个想法也得到了谷歌的支持。尽管网络巨擎谷歌以其最大的在线搜索和广告闻名于世，它现在也提供许多其它的服务-----其中很多服务都是与微软的个人电脑项目相竞争的。



Not so fast, says Mr Ozzie. He has been Microsoft’s chief software architect since 2006 and will steer its technology after Mr Gates goes, while Mr Mundie will take over as the company’s long-term thinker and public face. “Whenever these things happen, people think that it is going to be a complete extreme shift,” Mr Ozzie says. “But in reality customers are very pragmatic and figure out the right mix of old and new stuff.” This mix, he argues, will depend on where people are, which device they use and what they want to do. Instead of the death of software, Mr Ozzie speaks of “software plus services”—the title of Microsoft’s new strategy.
OZZIE自2006年一直担任微软的首席软件架构师，他将在盖茨离开后掌舵微软的技术方向，而MUNDIE会接管公司的长期战略与公众形象建设。OZZIE认为，云计算不会发展的这么快。他说：“无论什么时候发生这些事情，人们都会认为这是一个完全彻底的转变，而事实上消费者非常务实，可以领会到新旧事物的最佳融合”。他认为，这种融合取决于人们所处的方位，使用的设备和人们的需求。恰恰相反，OZZIE先生并不认为这是软件的终结，他认为这是软件加服务---可以作为微软新战略的标题。



He thinks of cloud computing differently.
他对云计算有不同的看法。

Fewer people will put the PC at the centre of their computing universe;
很少有人把个人电脑放在计算环境的中心。


it will be one of many devices connected through the web, which Mr Ozzie calls the “hub”.
It will be通过互联网联连在一起的很多设备之一，也就是OZZIE所说的“网络中心”。


But what sounds like bad news for a firm making PC software is in fact a huge opportunity, he says—because this new set-up sits well with Microsoft’s DNA. The heart of its business has always contained a simple, powerful idea: find a market that is global in scale—one that is split between lots of vendors and so dysfunctional; then integrate the various parts into a “platform” and develop its chief applications; and finally, build an “ecosystem” of developers writing programs for it.
但是，对于微软这种制造个人电脑软件的公司来讲，听起来像坏消息，而实际上是一个巨大的机遇，OZZIE说，因为这个新的组织/结构与微软的结构搭配良好。业务的核心概念总是简单，有力的：发现全球范围的市场，该市场卖方之间是分裂的，市场是无秩序的；接下来整合市场的各种成分，使其成为一个平台，开发平台主要的应用软件；最终建立一个为平台书写程序的开发人员的生态系统。


This has been Microsoft’s approach to its largest products—with Windows as the most successful. Versions of this operating system run on over 90% of the 1 billion PCs in use, because Microsoft has excelled at building an ecosystem around its platform, in particular by giving developers the tools for their job. This supercharged what economists call “network effects”: the more applications run on Windows, the more attractive it becomes for users; that, in turn, attracts more developers, and so it goes on. Although Mr Ozzie hesitates to put it in such terms, his goal is to create a kind of Windows in the cloud. “If you were to build an operating system today,” he explains, “it would not be a single piece of software that operates a single computer.”
这一直是微软对其最大份额的产品采用的方法，其中WINDOWS视窗操作系统取得了最大的成功。因为微软在依据平台建立生态系统方面非常出色，特别是为开发商提供开展工作的工具，10亿台在用个人电脑中90%在使用着这个操作系统的不同版本。这种超级荷载的现象被经济学家们称为“网络效应”。WINDOWS视窗操作系统应用的越广泛，对用户就越有吸引力，也就是说，吸引了更多的开发商，因此可以持续下去。尽管OZZIE在这样说的时候有些犹豫，但他的目标就是在云时代建立一个这样的WINDOWS视窗操作系统。他解释说，如果你今天建立一个操作系统，它就不仅仅是操作单台计算机的一个软件。



