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Satya Nadella Added $850B to Microsoft

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Re: Satya Nadella Added $850B to Microsoft

#91

Post by ouid »

hylaride wrote: post #41
yodon wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bill Gates built an amazing airplane. Steve Ballmer crashed it in the desert. Satya Nadella rallied the survivors, put it back together, and got it flying again. Yes, he absolutely deserves the credit just as Ballmer absolutely deserves the blame.

Actually, Ballmer did quite well at MS. He consistently increased earnings via Windows and Office during his tenure as CEO. He was a very good businessman. He was not, however, a product guy. Witness their failures with the Zune, mobile, early cloud computing. His problem was that he always tried to do what would be best for Microsoft and not the customer. You can get away with this if you already have an install bas…

>His problem was that he always tried to do what would be best for Microsoft and not the customer

What on earth is this doublespeak? If he always did what was best for Microsoft, we would not be discussing what his problem was in managing Microsoft. That's not how "what's best for Microsoft" works.

Re: Satya Nadella Added $850B to Microsoft

#92

Post by hylaride »

ghaff wrote: post #71
darkmighty wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel that reflects quite well Steve Jobs vs Tim Cook as well. Jobs just wanted to make 'insanely great' products [for their users], with the side effect of profit, while Tim Cook is probably fixated on efficiency and Shareholder value. Apple has had record profits and performance, but most will tell it's not the same and its future is not so certain. It seems paradoxical that trying to maximize shareholder value at…

Of course success with a vision often also includes a significant degree of luck and being in the right place at the right time. The iPod was just another MP3 player, albeit one with a certain style and design that captured lots of attention in spite of a premium price. But it certainly wasn't ordained that Apple would parlay that into the runaway success of the iPhone.

Luck and timing play into it, but so does design and usefulness. Keep in mind the state of the world when the iPod came out. College kids sharing MP3s across school networks, etc. If you used microsoft's media players, by default they often "protected" the music by converting it to WMA files that were locked. Now you're unable to share with the other kids in your dorm. The cute boy/girl who asks "what song is that" that's blaring out your open dorm room can't just receive a copy. MS tried to win the war by cozying up to the labels.

Contrast this with Apple, which (then) used MP3s and you could plug in the player and have friends copy the music; add in the premium pricing and you've also got a status symbol. "Sharing" mp3s was the modern equivalent of sharing CDs or cassettes, something the labels took way to long to figure out in their early attempts at strict online digital music.

I have no idea if Apple intentionally did this, but it mattered. MP3 players were in their infancy and when people compared, the ipod looked better.

Re: Satya Nadella Added $850B to Microsoft

#93

Post by r00fus »

darkmighty wrote: post #52
hylaride wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, Ballmer did quite well at MS. He consistently increased earnings via Windows and Office during his tenure as CEO. He was a very good businessman. He was not, however, a product guy. Witness their failures with the Zune, mobile, early cloud computing. His problem was that he always tried to do what would be best for Microsoft and not the customer. You can get away with this if you already have an install bas…

I feel that reflects quite well Steve Jobs vs Tim Cook as well. Jobs just wanted to make 'insanely great' products [for their users], with the side effect of profit, while Tim Cook is probably fixated on efficiency and Shareholder value. Apple has had record profits and performance, but most will tell it's not the same and its future is not so certain. It seems paradoxical that trying to maximize shareholder value at…

> Tim Cook is probably fixated on efficiency and Shareholder value.

Tim was the 2nd in command of Apple for years. Easy to forget this, but Apple's success in the 2000s is partially attributable to Tim as well (not to forget all the other brilliant folks at Apple).

Re: Satya Nadella Added $850B to Microsoft

#94

Post by gist »

This is a typical cherry picked business leader article where you can find examples to make any point that you want (or don't want). This is the reason that I stopped years ago even reading business magazines (you know the ones with the airport candy shop headlines).

They all follow the same 'hero' or 'zero' angle and typically have no access to the nuance (or underplay it) and complexity that goes into any success or failure. Nice reading though.

