Introducing Amazon Silk - <AUTHOR> http://amazonsilk.wordpress.com/2011/09/28/introducing-amazon-silk/ <comment><USER4> "Silk browser software resides both on Kindle Fire and on the massive server fleet that comprises the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). With each page request, Silk dynamically determines a division of labor between the mobile hardware and Amazon EC2 (i.e. which browser sub-components run where) that takes into consideration factors like network conditions, page complexity and the location of any cached content." (from [http://www.amazon.com/Kindle- Color-Multi-touch-Display-Wi-Fi...](http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Color-Multi- touch-Display-Wi- Fi/dp/B0051VVOB2/ref=amb_link_357575542_4?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=gateway- center- column&pf_rd_r=0N625M4JAW6DBV6QKRXA&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1321408942&pf_rd_i=507846#silk))

This sounds conceptually similar to how Opera delivers pages with one of its mobile browsers, which is to say that Javascript and rich web apps will be severely crippled. Is it indeed possible for the server and client to collaboratively decide what parts of my code to run client-side and which ones proxy-side and still have anything approximating good performance/identical functionality?

<comment><USER5> From the video, I got the impression that they might even not be sending html, css and javascript at all. Instead they might be sending some javascript bytecode and a binary DOM tree.

<comment><USER6> That would be really interesting! Any implementations of something like that working today?

<comment><USER7> OBML: [http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/opera-binary-markup- langu...](http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/opera-binary-markup-language/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So... from the sounds of it... they rebuilt what Opera Mobile does and what RIM does with Blackberry?

They offload some of the compositing and some of the fetching and asset flattening server side, and then serve up to the device with custom protocol the pre-rendered flattened data anything that can be done server side. That is exactly the same way those other accelerator products already work for mobile.

While it's a nice design, it's been done. The limitations and issues are well know as well, like having trouble with private intranet sites and VPNs or that because all the requests come from a few centralized IPs, geoip doesn't offer any benefit (GEOIP is a hack anyways but sites use it and users get confused when their pages think they are where ever some colo is). It also creates a single point of failure which, pedantically, is counter to the design of the internet.

I was a little inflamed by the video's first statement that browsers have been built pretty much the same as they were since the beginning without many innovations. Sounds like marketing spin. I can name several notable amazing advancements in browser design since the days of WordWideWeb at CERN and Mosaic. A good number of amazing achievements around security for sure.

Also, on top of that, you know what happens when Silk touches Fire? It's not pretty.

<comment><USER9> (personal opinion, not opinion of my employeer rim)

The old Blackberry Java browser was split and had tons of logic in the cloud to compensate for the fact that networks were beyond slow and devices had no extra cpu and very little ram and it did make a huge difference. It feels like RIM bet big that networks were always going to be slow and cpu's wouldn't be that fast and then came along the iphone. These days networks are much faster and there are cell phone with dual core cpu's and GB's of ram. Just imagine what we will have next year! So it is all a trade off. Is putting resources into developing this hybrid browser worth more than developing something else and just waiting 12 months for faster network/devices?

Also while they don't say it on that page for the curious Amazon silk is using WebKit (from the jobs page).

<comment><USER10> Agreed. The most interesting part of the announcement is the mention of dynamically selecting which components of the browser run on the server and which run on the client. I wanted to get more details on that but can't find much. I'm interested in how they carved up WebKit and the interfaces between the different modules that might get serialized over the air.

<comment><USER9> Well a good chunk of it doubt is all in the Network layer which is outside of "WebKit". Image compression, dns, fetching, pre-fetching, streaming, etc. You can no doubt get tons of win just by having a proxy server that gzip's everything that can be that isn't already. But that is just the tip, they mentioned image re-compressions, but what other trivial things like stripping javascript and html to reduce size.

But you could also do things like pre-compile the javascript and only send the bytecode down to the browser (starting to get in the relm of cool).

And we still haven't touched the dom. Of course the more you touch the harder it is to keep up to date with webkit.org. The real meat of this entire discussion has to be what gives the best bang for the buck? For WiFi devices all of this (guessing) is a waste of resource as my guess is that it doesn't improve the speed by much. I would expect the performance jumps on a cell network to be much better. So when is that device coming out?

<comment><USER10> With the old BlackBerry browser, MDS did image re-compressions using the Slipstream image libraries, and javascript pre-compilation for the ecma engine. It helped, but only so much. Reducing image sizes turns out to not be applicable all that often, unless you're not letting the user zoom in to 1:1 size. Degrading image quality (invisible to the average human eye) helps though.

If all they're doing is network stuff then there's nothing new here, and I doubt their gains will be very noticeable. I was hoping for something more involved.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This sounds like the tips & tricks you see in Pagespeed/Yslow, moving it to a proxy, coupling it with something like SPDY, and mixing in some server side caching. Which is neat, and no doubt will achieve some speedups. But I don't know if it is as revolutionary as Amazon is trying to make it sound.

There are also some serious privacy implications here. I don't really know if I want Amazon to cache & potentially record all my browsing, especially since that device is something they can directly connect to all my personal info (purchasing history, CC number, home address, etc..).

<comment><USER12> To be fair, Amazon is doing what our ISPs do already: cache sites to deliver it faster.

Also, Amazon's privacy statement says you can make Silk a normal browser by selecting the "off-cloud" mode [1]. Off-cloud mode allows web pages to go directly to the device rather than pass through their servers. I'm sure most users won't know of this option but at least it _is_ an option.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=200775270)

<comment><USER13> They do claim they're going to monitor browsing patterns. More food for their recommendation engines.

<comment><USER14> Source? Was that in the video? I hadn't read that anywhere.

<comment><USER15> Yes it was, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_u7F_56WhHk&t=3m55s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_u7F_56WhHk&t=3m55s)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> As more of us rely on our mobile devices to browse the net, and as this trend picks up, wouldn't this mean that Amazon has a unique vantage point to see what people are searching for, in terms of content, products etc?

With each product iteration or rollout, it seems like we are increasingly giving up more than our dollars at the point of sale, like privacy - <USER2> companies to have complete access to our browsing/spending preferences.

<comment><USER17> Here's hoping Amazon give you the option to turn it off.

<comment><USER12> They do:

"You can also choose to operate Amazon Silk in basic or 'off-cloud' mode. Off- cloud mode allows web pages generally to go directly to your computer rather than pass through our servers. As such, it does not take advantage of Amazon's cloud computing services to speed-up web content delivery." [1]

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=200775270)

<comment><USER18> Great. _Double_ the compatibility testing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Does it seem like Amazon is solving yesterdays problem instead of the futures? With the speed of CPU's doubling every 18 months and the amount of bandwidth increasing by 50% annually, the accelerating growth of CPU's and bandwidth will leave this sort of client-server architecture behind. It's only a matter of time.

<comment><USER20> If the past is any indicator, increases in CPU and bandwidth will be followed by increases in CPU and bandwidth _usage_.

<comment><USER21> To a point; for the vast majority of users, the increase in hardware requirements for modern desktop tasks plateaued quite some time ago. The exception to this is video games; they've continued to drive hardware advancement on the desktop.

Mobile devices are nearly on par with where that plateau began, and there are plenty of reasons to increase the CPU/GPU performance for the purpose of games. In this context, it certainly appears to me that Amazon is wasting their resources on what amounts to a massively complex privacy snafu.

<comment><USER22> The devices are fast enough, but with that speed came massive battery life problems. Therefore, the same problem exists, its effects have just moved somewhere else. It is therefore not comparable with the desktop.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This seems very similar to Opera Turbo (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera_Turbo#Opera_Turbo>) - no?

<comment><USER24> I'd say closer to Opera Mini, which pretty much runs everything through their proxy service. And I have to admit, it makes for a very compelling browsing experience on a phone - faster than any other mobile browser out there, with limited loss of functionality (ajax becomes a normal page turn instead of a local dom switch).

<comment><USER25> Isn't Opera Mini just a "web" client that always connects through Opera Turbo? Opera _Mobile_ and Desktop, on the other hand let you switch Turbo on or off.

<comment><USER26> No, Opera Mini and Opera Turbo works a bit differently. While Turbo provides compression the actual rendering is always done locally. With Mini on the other hand the rendering is done server side, and then sent to the Mini client using an Opera Mini specific markup language.

<comment><USER25> I they were the same so I just Wiresharked Opera Mobile on my phone (with Turbo enabled) and it looks like you're right. My phone sends HTTP requests to something.opera-mini.net, then that server sends back compressed HTTP.

You must have a lot of Turbo/Mini proxy servers to handle all the clients. I guess it's against your TOS but I wonder how easy it would be to proxy another browser's traffic through Opera Turbo.

Is Opera Mini's format closed or is there a spec somewhere we can see?

Thanks for creating an account to reply.

<comment><USER26> Fairly certain that there aren't any publicized spec for OBML (aka Opera Binary Markup Language, aka the Opera Mini markup language).

[http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/opera-mini-web-content- au...](http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/opera-mini-web-content-authoring- guidelines/) does contain some good info on Mini, even if it may not be what you were wondering about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This suggests to me an interesting idea. Lets say you used the CSS media tag to include style sheets for 'e-ink', then if such a style existed you could 'send this to my kindle'. A sort of instapaper meets Kindle Publishing.