He is first tackling device integration. In a recent internal memo, which Microsoft made public, Mr Ozzie talks of “a personal mesh of devices—a means by which all of your devices are brought together, managed through the web as a seamless whole.” This mesh will make sure, for instance, that devices automatically synchronise important files, such as an address book, and that one device can control the others. Windows has other similarities with the platform Microsoft wants to build in the cloud. The firm plans to provide developers with tools to weave services together into new offerings. And it will give them ready-made routines, such as checking a user’s identity, tracking his location and processing payments.
他首先要解决的问题就是设备整合。最近微软公开的内部备忘中，OZZIE谈到了“个人设备的整合”----把所拥有设备整合到一起，由网络来管理形成一个无缝的整体的方式。例如，这种整合可以确保各种设备自动同步处理重要文件，比方说，地址簿，而且一种设备可以控制其它设备。微软想要在云时代建立的平台与WINDOWS视窗操作系统有类似之处。微软计划为开发商提供各种工具，可以把多种服务整合成为新的产品。而且还会给出现成的程序，例如，核查用户的身份的程序，位置跟踪及处理付款的程序。


The club in the cloud
云时代俱乐部


As with all big ideas emanating from Redmond, Mr Ozzie’s vision has provoked strong reactions. Here we go again, says one side, who think they have spotted a monopolist’s latest plan for world domination. Welcome to the club, comes the retort from the other. Google, Facebook, Salesforce.com and others are already building similar platforms—Microsoft is just a Johnny-come-lately（迟到的人，晚来的人） hedging its bets.
因为所有的创意都是来自于REDMOND，OZZIE的想法引起了强烈的反响。那我们再来看看，一方认为，他们发现了这个行业垄断者控制世界的最新计划。另一方反击道，欢迎来到云计算俱乐部。谷歌，FACEBOOK，SALEFORCE。COM还有其它一些公司已经建立了相同的平台，微软不过是个正在划分地盘的后来者而已。



Needless to say, things are a bit more complicated. Mr Ozzie’s plans amount to more than a dominant software company trying to protect its franchise. Building a platform for the cloud does not seem such a bad idea, since it is precisely what many in the industry are trying to do. Yet the cloud will be based more on open standards than on proprietary technology. It is too big and too diverse to be dominated by one provider. And governments would be unlikely to allow one firm to control such an important infrastructure.
不用说，情况变得有些复杂了。OZZIE的计划已不仅仅是为了保护其专卖权成为软件行业有支配地位的公司。为云时代建立一个平台似乎也是一个不错的主意，而且这也正是业内很多其它公司正在做的事情。那么云时代的建立将会有一个更加开放的标准而不是建立在专利技术的基础之上。这个计划十分庞大，涉及的种类也相当繁杂，不是一个供应商可以办到的事情。政府不可能允许一个公司控制这样一个重要的事关民生的基础设施。


As Mr Ozzie rightly points out, it is the very essence of the shift towards services, that computing now allows for applications and data to sit where it is technically most appropriate—or, just as important, where users prefer. And people are not about to throw out their powerful PCs or other “client” devices anytime soon, not least because they will sometimes be offline. Even Google is now offering software that allows its applications to be used off the internet.
就像OZZIE正好指出的那样，这正是向服务转变的本质，计算现在把应用与数据放在技术上最恰当的位置上，这个位置正是用户希望的那样重要。人们不会很快就抛弃自己强大的个人电脑，或其它客户设备，至少因为他们有时会离线的。甚至GOOGLE现在也在提供允许离线使用的应用软件。


The problem is that, so far, Microsoft does not have much to show for its plans, says Brent Thill, director of software research at Citi Investment Research. Take Windows Live, a collection of online services that in 2006 Mr Ozzie called the “hub to bring it all together”. Many of Windows Live’s services are derivative and few have a lot of users. Recently, Microsoft said that it will shut down some services, including Windows Live Expo, a listing service for classified advertisements.
问题是，目前为止，微软并没有为此计划做出什么可以拿得出手的东西，花旗投资研究中心的软件研究总监BRENT THILL这样说，以WINDOWS LIVE为例，汇集了在线的各种服务，在2006年，OZZIE称之为汇聚天下的网络中心。很多WINDOWS LIVE的服务都是派生出来的，而且用户并不是很多。近来，微软称，它会关闭一些服务，包括分类广告的列表服务的WINDOWS LIVE EXPO。


