4 ms·

But on the other hand Bill Gates and Microsoft were blindsided by the Internet.

mistermann 11y ago
I don't know if blindsighted is the word. Sure, they certainly weren't on the forefront, and at the time to us in the industry it seemed like they were waaaaay late to the game, but at least for me in retrospect they weren't really that late, and I don't think it made a lick of difference did it? Missing the boat on the importance of Google and the iPhone, now those were huuuuge mistakes. Was Gates still running the show then?
- ams6110 11y ago
  If Microsoft had been earlier, Google might (probably) have never existed.
jandrese 11y ago
Bill Gates wrote a book in 1995 entitled "The Road Ahead" that barely mentioned the Internet and especially the World Wide Web. Microsoft was definitely behind the ball on the Internet revolution.
- marincounty 11y ago
  I'll get hammered for this, but as a young man, I remember Al Gore talking about the Internet. Yes, there were people before him, but he had the stage, and the audience. He started people--people with money, and connections to look into this crazy university tool. He made the mistake of say he invented the Internet. It's was a bad, egotistical statement, but he got us talking about it. Actually, I don't even think we would be talking about global warming if it wasen't for Al Gore. I didn't like the man when I was younger for horrid reasons; like I thought he was a spoiled, rich politician who really didn't care, and was using these topics to gain political points. I was completely wrong! I wish he would run for office again. I know I would give him a vote.
  - mikekchar 11y ago
    Perspective is a funny thing. I'm trying to work out the timing, but my buddy and I were running a UUCP network in Manitoba, Canada round about 1988. UUNet had just connected to the internet backbone and we chatted with them briefly about connecting up with them. They said as long as we paid for a T1 from Toronto, they would let us work with them. I'm pretty sure this was before AlterNet, so it would have had to have been prior to 1990. IIRC, the cost to us would have been about $30K per month and we considered the option of starting up a commercial ISP. In the end we decided not to, but at the time I was absolutely convinced we could have made it a viable business. When Al Gore hit my radar, I thought he was completely irrelevant. In retrospect, I'm sure that's not true because some of the legislation that he pushed through paved the way for commercial traffic. But believe me, it was coming whether he did anything or not. He may have accelerated the process slightly, but probably not too much. His major contribution may actually have been to maintain US dominance of the internet for a couple more decades. Canada was already gearing up for it and I remember friends setting up fledgling ISPs in about 1993 (right when CANARIE had finished being set up). Personally, I don't have any real thoughts about Al Gore one way or another. I can see he was very influential, but from my perspective he was mostly just riding the wave as opposed to creating it.
- agumonkey 11y ago
  And weirdly they tried to swing back forcefully because not long after the web started to become a thing, Gates touted .Net everywhere, even though it was long before .Net actually shipped. IIRC, longhorn, even Xp was supposed to be fully based on networked object components, like Java RMI. And.. win95 plus (or was it 98?) had an html/javascript based active desktop that is conceptually similar to current web paradigms and UX. The world DNA evolves weirdly.
  - chewxy 11y ago
    Yes! ActiveDesktop! I used to have my tripod based homepage on my ActiveDesktop and I would watch the hit counter everyday (heh, vanity metrics). Also, Microsoft tried to train everyone about the concept of hyperlinks - Explorer in Win98 used to open files with a single click (and it was highlighted and underlines like hyperlinks too). Too bad the concept didn't catch on. And in the book The Road Ahead, I recall Bill Gates describing something like Google Docs/Office Online too. Shame that in their clinginess to IP made them unpopular.
- pjc50 11y ago
  The book definitely mentioned the "information superhighway" a lot. I remember it as being focused on the AOL/Compuserve vision of the internet, a commercial, controlled experience. These days Facebook's "internet.org" project is the inheritor of that.
caseysoftware 11y ago
Totally agree.. and then again by the move to mobile devices.

I don't know if blindsighted is the word. Sure, they certainly weren't on the forefront, and at the time to us in the industry it seemed like they were waaaaay late to the game, but at least for me in retrospect they weren't really that late, and I don't think it made a lick of difference did it? Missing the boat on the importance of Google and the iPhone, now those were huuuuge mistakes. Was Gates still running the show then?

ams6110 11y ago
If Microsoft had been earlier, Google might (probably) have never existed.

jandrese 11y ago

Bill Gates wrote a book in 1995 entitled "The Road Ahead" that barely mentioned the Internet and especially the World Wide Web. Microsoft was definitely behind the ball on the Internet revolution.

marincounty 11y ago
I'll get hammered for this, but as a young man, I remember Al Gore talking about the Internet. Yes, there were people before him, but he had the stage, and the audience. He started people--people with money, and connections to look into this crazy university tool. He made the mistake of say he invented the Internet. It's was a bad, egotistical statement, but he got us talking about it. Actually, I don't even think we would be talking about global warming if it wasen't for Al Gore. I didn't like the man when I was younger for horrid reasons; like I thought he was a spoiled, rich politician who really didn't care, and was using these topics to gain political points. I was completely wrong! I wish he would run for office again. I know I would give him a vote.
- mikekchar 11y ago
  Perspective is a funny thing. I'm trying to work out the timing, but my buddy and I were running a UUCP network in Manitoba, Canada round about 1988. UUNet had just connected to the internet backbone and we chatted with them briefly about connecting up with them. They said as long as we paid for a T1 from Toronto, they would let us work with them. I'm pretty sure this was before AlterNet, so it would have had to have been prior to 1990. IIRC, the cost to us would have been about $30K per month and we considered the option of starting up a commercial ISP. In the end we decided not to, but at the time I was absolutely convinced we could have made it a viable business. When Al Gore hit my radar, I thought he was completely irrelevant. In retrospect, I'm sure that's not true because some of the legislation that he pushed through paved the way for commercial traffic. But believe me, it was coming whether he did anything or not. He may have accelerated the process slightly, but probably not too much. His major contribution may actually have been to maintain US dominance of the internet for a couple more decades. Canada was already gearing up for it and I remember friends setting up fledgling ISPs in about 1993 (right when CANARIE had finished being set up). Personally, I don't have any real thoughts about Al Gore one way or another. I can see he was very influential, but from my perspective he was mostly just riding the wave as opposed to creating it.
agumonkey 11y ago
And weirdly they tried to swing back forcefully because not long after the web started to become a thing, Gates touted .Net everywhere, even though it was long before .Net actually shipped. IIRC, longhorn, even Xp was supposed to be fully based on networked object components, like Java RMI. And.. win95 plus (or was it 98?) had an html/javascript based active desktop that is conceptually similar to current web paradigms and UX. The world DNA evolves weirdly.
- chewxy 11y ago
  Yes! ActiveDesktop! I used to have my tripod based homepage on my ActiveDesktop and I would watch the hit counter everyday (heh, vanity metrics). Also, Microsoft tried to train everyone about the concept of hyperlinks - Explorer in Win98 used to open files with a single click (and it was highlighted and underlines like hyperlinks too). Too bad the concept didn't catch on. And in the book The Road Ahead, I recall Bill Gates describing something like Google Docs/Office Online too. Shame that in their clinginess to IP made them unpopular.
pjc50 11y ago
The book definitely mentioned the "information superhighway" a lot. I remember it as being focused on the AOL/Compuserve vision of the internet, a commercial, controlled experience. These days Facebook's "internet.org" project is the inheritor of that.

caseysoftware 11y ago

Totally agree.. and then again by the move to mobile devices.