Amazon could pull something like that off, it would be useful to have a wordpress template that included the e-ink stylesheet.

<comment><USER7> There are media queries for monochromatic screens.

<http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-mediaqueries/#monochrome>

(although I wouldn't expect them to actually support this properly)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> So, a man-in-the-middle attack is a feature when Amazon is the middleman?

<comment><USER29> How "safe" is a browser like this when you want to login to websites? Could they get your passwords if you log to say Gmail through it?

<comment><USER28> Even if they disable the MITM attack against SSL, or the conventional proxy, or the caching, the fact that browser internals can be shifted to their servers means they can get anything they want from your browsing session, including cookies and keystrokes.

<comment><USER29> Great, so if this thing becomes popular, the Government will be able to verify all that data and passwords at will, with just one phone call, like it happened with Wikileaks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Why would Amazon be on wordpress.com? That's not for real is it?

<comment><USER31> 2nd this: for a big product rollout, this site URL presence & 'blog design' is so amateurish it feels like a phishing or SEO attack.

<comment><USER32> The smart people at <http://automattic.com/> might take umbrage with your classification of their services.

<comment><USER31> Not really. Automattic does a great job with Wordpress and keeping services online, no judgment of them.

For a company as large and successful as Amazon to launch a product on a default blog template under their domain? That's like launching a product on Blogspot, with that 'circles and dots' theme or whatever: it looks unprofessional.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I'm not a front end developer, but it seems to me that pre-evaluation of javascript, or even compiling the js into byte code, would be something that front end developers would want to try in order to speed up their own users' experience of their site. Is there anything that the cloud part of Silk is doing that can be applied to websites in general, regardless of what browser is doing the rendering? Or is this optimization uniquely possible because Amazon controls the browser itself?

<comment><USER34> there's no good way to compile to JS byte code, but pre-evaluation of JS is certainly possible and a worthwhile effort

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> For those of us working on mobile browsers this means a whole new set of implementation quirks we have to deal with even without the server side assist they are including. Even if they choose webkit as the rendering engine god knows what the event system will behave like.

</comment><comment><USER36> The best news about this in my opinion is that websites can no longer block EC2 IPs if they want to work properly on the Kindle Fire... between this and free inbound bandwidth (now we know why they made that happen in the first place), scraping just got a lot easier.

</comment><comment><USER37> The technology looks interesting, but it looks like Amazon gets to track all web surfing that you do on the Kindle Fire?

</comment><comment><USER38> This is way more interesting than a rebranded Android tablet.

</comment><comment><USER39> What is the rendering engine for this? Is it Webkit or something else?

<comment><USER12> It's powered by a WebKit engine. Amazon Silk jobs are asking for Webkit engineers [1]. Presumably, they've modded the underlying Android browser.

[1] <https://us-amazon.icims.com/jobs/152694/job?in_iframe=1>

<comment><USER40> Interesting that you can use Webkit to build your browser but still call it "all-new".

<comment><USER39> So you must think there's no difference between Safari and Chrome then.

Rendering engine:browser::Car:engine

<comment><USER41> One of those pairs seems backwards.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> It would be really interesting if they could integrate some form of parental controls along with this whole caching/prefetching/data crunching process.

Say you logged into your Amazon account and set the rating level for content available in Fire and then Amazon's servers would block your kid from accessing freepr0n4all.com. You could add exceptions, specific sites to block, etc. and there would be a known, ever-evolving database of "unsafe" sites by rating.

The ability to filter content in a mobile browser isn't something that exists as of yet, I don't believe.

If I could do this, I'd buy one for my 9yr old today.

Of course, this could then be combined with other tools to "lock down" the fire, e.g. disabling the ability to exit "cloud mode" and thus bypass the filters, password protection for app/movie purchases, like iOS parental controls do, and so on.

<comment><USER43> Honest question from someone who grew up in the era of web content controls: Do you really think you -- or any of us -- have the technical capability to stop another person from seeing something on the Internet if they want to?

It makes sense to try to help a young child keep from accidentally stumbling across that kind of crap, but I'm highly skeptical of the idea that you can prevent your child from looking at porn full stop-- or would really want to.

<comment><USER42> No, not at all. I'm going with (hopefully) good parenting and crossing my fingers on that one. ;) It's preventing the "accidentally wandering into questionable content" that I'm interested in, in search results, etc.

I'm not so much even worried about protecting her from the "questionable content" because I think that's something she needs to learn to deal with (though we do of course have rules about what is and isn't allowed). I just don't want her stumbling across it on a tablet in her bedroom, where we won't notice and can't offer guidance or discussion.

We have a computer in the living room that she uses for internet access and we don't have any filtering software, etc. on it. It's just out in the open, so generally supervised.

<comment><USER43> That's a great answer. I hope I didn't come off as too critical, sounds like you definitely know what's up.

<comment><USER42> Thanks you :) and no, I didn't think you sounded harsh at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> So it's OnLive for webpages; putting the client-side on the server-side. Well, half (or a dynamically allocated proportion) anyway.

But compositing dozens of network fetches from the same cloud, centrally caching the rest, and predictive pre-fetch are big wins. The endless traipsing back-and-forth is frustrating even on the desktop. These aren't new ideas, but if Amazon implements them to deliver a better experience, users won't care - and neither will you. A sad truth for pioneers.

Also gives Amazon a competitive advantage: host _all_ your stuff with us, users will love you (google's experiments showed that even fraction-of-a- second latency loses users.)

 _EDIT_ but... amazon.com is one of the slowest websites on the internet for me, and I'd expect them to be doing all of the above on their own site...

</comment><comment><USER45> How does SSL work with this? Wouldn't a lot of certificates get broken?

<comment><USER46> From the FAQ [1]:

        What about handling secure (https) connections?
        We will establish a secure connection from the cloud to the site owner on your behalf for page requests of sites using SSL (e.g. https://siteaddress.com).

        Amazon Silk will facilitate a direct connection between your device and that site.  Any security provided by these particular sites to their users would still exist.

[1]: [http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html//ref=amb...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html//ref=amb_link_357584342_3?ie=UTF8&nodeId=200775440&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-21-0&pf_rd_r=0TVXTAYDDY8QCBJQHQB1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_p=1321395082&pf_rd_i=B0051VVOB2)

<comment><USER47> I'd like to hear more about what "facilitate" means.

Is the connection from the device right through EC2 out to the site secure, even from Amazon?

Or, is the connection from the device to Amazon secure, and the connection from Amazon to the site secure, but Amazon is acting as a man-in-the-middle?

Or, is the connection from the device to Amazon insecure, Amazon is acting as a man-in-the-middle, but the connection from Amazon to the site is secure?

I may be having a slow neuron day, but the wording of the FAQ doesn't seem to definitively state which of these three cases holds?

<comment><USER46> It sounds like Amazon is a effectively a man-in-the-middle.

Hopefully the device-to-Amazon connection is secured by Amazon, but I can not find any details.

The privacy implications of all SSL traffic being decrypted on AWS are a bit scary.

I am guessing the end user will never see broken SSL certificate warnings (as you would expect in a regular browser), since Amazon can add a "Amazon MITM" root CA certificate to the browser.

<comment><USER48> If Amazon does, in fact, act as a MITM, then that's a deal-breaker as far as I'm concerned.

Edit: The more I think about it, the more I think it is likely that they are just passing along the connection. SSL is designed to prevent MITM attacks. They would have to provide their own certificate which would cause browser warnings. They could write their browser to ignore certificate problems for Amazon certificates, but that strikes me as a pretty gaping hole.

<comment><USER47> What you say is very true, however when you say that SSL prevents MITM attacks, you are assuming that "their browser" always lives entirely within the device.

If their browser has code operating on the device and in the cloud, then their browser won't generate certificate warnings because there isn't a man-in-the- middle between their browser and the site, there's a man-in-the-middle between the device in your hands and the site.

It would be insecure against Amazon snooping or modifying the communication, but still generate the appropriate warnings about bad certificates.

I think the answer is, run "off-cloud" when you want privacy from Amazon.

<comment><USER48> Yes, I hadn't considered that possibility. The picture in my mind was some sort of hybrid operation where some of the work was offloaded, in which case you would still have to properly support device-to-site SSL links.

So I guess the issue of privacy still remains up in the air. I was hoping to be an early adopter of this, but I think I'll wait to see how the SSL via Silk situation pans out before putting down cash.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> This Silk browser could be the "killer feature" of the Kindle Fire... something that allows it to really compete in the tablet space. It'll be interesting to really see how well it works in the real world and what the form factor of the Fire feels like.

<comment><USER50> I disagree. It is a good step for browsers everywhere, and hopefully will do more to push other browsers to use split processing, but the Fire will capture a new market of price-minded consumers who would never pay over twice as much for an iPad. Like Bezos said, it's all about bringing that level of product to a lower level price range.

<comment><USER51> If browsing (and thus all web-apps) are much faster than on the iPad, it will push the state of the art... security (https) be damned.

<comment><USER50> So to me there's two parts of introducing new technology that every group has to address: the technical advances and the policy around the new technology for consumers. Amazon is obviously doing a good job to help the technical side of it, but so far I think they're failing on the policy. They haven't mentioned the ability to shut off the split processing or use a different browser, and the answers to their privacy FAQs on privacy on their website are totally evasive. I think they're going to find themselves in a world of hurt if they don't start being more open about their policies, but who knows, it may end up not mattering to the masses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Is it just me, or does anyone else think that ideally this kind of thing should be done by website owners rather than amazon?

