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Steven Sinofsky to Leave Microsoft

allthingsd.com

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Re: Steven Sinofsky to Leave Microsoft

#11

Post by wsc981 »

tiles wrote: post #2

I always thought that Sinofsky was a driving force behind some of the changes that preceded Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8. This comes as a great surprise to me and I hesitate to think who would be in a good position to follow him (and ultimately who would fill Ballmer's shoes in the company).

One of the comments in the linked article suggests that this could mean that the surface is selling much worse as expected. There might be some truth in this.

As Steve Jobs has said: “Somewhere between the janitor and the CEO, reasons stop mattering.”

Re: Steven Sinofsky to Leave Microsoft

#12

Post by xibernetik »

curiousDog wrote: post #8

This is really really sad. Everyone must be very disappointed (Especially mini-microsoft). And the new head is a PM..heading windows engineering. More on Julie from Mary Jo: [1]"Larson-Green applied to Microsoft right after she got her business management degree from Western Washington University, only to be told no. But she did land a job at desktop-publishing-software maker Aldus working on the product support call…

The PM role is not at all about finance or marketing. PMs at Microsoft are expected to be technically competent and depending where they're stationed, may regularly contribute code. Julie Larson-Green is noted for her expertise in UI/UX. If anything, this exemplifies a shift to focusing on the end-user.

Re: Steven Sinofsky to Leave Microsoft

#13

Post by randomfool »

Good riddance. I left the company because I didn't want to deal with his idea of an ideal organization. I figured he was a shoe-in for CEO and it was just time until everyone was under him. Unfortunately I think he leaves a large trail behind him- too many lower-level people saw no chance to escape his way of doing things other than to leave the company.

Re: Steven Sinofsky to Leave Microsoft

#14

Post by rlu »

curiousDog wrote: post #8

This is really really sad. Everyone must be very disappointed (Especially mini-microsoft). And the new head is a PM..heading windows engineering. More on Julie from Mary Jo: [1]"Larson-Green applied to Microsoft right after she got her business management degree from Western Washington University, only to be told no. But she did land a job at desktop-publishing-software maker Aldus working on the product support call…

Sinofsky started his career as an SDE but was mainly a PM. That's how he got where he did.

Re: Steven Sinofsky to Leave Microsoft

#16

Post by magamiako »

randomfool wrote: post #13

Good riddance. I left the company because I didn't want to deal with his idea of an ideal organization. I figured he was a shoe-in for CEO and it was just time until everyone was under him. Unfortunately I think he leaves a large trail behind him- too many lower-level people saw no chance to escape his way of doing things other than to leave the company.

Could you describe some of these things? You don't have to be detailed, obviously; but is there anything that sticks out? Development processes were off? Requirements too crazy?

Re: Steven Sinofsky to Leave Microsoft

#17

Post by mikecane »

Surface RT selling modestly due to limited distribution and poor reviews for RT itself.

The hardware seems solid (I finally tried one tonight with both covers), but popping into the Desktop ruins the experience for people who only want Metro. (Me, I want full Win 8, so it matters a bit less to me... but breaking the Metro experience is still jarring.)

OTOH, although I've heard of Metro app numbers increasing, there's clearly a lonnnng way yet to go for it.

If all this is being pinned on Sinofsky, it's very short-sighted on Ballmer's part. With the legacy restrictions he had to deal with, I think Sinfosky did a very good job for a 1.0 product and the promise is there.

Re: Steven Sinofsky to Leave Microsoft

#18

Post by benihana »

randomfool wrote: post #13

Good riddance. I left the company because I didn't want to deal with his idea of an ideal organization. I figured he was a shoe-in for CEO and it was just time until everyone was under him. Unfortunately I think he leaves a large trail behind him- too many lower-level people saw no chance to escape his way of doing things other than to leave the company.

What was his idea of an ideal organization?

Re: Steven Sinofsky to Leave Microsoft

#20

Post by randomfool »

curiousDog wrote: post #8

This is really really sad. Everyone must be very disappointed (Especially mini-microsoft). And the new head is a PM..heading windows engineering. More on Julie from Mary Jo: [1]"Larson-Green applied to Microsoft right after she got her business management degree from Western Washington University, only to be told no. But she did land a job at desktop-publishing-software maker Aldus working on the product support call…

Up until now, the prevailing theory had been that Sinofsky was kicking out all of his competitors. My understanding is that Bob Muglia left because of direct conflict with Sinofsky and Robbie Bach seemed to be on the loosing end of a few Sinofsky scuffles.

It may be that it just caught up with him. Or maybe he got too antsy for the CEO role.

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