philcrissman.com

Damn. It’s hard to believe that the Scobleizer once worked for Microsoft: viz, this post: Steve Ballmer Still Doesn’t Understand Social Networking. Ouch.

If I thought any reader would listen, I’d say to open the above link in a new tab and read it right now without delay. No, it’s not earth-shattering, but it demonstrates very clearly the problem with Microsoft and Microsoft-like companies: they don’t understand what’s going on right now. This has nothing to do with being anti-Microsoft or pro Web 2.0/social networking/etc/etc — even if Microsoft were the worlds most wonderful software company (stop snickering, now), they still just don’t understand this.

Disclaimer: I realize I’m doing exactly what I used to accuse Web 2.0 zealots of doing, that is, saying that anyone who disagrees with a particular vision of the future just doesn’t “get it.” However, if you read Scoble’s post, I think what stands out is that Ballmer really, truly, genuinely, has no idea why social networking/Web 2.0 or whatever you like to call it, is succeeding. He doesn’t see its value; I don’t want to sound elitist or clique-y, but the CEO of Microsoft really doesn’t get it.

The CEO. Sorry, if the CEO doesn’t get it, the company doesn’t get it, regardless of how smart the other people within the company may be.

To be fair, I’m not sure that Oracle gets it, either. That’s not to slam Oracle, either: I don’t know if any enterprise-level corporation really does (Workday? Maybe — it’s one to watch). I think it’s difficult at huge corporations. We do have the valiant folks over at Oracle AppsLab, but while I think what they’re working on is awesome, I have a hard time really believing Ruby On Rails will power anything more than a few internal corporate applications. I would love to see a new CRM or ERP stack built on Rails. I would give my left arm (though I’d want it back, for typing) to work on such a project. But I don’t think it will happen; everything is Java, Java, Java, Java *. Now, what I could see happening is that some smaller company, powered by insane people, develops such an application in Ruby on Rails, or Python, or whatever, starts growing rapidly, and then Oracle would buy them. And then rewrite it in Java. Oh well.

* I have nothing against Java; programming in Java is interesting and challenging. It’s just not as much fun as Rails… but, that’s beside the point.

Yes, I did suddenly switch gears, there, from talking about social networking to talking about Rails. I know they are not analogous in any way, they just happen to both be associated with the “latest and greatest” on the web. You could easily build a social networking app in Java, and you could also get a Rails-type stack in Java using something like Grails and Groovy.

My only point, if there is one, is that while Scoble’s post is great, interesting, and correct, I don’t think it’s just Microsoft or just Ballmer, it’s the whole Fortune 500 set.