<comment><USER53> Webmasters and developers of server-side software are extremely lazy, so that just isn't going to happen.

Also, that would require standardization which has a pretty high cost.

<comment><USER52> But not so lazy that they couldn't install turn-key server software or a proxy that would do it for them. Much of it wouldn't necessarily require new standards, it could work using existing technology. For the parts of it that would require new standards, provided there is a proven reduction in latency, it seems like the win would more than make up for the expense of making a new standard.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Advantages:

-cheap devices (the fire?) get to see complex websites

-server side webgl?

-server side java applets?

Disadvantages:

-you partially browse the web on Amazon's cloud so Amazon can track your behaviour (and your data)

-your site is part of an internal network that can only be accessed using a vpn from the outside world? bad luck.

-you have to buy a cheap device to see a real pageload speed,considered that you should get your data from amazon anyway

-if the world uses ec2 for browsing its performance will probably suffer

if you have the ipad you can test a lot of similar apps anyway,like puffin or skyfire,and see if you would like it,I prefer the native browser myself,yet I know that the infrastructure would be better in theory.

</comment><comment><USER55> A Wordpress blog running a theme from WooThemes. I guess we know we're dealing directly with the developers (but at least they listened to patio11's advice ;-).

</comment><comment><USER56> I think this may be much more than Operas method. Note that it includes formatting, layout and display. This makes me think they essentially run a clone of the browser on ec2 and could literally swap in the completed Dom, and layout. Or even a a memory diff. Having a persistent connection would also allow local events (clicks etc) to be sent back to mirror the state as you interact with the page.

</comment><comment><USER57> Hmmm ... if they can reformat a 3MB JPEG to a 50KB JPEG on-the-fly, then they can also replace the ad that might have been placed on a site by the owner with one of their choosing. It would be interesting to see if there's a difference in click-through rates between Silk's user-agent and a traditional web browser.

<comment><USER58> ISPs have been able to do this for years. It doesn't really happen because the outrage would be deafening.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> SEOmoz have been seeing extreme volatility in EC2 spot pricing - could this have been related to pre-release testing of Silk?

[http://devblog.seomoz.org/2011/09/amazon-ec2-spot-request- vo...](http://devblog.seomoz.org/2011/09/amazon-ec2-spot-request-volatility- hits-1000hour/)

<comment><USER60> As a kind of side point, I find it kind of interesting that Amazon is putting the EC2 brand front and center in this. You'd have to think it would be kind of surprising if they have really built it on exactly the same cloud that they are renting to 3rd parties - but that's certainly the way they are portraying it. It seems like they are almost trying to advertise EC2 to geeks as much as they are the Silk browser.

<comment><USER61> I think Amazon.com runs on EC2 as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> "Computing Power in the Cloud

EC2 servers have massive computational power. On EC2, available CPU, storage, and available memory can be orders of magnitudes larger than on mobile devices. Silk uses the power and speed of the EC2 server fleet to retrieve all of the components of a website simultaneously, and delivers them to Kindle Fire in a single, fast stream. Transferring computing-intensive tasks to EC2 helps to conserve your Kindle Fire battery life."

<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0051VVOB2#silk>

What does this mean? "Transferring computing-intensive tasks to EC2 helps to conserve your Kindle Fire battery life". Are we offloading javascripting processing to the cloud and returning the results?

If so it will be different than Opera Mini.

<comment><USER62> From ArsTechnica,

"Amazon has also added a few unique twists of its own that will further improve the user experience. An Amazon engineer at the New York launch event told us that the split browsing infrastructure can even compile JavaScript to ARM machine code on the server side in situations where it will provide a speed boost. He also told us that Amazon will track whether users prefer the full or mobile versions of various websites so that they can predict which one is better to send to users."

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> This seems sort of like CloudFlare built directly into the browser. Essentially, using EC2 as an http optimizing and caching proxy through which requests are routed. They might also geo balance traffic to the closest EC2 region.

</comment><comment><USER64> Why do you need a car which goes at 300 KM/hr when you drive at 50 KM/hr all the time, and don't have any issue with speed?

When it comes to web browsing most of us have very good speed for browsing, then why do we need to speed up the browsing?

</comment><comment><USER65> Google also has a massive network of distributed servers and a couple browsers. I wonder if they'll start doing this for the Android browser and maybe even as an option for faster browsing on Chome.

</comment><comment><USER66> Most tablet makers would kill to have this much developer interest. I'm fascinated by Silk and have wasted the better part of the day trying to figure out exactly what they're doing.

Here's an independent description of Silk behind the scenes:

[http://www.webmonkey.com/2011/09/amazons-silk-web-browser- ad...](http://www.webmonkey.com/2011/09/amazons-silk-web-browser-adds-new- twist-to-old-idea/)

I am hoping that Amazon gets a developers guide up soon that fills in more of the gaps. Already on EC2 and I want to start experimenting.

</comment><comment><USER67> It will be interesting if Amazon decides to port this browser/services combo to other devices, similar to Kindle software being on lots of platforms.

<comment><USER68> The connectivity between the server and client side of Fire seems to be quite custom so it is unlikely a simple port. Amazon also mentioned that this is exclusive to Fire and made no mentioning of plan to expand Fire. If they do plan to expand Fire to other platforms in the future, I'd bet they mention it somewhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> While I think the idea is brilliant - do as much precomputation and rendering and content consolidation in the cloud as you can - the strange thing to me is that all this stuff is _really_ mainly a problem for browsing over cell networks while the Fire itself only supports Wifi. It kind of hints to me that there _is_ a 3G Fire coming, they just aren't able to release it yet ...

</comment><comment><USER19> Does it seem like Amazon is solving yesterdays problem instead of futures? With the speed of CPU's doubling every 18 months and the amount of bandwidth increasing by 50% annually, the accelerating growth of CPU's and bandwidth will leave this sort of client-server architecture behind. It's only a matter of time.

</comment><comment><USER69> Around the 3:00 mark, they start talking about interesting things, like reducing the number of network requests.

</comment><comment><USER70> Here is a screenshot from 1:58 in the video: <http://i.imgur.com/jcVOT.png>

(If this is any indicator of the actual product), it says that the whole JavaScript processing will be done on the server.

<comment><USER71> No, it is dynamic. In the video these sliders are actually moving. (And not static, as your image would suggest)

The article explains it like this:

      All of the browser subsystems are present on your Kindle Fire as well
      as on the AWS cloud computing platform. Each time you load a web page,
      Silk makes a dynamic decision about which of these subsystems will
      run locally and which will execute remotely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> I wonder, in terms of having many connections, could the same thing be done by a HTTP -> SPDY gateway? It saves having a multitude of connections for a single request, and also is more compressed.

<comment><USER73> I think that is exactly what the Silk cloud is doing: <http://aws.amazon.com/amazonsilk-jobs/>

<comment><USER72> Aha! That's awesome. Apart from that, it seems like it's normal optimisation techniques (compressing/resizing images, etc).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> Wouldn't the amazon silk team post on an Amazon blog?

<comment><USER75> I don't think so. Amazon has a habit of using third party services for their blogs. This particular team may just have opted for WordPress.com, instead of TypePad, like they usually do (see <http://aws.typepad.com>).

<comment><USER74> Ah, right. That at least looks Amazon-y.

They could of put some effort into the logo and blog template into the new blog. It looks very blog spammy at first.

<comment><USER75> Agreed. Maybe the Silk team should read my book. :-P

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> Does anyone have a link to the discussion about Amazon doing more tech-related disruption than Google?

</comment><comment><USER77> The Age of The Terminal, Year One

<comment><USER78> Shouldn't you say The Second Age of The Terminal, Year One?

<comment><USER77> You're right. Maybe this time it'll stick? :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> How good is HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript support?

</comment><comment><USER13> SSL MITM FTW.

</comment><comment><USER80> I can not believe he used the word "decentralized" to describe silk in the video explanation.

<comment><USER81> why?

<comment><USER80> Why? Because the Amazon and specifically the AUC lies at the center of the whole architecture.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER82> "Our back end has some of the fattest pipes you'll find" - <USER3>

</comment><comment><USER83> I am wondering could it internally be webkit node.js/webwokrer combo?

</comment><comment><USER84> Don't do your banking on it!

<comment><USER85> This is what I was thinking, surely privacy becomes an issue if all of your data is going through what is essentially a 3rd party. Maybe secure connections bypass EC2?</comment></comment>


D3 visualization of San Francisco BART employees' salaries and union membership - <AUTHOR> http://blog.vctr.me/bart/index.html <comment><USER2> The coloured dots are cute and all, but if the goal is to make visually apparent the relationship between salary and union membership, some more traditional visualisations might have made this clearer. For example boxplots broken down by union.

<comment><USER3> Yeah... I'm honestly not sure what I'm supposed to be seeing with this visualization. :(

<comment><USER4> Yes it's indeed visual. Is the visualization insightful? no.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Very cool visualization.

