Ignorance, not malice

Last week, I talked about Microsoft's new HailStorm initiative and wondered when the Redmond behemoth would begin to realize the power of the directory - and talk about it.

One reader thought there might be a more sinister motive behind the omission. He said: " Call me the cynic, but is it possible that Microsoft is fully aware of the role [and] potential of directory services, but doesn't want to 'call a spade a spade' at this point, lest it give credence to the existing [directory service] products out there? "

We all know that there are those out there who paint Microsoft as the evil empire and feel Bill Gates simply wants to rule the world. It could be that Gates has issued a dictate stating that the words "directory service" shouldn't be used, lest competitors get a leg up on what's soon to be the state of Washington's biggest employer (once Boeing moves to Texas).

Call me naïve (lots of you have already, no need to do it again!), but I find that there are simpler explanations than the gigantic conspiracy theory. If you work for a company of 300 or more people, how much do you know about what other departments are doing? If your enterprise is 1,000 employees or more, do you even know the names of other departments? And if your employer has more than 10,000 loyal workers - do you know all of their locations, the names of all executives or even where all the servers are physically located (not just the city, but which room)?

People know what they're working on, they know what their closest friends are working on. But often, fairly intelligent people are totally ignorant of what other parts of their enterprise are doing - there's simply too much information to keep it all in the forefront of your thoughts.

So it just may be that the Microsoft Passport people, who've been working on that technology for a number of years without realizing the directory implications, may have no knowledge of what the Microsoft Active Directory people are doing. Likewise, the Microsoft Metadirectory services group may know of the existence of Active Directory but not its inner workings or even its direction.

Ignorance of the big picture has lost more battles than any conspiracy.

Dave Kearns is a writer and consultant in Silicon Valley. His most recent book is "Peter Norton's Complete Guide to Networks" published by SAMS. Dave's company, Virtual Quill, provides content services to network vendors: books, manuals, white papers, lectures and seminars, marketing, technical marketing and support documents. Virtual Quill provides "words to sell by..." Find out more at Virtual Quill or by e-mail at info@vquill.com

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