SuperSite Blog Daily Update: November 30, 2010

Given their record of privacy/security there is no way in Hell I would ever standardize on technology developed by a company whose goal is to "index everything."

I disagree on the Kinect. Microsoft has really stumbled into a whole untapped realm. The Kinect has become a huge DIY/hardware hacking device. Go to hackaday.com or makezine.com and search "Kinect" to see what some people are doing with them. Thankfully MS dropped the “no you won’t” attitude and very quickly embraced it. They should embrace it further. It’s hardware, so regardless of what people do with it you have to buy a unit to play with it. I agree in that as “just” a peripheral to the Xbox it has gimmick potential. However allowed to be developed independent of the Xbox I think it has the potential to be for the 21st century what the mouse was for the 20th. Produce slimmer more compact versions, embeddable versions. Get it into creative peoples hands and see what happens and put those inventions and developments back into Xbox, Windows PCs, or possibly even Windows Phone. I think related to this, at least tangentially, is the Microsoft .NET Micro Framework, their version of .NET for micro-controllers and limited hardware. The micro-controller "market" and open hardware movement, at least in hobbyist terms, is pretty hot right now. With new hardware this year from vendors like Netduino (netduino.com) and FEZ (tinyclr.com), Microsoft’s “platform” is right in there mixing it up and generating some interest. Embedded systems are only going to proliferate. The "hobbyist" .NET Micro Framework and its developers could become to future embedded systems what tools like VB, Access, and SQL were to enterprise and corporate line of business applications over a decade ago. You can debate whether that was for better or worse, but Microsoft has the enterprise market nowadays becuase of those tools, and the Platform that ran those tools. Both of these "Platforms", such as they are today, are niche certainly. However MS should be investing time, mindshare, and money into these niches, I’m not saying Xbox or Office levels. Getting creative people developing with your tools and your "Platforms" is critical to having people develop and utilize your more traditional tools and Platforms. Lost sometimes these days in market share and stock value is that HP and Apple were born out of garages, Facebook and Google from dorm rooms. Microsoft should be cultivating these niche “platforms”, not just be content with them as mere peripherals. Joel.