Author: Bruce Moreland
Date: 00:33:25 01/06/99
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On January 05, 1999 at 14:53:18, KarinsDad wrote: >IMO (for what it is worth), I think Microsoft could do a good job creating a >"better chess program". I also think that most people here will disagree with me >on this topic, hence, I think that if you created a poll question on this, most >of the people would probably indicate that Microsoft could not create a much >better chess program. > >My reasoning for why MS could do better is as follows: > >1) Knowing several Microsoft engineers and listening to them, I have come to >realize that there are a lot of bright development engineers there. Obviously, >there are exceptions to this rule, but I think that they have the talent to >build a better mousetrap (or chess engine). > >2) There is a lot of information on the Internet currently (and in books and the >ICCA journal, etc.) that would enable them to catch up fairly quickly, possibly >as quickly as 9 to 12 months. > >3) Microsoft has a lot of resources, money, high speed equipment, and talent. >Just look at what IBM did with Deep Blue. With Microsoft's money, they could >purchase the source for Deep Blue, reverse engineer it, and improve upon it. >They could also hire some of the original Deep Thought/Deep Blue engineers and >possibly even other engineers from other chess engines. > >So, Microsoft has the resources to create a better chess program. There is no >doubt (in my mind) of this. However, they will not ever do it since there is no >market share (from their perspective). Hence, my thought is that we all know the >answer to the question. We may disagree on it due to likes or dislikes of >Microsoft, but the bottom line is: 50 talented engineering programmers with a >lot of high speed equipment can reverse engineer and research current technology >in any computer subject and do a good (if not great) job of improving upon it >within 2 years. This issue is getting confused. There are two questions here: 1) What *would* Microsoft produce. 2) What *could* Microsoft produce. People are viewing Microsoft as, effectively, infinite resources. And in fact, if Bill set his mind to it, that's what he'd have. But he's not going to do that. He would implement something on a smaller scale, because he'd have to put people on it in proportion to how much money it would make. You can talk about other issues like this, as well. For instance, we can discuss how far we'd get if we put all of our resources into colonizing other stars. I'm sure that the entire planet, working together, could do it, but that is not where energy is being devoted. Something like Excel, circa approximately 1993 (last time I paid any attention to that group), had like 40 developers (programmers) working on it. That's a big project and one that lends itself into being broken up into feature areas, each with several people working in the area. It also earns vast amounts of money because everybody buys it. A chess program would end up being written by one or two engine guys plus a few people (sometimes the same people) on the user interface. Just like everybody else does it, but possibly with a bit support, probably on parts of the thing other than the engine. I think that if they got a top-ten engine they probably wouldn't care that much about making it a top-three engine. My information in Microsoft is not terribly current, but that's my best guess. bruce
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