Note: Then I see this of all things: 'Disclosure: The author's self-managed super fund owns shares in Microsoft."

Re: Satya Nadella Added $850B to Microsoft

#95

Post by ghaff »

hylaride wrote: post #92
ghaff wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course success with a vision often also includes a significant degree of luck and being in the right place at the right time. The iPod was just another MP3 player, albeit one with a certain style and design that captured lots of attention in spite of a premium price. But it certainly wasn't ordained that Apple would parlay that into the runaway success of the iPhone.

Luck and timing play into it, but so does design and usefulness. Keep in mind the state of the world when the iPod came out. College kids sharing MP3s across school networks, etc. If you used microsoft's media players, by default they often "protected" the music by converting it to WMA files that were locked. Now you're unable to share with the other kids in your dorm. The cute boy/girl who asks "what song is that" t…

Well pre-Zune (which was pretty mediocre; I got one for free and gave away as a gift) there were lots of other MP3 players. But I agree Apple had the premium offering especially once you got to the click wheel generation. And the music store sealed the deal.

Re: Satya Nadella Added $850B to Microsoft

#96

Post by nabla9 »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #30
nabla9 wrote: post #22

The JEDI deal going to MS might have lot to do with Trump-Bezos feud. Amazon is suing and there may be good reason for them to do so.

might, may So it might also just be because Microsoft had the better offering and Amazon may not have a good reason to sue. Might, may, could end up either way.

Trump has publicly interferd with the process and apparently also pressured Mattis in private. I think Amazon has a case.

Re: Satya Nadella Added $850B to Microsoft

#97

Post by statusquoantefa »

yodon wrote: post #32
stakhanov wrote: post #4

First: A stock can rise for reasons having zero to do with the reality of the business behind the stock, for example mispricing, availability or the lack thereof of alternative investments, inflation, currency devaluation etc. Second: To me it always leaves a very foul aftertaste when the achievements of a team are ascribed to whoever the visible front-person is. I find it hard to believe that among the other 149999…

Bill Gates built an amazing airplane. Steve Ballmer crashed it in the desert. Satya Nadella rallied the survivors, put it back together, and got it flying again. Yes, he absolutely deserves the credit just as Ballmer absolutely deserves the blame.

Ballmer built the amazing airplane that Bill Gates owned. Ballmer was there from close to the beginning, knew much more about business than Gates, and was intrumental.

Re: Satya Nadella Added $850B to Microsoft

#98

Post by Jyaif »

csomar wrote: post #82

From his chart: - MSFT revenue/share price @ 2014: 86.8 / 37.1 - MSFT revenue/share price @ 2019: 125.8 / 133.52 -> revenue growth: 44.93% / price growth: 259.89% So either MSFT was significantly under-priced in 2014 or it's over-priced right now. Also: Disclosure: The author's self-managed super fund owns shares in Microsoft.

The share price is not correlated the current revenue, otherwise it would be extremely simple to predict the share price. It's correlated to the predicted future profit.

Re: Satya Nadella Added $850B to Microsoft

#99

Post by eirini1 »

gph wrote: post #53
hos234 wrote: post #44

I am skeptical about the whole Cloud story. Has the faint stench of the housing bubble. It made sense when the story was about renting out spare data center capacity. Amazon and Google had a ton of excess which started the story. Microsoft, Oracle, IBM et al did not, but had to react to Amazon and Google Cloud and had to build up capacity. Then the game turned into ensuring all that new capacity was utilized. Enterpr…

I don't think it's dumb for most small to mid-size enterprise companies to migrate to the cloud. Being able to outsource IT/infrastructure is quite beneficial when your needs aren't so big that it makes sense to set up your own datacenter. And it's far more flexible, if you suddenly start getting a lot more or less traffic you can quickly upgrade/downgrade to what you need.

tbh I think its eventually going to be an enviromental requirement to put everything in the cloud.

At work we have an application used by financial advisors in offices during working hours only.

Why do we need to have 4 whole machines spinning 24/7 (in the name of reliability and availability) when we only need a fraction of that computing power and only between 08:00 and 17:00?

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