One of the big points of confusion I've had in understanding the press around this has been trying to rationalize the differences between the (union) statements about low base salaries against the (management) statements about high total costs per employee. This provides some interesting context about how those numbers can be so different.

1) There's only one union employee with a base salary (graph union vs base pay) over $100k, and only 3 non-computer/telco union jobs with a salary above $90k.

2) There are a few folks with huge overtime (earning up to an additional 1.5x their salary in overtime). A quarter of the union employees are adding over 20% to their salary from overtime. Nearly 7% are adding over 50%. A total of 21 people are making more from OT than base pay. The big overtime users are mostly making between $50k and 65k a year in base salary, with a few making $80k+.

3) As a side-note: The biggest overtime payments go mostly to senior operations foreworkers (usually making $80k+) and train operators (usually making $60-75k). As a percentage of salary, those two titles are some of the leaders, but also joined by system service workers (described on several sites as basically a janitor and making $50-60k).

</comment><comment><USER6> Astonishing for me from a cross cultural perspective.

-Here in the Netherlands mechanics would never come as close to senior management as at BART. The highest ranking mechanics / technical staff are in the $/2 range of senior management? I would venture the same ratio would be >10 here.

-You can actually get 100K$ in overtime! Too bad their hours aren't included.

-And: all salaries are public including names. No privacy there.

-I don't see much evidence of explicit union favouratism? Much of the management is non-represented, but white collar versus blue collar could account for that?

<comment><USER7> >-And: all salaries are public including names. No privacy there.

This is actually true for all Finnish citizens. It's a bit weird since privacy is (supposed) to be respected here.

<comment><USER8> I don't see anything unreasonable here as they are public workers. They are paid for by taxpayers and taxpayers should damn well be able to see how much public workers get paid. Besides, the public workers all agreed to this when they enter into the contract.

<comment><USER9> Why do their names have to be listed if they're just a mechanic or whatever? Why not strip the names unless they are in some kind of leadership role?

<comment><USER10> I think you never met Brazil, where once the government even found government paid cooks earning 50k BRL month (the Brazil President wage is 19k BRL month, that is about 10k usd month)

<comment><USER9> As I said, I am not even saying remove the "Profession, Salary" fields. Just the names for most people.

When someone digs through the data and sees the cook being paid that much, perhaps they start to ask their government some questions.

Or come up with any other criteria for whose name gets released. Just don't make everybody's name visible by default because you're fearful of the nepotistic chef scenario...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I like how you can click on a person's representative dot and follow them through the different sorting metrics. One point stood out to me: how does Assistant Treasurer Ms. Collier get $289,534 in "other" pay? The raw data provided didn't offer any details, and [http://www.mercurynews.com/salaries/bay- area/2012](http://www.mercurynews.com/salaries/bay-area/2012) classifies "Other" as lump sum payouts for vacation, sick-leave, bonuses and comp-time. How does the assistant treasurer get such a high bonus? (For reference, one other assistant treasurer was included in the data, and made a base of 150k (vs Ms Collier's $30K), but only 6k in "other" payment).

Visualizations make it very easy to spot outliers like this.

<comment><USER12> Perhaps she retired and was awarded the value of her accrued vacation time?

<comment><USER13> That's exactly what happened. She had been employed for 21 years and accrued that much PTO over that period.

[http://blog.sfgate.com/matierandross/2013/07/24/barts- golden...](http://blog.sfgate.com/matierandross/2013/07/24/barts-golden-ride- into-retirement/)

<comment><USER12> I'm just going to add that I think it's silly to get paid your last salary for vacation time you earned when you were 25. While I don't care for caps on the accrued time, I see nothing unfair about scaling the time by your salary - such that if you have 100 vacation days and you get a 10% raise you now have 90 vacation days.

<comment><USER14> You should at least adjust by cost of living.

But now you know exactly why people save up vacation like this: To get a larger payout at the end of the career.

Personally I think unused vacation days should be savable for 2 years, and then are automatically paid at the current salary rate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I don't think I'd feel comfortable if someone posted my name, title, and salary along with everyone I worked with to a public website.

<comment><USER16> To be fair, that information isn't private. It is available for anyone to find.

<comment><USER15> I don't think any laws were violated, and I understand the oversight justification in general. However, I find this salary data is fairly specific, when compared to other budget/spending data released by cities and school districts (at least my local ones). I'd actually prefer much more detail on non-payroll spending, particularly with public spending on sub-contracted companies.

<comment><USER17> Oh man, you'll hate this: [http://salary.sanjoseca.gov/salary/](http://salary.sanjoseca.gov/salary/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> USA is weird. How come you can get this data on people's personal lives? Why do you not have privacy laws?

<comment><USER19> They are public employees. Wouldn't it be a bit weirder to expect people to pay taxes without knowing what they were spent on?

<comment><USER12> We should know where our tax dollars are going, but I don't really see the problem with anonomizing the data - at least for the bottom 95% of earners. There are also aspects of government spending which would be way more interesting to me (and way more likely to be evidence of corruption) than how much my neighbor the train mechanic makes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Wow - I'm a lot less interested in the BART strike and more inspired about the idea that news stories and their source data will be published as _github projects_. This is an amazing concept. I can fork this "story" and edit it to my liking, add different analyses, commentary, etc. I could combine the data with other data - all without bothering the author. I can also verify the data, amend it, etc (which is a little risky).

But overall, the idea of an interactive news story in git is one of the best things I've seen so far this decade.

<comment><USER21> You might also be interested in Coursefork, my startup for creating forkable educational materials [1]. We're considering building some "deploy to _x_ " tools, where x is a set of publishing tools such as Wordpress or Jekyll, or even a GitHub pages instance.

[1]: [http://coursefork.org](http://coursefork.org)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is not a good visualization. It's actually harder to find the information one might be interested in and making comparisons is not easy or really possible.

</comment><comment><USER23> Hey, so... this is a sorta good time to ask. I assume this website's visualization was meant to spark some discussion. Do people on HN support/condemn the BART strike(s)? I've always been under the impression that the huge salaries being reported were some how an exaggeration. Because of this, I support the BART strike(s)... but perhaps my impression is wrong. Also, the strike doesn't impact me nearly as much as some other people. git pull/commit/push works just as good at home as in the office; thus I avoid dealing with the _insane_ traffic from EastBay to San Francisco that is made even more insane by BART shutting down. At the same time, I don't think anyone wants disgruntled BART employees doing anything dangerous so paying them to have a "comfortable" life is also a good idea.

Basically, I want to know if BART employees are being overpaid for what they do. This is probably more of an opinion thing than any kind of fact one way or another.

I don't wanna go into some flamewar or anything....

<comment><USER24> I think the graphic is also fairly misleading starting with total comp instead of base salary or cash take home. I know when talking about my salary or how much I make things like value of my medical insurance is rarely something that comes up.

<comment><USER23> Yes!!! That's something I really think is going on. I really want to know the base-salary; not the potential health-care, plus 401k, plus something-else, that makes it all look huge.

<comment><USER25> Then toggle the drop-down to Salary + OT + Misc.

<comment><USER23> thanks for the tip. Looks _much_ more reasonable now; still a bit higher than what I would have guessed. I kinda think this website should default to base- pay. In my mind, when someone tells me their salary I assume they're talking base-pay. If I wanted other info, I'd specifically ask for it. But that's just me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I think I am in the wrong profession...perhaps one with a Union can help increase my salary/benefits.

</comment><comment><USER27> Lesson I learned from this chart: if I want to earn more as a BART employee, don't join a union.

</comment><comment><USER28> wowsa. how does that 1 station agent make 42k more than any other?</comment>


Satya Nadella – Microsoft's CEO - <AUTHOR> http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/ceo/index.html <comment><USER2> It's worth noting that under Satya (in my org, Cloud and Enterprise) we open sourced ASP.NET, use 50+ OSS libraries in Visual Studio, have all the Azure cloud SDKs on GitHub, and on and on. We made Portable Libraries happen and now share code between iOS, Android, and Windows. This is not your grandfather's MSFT, and now the dude who helped us (Azure) change things in a fundamentally non-MSFT and totally awesome way is in charge. I'm stoked - big things coming, I think.

Disclaimer: I work in Azure.

<comment><USER3> I suggest open sourcing Windows. Put it on GitHub with a permissive license and accept pull requests. The internet will blow up, you'll instantly win back all of the developer mindshare that has been lost over the years.

<comment><USER4> You obviously have no concept of what the windows source looks like. Putting it on github would be a massive technical challenge alone.

<comment><USER5> Can you explain?

<comment><USER4> Let's just say that comparing Windows to the linux kernel would be a mistake. Hosting the windows source would be a challenge for any source control system out there. Git / github is not exactly optimized for projects of that size.

<comment><USER6> Sure, Windows is more than a kernel. I imagine the NT kernel vs the Linux kernel would be roughly comparable. But to compare 'Linux' the OS to Windows would mean Windows vs. GNU/Linux/X.org/Gnome/KDE... or say, the source for every package in the base Debian distribution.

<comment><USER4> Exactly. Now imagine that every part of it was just as bloated and convoluted as you'd imagine.

<comment><USER7> I doubt that Windows is monolithic/bloated. Convoluted sure, backwards compatibility is a bitch, but Windows is probably broken into neat little modules by now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'd never thought I'd say this after the years of aggressive (and at times anti-competitive) dominance but I think the world needs a strong Microsoft again.

