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Microsoft reorganizes

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181–190 of 283 posts

Re: Microsoft reorganizes

#181
post #88

I almost choked when I read Microsoft's new mission statement: "our strategy will focus on creating a family of devices and services for individuals and businesses that empower people around the globe at home, at work and on the go, for the activities they value most." In other words, Ballmer wants the company to "focus" on being everything to everyone! Not a good sign for the business. -- PS. Compare Ballmer's long,…

focus on creating a family of devices and services It is interesting in that the focus has moved away from software of any kind to devices and services. It is a bold move towards a post OS, Office, post COTS software Microsoft. But you are right it is about as generic as it gets, change two or three words and it could equally be describing a car company.

"family of devices and services" also implies walled garden. Not that MS hasn't always been about that, but it's clear they're doubling down on it.

Re: Microsoft reorganizes

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't get over this masterpiece: We will allocate resources and build devices and services that provide compelling, integrated experiences across the many screens in our lives, with maximum return to shareholders.

Can you elaborate over what you find so wrong with that?

> Can you elaborate over what you find so wrong with that? reply?

I would, if I could find any content in it. Still searching...

Re: Microsoft reorganizes

#185
post #88

I almost choked when I read Microsoft's new mission statement: "our strategy will focus on creating a family of devices and services for individuals and businesses that empower people around the globe at home, at work and on the go, for the activities they value most." In other words, Ballmer wants the company to "focus" on being everything to everyone! Not a good sign for the business. -- PS. Compare Ballmer's long,…

Huh? A strategy is not the same thing as a mission statement. Microsoft's mission statement is "to help people and businesses throughout the world realize their full potential." http://www.microsoft.com/about/en/us/default.aspx

...by doing what, specifically?

Re: Microsoft reorganizes

#186

The frontier of high-value scenarios we enable will march outward, but we have strengths and proven capabilities on which we will draw. What a sentence!

It's a perfectly cromulent encapsulation of their newly synergized core competencies.

My fellow Americans. As a young boy, I dreamed of being a baseball, but tonight I say, we must move forward, not backward, upward not forward, and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom.

Re: Microsoft reorganizes

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a division called "Cloud" being headed up by Executive VP Satya Nadella that encompasses Azure and the apps that build on top of it (Office 365, visualstudio.com...) That seems pretty first-class to me.

No, there's a division called "Cloud and Enterprise Engineering Group". This suggest that either it encompasses non-cloud offerings specific to enterprise or the cloud they're building is targeting specifically enterprise. Either way, they will not be focused on making Azure a product I wouldn't be interested in: 1 of 2 focuses or targeting someone I'm not. Furthermore, looks like they've split sales/marketing from e…

That you're condemning Azure based on the name of the business unit its produced in and the location of sales and marketing people in a company makes me think that even if we'd named it "JOnAgain's Special Cloud!" that it would be unlikely to have been of interest to you.

(Edit: obviously by "we" I mean "my employer Microsoft", not that I had anything to do with any of these decisions.)

Re: Microsoft reorganizes

#188
post #88

I almost choked when I read Microsoft's new mission statement: "our strategy will focus on creating a family of devices and services for individuals and businesses that empower people around the globe at home, at work and on the go, for the activities they value most." In other words, Ballmer wants the company to "focus" on being everything to everyone! Not a good sign for the business. -- PS. Compare Ballmer's long,…

This isn't an agile startup here, it's one of the world's largest software companies. I think aiming to do a lot isn't a big stretch.

It's not "aiming" at anything.

Re: Microsoft reorganizes

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Openness has nothing to do with abandonment of microsoft. It has all to do with the fact that they could not deliver good mobile device. And still can't. They made errors on every step of the game - allowed carrirs to have saying on the devices, abandoned all lessons learned from PCs and building ecosystems and threw an inferior iOS me too (the UI was better though, the ideology the same)

I trialed a Nokia Lumia 920 with WP8 for a month before settling on a Note II, and I must say that I strongly disagree with your analysis of WP8. It seems very biased and it seems to be ignorant -- as in I don't believe you've actually used the platform as a daily driver for any period of time. No offense, but calling it a "me too" iOS competitor is about as nuanced as calling Android a "me too" iOS competitor -- tec…

I was talking about the totally botched launch of WP7 mostly (and I have used wp7 device). While WP8 may be amazing it was just too late.

Android have the "dominant market share" thing going on about it.

MS had very short window to make a dent in the smartphone war but because of "reasons" never really got together to create a product that could be the smartphone win 3.11/98

Re: Microsoft reorganizes

#190
This seems horribly vague, except that they've been using the word "devices" a lot. Are they going to expand on the Surface thing and work closer with hardware vendors to make a complete suite of Microsoft-branded hardware?

It really sounds like they're embracing the cloud + hardware model that is becoming standard in the mobile space - you have devices purpose-built for your OS and sold with your company's blessing and you have a suite of 1st-party web-supported cloud services. Google's various webapps and Android and their pseudo-first-party Nexus gizmos, Ubuntu and their new Ubuntu phone OS and their Ubuntu One services, Apple and their iOS devices and their own iCloud services, and MS with Win8/WP8/Win8RT and their various SkyDrive/Live services.

My big problem with this huge move to cloud services is that interoperability has freaking tanked. Every consumer exists in one walled garden or another depending which infrastructure they bought into.

To me, this statement implies a hard push on the WP8/Win8RT devices as well as SkyDrive/Live services... which is going to be a hard fight, since winphone is really late to the party, and the confusing branding of Win8RT (is it Windows 8? What?) has basically resulted in every vendor and manufacturer avoiding it like it's radioactive.

Personally, I'd love a Win8RT HDMI stick device, but I'm weird that way... and Microsoft wants me to buy an XBox One so I'm guessing Win8RT HDMI sticks are off the menu.

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