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Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple

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Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple

#151

Post by protomyth »

toyg wrote: post #66
protomyth wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you take a look back, Steve Ballmer was responsible for a lot of the success of Microsoft. He mostly got hate because people hated Microsoft. I'm don't think Ballmer's list of accomplishments at Microsoft is fully appreciated particularly compared to the good press Tim Cook as enjoyed.

> He mostly got hate because people hated Microsoft. He was the face of "bad" Microsoft, the unashamedly anti-competitive win-at-all-costs bully. Gates could win some people back with his nerd-cred and things like the mid-'00s "security push". Ballmer was first and foremost a suit, or rather a suit trying to pretend he's down with the nerds just enough to screw them as soon as they turn around, and his "fuck you" att…

Microsoft publishes research, Apple does not. I love Apple via NeXT, but let's be real, Apple is in it for Apple and they don't even treat their partners of any kind very well.

Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple

#152

Post by yuhong »

cm2187 wrote: post #76

My opinion is that the failure of Microsoft has less to do with Ballmer than with the absence of a Steve Jobs. My experience with large corporations is that they naturally produce mediocrity. The ownership of the final product or service is too diluted, with too many people involved, pulling in too many conflicting directions. They employ people who individually know what "good" means and what should be done in an id…

Windows 8 and tablets are actually related.

Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple

#153

Post by youdontknowtho »

Jesus.

Ballmer and Cook have made extreme amounts of money for their shareholders. Major super truckloads of money. That's what businesses do.

The meta narrative of disruption is marketing, but somehow everyone keeps talking about it like its real.

Even weirder is the emotional responses from some of the other commenters about cloud providers? It's like they are sports teams or something. Just like sports teams they have nothing to do with you, really. It's just a brand that somehow you identify with.

(You could carry the sports team metaphor a lot further...tax abatements to build datacenters/arenas...but let's leave it there...)

Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple

#154

Post by alexpersian »

jasonsync wrote: post #147

Apple does appear to be losing focus. For example: Apple has devalued the PRO moniker under Tim Cook's guidance. By trying to ram it's Mobile OS into a PRO product (iPad PRO). I mean the UI grid is still 4 x 5 on a massive 12 inch display. Nobody noticed it feels more like Fisher Price? And the iPad "PRO" apps are all dumbed down, feature limited versions of actual pro desktop apps. Then, by stagnating a once well re…

The Mac Pro and MacBook Pro are still very capable, solid, and focused machines. Go into any dev shop on the planet and you will see that's true. The only point your comment is right on is the Pro moniker being attached to an iPad.

Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple

#155

Post by audunw »

LaSombra wrote: post #30
bischofs wrote: post #10

Tim Cook is a "Bozo" - He has moved the focus away from computers and the companies core professional users and turned Apple into a fashionable health services company. They will coast for a while on their dominant mobile market share but eventually the stagnation and lack of new products will catch up to them. He built a watch, which was a "me too" product and answered a question that no one asked. Jobs would never…

This image http://core0.staticworld.net/images/article/2015/10/slide-06... , to me, simbolizes the recent Apple.

I don't get the hate for this mouse design. Have you ever used it? Actually - have you ever used a wireless mouse in general? You know how rarely you need to change batteries or charge them right?

To design a wireless mouse around the idea of using it while being wired would be a massive design fail. It would compromise the design of the common use case in order to improve the extremely rare use case.

Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple

#156

Post by robg »

He's underestimating their push into medical research and apps. It's $3 Trillion in the U.S. every year and they are further along than any other of the Big Techs.

This: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-27/aetna-to-...

Is not about selling more watches and phones. And Aetna alone has 23 million members.

Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple

#157

Post by usaphp »

chongli wrote: post #148
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but why is that so? Apple wants the high end consumer. Gamers are high end consumers, and yet Apple doesn't sell them high end desktop or laptop machines with gaming capable GPUs. Also no VR/AR gear. This seems like quite a strange omission from their product line.

Gamers are high end consumers They really aren't. PC gamers hang out on Reddit and other forums trading info about how to build a PC from commodity parts in order to get the absolute best price/performance ratio. It's not hard at all to put together a machine for less than a thousand dollars that would be competitive with the machines Apple sells for three thousand. There's no margin for Apple in this space.

> "It's not hard at all to put together a machine for less than a thousand dollars that would be competitive with the machines Apple sells for three thousand."

That's a complete BS, I want you to give me an example of that. Less than a thousand dollar desktop vs 3000$ mac.

Now re laptops. My PC friends keep telling me that MacBooks are overpriced And that you can get a faster PC laptop for half the price, but as soon as they start giving me examples like razor blade or some msi laptops, they quickly starting to see that base models of those cost > 1500$ and to get decent specs for gaming you have to shell out upward of 2000$, so in the end you are paying the same money you pay for MacBook.

Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple

#158

Post by WayneBro »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #103
the_watcher wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My opinion is that the failure of Microsoft has less to do with Ballmer than with the absence of a Steve Jobs. This argument would be a lot stronger had Microsoft not begun making such major improvements as soon as Ballmer was replaced with Nadella.

Have they really, though? I mean, sure, they've got the ole' hype train's pistons pumping and the fanboys woohooing, but they still have produced a version of Windows that is clunky and controversial. They open sourced some stuff, but that's only because they are pushing for the clouds, not some actual change in philosophy. Microsoft's changes are all skin deep.

> clunky...

In your opinion.

> and controversial...

Great products often are controversial.

> Microsoft's changes are all skin deep.

It's easy to say so, but where are your actual arguments? I didn't see any.

I challenge you to write an article about how "Microsoft's changes are all skin deep" and post it here on HN.

Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple

#159

Post by zaidf »

mtgx wrote: post #140
Certhas wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Azure seems to be doing well and some people expect it to overtake AWS sooner rather than later in market share. The talk that Microsoft is irrelevant is a bit hilarious, given that they beat google on revenue and income last year. They have morphed from a company that is front and center to one that provides the infrastructure for the digital side of non-tech business. Microsoft Office is absolutely pervasive, and i…

That seems very unlikely over the next decade at least.

Azure has 10% marketshare. AWS has 30% marketshare. People who aren't on the frontlines of enterprise wheeling and dealing can't see this but for those who are, it is fairly clear that Azure is out for blood AWS's blood.

Re: Why Tim Cook Is Steve Ballmer and Why He Still Has His Job at Apple

#160

Post by itomato »

bischofs wrote: post #35
zekevermillion wrote: post #11

Even if I generally agree with disappointment at the apparent "maintenance mode" of Apple's product line, I am not sure Ballmer is the best analogy. My understanding is that Tim Cook actually is responsible for many of the supply chain innovations behind Apple's dominant product lines. This is an incredibly hard technical feat, not just blustery MBA crap. I suppose it remains to be seen whether Apple can put its enor…

Generally speaking a product company can't thrive off supply chain innovations. The market will move to commodification at some point.

This is why they have invested so heavily in silicon fab and machining.
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