Although Microsoft remains very strong in the corporate world, its presence in the Internet and mobile worlds are now pretty limited and leaving the two power-houses of Google and Apple to shape the industry.

Satya has done a good job with Azure, and it will be interesting to see whether he can make Microsoft more relevant to the Internet back into someone that can influence the industry.

<comment><USER9> Why? What good would a strong Microsoft provide us? What void would that fill? We've been there, done that and frankly, I don't care to go back. They abused their power when they had it and I have no intent of giving it back to them to give them another crack at it.

No, I much prefer today's world of Google, Apple, Samsung and FOSS in all its myriad forms battling it out. There's more developer frameworks than ever available to us. More languages. More everything.

No. I don't want to go back.

<comment><USER10> Really?

The world of Google and Apple (Samsung and FOSS aren't even a player) is a world of closed computing platforms where people can't control their own devices and can't and don't code for them. More languages? I don't think so. How many languages can you use to write apps for your iPhone or Android device? Objective C and Java respectively and that's about it. With Google not only do you not control your apps/device even your data isn't under your control any more.

Yes, Microsoft's business practices weren't so great, but I don't agree the new world is much better. As a developer it actually feels worse. The only exception is Linux and server side development which is in a sense a niche (plus that existed before Google and Apple rose to their dominance and could have co-existed with Microsoft perfectly happily).

<comment><USER9> There's lots of languages you can use to create iOS applications: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3949995/what- programming-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3949995/what-programming- languages-can-one-use-to-develop-iphone-ipod-touch-and-ipad-i)

Android allows you to freely deploy your applications to their devices, while iOS requires a little more work. In neither case do you _have_ to go through their respective stores (I'm thinking enterprise/personal apps here). For commercial sales it's increasingly a moot point: consumers are purchasing apps through app stores regardless of platform.

As a developer, I've never felt more free, less beholden to a corporate entity and their hidden agenda, and have an awesome stable of tools and technologies from which I can use to build solutions. It's almost gotten to the point where I have _too much choice!_

And that's awesome!

<comment><USER11> > _" There's lots of languages you can use to create iOS applications: > [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3949995/what- > programming-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3949995/what- > programming-..). "_

Compared to truly open devices, and moderately open systems (even Windows or OSX), that is an absolute joke.

<comment><USER12> I could be wrong but isn't it by default osx doesn't allow you to install apps that aren't from the app store as well.

<comment><USER13> you are indeed wrong. By default apps need only to be signed. This is also easy to bypass (right click and select open while holding...option i think? not at workstation right now..) as well as easy to change globally (preferences).

<comment><USER12> I am not wrong. They put up a barrier to installing apps, so by default they do not allow it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I hope the new CEO has the courage and the power to set out a vision and stick to it for more than just a few years in a row.

Microsoft under Ballmer has been a study in short attention span. Changing themes, names, and directions every three to five years. When I was a Windows sysadmin back in the day, it was incredibly frustrating to build anything on the Microsoft platform because by the time you wrapped your brain around the new way of doing things, the next server OS release would change everything. From what I've seen since I moved on to a different career, that pattern hasn't changed.

Apple's success has come from a laser focus and constant improvement for the past 17 years. Microsoft used to be similarly focused. Remember the old adage that Microsoft would get it right by Version Three, and wipe out the competition? Well, they haven't stuck to any particular plan for long enough to come up with a version three of anything in 15 years.

Hell, Microsoft pioneered tablet computers, but after some promising early models and some decent push into the innovation required, they kind of just let that project wither on the vine until Apple came up with a workable model. Then MS desperately tried to pivot and turn everything, even the server OS, into a tablet-and-desktop-friendly mess.

Remember Zune? Remember Live? Remember the Kin??

<comment><USER15> _> Remember Zune? Remember Live? Remember the Kin??_

We should be very careful about criticizing others for their failed products. The side-effect of experimentation and innovation is that some of the experiments will result in failure to find market fit. Market fit failure isn't a good thing for a company, but it's much worse to not experiment at all.

<comment><USER16> I'm most familiar with the example of the Kin, and it was not an example of " _experimentation and innovation_ ", but a case study in how Microsoft has largely lost its ability to execute on a proven concept.

For that matter, the Zune was a (late) iPod clone; sure, it had some experimental features (that didn't pan out, but, hey, they tried), but it was hardly seriously innovative.

It also was yet another example in how you'd best not trust Microsoft, as part of it they threw their PlaysForSure ecosystem under the bus.

Hmmm, getting whole sectors of the world to trust Microsoft in the future is going to be a tall order for the next CEO, assuming he doesn't just punt on many of them, which might be the wisest thing to do.

<comment><USER17> Both the Zune Pass and Zune Share were much more innovative than anything beyond the first iPod.

<comment><USER18> Execution matters. Zune Pass died a few months ago. I can still use account credit I put on my AppleID from 10 years ago (in fact I still have a few bucks on one of my early accounts).

A small startup that gets squished by larger competition has an excuse as to why it shut down services and let down it's customers. Microsoft has no such excuse. They failed to compete, then the failed their customers. Innovation is wasted if it's improperly handled.

<comment><USER19> Zune Pass transparently got rebranded to Xbox Music and still works just fine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The bigger news here might be that Bill Gates has stepped down from his role as Chairman of the board!

Although this has been rumored to happen for some time, its still a big "changing of the guard" step for Microsoft.

Good luck to Bill in his new roll on the Board as "Founder and Technology Advisor".

<comment><USER21> A step down from chairman, but a step up in involvement. Gates says he will be "substantially increasing the time that I spend at the company."

<comment><USER14> I hope that this is just doublespeak to reassure people who think Gates is important to Microsoft's future success. Personally, I think both Microsoft and the world would be better off if Gates stepped away completely and focussed all of his efforts on the Gates Foundation's work.

<comment><USER22> I think you're missing the point that Gates will be spending more time at Microsoft to lend gravitas to Nadella amongst the other Microsoft managers he beat out for the job. I imagine once they get the message and give the guy a chance to get his sea legs, Gates will back away.

<comment><USER23> I agree with your assessment but I think its a negative. Nadella needs to be able to command respect on his own. If you're right in your thinking then it indicates that the board really doesn't have confidence in him.

<comment><USER22> It was mentioned several times he has a calm and thoughtful approach, which is 180 from Balmer. It will be interesting to see if they can all make the adjustment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> It looks like Microsoft is starting to head in a better direction given their backtracking on "metro" style for desktop applications. I hope they develop more software for non-Windows devices. I really wouldn't mind using Microsoft software on non-Windows. I only use Windows for testing and gaming.

I wish Nadella and Microsoft luck, and hope they make a real turn around.

As a side note it is also exciting to see some more diversity in the top ranks of one of our biggest technology companies. If I were a young aspiring engineer from India, or anywhere in the world really, I'd feel pretty good about the future right now.

Also amazing is that they're publishing and embedding Google YouTube videos on that page.

<comment><USER25> > _As a side note it is also exciting to see some more diversity in the top > ranks of one of our biggest technology companies._

Because true diversity is people who look different!

<comment><USER24> I'm not sure what you mean by your reply.

<comment><USER26> It means he's one of those white racists who doesn't think he's racist.

<comment><USER27> I read it as the above person being a SJW who has a problem with Nadella being "white on the inside."

<comment><USER28> He is son of an IAS officer, he is part of Indian Elite. But coming to US in 80s and making to University of Chicago means he is a real deal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> There's something deeply symbolic about watching those enthusiastic people doing their Sorkin walks for the camera through the vast and completely empty halls of the Microsoft offices (or is it a museum, I can't tell).

By the numbers, Microsoft is still incredibly relevant. At the same time, I can't even remember when I last used _any_ MS product. It's not a boycott, there are simply no points where their stuff intersects with my life. I can imagine I'm not the only one, and that's not a comfortable position to be in for them. However, it's also difficult to see how they could ever break out of that. From where I'm standing they look like a partly consumer-focused IBM: rich, powerful, calcified, eternal, but computing has largely moved on and left them behind.

As a former MS user, I wish them all the success in the world turning this around.

<comment><USER30> You must not work in the corporate world. Microsoft has a massive foothold in enterprise: email, instant messaging (lync), excel, word, visio, project, even sharepoint and those are just the pieces you can see not to mention whats going in the backend.

Being one of the only Mac users in my office I constantly have to find work arounds for everything. Sadly they will be relevant for a long time we have almost 30,000 people using windows and they wont be learning anything new for a long time if ever.

I do hope the changing of the guard will help microsoft to build better products that integrate with OS's beside windows.

<comment><USER31> The decline of Microsoft will be a generational thing. At some point, those offices are going to be inhabited by kids who grew up with google docs, dropbox, a variety of IM options, and who have never seen a native email client.

When these kids grow up and enter the workforce, they will want to use the tools they know, and will not understand the point of in-house Windows sysadmins, or the software licensing fees.

My 21-year old daughter grew up using Microsoft products, and has abandoned them completely. Everything she does is in the cloud, (mostly google, yahoo for email). She enters the workforce in one year.

