Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 487 posts

Re: How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

#191

Post by simonh »

ProAm wrote: post #116
Miraste wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cook hasn't damaged Apple nearly as much as Ballmer hurt MS. During Ballmer's tenure, Microsoft launched the Zune, the various disastrous incarnations of Windows Phone, Windows 8, and the Xbox One (which halved its marketshare vs the 360). Cook may not be innovative, but he has yet to have a real failure, much less a disaster on the scale of those.

> the various disastrous incarnations of Windows Phone Surprisingly the phone was loved. What wasnt loved was the one desktop everywhere so when they tried to push 'Metro' to the PC, tablet and phone it struggled. But the tiled phone interface was good, and a lot of people liked it. I really think Ballmer and Cook are manifestations of the same person. Mac OS quality is the worst it's been in probably a decade+? Hard…

The last iteration of the phone was loved and was genuinely an interesting product, but by then it was way, way too late. The disastrous limitations and compromises in the earlier iterations doomed the series.

Re: How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

#192

Post by ls65536 »

pydry wrote: post #35

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).

There's a good book, "Show Stopper!: The Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT and the Next Generation at Microsoft", which documents the original development of Windows NT in the late 80's and early 90's. A large amount of the focus in the book is on Cutler himself, including some of his history coming from DEC, and his personal style of running the project at the time. I found it quite an interesting read!

Re: How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

#193

Post by simonh »

na85 wrote: post #185
dannykwells wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple stock has 10x'd under Cook since 2011. Microsoft was flat under Ballmer. So ummm, maybe a slight difference in performance.

Basing your opinion of a CEO solely on stock prices, which can easily be inflated via things like buybacks, is perhaps a bit narrow minded. A company is more than its stock price.

Ok as a general point, but those criticisms simply do not apply to Cooke. The company has done absolute gang busters both in products and fundamental performance, and that's what has driven up the stock price.

Re: How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

#194

Post by mumblemumble »

ProAm wrote: post #116
Miraste wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cook hasn't damaged Apple nearly as much as Ballmer hurt MS. During Ballmer's tenure, Microsoft launched the Zune, the various disastrous incarnations of Windows Phone, Windows 8, and the Xbox One (which halved its marketshare vs the 360). Cook may not be innovative, but he has yet to have a real failure, much less a disaster on the scale of those.

> the various disastrous incarnations of Windows Phone Surprisingly the phone was loved. What wasnt loved was the one desktop everywhere so when they tried to push 'Metro' to the PC, tablet and phone it struggled. But the tiled phone interface was good, and a lot of people liked it. I really think Ballmer and Cook are manifestations of the same person. Mac OS quality is the worst it's been in probably a decade+? Hard…

As a consumer, I loved the phone. As a developer, I was afraid to touch it. Dumping the old Windows Mobile platform for Windows Phone was understandable, but the compatibility break between Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone 8 was really off-putting.

Though I think the biggest problem there is that it didn't happen in a vacuum. It was one more event in a fairly long list of Microsoft technologies and APIs that were shipped to much fanfare, and then abandoned shortly after release. It made it hard to feel comfortable trying any Microsoft tech that wasn't at least a fewy years old. Including mobile APIs. Which, given what happened with Windows Phone 8, did not turn out to be an overabundance of caution.

The problem hurt more than Windows Phone, too. A lot of people got sick of having the rug repeatedly yanked out from under them, and started developing on non-Microsoft tech stacks. Which then removed a lot of the need to run Windows Server, and things sort of snowballed.

Despite all his infamous ranting about the importance of keeping developers happy early on, the Ballmer years turned out to be the era when Microsoft perfected the art of alienating developers.

Re: How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

#195

Post by hevelvarik »

apetrovic wrote: post #38
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).…

If when people say big tech they exclude msft (and include Facebook), they are simply wrong. .net, sqlserver, power bi, hell office are the blood flowing through Government and industry. Gaming is also tech and azure will get there if they just keep at it. The startup world is only a slice of the pie, and not the largest or most important .

