How Microsoft quietly built the city of the future(microsoft.com) |
How Microsoft quietly built the city of the future(microsoft.com) |
Anything with Microsoft in the title is trollbait I guess.
And also why this work is important. Environmental and conservation arguments aside, it means $66,000 worth of product and services had to be sold to pay for one simple mistake.
In large organizations, these types of mistakes occur every day and can add up quickly.
The article was light on specifics, and the ROC control room doesn't seem to bespeak a 500 acre campus, but actively pursuing the problem looks very interesting.
Even Microsoft don't have 100% gross margin.
It's lacking the top nav and the typography is terrible. Generally just lacks some polish and execution.
An average page in the Microsoft story has fewer than 700 words.
In the NYT's Snowfall, the average chapter is 3,000+ words.
The NYT has an incentive to increase pageviews with pagination. Microsoft is paginating their press releases.
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font-size: 14px;
font-family: Segoe,Verdana,sans serif;
}
Details, details...
Looks like they rushed to push this out. Expect more from Microsoft.
What a shame they didn't bother to include any of them in the article. Instead they filled it with shitty similes like this:
> Microsoft’s buildings were experiencing data dissonance that would make the works of Igor Stravinsky sound like a barbershop quartet.
I was no fan of Microsoft in its Gates days, but I can't imagine it would have produced anything as bad as this article. Apparently the reason for this content-free article is that Microsoft hired some dumbshit to write it who couldn't be bothered to learn enough to understand what they were writing about:
> He projects the algorithm on a screen, and then launches into a deeply technical explanation about when a discharge air pressure set point is something-something, then the air is being overcooled by something-something for a duration of 900,000 milliseconds.
The Accenture white paper linked http://download.microsoft.com/download/4/8/8/4885BBB9-2675-4... is slightly better, but only very slightly.
Sensor networks are a promising approach for improving the efficiency of existing buildings, but the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passivhaus approach seems much better for new buildings. Instead of removing unwanted heat with finicky mechanical systems with valves that get stuck, you don't let the heat in in the first place; and similarly for maintaining warmth in the winter. There's plenty of solar energy to keep your temperature pleasant year-round, unless you're in Siberia or something, and solar energy used to heat your house is 100% efficient, rather than the 20% provided by photovoltaic panels. It's mostly stupid to use marketed energy to heat and cool things.
On top of all the other problems with this puff piece, I couldn't shake the feeling that Microsoft will probably end up leading the way in buildings susceptible to viruses and other malware, consistent with their security record.
My expectation with implementing anything like this is that you immediately pluck some low-hanging fruit (fixing some inefficiencies) when the system goes online, and then it quickly becomes way more difficult to find further inefficiences to eliminate. The article makes it seem like there's an endless stream of inefficiencies they're finding.
Overall I do think it's a good read (so, you know, some of you should read it instead of just posting about the layout of the site..). It just could have had a little less fluff and more details. You do end up getting a solid sense of how useful this could be to other companies.
I thought the whitepaper linked on the fifth page might be a good source for more information, but unfortunately the link didn't work for me.
Still, very cool. I know we trivialize dealing with lots of data, but still, this is a huge amount of information they have to automatically receive, triage, prioritize, and possibly even act upon. Impressive.
I think MS is one of the greenest IT companies in the world - folks here should give credit where its due. They have also been setting standards for energy conservation in co-lo facilities.
And I wanted to give the article a proper chance, so I read down the page and stumbled over the navigation to the next page, which gave me this error:
"We are sorry, the page you requested cannot be found."
And then after a few seconds, that page redirected me automatically to a Bing search for this string:
"en us news stories 88acres 88 acres how microsoft quietly built the city of the future chapter 2 aspx"
At least Bing had the good sense to return the original article as the first result.
> I get a similar error when trying to download the whitepaper on the fifth page.
So... first time you two have used a Microsoft product then?
Well, in case you're wondering, pretty much all Miscrosoft software is a stolen design wrapped around a buggy core when first released.
But are we back in the year 2000? That header image is 936kb! And for what purpose -- to show that they're in-tune with the over-saturated photo hipsters? Seriously, the image doesn't even lend anything to the article; looks like just a generic shot of some random 'burb. I see no signs of high-tech or futurism represented. What...the.....they have another gigantic, completely useless image on each of the next 2 pages as well?
And this horrid navigation thing that slowly slides in at the bottom? It doesn't even queue (if you scroll up/down rapidly a few times the nav bar will bounce up & down several times in succession).
This might be the worst website I've seen all year.
Not a fan of the navigation, either.
It's far to spread out. It's not very walkable. There's too much space dedicated to parking. etc. It fails almost every test for being a good city. It's basically a technology enabled suburb. Gross.
It does put a damper on cross-group communication, but it's probably better than having a collection of skyscrapers. Also, Redmond doesn't like buildings more than 3 stories tall (their fire equipment can't deal -- why MS can't buy Redmond different fire equipment is beyond me).