Whatever the new CEO does, he basically cannot win back a generation that has learned to do office tasks on non-Microsoft products. It's sort of like what happened with GM. They produced absolutely shitty cars in the 80s, and many people who had early experiences with those cars started buying Japanese cars and stayed there. (No, I don't have statistics to cite, that's just my impression and personal experience.)

I give Microsoft ten years until their first quarterly loss.

<comment><USER32> >> When these kids grow up and enter the workforce, they will want to use the tools they know, and will not understand the point of in-house Windows sysadmins, or the software licensing fees.

When your company reaches a certain size, auditors and such will put an end to that.

"This gets backed up where?"

"Where's your antivirus?"

"Why aren't you using _STANDARD_PRODUCTS_?"

etc

<comment><USER33> Your auditors are asking about specific software???

Ours never did. Processes, yes, specific brands? No way.

<comment><USER34> Yep we only install virus scanners at email gateways to make the exchange servers not die. The virus scanners are for windows, never had any auditor for sox or pci ask about software, sounds like a shit auditor.

<comment><USER35> Our PCI auditors like to see anti-virus on every machine, Windows, Linux, Mac, or Unix. That might not be a requirement, but every year they ask to see our AV solution for everything.

<comment><USER34> From our PCI implementation documentation I don't see any requirement of AV on every operating system.

Asking doesn't necessarily facilitate the need to do that thing necessarily.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> The email on his first day is an interesting read: [http://www.microsoft.com/en- us/news/press/2014/feb14/02-04ma...](http://www.microsoft.com/en- us/news/press/2014/feb14/02-04mail2.aspx)

<comment><USER37> It is interesting how devoid of content it is. I think that much better way to motivate the troops is to give tangible goals and be brief.

Anyway good luck be with him - from what I read in his bio he was heading the only part of MS recently that managed to not alienate its customer and developer base.

<comment><USER38> Having been at a company that recently underwent a CEO change, the first email is always fluffy. It's a greeting, gives their "big picture" strategy to give some idea of what's new with the new CEO, because that's every employee's concern right now.

In the next few weeks, the new CEO will be solidifying everything with Q&As, visiting the various campuses, and announce any new org changes. Org changes will be the big thing that impacts what individual contributors actually do in their jobs. Major changes to the 2014 strategy or goals would be announced soon, but seeing as how it's mid Q1 it's probably going to be changes for Q2 or 2H.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> John W. Thompson was once general manager of the division of IBM that produced OS/2[1], which was soundly defeated by Microsoft. I wonder how he feels about being chairman of Microsoft now given that previous experience.

[1] Around this time, he reported to an executive named John M. Thompson, hence the use of middle initials.

<comment><USER40> Another way you can read it is with a comparison with Stephen Elop and Rick Belluzzo. Could he have intentionally mis-managed OS/2 leaving the space open for Windows 3, being then rewarded by a position at Microsoft's board?

I know nothing about his career or his decisions WRT the OS/2 product, but, after having a closer look at the other two, a pattern of executive placement as an offensive weapon starts to form.

edit: minor clarifications

<comment><USER39> He's only been on the Microsoft board since 2012, which is nearly 20 years after the release of OS/2 Warp. That is pretty a far-fetched scenario in this case.

<comment><USER40> I agree. I don't know where he was in the meantime and what his relationship with Microsoft was during that time. If OS/2 was sabotaged from within, it was, quite possibly, the first time Microsoft did it.

It's far-fetched anyway. Belluzzo is much less far-fetched and Elop is pretty obvious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> The most interesting thing on this page is that the videos are hosted on YouTube.

<comment><USER42> this might be a good sign.

<comment><USER43> I don't want to jump to conclusions, but after watching the video I have a really good feeling about Satya. He doesn't strike me as a neurotic Microsoft evangelist salesman like Steve Ballmer.

I would love to see Nadella's Microsoft get more involved in open source projects, and win back some developer love that has become lost in darker years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Here's the concern: 1\. Everyone thinks Microsoft needs a rethink. 2\. Ballmer and others inside Microsoft think they did that and just need to execute on it (devices first, etc.) 3\. This guy helped develop the rethink that is in- process.

Any external candidates would have had to buy-in to the restructure already started but not fully executed under Ballmer. Since he was theoretically part of the changes started with Ballmer, he will continue the same agenda.

<comment><USER45> IMHO the re-think wasn't too far off. Microsoft's tablet OS is pretty nice. It was just late to the game and needs a stronger app ecosystem but they're working on that. The UI for Win8 desktop was DOA. They really over-shot there but have taken what I feel are appropriate steps to mitigate some of the damage and I think we'll see a nicer, better solution come Win9.

<comment><USER44> I hope so. We need more competition out there and Microsoft should be in the mix. It will be interesting to see changes if Ballmer and Gates remain on the Board in some capacity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Microsoft is back being led by a tech guy. This is awesome.

</comment><comment><USER47> I'll be more interested when he unleashes his "arse kicking" on the company and starts pushing roadmaps out. That's a make or break moment for a lot of us involved in Microsoft's ecosystem.

<comment><USER24> You know for the first time in a very long time I actually want to make Windows software. It's not really Microsoft's fault though. I really like twitch.tv, and streaming games from Windows is really easy thanks to OBS. I want to build stuff that makes user and streamer interaction easier via OBS on Windows. I wouldn't put it in the Windows store though. Heh.

<comment><USER48> OBS is currently being rewritten to be cross platform and because the old codebase was pretty bad, so I guess you could contribute

[https://github.com/jp9000/obs-studio](https://github.com/jp9000/obs-studio)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I love the quote "Our industry does not respect tradition - it only respects innovation". The most profound words I've read all day.

What would our industry be like if it respects tradition? Less reinventing the wheel every decade?

<comment><USER50> Given that the internet as the public knows it is only 20 years old, there's really not that much tradition. A kid in 1990 wouldn't say "I wanna be a web developer", because that job simply did not exist - it would still be several years before Mosaic came along (it's just had it's 21st birthday)

<comment><USER49> For the internet perhaps not. For our industry - we can trace it back to the 1950s or 1960s (I know there were earlier uses of computers, but I've never sen them as similar enough to our pattern).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I wish Microsoft would stop using language like "he saw how clearly Microsoft empowers people to do magical things". It makes it sound like Microsoft people are still off in la-la land, continuing to create interfaces like Metro for the desktop. Get Microsoft back to being a great software engineering, customer-focused and reliable company that enables people to be more effective in their jobs and help make those people's customers happier.

<comment><USER52> I totally agree with this. Microsoft would be really smart to cure themselves of all the delusional "we've got the greatest and most innovative people" crap. Sure, sure, pat yourselves on the back for your accomplishments and be proud when you do things well, but don't act like it's because you've somehow managed to hire the Chosen Devs. That kind of thinking just leads to never being self-critical.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> So I've done consulting with a 20MM+ USD startup that has engaged MSFT over a long period for acquisition potential. It was the case that Balmer had to personally approve every M&A activity over 10MM USD. Hopefully Satya will put in place an A-team of shrewd investors to delegate much of this activity because it seems nonscalable for a CEO to get involved in nearly every transaction. Satya has a lot of work to do to keep what works, modernize and throw out the bad (repeatedly trying to apply the same UX from one platform everywhere).

PS: Azure is great technically and is lightyears ahead most other parts of MSFT but it has not found enough customers to warrant applause. AWS eats their lunch.

</comment><comment><USER54> I still feel like I don't know who this guy is. I'm sure he's awesome but a lot is left out. The MS official bio stuff says he has a family, has worked for MS for a long time, has some degrees, and loves cricket. But what has he been doing at MS for 22 years? What roles has he had?

</comment><comment><USER55> Microsoft needs a CEO who's willing to focus, and that means killing the stupid ideas and making hard decisions on what they're trying to be and what they aren't trying to be. Windows 7 and Xbox 360 were both relatively successful products. It seems to me that Windows 8, Xbox One and other recent products have suffered from a lack of focus.

They're trying to segment such that their phones run one OS and their tablets and laptops run another. This is a really bad premise for a lot of reasons. The right processor architectures for laptops are not the same as the right processor architectures for tablets and phones. Windows 8's interface that tries to cater simultaneously to touch and mouse input is a confusing mess for users. They've decided to kill foundational elements of the UI for reasons that are simply boneheaded. It's obvious that an OS focused on touch input and mobile processor architectures and an OS focused on mouse/keyboard input and desktop architectures is a much better strategy.

As far as I can tell, Ballmer was a nut whose principal qualification was being Gates's college roommate. Hopefully we'll see Microsoft become more competitive in the consumer space with this change.

</comment><comment><USER56> Watching the video of Satya, I found that I was most happy about all the plants in their building. Also it's interesting to listen to Satya's native accent come and go depending on what he's talking about.

</comment><comment><USER57> This is an interesting pick. He may be diplomatic but he is quite clear about the current organisation problems, that Microsoft's need to amplify their work. Microsoft has been a traditional technology company but increasingly, they are getting trounced on the consumer side because they never had to build up a competency due to their incumbency.

Microsoft is very good at long term support platforms. They have clearly articulated how long they will support each of their iteration of OS, and software packages. These work extremely well in the enterprise space. Moving a lot of their disparate services into long term support - e.g. skydrive makes good sense.

If they can now do the same for their software platforms and provide long term support for how to write long lived applications that will run well on the ARM and x86 platforms, we should start seeing some consolidation in the APIs again.