Worse, Microsoft has not got much to show for its huge investments in online search, the killer application in Google’s cloud. The firm’s market share in search is only 8.5% in America, compared with Google’s share of more than 60%. As a result, Microsoft’s online-advertisement platform has not succeeded either. That matters, because even if companies pay for their cloud services, most consumer services will be funded by advertising. This explains why Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s boss, was prepared to pay $47.5 billion for Yahoo! The online giant would have been an “accelerator” in its quest to catch up with Google in search and advertising.
更不利的是，作为谷歌云计算方面的杀手锏，微软在线搜索方面的巨额投资也无所作为。美国搜索领域的市场份额微软只占8.5%，而谷歌的市场份额超过了60%。结果使微软的在线广告平台也没有取得成功。这对微软来讲很重要，因为即使各公司为其云计算服务买单，大部分消费性服务还是要由广告收入来支撑。这也就解释了为什么微软的老板，STEVE BALLMER 准备以475亿美金来收购雅虎！雅虎作为网络巨擎，一直是微软在搜索与广告方面赶超谷歌的加速器。


But those setbacks should not obscure that Microsoft has a plan—and is willing to put a lot of money behind it. It is spending billions to build a network of data centres, a huge infrastructure to cope with the expected demand for all its software-plus-services business. The company does not disclose how many computers now populate its server farms. It says only that it is adding 10,000 servers a month, which is roughly the total number used by a company like Facebook. （Server Farm，习惯上称之为企业数据中心，或者服务器中心。由于企业业务发展越来越依赖于IT，大量的应用软件和系统被使用，随之而来的服务器群的安全管理日益成为IT主管的日常主要工作。）
但这些反馈/回报不应该是无法说清的，微软有计划并愿意为此支付巨额资金。微软正在花费数十亿美元的资金建立一个数据中心网络，该网络是一个巨型的基础设施，用于应对各种软件+服务业务的需求。公司并未透露目前有多少计算机为企业数据中心服务。只是有人说，每个月会增加10000个服务器，而这差不多是像FACEBOOK这样规模的公司使用数量的总和。


What is more, Microsoft has already spent the past couple of years writing software for its new platform. In April Mr Ozzie presented a first chunk, called “Live Mesh”—in his words, the “connective tissuethat brings together devices in the cloud.” It will enable users to synchronise files on lots of computers as well as to a web desktop in the cloud, for instance. More will come in the autumn, when Microsoft is likely to publish some new tools for developers.
而且，微软在过去的数年中一直为这个新平台写软件。四月份，OZZIE展示了第一批，叫做LIVE MESH的软件，用他的话说，就是把云中所有的设备组合到一起的结缔体，比方说，它可以使用户在多台计算机上以及云中的网络桌面上同步处理文件。金秋时节，微软很可能会为开发商发布一些新的工具，那时就会有更多的展示成果了。



Microsoft is further along with its new services than most think. Health Vault, launched in October, is not just a place where people can store their medical details online, but a service that can connect to all sorts of monitoring devices, as well as software used by hospitals and doctors. Microsoft is likely to come up with combinations of consumer and institutional data in other areas, such as education. It hopes they will become the killer aps of the new platform, rather as Word and Excel were for Windows.
2007年10月19日　　HealthVault并不仅仅是一种富有想象力的搜索引擎，该网站就是一个客户主页（类似于MyYahoo.com），允许登录用户将他们所有的健康档案资料输入到一个集中地点。通过扫描健康文件，或将它们传入程序中，或通过与网络工具联动的USB设备上传数据，信息将添加到HealthVault的一个账户上，有合作关系的医生可直接把健康档案传入程序中。
出乎大多数人的预料，微软在这些新服务方面走得更远。10月份发布的HEALTH VAULT不仅仅为人民提供了在线存储医疗资料的空间，还可以把各种各样的监测设备与医院和医生使用的软件相联。微软很可能在其它领域，例如教育领域，制定出把消费者与机构数据结合的产品。人们希望这些服务会像WORD 与EXCEL对于WINDOWS操作系统一样，成为新平台的杀手锏。