Specifically the bit that purportedly showed a screenshot of "Control power to individual outlets" on the MS network?
I know, probably coincidence.
Who would have thought that a Microsoft website looks best in a Microsoft browser?
Interesting though, wonder if there's any crossover with their "Smart Home" projects.
A lot of people would kill for a view of water and trees and the ability to walk outside at lunch.
It's pretty remote, and the entirety of the city revolves around a single employer. Everyone who works there either works directly for Microsoft or is closely affiliated with Microsoft business. Ditto everyone who lives there.
It's far from the nearest major city (Seattle), and to make matters a bit worse, there is a large natural barrier between the Company Town and the city (a huge lake in the way, with highly congestion-prone bridge crossings).
The negative side effects of this are too many to fully enumerate. Beyond the general boredom of living in a place where everyone works for the same company, there's also the issue of not having ready access to cultural events (which tend to be urban), the lack of proximity to competitors or indeed actual users of your products, etc.
Being outside of a major urban area is also limiting for employees in that there is substantially less choice in where you can live. Companies based in Seattle offer employees the full gamut of commuting options and accomodate both urban and suburban lifestyles thanks to the hub and spoke model of transportation. Being outside of a hub reduces the number of places that are within reasonable commuting distance.
I looked at the NY Times project article and that did not work as well on Surface. They were undoubtedly inspired by it, maybe they optimized the design of this article as a showcase for their own tablet.
I didn't realize there were more pages. I just thought it was a very short and fluffy article.
I know MS is a favorite target, but this honestly looks like it was designed by an intern.
More importantly, it reads like a jewelry advertorial in an in-flight magazine.
Plus it's not all that remote. It is a typically boring suburb with tract houses and squat apartment buildings punctuated by strip malls, but it is only 20-40 minutes from downtown Seattle (I've done the trip many many times). I think living in Seattle and commuting to Microsoft via the 545 is a reasonable commute. I used to do something similar when I lived in Green Lake and worked in Kirkland.
But don't get me wrong, I agree that locating a major company there instead of Seattle, or at least Bellevue, is a mistake. I just don't think calling it a remote company town is a fair characterization.
Bellevue can hope to have the diversity of Ann Arbor when they import a state school and a few cornerstone employers that aren't Microsoft or Microsoft-affiliates. I don't expect this to happen soon.
Hell, "Bel-Red" exists as a word for a reason.
In any case, I don't think my original point is at all an exaggeration. Redmond is a modern incarnation of a Company town, though it doesn't come with many of the stigmas of industrial company towns. Its proximity to Bellevue has meant the Microsoftification of Bellevue, rather than the diversification of Remond.
Redmond must suck a lot.
While greenery is great, I'd rather be able to walk to a proper park than have it in the form of a glorified berm between parking lots.
Hell, even the photo itself doesn't have that much exposed concrete apart from the buildings themselves. You can clearly see that there's a lot of greenery surrounding buildings.
Granted the images don't show any parking structures or buildings that appear to have integrated structures. So it's quite possible the images aren't representative of the build-out you're referring to.
And, aside from the ballpark, the 'greenery' surrounding the buildings is exactly the sort of glorified berm I'm talking about: that's hardly functional greenery. It's better than none, but far less desirable than a proper park with functional spaces for laying out, taking walks, playing frisbee or catch, etc.
Kudos to Microsoft for having the ballpark though, and more is due, if it's one of several such spaces. The rest of the campus though, as characterized in those pictures, does not look great.
It's relevant because it puts into perspective how massive their campus is.
Thanks for the background! Where did you get this information (it sounds like you're already intimately familiar with it)? The caption on the image certainly doesn't convey it. IMO one shouldn't have to go to the comments section of an unrelated news site to learn the significance of a photo on your website.
I wouldn't be railing against it if it actually contributed to the article as supporting evidence (e.g. visual aide), such as if it was implemented with some sort of informational overlay, or if it was presented as a flat map (like the default Google Maps view) with labelled structures, zones, etc.
But it's not; it's just a photo lacking context.
The big hole in the ground (right in the middle of the image) eventually became this: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/ImageGallery/ImageDetails...
In that picture, you see the common area. The buildings on the left and right both have places to eat, as well as some shops for employees only (like an AT&T store, a UPS store, and a few others). There is also usually an art exhibit in the left building. In the background, the green field you see is an olympic (iirc) sized soccer field. In the winter, they sometimes put an ice skating rink on a portion of it.
Surrounding the area seen in that image (but not visible, unfortunately), are four new office buildings in the same style as the common buildings (but twice as tall). They're referred to as Studios A, B, C or D. One of them houses a lot of the XBox teams (and Microsoft game studios), not sure about the other 3.
The Microsoft campus is truly a marvel. It's giant, has it's own transportation system, has the world's largest underground parking garage (it's actually underneath the buildings in the image I linked above) and every day over 50,000 people come and go to it. It's a mini-city in every way.