</comment><comment><USER58> > He joined Microsoft 22 years ago because he saw how clearly Microsoft > empowers people to do magical things and ultimately make the world a better > place.

Bad start.

<comment><USER59> Why? Don't think of Microsoft as it is now, think of it as it was 22 years ago.

<comment><USER60> Twenty-two years ago, Windows 95 was three years in the future. As I recall, Microsoft's only truly great product was Word (Excel was getting there, I think), although I guess Flight Simulator wasn't too bad. Microsoft was trying to pretend that Windows 3.1 was a competitor to the Mac. Lisp machines were still trying to make a go of it.

<comment><USER18> In 1991, Microsoft was already ascendant. You may be too young to remember, but MS-DOS was everywhere. Given the failures of Commodore and Atari, the rise and fall of the 80's unix wars, and with Jobs no longer at Apple, Microsoft essentially took visionary leadership of the computing scene by default.

Instead of using proper unix machines, my early computing years were spent on DOS and Win 3.1.

<comment><USER60> I was around back then, and was using Macs and Unix, looking down on folks for using Windows & DOS. To this day, I can't begin to fathom the sort of mindset it takes to settle for worst.

I certainly would not have agreed that Microsoft ca. 1992 was at all visionary. I felt embarrassed for them and their users back then, much as I would for an adult who shows up at the office proud of the childish fingerpainting he spent the last month making. Grasping, copying, but not visionary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> I had the pleasure of meeting Sathya a year back. He was giving a presentation to a crowd where he said "anyone uses Windows Phone?" No one raised their hands. He said "damn, even I use an iPhone".

</comment><comment><USER62> I noticed the following sentence in Balmer's email to employees ([http://www.microsoft.com/en- us/news/press/2014/feb14/02-04ma...](http://www.microsoft.com/en- us/news/press/2014/feb14/02-04mail1.aspx)):

I love the breadth and the diversity of all of the customers we empower, from students in the classroom to consumers to small businesses to governments to the largest enterprises.

It's interesting to see the governments standing between small businesses and large enterprises in the minds of such men.

<comment><USER63> Even for governments that are bigger than large private industries in scale, they often make IT purchasing decisions at a lower level of the organization which makes the effective scale as a purchasing entity smaller; so, there may well be a sensible business reason for this ordering.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> I'm curious about his accent. It sounds like it would've taken a lot of work to develop. Is sounding American-ish a requirement of rising to the upper echelons of a company like Microsoft?

<comment><USER65> Is it racist to not understand half of what is said through a thick accent? if it is I'm a big jerk.

edit: why the down votes? Honest question, parent seems to be implying that its a bad thing that he adjusted to his environment, an environment where clear communication is paramount,.

<comment><USER66> _a thick accent_

Do you mean Nadella's in particular? I didn't think it was that bad. Anyway it's only racist if you think less of a person just because you can't understand them. Remember there are lots of people who can't understand you, either.

<comment><USER65> No, Nadella is easy for me to understand. I was responding to the parent implying that he was somehow pressured to conform.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> I'm really hoping this gives Scott Guthrie and Scott Hanselman a path up the MS corporate ladder. They're contributions to the .NET dev community cannot be understated.

<comment><USER68> I heard Scott is already pretty high up in the ladder and reports to Satya today. I hope he takes over Satya's position and heads the Cloud and developer efforts though.

<comment><USER67> Yes, this is exactly what I was alluding to. Scott Guthrie is the reason ASP.NET has so many Microsoft made open source components, so having him in a position of greater power can only be good for MS, the dev community, and OSS in general, I think.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> Can someone in the know shed some light on how a CEO of a corporation this big gets selected, from searching for and vetting candidates to the competition involved amongst nominees vying for the position? I imagine it's less about an admissions-type board reviewing applicants' credentials and accomplishments and more about years and years of strategic positioning, favors, and relationship building with people that matter. Or a bit of both.

<comment><USER70> > Can someone in the know shed some light on how a CEO of a corporation this > big gets selected ...

It's easy to summarize: the stockholders trust the corporation's board, and the board trusts its selected candidate. There are very few written requirements, most of the process is based on the judgment and experience of the board members -- which is why they're sitting on the board.

> ... years and years of strategic positioning, favors, and relationship > building with people that matter.

That's accurate. But the bottom line is that if the candidate doesn't work out, the board's credibility evaporates -- that part of the process is also ruthless and unwritten.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm very skeptical of them going with someone who's been with the company that long. I think they needed an outsider. I was glad when the Sundar Pichai rumor started.

Also think it's a bad thing that Gates is going to take a more active role as the technology world today is very different from when he dominated. Gates is famously (if the stories are true) the one who didn't like the Courier tablet, for example.

</comment><comment> w-m [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8JwNZBJ_wI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8JwNZBJ_wI)

Interesting that they chose a walk and talk kind of thing, in a completely vacant office. What where they hurrying towards that they couldn't take the time to sit down?

<comment><USER71> It made me think of the logistics behind the video. "Hey everyone, the hallway is closed off for the next two hours because we want to show our new leader in an environment completely devoid of people."

Am I too cynical?

<comment><USER72> Camera and sound deserve some respect for walking backwards that whole time. Sure, they're pros, but that was a long and winding walk.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> Just asking, how can a new CEO change Microsoft's directions.

Or

What suggestions would you give Satya, if you were to meet him today?

<comment><USER29> I'd say, from my armchair: take a long hard look at what's really happening out there, step out of your bubble. Stop this ridiculous attitude towards competitors and open source, at least long enough to see what they have to offer. Get your people some Macs, get your server people exposed to some Linux, get them some iPhones and iPads and Android devices, and make them see why you've been losing ground. Those competitors aren't perfect, they all have distinct and horrible weaknesses that you can exploit by making something better. Step out of your bubble and make something.

<comment><USER74> I think they did get some iPads at one point :-) [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/01/07/ipad_theft_microsoft...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/01/07/ipad_theft_microsoft_campus/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> This is a bit of a tangent, but is not having an MBA a significant impediment to advancement in Microsoft to the executive level? I've never worked there, but the impression I have is that a programmer there could never hope to rise to this sort of level in the company.

</comment><comment><USER76> A part of me was hoping for an outside technologist, as I'm almost instinctively suspicious of anyone who could grow and thrive in the dysfunctional stack rank regime, but this is so much better than the CEO of a soft drink company, for example.

<comment><USER77> Stack ranking is largely attributed to Lisa Brummel, Executive VP at MSFT. And it's been stated in many articles that stack ranking caters to the top 10% and nobody else.

<comment><USER76> I wasn't thinking it was his idea, but he obviously did very well in the stack ranking ecosystem, which implies (among other things) looking at your own success in terms of a peer's failure.

<comment><USER77> For a system with a set turnover ratio, you could make a claim that everyone in the company views their own success as a result of someone else's failure. Be it a VP, GPM, Team Lead, etc. Because it happens at every level within the organization.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> _" Microsoft's new CEO finds relaxation by reading poetry, in all forms and by poets who are both Indian and American."_

Wonder if he has read Vikram Seth's _Golden Gate_. Looks to be an _interesting_ person despite the corpspeak.

</comment><comment><USER79> "Our industry does not respect tradition — it only respects innovation." ... "Our job is to ensure that Microsoft thrives in a mobile and cloud-first world."

Catching up to the current state of things does not sound like innovation.

<comment><USER80> Also, "mobile" and "cloud first" is a sure fire way to continue with Windows decline with every new version they put out. If they really continue down that road, you can bet your behind that Win7 will put XP to shame regarding longevity. There is no need to "wait for Win9" if _that_ is their way forward. Nothing needs to be "cloud first". Especially no Desktop OS. But MS currently still has problems acknowledging this fact. Unless the new CEO changes that, Win7 will stay put. Period. And a guy coming from Enterprise should know that. But since he also comes from "the cloud", it is about a 50:50 chance he'll actually do the right thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> Did anyone else notice the way that they are dressed? There is not a single tie anywhere in any of the pictures. Even the people in the background are dressed casually. I can't ever remember a CEO of a major corporation not being fully outfitted in formal office attire, Steve Jobs not withstanding.

I take this to mean that Microsoft is aiming to be hip and cool. That's not a bad thing, if they really mean it and can pull it off. I hate the coat & tie thing when it dictates what I can do and my level of political influence. Those things should be decided by my ability to think and reason, not where I shop for clothes.

</comment><comment><USER82> Will he be able to unify the entire Microsoft experience into something amazing? I'm excited!

New blood will surely bring in fresh ideas and approaches - I hope Microsoft manages to raise the bar even higher and make me an MS evangelist again.

</comment><comment><USER83> Came across a recent interview of his, by Om Malik, discussing the future of technology: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ8Hiss2EkE](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ8Hiss2EkE)

</comment><comment><USER84> His statements sounded rather generic.

Satya on first things to focus on:

* _ruthlessly remove obstacles to innovation_

* _focus innovation on things that Microsoft can uniquely do_

* _find more meaning at work_

opportunities for Microsoft:

* _opportunities are unbounded; we want need to be able to pick a unique contribution that we want to bring.. (focus on productivity)_

why will Microsoft be successful?

