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How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

economist.com

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Re: How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

#381

Post by caycep »

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).…

Cook was also running Apple ops for a decade before being CEO. It's not like he appeared out of nowhere. One can argue Apple's design chops and freedom to innovate were because of Cook, who cleaned up all the business and ops shenanigans that were driving Apple bankrupt under Scully, Spindler and Amelio, and create a stable foundation for Jobs to work his magic.

Re: How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

#382

Post by fakedang »

whynotminot wrote: post #352
admax88q wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really have a horse in this race, but I'm not sure that the best defense against > Another example of such uninspired CEO that keeps making good quarters but tarnishes his company advantages is Tim Cook. is > but Tim Cook added $1.7 Trillion to apple's market cap since taking over as chief executive.

Good thing that's not the only feather in Tim's cap. He's vastly expanded Apple's valuation while simultaneously introducing new, successful products, and growing Apple's place in the tech world. Steve was visionary, but Tim has taken that vision farther than anyone ever gives him credit for.

Most of the stuff was in development during Jobs' time, including Airpods, the latest one. With Jony Ive gone, I doubt Apple has the prowess to continue that finesse. It would be akin to von Holzhausen leaving Tesla, imo.

Re: How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

#383

Post by mellosouls »

ogre_codes wrote: post #361
mellosouls wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sales. How else do you measure success of a consumer electronics product? There are clearly many measures of success. It's best if you mean best-selling maybe just to say that, as it may be important to salespeople but not so much to (say) end users. [Airpods...]Maybe the most loved consumer electronics product on the market right now. That sounds more like a subjective or emotional claim than one measurable, and tha…

> That sounds more like a subjective or emotional claim than one measurable, and that's part of the problem with Apple in particular (though not only Apple) as I've already mentioned; the seeming lack of ability of its champions to consider it's products in a reasonably neutral way. People have been spewing nonsense like this for decades. As if customers being happy with a product is a worthless concept. The AirPods…

People have been spewing nonsense like this for decades.

More emotion.

As if customers being happy with a product is a worthless concept.

No, customers not being able to look at things with a reasonable sense of perspective and ability to judge things reasonably impartially is to be borne in mind when considering sweeping claims. Somewhat different.

Re: How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

#384

Post by medium_burrito »

RestlessMind wrote: post #320
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).…

No strong opinions on Cook but a Ballmer of the current era is Sundar Pichai. Google of the last few years is utterly rudderless, losing all the mojo and goodwill they once had. That shows in the Stock price, in (a lack of) successful new products, in Google’s loss of reputation as the “coolest company to be at”, in the bloated middle management occupied in turf wars, in essentially most of the things that matter.

That's extremely unfair to Ballmer- Ballmer made lots of bets and put a lot of effort into them. Some were given up on- the phone, but you can't critize Azure, among many. Microsoft has developed lots of products and can develop more. They did plenty under Ballmer. When they fail they try again, or invest more effort.

Google has only one cash cow. They don't know how to develop products and how to win customers. I feel like products at Google get developed when someone has a bright idea, and then as soon as they get promoted they go do other stuff, and the business isn't really about nurturing a new product. All they care about is their big ads cash cow, with which nothing can compare.

Re: How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

#385

Post by reissbaker »

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…

+1. Apple isn't the same as it was under Steve Jobs, but it's stayed successful and relevant. I miss the old Apple software quality — the Apple apps were once a reason to use macOS or iOS, and it's pretty rare I actually use them anymore — and the stronger hardware innovation (Watch is cool but not industry-defining on the scale of the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad), but the overall Apple ecosystem has if anything grown stronger under Cook... And their edge on hardware has grown significantly, especially with respect to chip design, to the point where their in-house-designed ARM chips are likely to give them not only a generational advantage on phones, which they already have, but also soon on laptops and desktops as well. Apple under Tim Cook isn't going to wow the world with innovative new products to the same degree it did under Steve Jobs, but its product lines will relentlessly improve and Apple will in many ways stay ahead of the competition because Tim is a great operator. I can't say the same for Ballmer: not only did Microsoft innovate less successfully under his leadership than Apple has under Cook (at least Cook has Watch and Airpods!), but also Microsoft's cash cow product lines didn't do well under his leadership — Windows 8, for example, was a travesty.

That being said I'm also very impressed with Satya Nadella, and have recently been using Windows more and more again, something I thought would be pretty unlikely (to put it mildly) a decade ago when Ballmer was at the helm. I'm pretty excited about future products from both companies.

