When I left GO, there were five operating systems in development with no plans to enter alpha. The question of how to enter alpha was a Herculean debate. David Liddle, a former GO board member who is now a venture capitalist with U.S. Venture Partners, declines to comment on Microsoft, but he says Lewin excels at introducing new ideas to skeptical audiences. He is a trustable and credible person in an industry not known for its credibility a special and likable person and not just a lopsided Silicon Valley geek. Those traits will be sorely needed.
Most Web services are years away from mass deployment.
No company has figured out how to make money on them, and even Microsoft partners have differing ideas of what .Net is and where they fit in to the initiative. The startup Xdegrees has demonstrated an extension to Microsoft Outlook that shares files over the Internet, but CEO Michael Tanne declines to say whether he is talking to Microsoft. Tanne says the industry is hyping Web services as it does everything new, and that new technologies take years to develop. But CEO Ed Wolyniec, who also sat on stage with Lewin, says he is encouraged because Microsoft has a bigger presence in Silicon Valley and is more responsive to technical issues than it has been in the past. It's a lost cause.