(car zooms) - It's lunch time and this is Brad Anderson's Lunch Break. (happy music) (cars driving) Here at Redmond, we're visited by some of the smartest people on the planet, pretty much every day. Every chance I get, I meet up with them for lunch. (happy upbeat music) In this episode I wrap up my in depth conversation with Terry Myerson, Executive Vice President of the Windows and Devices Group. We were talking yesterday and you were describing how you see the role of the CIO really change into one who focuses on the culture of creativity and teamwork in an organization. - Well, certainly the modern workplace CIO's for sure. - Yeah Yeah those who are kinda ahead of the game and thinking about it, I think it's gonna be all about that culture, it's gonna be all about, You got millennials entering the work force with different expectations than you know, I guess we're not millennials, huh? (laughs) - We try to be. - Yeah so they have different expectations than people that've been in the workforce for 20 years, different tools but you want everyone to work together. To me that's a culture of question of how you want your company to work. - You were one of the pioneers on taking us to the cloud. I mean, go back to when we were working together when you were running exchange and I mean I was running systems center, you know saw this opportunity, this vision to take change to the cloud, and that's really kinda the foundation of what became Office three 65, what were you seeing then that led you to say, hey we need to go deliver this as a cloud service, that was very early. - Oh what happened there was some amazing customers began to scale of what they wanted to do with exchange. Number of devices they wanted to support, number of remotes sites they want to support, the amount of storage they wanted to manage on behalf of those users, and then compliance came in, it was complex. And it got to this place where there were just repeatable patterns across customers, and just got to this place where some, especially with medium sized businesses, there was this sort of you know, customers in this 500 to a couple thousand seats that weren't able to hire big teams with the expertise, it was like let us do it for you. We did get started with you know these few customers and then it was about learning, about listening and learning and then understanding what it would take so we could offer the same capabilities to customers all over the world. - And now you look at that and that really has been the foundation that Office three 65 was built on, which is the most commonly used cloud service enterprise period. - Yeah. I mean it's amazing. It's, - And then you did something similar when you took over Windows, I can remember hearing you for the first time describing delivering Windows as a service, you know so what patterns were you seeing there? - I think it's the same pattern of, you're listening to the customer, and you're looking for where the challenges were happening, in terms of serving these customers best, in the case of Windows we were on a three yearly cycle, and we had this disconnect where customers were asking for, they wanted to have more influence over the, more transparency more open development model, but they also just wanted be able to get bite size value. And you know that's quite a challenge, 'cause Windows is an enormous codebase. - Oh my word. - It's it might be the single biggest software project in the world of course we don't know the size of every other software project, but it's certainly the biggest software project we have at Microsoft and that we know of and the, so thinking about how do we now develop it more incrementally such that we can still go after these bold and ambitious goals, but also deliver it you know, what's now twice a year, allows us to have this ability to listen learn react to what customers want. - I think it was you look at it kinda like the history of the software industry, I think what you guys pulled off in a single release, really is one of the most amazing things that I've ever seen done in software. - I mean that's nice to say but we built on top of the work done before us in all cases. You know if you look back in Windows history, Windows seven was a fantastic release that built on some great work in Windows Vista that didn't land very well, and I think we'll look back on Windows 10 and say it really did build on some great work in Windows eight. Which you know we didn't land as well as we would've liked. You know these big platform releases with hundreds and hundreds of millions of lines of code, you got backward compatibility, you've got security you got everyone from militaries around the world to consumers depending on it to work and, - The thing's that you set that vision up that gave you the most trepidation as the leader in finally changing how Windows (laughing) I mean what were the things that gave you the most concern? - The biggest challenge is always the ecosystem. You know with Windows you're not building a product, you're building an ingredient that really encompasses the work of so many companies. (lighthearted music) - Well you know we should make this like a regular occurrence (laughter) - Alright man see you around - Thanks Terry - There are a lot of cameras in here - Alright thanks Terry - Next time on Brad Anderson's lunch break, How much seniority do you need at ABI in order to ride one of the Clydesdales? (laughter) - Let's not talk about technology - Yeah - Let's talk about capabilities and that really helps you get that seat at the table and then you can use that to innovate.
