Comments on: Inside the Insiders: Robert McLaws of Windows-Now

By: Inside the Insiders: Brandon LeBlanc of many blogs - istartedsomething

Inside the Insiders: Brandon LeBlanc of many blogs - istartedsomething — Wed, 23 May 2007 07:20:45 +0000

[...] I’ve lost about 95% of my traffic I once had but hey, it’s all good. I used to blog for Robert McLaws at LonghornBlogs (before Windows-Now). I helped the LiveSide guys out for a few months. And of [...]

By: Geoff Newman

Geoff Newman — Tue, 22 May 2007 13:12:44 +0000

Great read, the person behind the blog as it were.

By: Sushant Bhatia

Sushant Bhatia — Tue, 22 May 2007 03:30:30 +0000

I had the pleasure of meeting Robert once at ASU during the Imagine Cup. Truly the coolest “nerd” I ever met

By: Corrine

Corrine — Tue, 22 May 2007 02:19:44 +0000

Nice job, Long. You showed us the “real” Robert McLaws hiding behind the Windows-Now logo.

Regards,

Corrine

By: Robert McLaws

Robert McLaws — Mon, 21 May 2007 21:18:44 +0000

Correction: The picture was from my girlfriend’s birthday party last year, not mine.

By: Robert McLaws

Robert McLaws — Mon, 21 May 2007 20:17:55 +0000

Tomer: The thing about being a Microsoft partner is that you have to understand teh nature of the business. If you decide to fill in a gap in Microsoft’s software, you have to realize that at some point, they are going to fill it themselves. It’s an eventuality that you have to be ready for, and most Microsoft partners understand that.

And BTW, Microsoft DOES have thousands of partners. Their partner program is enormous.

Kristan: I gave him that picture. It was from my birthday party last year. I was going to light the candles, but I didn’t want to catch my face on fire.

By: Tomer Chachamu

Tomer Chachamu — Mon, 21 May 2007 20:11:42 +0000

“The term “fanboy” gets a bad rap, but I’ll say yes, I am. I mean, everyone knows that I gave up on drinking the Kool-aid, and started snorting it in powder form. But for me it’s not about individual technologies, it’s about mindset of the company.

Apple is in business for themselves. They could give a damn about building a rich ecosystem of other companies, all they care about is having total domination over their products. Practically since Day 1, Microsoft has wanted to enable others to take advantage of their success. Even a 12 year old kid could build on a Microsoft product and add value to customers, and that’s an amazing thing to me.

I think you’d be hard-pressed to find any other company on the planet that cares for their partners as much as Microsoft. And that’s why I love the company.”

I just have to say… WTF???!? By these standards Microsoft has thousands of “partners”. Microsoft can leave any partner in the dust, just like that. They often do. Or, they might just buy out something that is causing them embarrasement (Lookout search).

Meanwhile, each of those partners is massively locked in to Microsoft. They need the latest dev tools and the latest next-gen betas to test their programs with. They are under a vice grip.

Finally, you can develop software for MS OS but you mustn’t ever try to compete… see Lotus v. DOS, DrDOS, Netscape…

By: Imran

Imran — Mon, 21 May 2007 16:58:18 +0000

Good BOy.

By: Kristan Kenney

Kristan Kenney — Mon, 21 May 2007 16:27:10 +0000

Haha, nice to see Robert fell for your plot Long. Good interview, look forward to seeing some more.

And where did you get that picture of Robert? It’s just comical to see our fearless leader!

By: Adrian

Adrian — Mon, 21 May 2007 13:52:23 +0000

A great interview, interesting read. : )