How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around • Hacker News Board

Re: How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

#31

Post by Craighead » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 2:12 PM UTC

wombatmobile wrote: post #17

cammil wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this not a market forces cause rather than Nadella? It seems everyone is fighting to control data. Sometimes it seems to me that we forgot that this whole industry comes under the banner of information technology.

Have you ever sailed an enormous tri-masted clipper ship across an ocean to a safe harbour and arrived with your cargo intact, on time, with no illness or injury to yourself or your crew? Was that a wind force thing or your masterful captaincy?

Its because the United States Navy ensures the ocean is safe to travel on

Re: How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

#32

Post by kjaftaedi » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 2:12 PM UTC

tiffanyh wrote: post #8

I'm as big of a Satya fan as anyone, but someone who doesn't get enough credit is Ballmer. It wasn't a coincidence that on the day Ballmer stepped down and Satya became CEO (2014), Microsoft also announced Office for iOS, Cloud first strategy, and a whole slew of cloud/Azure product announcements. All of which was developed under Ballmer watch and he handed off the launch and continued execution to Satya.

All of those things were at least 4 years delayed due to poor decision making by Ballmer.

Trying to play catch up does not count as innovation in my book.

Re: How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

#33

Post by cblconfederate » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 2:12 PM UTC

xiphias2 wrote: post #23

I'm using Windows 10 because I want to run modern programs, but I still don't see the usability of the operating system to be as good that it was with Windows 7. If I go to settings, or open the start menu, I have latencies measured in seconds, even though I have a fast gaming laptop. As a comparision on my iPad most of the settings windows have about 0.2s rendering latency (some shorter, some longer), but in reality…

agree to this. They had a good going with windows 7. The freaking windows 10 photos app intermittently hangs forever when opening a simple image file. I was just using Videos and it crashed when opening settings. Skype is still a disaster years after swinching from skype classic. The abomination that replaced control panel is designed intentionally like a maze from which you cant get out. I dare you to find the bluetooth pair button, or your wifi passwords.

They are not all bad, but the Modern UI is crap, stupid animations blocking the user from doing things. If i wanted eyecandy i 'd buy a mac or use a wobbly linux WM. MS please go back to making boring things that work.

Re: How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

#34

Post by ChrisMarshallNY » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 2:14 PM UTC

I agree that he did.

What I see, is that MS acted like a small-company startup for many years; ferociously competitive, fairly agile (not the Agile Manifesto kind; just flexible and responsive). That paid off for them (and it's arguable whether or not it was a good thing for the industry in general -it sank a number of companies, but also put Seattle firmly into the center of the tech world).

Then they became a blue-chip company, and all that startup-y stuff wasn't working anymore. Also, the consumer market changed a lot, with mobile overtaking desktop systems. For many, many folks, smartphones are the only computers that they will ever use.

He did have the right vision for a new corporate direction.

Re: How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

#35

Post by pydry » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 2:15 PM UTC

Dave Cutler doesn't get nearly enough credit for turning Microsoft around.

I don't think it's a coincidence that he was at the helm for two of the most technologically advanced and successful product lines (NT 4.0 and azure).

Re: How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

#36

Post by skeletal88 » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 2:16 PM UTC

cblconfederate wrote: post #33

xiphias2 wrote: post #23

I'm using Windows 10 because I want to run modern programs, but I still don't see the usability of the operating system to be as good that it was with Windows 7. If I go to settings, or open the start menu, I have latencies measured in seconds, even though I have a fast gaming laptop. As a comparision on my iPad most of the settings windows have about 0.2s rendering latency (some shorter, some longer), but in reality…

agree to this. They had a good going with windows 7. The freaking windows 10 photos app intermittently hangs forever when opening a simple image file. I was just using Videos and it crashed when opening settings. Skype is still a disaster years after swinching from skype classic. The abomination that replaced control panel is designed intentionally like a maze from which you cant get out. I dare you to find the bluet…

I was invited to interview for a position working on the Skype backend. I have no idea if it is a good idea.. since I personally can't take Skype seriously or believe that it is something good to work on.

Is that something people at huge companies have to think about often?

Good money vs working on a product you believe in.

Re: How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

#37

Post by ck425 » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 2:16 PM UTC

bluedino wrote: post #3

What's the reason for Microsoft services/support going downhill so bad? I can remember in the 2000's, they had spectacular paid support on their stuff.

I've found Azure support reasonable. It's still not an easy product to use overall compared to AWS but the support engineers have been very proactive and keen to jump on calls to fix stuff.

Re: How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

#38

Post by apetrovic » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 2:17 PM UTC

tiffanyh wrote: post #8

I'm as big of a Satya fan as anyone, but someone who doesn't get enough credit is Ballmer. It wasn't a coincidence that on the day Ballmer stepped down and Satya became CEO (2014), Microsoft also announced Office for iOS, Cloud first strategy, and a whole slew of cloud/Azure product announcements. All of which was developed under Ballmer watch and he handed off the launch and continued execution to Satya.

Steve Ballmer was a guy who restlessly milked two Microsoft cash cows (Windows and Office) to accommodate investors quarter after quarter. He didn't have a vision or courage to push Microsoft in some other direction, and my impression was that all good things that started under his regime (Azure, more openness) was either reactionary or he simply didn't care (most of early open source push was from his lieutenants).

At the end of his regime MS lost top-tier tech place (when someone says "big tech" it's Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon, not MS), he lost the main Microsoft advantage - an army of Windows programmers. MS under Ballmer lost couple of generations of programmers, to the point where MS needs to ship Linux kernel with Windows just to get cosy with programmers again.

Another example of such uninspired CEO that keeps making good quarters but tarnishes his company advantages is Tim Cook. I can't wait for him to be replaced.

Re: How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

#39

Post by burntoutfire » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 2:18 PM UTC

skummetmaelk wrote: post #4

Nadella turned Microsoft into a data mining operation just like the rest of the FAANG gang and the market rewarded him. Surveillance capitalism must be regulated out of existence.

What is Microsoft doing with all that data? Google and Facebook optimize ads based on it, but what does Microsoft need it for?

Re: How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

#40

Post by codeulike » Fri, Oct 23, 2020, 2:18 PM UTC

cblconfederate wrote: post #33

xiphias2 wrote: post #23

I'm using Windows 10 because I want to run modern programs, but I still don't see the usability of the operating system to be as good that it was with Windows 7. If I go to settings, or open the start menu, I have latencies measured in seconds, even though I have a fast gaming laptop. As a comparision on my iPad most of the settings windows have about 0.2s rendering latency (some shorter, some longer), but in reality…

agree to this. They had a good going with windows 7. The freaking windows 10 photos app intermittently hangs forever when opening a simple image file. I was just using Videos and it crashed when opening settings. Skype is still a disaster years after swinching from skype classic. The abomination that replaced control panel is designed intentionally like a maze from which you cant get out. I dare you to find the bluet…

omg its so annoying when you click on an image and the photo viewer hangs forever. I've installed 'One Photo Viewer' instead, nice and simple and works instantly https://www.microsoft.com/store/productId/9PM6W4F0XW3H