If you don’t live on the coasts, and you want to invest in a stack that will keep you employed indefinitely and wherever you go, you pick dotnet hands down, and I say this as someone who hasn’t written a line of dotnet code

Re: How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

#196

Post by ProAm »

scarface74 wrote: post #136
ProAm wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the various disastrous incarnations of Windows Phone Surprisingly the phone was loved. What wasnt loved was the one desktop everywhere so when they tried to push 'Metro' to the PC, tablet and phone it struggled. But the tiled phone interface was good, and a lot of people liked it. I really think Ballmer and Cook are manifestations of the same person. Mac OS quality is the worst it's been in probably a decade+? Hard…

So who is “innovating” more in electronics hardware? As far as the Macs, outside of the keyboard fiasco which has been rectified, the recent Macs are getting good reviews from people who were rightfully critical a few years ago. The ARM Macs will soon be as far ahead of equivalent PCs as the iPhones are Androids when it comes to processing power.

Things like USB ports, touchbar, etc... Mac still makes a good laptop, but in a historical sense I think this is a still a lowpoint for their hardware comparatively to themselves in quality and functionality.

Re: How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

#197

Post by ogre_codes »

apetrovic wrote: post #38
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).…

> 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.

Comments like this make zero sense to me. Apple might be better if Jobs was still alive. But without a time machine, and potentially better medicine, that's not an option.

Under Cook Apple:

- Increased profitability and market share massively.

- Created the most successful watch brand in the world.

- Turned Beats into Beats + AirPods, the two most successful headphone brands in the world.

- Massively increased Mac, iPhone, iPad, install base.

- Avoided the sort of ridiculous cash burning acquisitions to inflate growth Ballmer was guilty of.

Apple has a bunch of mis-steps under Cook, but none of them have had long term company damaging impact. Many of the things people beat Cook up over were actually things Jobs was as bad/ worse with. For example almost all the App Store policies everyone hates were created under Jobs. Jobs was also far more protective and litigious.

Cook isn't Jobs, since Jobs is dead the comparison is pointless. Cook has done better than the vast majority of CEOs who have taken over successful brands. Apple is doing just fine.

Re: How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

#198

Post by CountSessine »

apetrovic wrote: post #38
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).…

and my impression was that all good things that started under his regime (Azure, more openness)

I think a lot of that was Ray Ozzie. I guess Balmer deserves some credit at least for hiring him?

MS under Ballmer lost couple of generations of programmers

A lot of younger programmers may not realize this, but in the 90’s, all roads led to Microsoft. If you were a programmer and you didn’t know at least some of the MS acronym soup of Win32/VB/ATL/MFC/etc/etc, you weren’t getting paid. Microsoft and Windows completely dominated commercial software development. And then what happened?

Balmer tried stupidly to kill the web. He redeployed the IE team and assumed that the web would stagnate without his attention. He’d killed Netscape and the threat had passed. In the meantime, Mozilla and Apple and Google were forming the whatwg and architecting the next generation of the web. And MS was not only not a part of it, but had lost all credibility in the eyes of web and browser devs.

And then of course he also got caught flat-footed by the iPhone. Balmer was a serial failure as a CEO. Maybe he deserves some credit, a little bit at least for Azure? But he’ll always be remembered for all of those stupid quips he made about how Apple wasn’t going to be able to make headway in the smartphone biz.

Re: How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

#199

Post by criley2 »

nailer wrote: post #168
sorenjan wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what your thoughts are on Sundar Pichai. Has Google created anything interesting under his leadership? I would put Cook above Pichai if I ranked top tech CEOs.

Google hasn't had a major new product for a decade. Prior to 2010: Search, Doubleclick, Maps, Mail, GSuite, AppEngine (which was first serverless platform). All of which were category makers or category killers. Since 2010:

Who has?

We're still on Facebook and Twitter and Youtube, using iPhones to play digital music. You say 2020, I say 2009.

Wireless earbuds and smart watches I guess are the only "game changing" (they're not) inventions of note for the past decade?

Web... phone... computer... they're just more refined versions of products we had in 2009.

Re: How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

#200

Post by sylens »

simonh wrote: post #191
ProAm wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the various disastrous incarnations of Windows Phone Surprisingly the phone was loved. What wasnt loved was the one desktop everywhere so when they tried to push 'Metro' to the PC, tablet and phone it struggled. But the tiled phone interface was good, and a lot of people liked it. I really think Ballmer and Cook are manifestations of the same person. Mac OS quality is the worst it's been in probably a decade+? Hard…

The last iteration of the phone was loved and was genuinely an interesting product, but by then it was way, way too late. The disastrous limitations and compromises in the earlier iterations doomed the series.

They had a little momentum building but they broke app compatibility between versions 7 and 8. Why would any developer trust them again?
Post reply on HN