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How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

economist.com

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Re: How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

#211

Post by ThrowawayB7 »

dannykwells wrote: post #86
apetrovic wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).…

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

Microsoft stock was flat under Ballmer because of hangover from the massive dotcom bust in 2000 and the DOJ consent decree which didn't expire until 2011. It would've been hard for anyone else to do better.

Re: How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

#212

Post by godelmachine »

ogre_codes wrote: post #197
apetrovic wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mo…

>>potentially better medicine

Jobs refused conventional treatment to treat his cancer until it was too late. He placed heavy emphasis on oriental mysticism.

Re: How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

#213

Post by scarface74 »

whoopdedo wrote: post #208
scarface74 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that “most” people aren’t subscribing to Office365 doesn’t jibe with MS’s financial reporting.

Making it free for a year on new computers with automatic renewal is an easy way to inflate the subscription numbers. How many people are silently paying for something they don't use and aren't concerned about because it's "only" $10 a month?

Enterprise sales dwarf consumer sells and the number of new PC sales have been going down each year.

https://www.skyhighnetworks.com/cloud-security-blog/7-charts...

Re: How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

#214

Post by scarface74 »

ProAm wrote: post #196
scarface74 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Apple has been aggressively ditching “legacy” ports since the first iMacs in 1998. How is Apple going USB-C only now different than the original iMac going USB only?

Re: How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

#215

Post by danielovichdk »

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.

I worked for MS under ballmer and turner. And they are in my opinion definitly, with Gates in the background, the ones that are the reason why the shared have rocketed.

Satya did not invent the "platform wins" strategy. That was long before him. And that's what the company is still capitalizing on.

That's what Microsoft is still the best at. Platform. And tools.

No one comes even close to having the developer experience MS offers. And that plays directly into the platform strategy.

Ballmer was a genius. Straight fact.

Re: How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

#216

Post by delecti »

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've never tried to find Bluetooth in Settings, but I just tried and found it pretty quickly.

Start Button > Settings Icon > Devices, which is in the top-middle, and has the subtitle "Bluetooth, printers, mouse"

But why bother? Without having any idea where it is I can still find it even faster than that.

Start Button > "bluetooth" > Enter

And with search autocomplete I only needed to get as far as "bl" before it suggests the right thing. And my desktop doesn't have wifi, but I only need to get as far as typing "wi" for the start menu to suggest the wireless settings anyway. The Control Panel always sucked, and the settings menu sucks on iOS or Android too. Typing in the start menu to search has been around since roughly Vista.

And their apps aren't great, but I haven't experienced anything like the problems you describe. They're barebones but fine.

Re: How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

#217

Post by ogre_codes »

jm4 wrote: post #188
apetrovic wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).…

I disagree. Tim Cook has been pretty solid. He's no Steve Jobs, but he's done a fine job. Although he hasn't produced any new cash cows so far, he's been a decent steward of the ones they already had and he's taken the company into new markets with the Apple Watch. It's not the most inspiring product, but it is the premium wearable and clear leader. Then there are the AirPods, which fit in nicely in wearable category…

> Although he hasn't produced any new cash cows so far ...

> Sure, there are no home runs here, ...

Huh?

AirPods + Apple Watch are bigger than either the Mac or the iPad and are growing much faster.

Companies don't crank out iPhone class "home runs" every 10 years. Microsoft had the Windows and Office, Google had Search and GMail (and made solid acquisitions in the form of YouTube and Docs). Facebook had Facebook... and bought everything else they own worth a damn.

Apple created a $25 billion/ year product line (AirPods/ Beats/ Watch) under Cook... but it's not a home run?

Re: How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

#218

Post by raunakdag »

hevelvarik wrote: post #195
apetrovic wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

No matter what technologies MSFT have, the number one thought in people’s minds these days when you say big tech is simply FB G Amazon and Apple. It’s no longer MSFT up there with them. Definitely a stigma thing.

Re: How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

#219

Post by stickfigure »

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:

In fairness, Google Cloud Platform is a huge new product. GAE (which I love) was but a tiny drop compared to the vast ocean that is GCP today. And GCP is really a multitude of products.

Android was launched in 2008, although I think it really deserves to be in the post-2010 category. Today's Android is a whole different beast.

Google Home is a new product. And tied in with Home & Android is voice recognition, which is definitely post-2010. Voice recognition may not be a standalone product but it has radically changed how I interact with technology. It counts.

Google Hangouts launched in 2013. Google's whole messaging platform has become a muddled mess that they're only just now untangling, but hangouts video was a huge hit for a while.

Of course it's hard to top hits like Search, Gmail, GSuite, and Maps... but there's progress.

Re: How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

#220

Post by marinman »

muststopmyths wrote: post #85

nah, he turned the stock price around which is why Wall Street and MSFT employees love him. Every single thing he's credited for "turning around" was launched under Ballmer. My reading of Ballmer from the outside (I'd left long before the recent transition years) is that he probably trusted his division heads too much. He figured they knew what they were doing and he just had to steer the giant ship gently in a gener…

If you talk to people at Microsoft, Satya has also turned around a lot of the internal culture from the Ballmer days. This included getting rid of some of those division heads you mentioned for both Windows, Sales and more.

Most importantly, he said and acted as if Windows wasn't the core of the company. A challenging but right decision.

It's still a 40-year-old company, so it still has some historic issues. But yes, I do feel like Satya has done a great job.

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