Microsoft’s familiar products are also being recast for the cloud. Sometimes the change is modest. The latest versions of Office, the software package that includes Word and Excel, enable users to share files and collaborate. Mr Ozzie argues there is no demand for a fully featured web-based version, (though, it has to be said, the old desktop-bound Office is one of Microsoft’s biggest money-makers and one of the main reasons for people to use Windows). Other overhauls are more ambitious. Customers will soon have the choice of running Microsoft’s business programs, such as its mail-server software, Exchange, on their own computers or in the cloud. Chris Capossela, who oversees this shift at Microsoft, expects half of the mailboxes managed by Exchange to be online.
微软精通的产品也为云计算进行了改版，不时的进行着适度的改变。最新版本的OFFICE 软件包包含WORLD 与EXCEL，可以使用户分享资料并且进行协作。OZZIE先生认为没有必要制造出一个完全个性化的网络版本（尽管，据说旧的桌面版的办公软件是微软最赚钱的软件之一，也是人们使用WINDOWS的主要原因之一）。其它的革新更加积极。客户很快就会见到不断出现的微软商业的项目，例如在客户自己的电脑上或云计算电脑上选择邮件服务软件，EXCHANGE。CHRIS CAPOSSELA 预见到了微软的这种转变，希望由EXCHANGE管理的半数邮箱可以在线进行。




This flurry of activity in Redmond does not guarantee Microsoft success in the cloud. Top of the list of Redmond watchers’ worries is the firm’s culture and management. Mary Jo Foley, a long-time Microsoft correspondent, thinks it will lose something vital when Mr Gates walks out of the door. She concludes in her recently published book “Microsoft 2.0” that if “Microsoft were still the company it was ten or 20 years ago, with the simultaneously ruthless and cautious Gates at the helm,” she would have “no qualms” about predicting its success.
（微软的总部在REDMOND）微软的这阵改良风并没有保证其在云计算中的成功。雷蒙德的高级观察家们所担心的是微软的文化与管理。MARY ，作为长期驻微软记者，认为当比尔盖茨走出微软大门那一刻，微软将会失去一些至关重要的东西。最近她出版的一本叫做《微软2.0》的书中，总结道，如果微软仍然是由10年或20年前那个无情和谨慎并行的比尔掌控的公司，那微软的成功就没有疑问了。



The firm has become bloated, insiders say. “It’s a huge problem. Microsoft has so much raw potential, but it needs extreme leadership to break out of the bureaucratic morass it encumbered itself with,” says the book’s foreword, written by “Mini-Microsoft”, an anonymous blogger-cum-employee who is required reading for Microsoft watchers.
知情人称，微软已经变得机构臃肿。一位名叫“MINI-MICROSOFT”的网友，在其写的一本书的前言中写道“这是一个很大的问题，微软有很大的原生潜力，但它需要铁腕风格的领导者使其摆脱束缚发展的官僚化沼泽”，该书是微软观察员的必读书目。



If Microsoft has made one excellent hire in recent years, it is Mr Ozzie. Although he is unlikely to become a public figure in the mould of Mr Gates, he is more in tune合拍with a style of computing in which everything is connected. He understands that a take-no-prisoners attitude will get you only so far. Mr Ozzie is also level-headed头脑冷静, hands-on and a brilliant technologist. He himself wrote much of Lotus Notes, an early collaborative program, and came to Microsoft when it bought his latest start-up, Groove Networks, in 2005.
如果说近年来微软人事方面的一个成绩，那就是聘用了OZZIE先生。尽管在盖茨的模式下他不可能成为一个公众人物，但他却与万物皆联系的计算风格更加合拍。他明白“不留俘虏”的态度只是眼前之策。OZZIE先生还是一位头脑冷静，有实操经验的出色技术专家。早期的协同软件项目LOTUS NOTES，很多东西都出自他之手，微软在2005年收购了由OZZIE创立的协同软件公司GROOVE NETWORKS，OZZIE来到了微软。




Yet some think Microsoft needs more fresh blood in its upper echelons. Although some veterans have recently left and some new executives have been hired, many senior positions are still filled by people who have been with the company for more than a decade, says Michael Cusumano, a professor at the MIT’s Sloan School of Management and the author of a book on the inner workings of Microsoft. Can a veteran leadership team, he asks, foresee how the software business will change? And can it attract a new generation of employees to the company?
还有一些人认为，微软的上层领导梯队里需要一些新鲜血液，尽管近来一些资深的员工已经离开微软，微软也聘用了一些新的执行官，但很多重要的职位仍然还是由一些在公司工作10年以上的人来担任。MICHAEL CUSUMANO 一位MIT‘SSLOAN 管理学院的教授，曾写下一本关于微软内部运行的著作。他提出，一个资深的领导团队能够预见软件业会怎样改变吗？能够吸引新一代的员工到公司来吗？



