Dries Buytaert

Ray Ozzie, who took over the role of Chief Software Architect at Microsoft when from Bill Gates retired about five years ago, announced recently that he will be retiring soon. When Ozzie first became Chief Software Architect, he wrote a famous 5000-word internal memorandum titled, The Internet Services Disruption. The memo outlined the transformative and disruptive potential of web services.

Ozzie wrote, "The ubiquity of broadband and wireless networking has changed the nature of how people interact, and they're increasingly drawn toward the simplicity of services and service-enabled software that 'just works'. Businesses are increasingly considering what services-based economics of scale might do to help them reduce infrastructure costs or deploy solutions as-needed and on subscription basis.". Ozzie was spot on as this is what today's Software as a Service (SaaS) and Cloud Computer are all about.

Now, five years later, just before he is about to retire, Ozzie wrote another 5000-word memo entitled Dawn of a New Day. In this memo, Ozzie reflects on how Microsoft has been transformed over the past five years with regards to so-called 'services'. Despite many successes, Ozzie acknowledges that for the most part, Microsoft missed the boat on mobile and social software.

More importantly, he also lays out his vision of where things are going in a post-PC world: "To cope with the inherent complexity of a world of devices, a world of websites, and a world of apps and personal data that is spread across myriad devices and websites, a simple conceptual model is taking shape that brings it all together. We're moving toward a world of 1) cloud-based continuous services that connect us all and do our bidding, and 2) appliance-like connected devices enabling us to interact with those cloud-based services."

I spent most of my evening reading both memos. It provides some unique insight about what it means to be Chief Software Architect at one of the largest software companies in the world, as well as how they see the future. In general, I agree with Ozzie's vision of the future as he explains it in his latest memo. The part on complexity also resonated with me. I think the points he makes are very relevant for most of us that make a living with Drupal. Like Ozzie, I think development of this new service-connected world will be neither fast nor easy. However, I think Drupal is uniquely qualified to play a prominent role in such a world. It requires us to make the right decisions, to manage complexity, and to stay on top of our game. Whether you like Microsoft or not, the memo is worth reading.