Dan Warne12 September 2007, 3:01 PM
INTERVIEW - PAGE 3 |Craig Mundie's thoughts on the rise of desktop Linux in the PC industry.
APC: What are your thoughts on the sudden availability of Linux on desktop PCs through big name PC manufacturers like Dell, Acer and HP?
Craig Mundie: Well I don't know whether I think it is a great threat to Windows. I think that there is a contingent in the marketplace who want to experiment with those technologies, or have environments in which they want to deploy them.
If there was some sudden adoption of this at some much greater scale than we've seen in the past, certainly that would represent a greater impact on our business.
But many people predicted a few years ago that the same thing was going to happen in the server business and in fact last year was notable in that it appears that the Linux server marketplace plateaued in terms of growth, while the Windows server business gained share.
That was a surprising result for many people who predicted that that Linux share would inevitably increase, but in fact it didn't, because I think people came to understand and value what they got for the money when they brought products from Microsoft. They realised that there were other factors than initial purchase price that play into the ultimate long term economics associated with running systems.
So I have no reason to believe right now that we, over a period of perhaps three to five years, wouldn't see soft share gains at the desktop level. Globally we can continue to provide a value proposition that will keep us in a relatively stable share position.
APC: Since you are taking over half of Bill Gates' role and so a lot of people are going to be very interested in you as a person, can I ask a few things about you personally? What sort of stuff do you like to read and what are your personal interests?
Craig Mundie: I'll give you a two-part answer to that. One is the things I read tend to be things that support my hobby and interests, which include high end digital photography, digital home theatre and boating. So I spend -- what time I spend – largely digesting stuff in that space.
Admittedly though, since I work in the technical area, I don't read very many books. Almost none in fact.
The other thing is that I tend to be a person who likes to talk to people and my job and role at Microsoft for a long time has given me the opportunity in very many cases to be able to meet the people who write the books.
I really find that in many cases I enjoy the luxury of working with and talking to people about things that they ultimately write books about, that become quite popular, but I actually got the benefit of that from my interactions so didn't end up reading the books.
APC: Clearly being the guy who replaces Bill Gates has perks of the job beyond an office with a window.
Craig Mundie: [Laughs] Yeah it is a perk of the job. But the friendship I have developed with guys like Tom Friedman from The Times who wrote The World is Flat and my ability to collaborate with him on the book, you know, it became a popular best seller and helps people understand what this flattening world is like. I got to help him write it, so I didn't have to read it when it was done!
That has happened for me many many times. I put my energy into trying to meet and maintain relationships with people who I think will be influential and perhaps turn their thoughts and research in to publications. I guess I tend to talk more than I read.
APC: Sure. Your three personal favourite tech gadgets?
Craig Mundie: One I really like is my Spotwatch, which I wear especially when I am in the United States. I find it very very useful to have that small amount of personal information on my wrist all the time. That one is kind of cool.
APC: Is that the Microsoft watch that uses a radio broadcast data network?
Craig Mundie: That's the one. We have variations on the theme now. There is a version of it that hooks up to your GPS unit in your car. Another one that is on my wife's coffee maker in the kitchen and I have one on my nightstand at home.
So all of these things essentially are always displaying current information about the weather and the forecast and other stuff and I have come to really enjoy the immediacy of that and the easy accessibility of it.
I guess my next favourite tech gadget is the Media Centre PC and Xbox 360 as a media extender for my whole house, television, video recording and display technology.
That is how we basically watch all television now. I don't watch that much, but the ability to get at it anywhere in the house through the extender technology of the 360 and the Media Centre with the high def tunerÉ I have really come to enjoy that.
Outside of that would be a gadget most people have, but because I am a boater, I actually use this to achieve high tech navigation systems on the boat. It's a GPS device that overlay satellite data, weather data that comes over the internet and local radar data along with moving map data in order to provide the navigation and instrumentation on the boat. That is one great tool.
APC: One very quick last question. I was lucky enough to see Microsoft's house of the future at the Redmond campus recently when I attended WinHEC. My question is: would you like to actually live in it?
Craig Mundie: Oh yeah sure. I built both of them so I probably should want to live there.
APC: [Laughs]. Right. I should have been aware of that. [Laughter].
Craig Mundie: You know, the goal when we built those was really to create an environment where when the average person went through there they we would say, 'you know, I could live here.'
The goal was never to be so extreme or far out that it strained believability, so we blended it with what was actually available today in a seamless enough way, that people would say, 'this is certainly beyond what I can get or have in my home today, but, boy, some of this stuff would be pretty cool to have.'
We are always seeking to maintain the home with that edge right where it doesn't scare people away, but makes them think that they haven't seen anything yet.
So I have been the father of building the two generations of homes that we have and I think that those immersive demonstration facilities are very important in helping people understand how and why we think this evolution will go on.
APC: Thank you very much for your time. It's been very interesting to talk to you. Best of luck with your new role.
Craig Mundie: Thank you! Happy to help!