Re: How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

#386

Post by fakedang »

ogre_codes wrote: post #304
j-pb wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're a 40 person Design agency, that has been running on Mac hardware for almost 40 years now. Everybody of us used to be a huge apple fanboy, now every one of us hates them with a passion. They completely ignored their customers for the iPhone money grab. Their hardware and software used to be synonymous with quality, nowadays their shoddy quality has become a meme at work. "Oops reboot." - "What did you expect, it…

> I doubt that apple can keep its brand relevant without opinion leaders like design professionals. I know a fair number of developers and most of them still use Macs. Not because they are fan boys, but because MacOS still sucks less than Windows. For me and likely many, OS choice is a pragmatic thing and for the moment MacOS is the least bad option. It's going to be interesting seeing what happens with the new CPUs…

And I know a fair amount of devs who are forced to use Mac hardware because of Apple restricting dev and testing environments to the MacOS. Says a lot when a developer recommended me to use a Linux+Hackintosh (I'm not from a dev background).

About your last point, it would be every designer's dream to work in a company with as powerful a brand as Apple, with as big a war chest and as global a reach for massive adoption. Yet Ive left, perhaps due to feeling that Apple has drained itself of ideas and doesn't have any concrete plans in future. FWIW, most of its recent products were envisioned when Jobs was alive.

Re: How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

#387

Post by lotsofpulp »

WorldMaker wrote: post #351
lotsofpulp wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MSFT could have opened up retail stores with their boatloads of cash like Apple. But they didn’t want to take the risk with a low margin high cost center activity like providing in person support and expanding headcount. Hence no reward. And with their recent closing of Microsoft stores, it’s clear that they are doubling down on rent seeking from Office and Windows licenses.

I still think Retail Stores were a red herring. Even if people bought unlocked Windows phones directly from Microsoft Stores they couldn't get SIMs from half the major carriers at any given time as Microsoft was forced not to support given Verizon SIMs as one point due to a dumb war with them and Verizon flat out refusing to allow the devices on to the network. (At a different point AT&T almost did the same thing, bu…

> Apple had/has "luxury brand" caché that Microsoft couldn't build into its stores if it wanted to, and first mover advantage on top of that.

I disagree. It takes time, money, and effort to earn people’s trust, but it’s possible. They obviously weren’t going to reverse a decade of shipping malware ridden computers, but they could have put out quality Microsoft products, and spent years earning back people’s trust.

And yes, maybe it wouldn’t work, and taking risks is part of business. But this is one of the most profitable companies in the history of the world, and they could have afforded it.

Re: How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

#388

Post by papaf »

microtherion wrote: post #347
varispeed wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple also made great strides in ecological manufacturing and supplier accountability Do you have evidence of that? It seems like it is quite the opposite. Apple prefer to destroy not working phones or Macs instead of repairing them. They make sure independent repair shops cannot repair any of their products and design them in a way so that they fail in short space of time, so customers can either pay for repair th…

See e.g. the annual reports in https://www.apple.com/environment/ regarding environmental responsibility and the graphs in https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/ regarding improvements in supplier responsibility. Even Greenpeace acknowledges quite a bit of progress in many respects: https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/GG... — keep in mind that they used to picket Apple annual meetings. A…

Personally, I think "designed to fail" is a downright false charge, and "repairability" is a trickier trade-off than repair advocates make it out to be ...

Somebody should tell the UK Parliament, they need some feedback and Apple cannot spare anybody to clear up this "downright false charge" :

https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/62/environmental-...

Re: How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

#389

Post by hutzlibu »

ndespres wrote: post #96
RedShift1 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open start menu, search for x. Can't find it. Close start menu, open start menu, search for x, instant result. Sigh

Or search for a term like "System" and get results like this, all with the same icon: 1. Bing web search results for "system" 2. System Information, a program that shows a report about hardware and software in your computer 3. Settings, the modern control panel app, which has a panel called System 4. The old "System" control panel 5. "Change Your System Sleep Settings", or some other randomly-chosen specific setting…

With stuff like this, you would think the year of the linux desktop could be a real thing.

(if some distro could manage to provide a consistent UI ...)

Re: How Satya Nadella turned Microsoft around

#390

Post by microtherion »

codebolt wrote: post #360
microtherion wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See e.g. the annual reports in https://www.apple.com/environment/ regarding environmental responsibility and the graphs in https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/ regarding improvements in supplier responsibility. Even Greenpeace acknowledges quite a bit of progress in many respects: https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/GG... — keep in mind that they used to picket Apple annual meetings. A…

Perhaps there has been an improvement in other parts of the supply chain, but the situation in DR Congo (where e.g. coltan used for capacitors is mined) seems to only be getting worse.

Apple specifically used to call out the DR Congo as one area where their supply chain responsibility was not yet up to their standards, but in recent years, they claim to have established an audited supply chain: https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/pdf/Apple-Conf...

(I'm going by Apple's own claims here, would be interested to hear whether you have information contradicting these claims).

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