Billet doux情书



Microsoft is no longer the chosen workplace for many young geeks. Second-generation internet firms, such as Google and Facebook, have more “mind share”. The same is true for investors and users, which is partly why Microsoft will launch a $300m rebranding campaign later this year. To make Microsoft hip again, the firm has hired one of America’s coolest advertising agencies, Crispin Porter+Bogusky.
微软不再是许多青年才俊选择的工作之所。第二代网络公司，例如谷歌，FACEBOOK，却拥有更多的人才。同样的情况也发生在投资者和用户方面，这也是为什么微软今年晚些时候耗费3亿美元发动重塑企业品牌运动的部分原因。微软为了能再次获得行业领先地位，已经聘请了美国最时尚的广告公司之一，CRISPIN PORTER+BOGUSKY。





EPA

Bye-bye, Bill

Microsoft’s image is still tarnished by the antitrust saga of a decade ago, when it was judged to have abused its Windows monopoly. That would prove a more serious stain if it stops consumers from trusting the firm with their personal data, a necessary part of many cloud services. After similar antitrust woes, IBM took decades to shed its reputation for being overbearing and arrogant. It managed partly by becoming a champion of industry standards and open-source software.
10年前的反拖拉斯运动使微软的形象受损，当时微软被判滥用其WINDOWS专利权。如果微软不能取得客户信任，使客户把个人数据，这个许多云服务的必要组成部分托负给微软，那么这对微软形象而言将会是一个更加严重的污点。 IBM在经过同样的反托拉斯运动之后，用了十多年里的时间成为了行业标准和开放源码软件的第一名，这才摆脱了一些傲慢自大的形象。




Microsoft is treading a similar path. The firm has already changed—whether the American and the European antitrust actions have tamed it, or customers want different behaviour, or Microsoft has just grown up. It has become more open—it no longer wants to lock the world into its own proprietary technology. “We have matured a lot,” says Mr Mundie, who spearheaded this opening-up.
微软走的是同一条路。不管是美国还是欧洲的反托拉斯行动是否收效，亦或客户想要不一样的表现，还是正好微软已经长大了，微软公司已经发生了改变。它变得更加开放，它不再想把世界锁进它自己的知识产权里，“我们已经成熟了不少”，发起这些改变的MUNDIE先生如是说。



Microsoft has indeed done many things that would not have seemed possible a few years ago. It has embraced industry standards, published “interoperability principles” that guide its developers, and released thousands of pages describing how its programs work together, so that rival products can join in. To boot（除此以外，又，还）, Microsoft has accepted that open-source software is here to stay. It has adopted some of the techniques of volunteer developers, given them code and even put some open-source code in its programs.
微软确实做了很多在几年前看来似乎不可能的事情。它EMBRACED行业标准，出版了指导开发商的协作协议，发布了数千页的文件阐述了各种项目是如何协同工作的，使得对手的产品可以入局。除此以外，微软还承认，开放源码软件is here to stay.它还采纳了一些义务开发人员的技术，给他们提供编码，甚至把一些开放源编码放在它们的程序里



Still, many do not believe in the new Microsoft. When Information Week, an American computing magazine, surveyed some 500 technology professionals, more than half said they thought that Microsoft’s openness was mostly a publicity campaign. In a recent speech that was widely interpreted as taking a swipe at Microsoft, Neelie Kroes, the European Union’s competition commissioner, said that governments and businesses would do well to use software based on open standards. And Matt Asay, a blogger and executive of Alfresco, an open-source software company, speaks for many in the open-source movement when he says that Microsoft “is the only major software company other than SAP that has not fully engaged with the open-source community.”
很多人仍然不相信微软发生的新变化。当美国的一家计算机杂志，信息周刊对大约500名技术专业人员进行调查时发现，一多半的人认为微软的开放性很大程度上是一个宣传活动，欧盟竞争委员会委员，NEELIE KROES 最近发表了一篇演说，被普遍认为是对微软的沉重一击。他说，政府和商业活动使用基于开放标准的软件运行良好。同时MATT ASAY，作为ALFRESO这家开放源码软件公司的调度员和执行官，代表开放源码运动中的许多人发表演说，他认为微软是除SAP之外唯一一家没有完全从事于开放源码单元的主要软件公司。