Wednesday, 23 October 2024
Brad Anderson's Lunch Break s7 e2 Jeff Teper, CVP, Office
(car engine) - It's lunchtime, and this is Brad Anderson's lunch break. (happy music) Two of my favorite things about Microsoft, are the smart people that constantly visit campus, and the great fleet of shuttles. Wherever I can I try to take advantage of both of these things, and grab lunch with some of the tech industry's best and brightest. (happy music) Today, I'll finish up my conversation with Jeff Teper, the creator of SharePoint. (happy music) (engine revving) I was thinking about a lot of the things that you and I have done together. About five years ago I remember sending you a mail. I was like, "Jeff, hey this whole thing with non-Windows devices, we gotta' do some work together here. You know, I've got this management stuff I'm working on. There's things you're working on. Let's get together and let's, - Yeah. - Let's get a plan for how productivity and management come together. You remember when you forwarded that message to Rajesh, what Rajesh said? - Yeah. - I can still remember your exact comment was, "Brad's a Windows guy." You remember this? - I do, I do. - Yes, I'm sorry I was a little snippy that meeting, but I was, you know, "Why am I talking to Brad?" - He said, "No, Brad's a Windows guy." - Yeah. - And I said, "No, Brad's a business guy. "Brad wants to build the product "that customers want." You had a set of competitors or alternatives that had a pretty crappy set of productivity, apps. - apps. - And we had competitors that didn't really have the manageability, and so besides being the thing our customers wanted, it was sort of a win-win. - [Brad] Okay so we're gonna' play a game called This or That. - Sure. - So I'm gonna' give you a couple of descriptions, and I'm gonna' give you a phrase or a word and you're gonna' tell me, is it this, is it that, or is it both. - [Jeff] Okay. - Okay, the two terms we're gonna' work with are Malware, or am I talking about Minecraft. So Malware or Minecraft. - Malware or Minecraft, okay. - Way too many people in your workforce have it running in the background. - Uh, Minecraft. - Your kids probably downloaded it on your phone when you weren't looking. - Malware. I answered both those wrong. They both could be right, but. - Millions of people all over the world are working on it right now. - Uh, Malware. - At least it gets kids interested in technology. - Minecraft. - [Brad] (laughs) Okay, it's both, could be. - That could be bumped. - There's a huge secondary economy for people who are good at building it. - Oh, well that's, gosh. I have to pick one? - I heard that your first job in the software industry was writing what, a vehicle simulator when you were 14? - Oh, yeah yeah yeah, wow! Yeah, wow, you really did dig deep. (laughter) So my Dad was a aerospace engineer, and he had these algorithms for vehicle simulation that he'd done in Fortran, in a PDP-11. And he did some work on the side from the company he worked with, and I think he probably charged himself out a hundred dollars an hour, and he paid me like $7 an hour to port the Fortran from the PDP-11 to the TRS-80 Model III. - Oh my word! - And Fortran, whatever it was, Fortran IV or Fortran 77. - Yep. - And so I'd never, I had no idea what these algorithms did. I didn't know what the outputs they were supposed to do. But there were some subtle differences, as there always are in compilers, with your data types and so forth, where I had to run it on the PDP-11, I had to run it on the TRS-80 Model III, and make sure that I guess, the car didn't crash. - And this is at 14? - Yeah, yeah. - Wow. - There's a ton of upper level math involved with all that movement. - Yes, matrix algebra. - You don't-- - I didn't really understand it. - Just little stuff like that. - I got it correct, my Dad fixed a couple of bugs, but he did pay me, so I assume that must mean that I did do it. - Well, 7 bucks an hour. - When you and I were 14, you know what, - Yeah. - I was delivering newspapers - Yes. - When I was 14, making a buck an hour. - Yeah. - Fun stat for you, we've had a quarter billion downloads of OneDrive on iOS and Android. And the-- - Quarter billion. - The Google Play store, which is of course the biggest store, 'cuz they have the most mobile devices. - devices. - [Jeff] But 800,000 people rated us 4.4 rating, higher than the home team - Awesome. - of Google Drive on that device, which we're really proud of. It's been really great to see, and I think the things that people like about OneDrive are the rich collaboration capabilities with Office. - Oh yeah, yeah. - We're starting to do unique things with intelligence. - You know, what you and I have talked about is, how do we build this in a way that is loved by users and trusted by IT, - Yeah, yeah yeah. - and nail them both, - That's a tricky thing. - Is actually really hard. - Yeah, and our teams, and this is good, our teams fight sometimes so our users and IT departments don't have to. Because we will push each other, - Correct. - And we'll say, "Brad, this dialogue that came up, "We gotta' do something about it." - I know exactly what you're talking about. - And you say, "Yeah, but if we just blow past it, "here's the risk that you're," And that challenge that we do on each other leads to, I think, some of our best work where we balance usability and security. (happy music) - [Brad] Well Jeff, let's make sure we make this a regular occasion, so you know-- - Yeah, glad to do it. - I know you've gotta' pick other people up in the shuttle a lot, you know, don't quit your day job. - Alright man, - Sounds great, - Good to see you. - Bye! - Alright, take care now. - See you buddy. - Next time, on Brad Anderson's Lunch Break. - Four of five years ago, I was at a function. I was introduced to an elected member of Parliament in New Zealand. And someone introduced me as a Global Cloud Expert. And this dude said, without a word of lie, "Oh, you study the weather do you?" (happy music)