* _we have the talent, the resources and perseverance like no one else has = > combine it with self empowered world = best platform to change the world._

hopefully soon there will be a more tangible strategy for Microsoft, but i'm not holding my breath.

<comment><USER85> Well, it was his first day on the job. I didn't expect him to roll out a 50-page strategy document.

He was cheerleading here. Boosting the morale of Microsoft employees by talking about how awesome they are and how their lives will improve under his tutelage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER86> Microsoft has a long history of being focus on the marketing of developers, even as the main strategy to prevail and control the corporate IT market. Having a CEO who shares a similar culture background as more than half the population of who currently employed in IT industry, brings to Microsoft a distinctive advantage when it comes to both selling to this market or attracting talent. Very clever move. Kudos to Bill G.

On the other hand, contrary to Ballmer, the new CEO will be under strong influence of Gates and the investors.

</comment><comment><USER87> I'm still glad it's not Elop.

</comment><comment><USER88> Well Congrats to their new CEO, there is a lot of work to do to put MSFT on the right path for the future. The industry has changed, consumers have changed, MSFT needs to evolve too.

</comment><comment><USER89> Very interested to see what the new CEO will bring and hopefully a much needed injection on the innovation front. His background in R&D and running the cloud divisions at Microsoft makes him a different proposition to Ballmer. I like the idea that Bill Gates can maybe combine with him as Founder and Tech advisor and balance old and new with some vision. Microsoft has lost it's way in recent years and although not a wholesale change maybe they can give it some new direction

</comment><comment><USER90> Words of new CEO of Microsoft "I marvel every day at how people can excel..." taken out of context are hilarious when I think about all stupid stuff people do with Excel.

</comment><comment><USER91> Satya Nadella: His first interview as CEO of Microsoft

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8JwNZBJ_wI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8JwNZBJ_wI)

<comment><USER92> Where are all the people? Looks like an estate agent showing us around.

<comment><USER93> > _Where are all the people? Looks like an estate agent showing us around._

In the first scene, we see fog outside the windows.

According to the Weather Underground, it was foggy in Seattle on February 1 and 2, with rain on the 1st. There was no fog or rain on February 3 or 4.

Conclusion: the video was recorded on either Saturday or Sunday. Hence the empty building.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER94> In Bill Gates' video, at 0:28, does he laugh just a little bit as he says "we took advantage of the internet" when listing their historical innovations?

<comment><USER68> Haha, I noticed that too! Kind of a subtle smirk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER95> Amusingly there is only one comment out of 328 with the word "engineer" in it (ok two now). I think that says much about the future of microsoft.

</comment><comment><USER96> It'll be interesting to see the direction Mr. Nadella takes the company in. Hopefully he expands the Research division and tears down barriers to incorporating more research gems into the product lines. I'd also like to see more UI/UX innovation. One further thing I'd like to see: Visual Studio as a platform-independent product line with F# as a major player in that platform.

</comment><comment><USER97> I'm curious what's going to happen to Stephen Elop now. I was under impression he was aiming for the CEO position at Microsoft himself.

</comment><comment><USER98> Dear Mr Nadella,

if you want Microsoft to innovate, simply throw out everything you have done so far and bring us a real object-oriented operating system that can work seamlessly on one machine, many machines on a lan or many machines on a wan.

Productivity could be vastly enhanced from what it is today by a true object- oriented design.

Computers are not file cabinets. Computers contain objects. The file metaphor no longer serves us.

</comment><comment><USER99> I'm hoping Satya can break through Microsoft's notorious cycle of be strongly competitive, but then neglecting a product when it has achieved dominance. Also, continue and expand the embracing of open technologies. Do all that and avoid monpoly tactics and you should be good to go.

Microsoft has always been its best as the underdog and that's where they're at now.

</comment><comment><USER100> If he focuses the entirety of MS on cloud and mobile, while offering some level of innovation, he will have done a good job. I think the real challenge is how do you make a company whose flagships are non-mobile and non-cloud products like Office and Windows go mobile and cloud? Those are massive institutional forces of inertia.

</comment><comment><USER101> Interesting that they use Modernizr and normalize.css for the web page instead of their own css/js code.

</comment><comment><USER102> Good luck, commander!

Scrap Ballmer's toys and go after the big enterprise boys.

That's where the money is :)

<comment><USER40> Indeed. Enterprise is where Microsoft has the most traction, and benefits most inertia and lock-in. It faces competition from SaaS companies, but that's an unavoidable transition Microsoft will have to make.

<comment><USER103> Office 365 seems to be doing very well. In that case, it's the SaaS companies that should be deeply afraid of Microsoft. As a total offering (consisting of cloud components _and_ PC-based components) it's pretty hard to beat.

Running O365 on Azure has probably substantially improved the platform.

I can't see why Microsoft would take the slightest interest in the mobile software world of 100,000 different $1 crapware products. There's no money in it.

Rovio is one of the most successful mobile developers there is, with annual income of $150 million, across pretty much every mobile platform. They're great at it.

$150 million isn't even _visible_ next to Microsoft's $60 _billion_ yearly income.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER104> The key here is innovation. Innovate or die. Simple as that regardless is OSS or proprietary. Is Satya up to the challenge to turn the sinking ship around? We will see in the next a few years.

</comment><comment><USER105> "Our industry does not respect tradition - it only respects innovation . . ."

This strikes me as an odd thing to say, especially so given the nature of the communication. Am I alone in this thought?

</comment><comment><USER106> Cool, with Bill also more in the action we can probably hope some interesting times ahead. Another "white" topic though: does anyone notice those white spots in the MS logo?

</comment><comment><USER107> The first thing that hit me was this dude has the look of Steve Jobs

</comment><comment><USER108> Sidenote: the videos are embedded from YouTube. I'm impressed and even a bit encouraged that Microsoft set aside NIH long enough to use a competitor's product.

</comment><comment><USER109> Do people here understand what Test Cricket is? #justchecking

<comment><USER110> Even people in India barely remember it any more. Now a days its all about 20/20 and instant gratification.

</comment></comment><comment><USER111> I want MS to buy Unity. Love unity for how well it uses C# and javascript and is definitely right up their alley.

</comment><comment><USER112> I see that Microsoft is a _hot_ arguments with many holding strong opinions on both sides :-) good.

</comment><comment><USER113> Microsoft should spend the next 10 years running conduit and fiber to most homes in North America and building out the highest capacity network. No one else quite wants it badly enough, not even Google, and the incumbents are no threat at all. They have the money. They'll never win at software again in a big way. Micronet is the answer.

<comment><USER114> Yeah, I'm sure the FTC would love that. I'm not saying it's a bad idea in theory, but MS is still a monopoly in many ways... they don't need to invite further scrutiny in that regard.

On the other hand, the last time they got busted in the U.S., they got off with a slap on the wrist. The E.U. seems to take that stuff a little more seriously.

</comment></comment><comment><USER115> What, do they all have the same coach telling them how to use their hands to talk with?

</comment><comment><USER116> Just curious: Does anyone know his GPA @ Wisconsin–Madison?

<comment><USER117> He went to Wisconsin Milwakee not Madison.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satya_Nadella#cite_note-16](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satya_Nadella#cite_note-16)

But he is still wicked smart, i think :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER118> Satya Nadella 'made in INDIA'. Proud moments.

</comment><comment><USER115> And here I was hoping for Steven Sinofsky. :-)

</comment><comment><USER119> hmm. a steve jobs like photo and vibe there..

<comment><USER120> I also found it interesting that they felt the need to include a photo of Satya looking chilled out in a hoodie. Just feels really forced - it seems completely out of character based on all of his other imagery / appearances elsewhere.

There is nothing wrong with the guy wearing suits to work if he wants, but it seems that they're trying unnecessarily hard to make him fit some sort of cool geek stereotype.

</comment></comment><comment><USER121> If Microsoft open sources Windows...

</comment><comment><USER122> Video fail: apparently Bill Gates video was filmed with a chroma-keying (blue- screen) and because of original reflections on his glasses you can now see "through his head".

Look at his glasses: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5BhQVuRcTk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5BhQVuRcTk)

<comment><USER123> Comment fail, this is just one of the screens there reflecting on his glasses.

<comment><USER122> wrong, re-watch the video in HD full screen.

<comment><USER124> I agree with the above. After watching the video in HD and fullscreen, it looks like the reflection of a screen more than anything else (to me). Hardly surprising, given that the hallway is covered in television monitors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER125> The only good thing about this is showing the world that the curries are finally stepping up. It will not make one iota of difference to anything Microsoft does, its culture, policies, etc.

</comment><comment><USER126> Hello Satya..can you outsource jobs to India ?

</comment><comment><USER126> Steve Ballmer - goodbye ...sing developer..developer..developer at home now.

</comment><comment><USER127> MS is going down. No doubt. Look at Motorola and Adobe.

<comment><USER128> Racist comments about CEOs of Indian origin have no place on Hacker News.

<comment><USER129> I don't think the OP implied it had anything to do with race. I maybe wrong.

<comment><USER40> Sanjay Jha was Motorola's CEO until the Motorola Mobility division was acquired by Google. Shantanu Narayen is Adobe's CEO.

I see a clear pattern here.

I'm open to other possible interpretations.

<comment><USER114> A sample size of 2 doesn't make for a compelling pattern.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


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