Microsoft’s approach to open source hints that the firm has not yet made up its mind what it wants to be. Even as the company seemed to have made peace with the other camp, signing licensing deals with open-source companies, it accused open-source software fans of violating 235 of its patents and threatened legal action.
微软对开放源码采取的措施意味着公司还没有下定决心去做什么。即便公司看起来已经与其它阵营言归于好，与一些开放源码公司签订了许可协议，但微软指控开放源码软件的热衷爱好者破坏了微软的235号专利权，并危胁要采取法律行动。



The defining test of Microsoft’s openness will be whether it tries to use its monopoly on the desktop to gain an unfair advantage in the cloud by tightly integrating—or “bundling”—software and services. Critics say the firm has already tried to favour its online search service in its Windows Vista operating system, but backed off when Google complained. Mr Mundie, however, is eager to offer reassurance: although Microsoft will make its software and services work well together, it will do nothing unlawful, he says: “The company has been quite clear how we are thinking about interoperability.”
决定微软是否是开放的，就是要看其是否试图使用微软在台式机上的专利权，通过把软件与服务紧密整合或捆绑的方式，在云计算中取得不公正的优势。批评人士认为，微软已经设法在WINDOWS VISTA操作系统中支持其在线搜索服务，但谷歌提出异议时，又退出。然而，MUNDIE先生迫切地提出保证：尽管微软会同时使软件与服务运行良好，但不会做任何违法的事情，他说道：对于我们如何看待协同工作这一点，微软已经十分清晰了。



Microsoft is in transition. “The Road Ahead” will not be as straight or as smooth as it was on the cover of Mr Gates’s bestseller, written in 1995. Yet Microsoft is unlikely to hit a wall, as IBM did after Mr Gates steered his own big shift in computing all those years ago—if only because Microsoft has a clearer view of the future. And if the worst happens, watch out for Mr Gates returning to put his creation back in the fast lane.
微软正在转折期，前路不会像1995年盖茨的畅销书封面那样平坦而顺利。但是微软对于未来的蓝图有清晰的认识，微软不会像IBM一样去碰壁，就在盖茨在多年前发动自身大变革时灰头土脸。如果最糟糕的情况发生了，当心盖茨会通过快行道回归，重新把他的创造力注入其中。
Lotus Notes/Domino 是一个世界领先的企业级通讯、协同工作及internet/Intranet平台；具有完善的工作流控制、数据库复制技术和完善可靠的安全机制；尤其适合于处理各种非结构化与半结构化的文档数据、建立工作流应用、建立各类基于Web的应用。它全面实现了对非结构化信息的管理和共享，内含强大的电子邮件功能及工作流软件开发环境，是实现群组协同工作、办公自动化的最佳开发环境。




Groove Networks是一家协同软件(collaboration software)厂商
billet-doux 此种表达来自法语
本意
甜蜜的便笺
推荐用 love letter
女方写给男方的分手信用dear-john letter

[ 本帖最后由 keepgoing 于 2008-9-11 15:28 编辑 ]

死海之果

小小地说一句，别人是看标题进来的，所以要把标题改为QAF里要求的格式也让人知道你这个帖子是个翻译帖是篇文章而不是报到帖。

margaret_von

支持一下！！ 改改题目吧~~

keepgoing

to 死海之果
呵呵，我是看到加入ECO团队报名里要求，要自己翻译两篇SPECIAL REPORTS然后放到相关分类论坛里来，才这样叫的，那我的标题要改成“报名贴”这样吗？
刚来不太懂规则，大家包涵哈！

JandyYang

原以为自己翻译水平还可以
来到这里才发现，原来我是那么的不可以

jjhuang1982

不错啊，呵呵

keepgoing

呵呵，谢谢大家鼓励，心里暖乎乎的。
其实有的地方没有看懂，只好硬着头皮，凑着译上了。
我还有一点不明白：以后的翻译是继续发在这里呢，还是要另起贴子呢？

shiyi18

另启帖子

onhorizon

初步工作做好之后，还是建议将你的译文和原文多读上几遍。

humvee_bug

粗略看了下，legacy business可直译成“遗产业务”，即MS赖以发展壮大的支柱业务。ERP软件里面的legacy system也差不多是这个意思。here to stay可以理解成“已成定局”，即一定要开源。