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Microsoft reorganizes

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Re: Microsoft reorganizes

#191

Post by pjzedalis »

JOnAgain wrote: post #96

Azure will not catch AWS because it's not a first class division. It's an offering in a broader context. Contrast with Amazon who has an SVP of AWS (and he's considered one of the "more important" SVPs). Any chance I had of considering Azure just evaporated. And there's nothing that screams "ownership" like having a VP's reports "dotted-line" report into someone else, and to have that called out in a company-wide ema…

I like how you make really important technical platform decisions based on the title of the guy in charge.

Re: Microsoft reorganizes

#192

Post by kenferry »

kyllo wrote: post #31
venomsnake wrote: post #4

Is there a reason CEOs cannot use normal English but have to dilute the language so much? For me the TL:DR after struggling to read it was - full steam ahead to the biggest walled garden on earth. We are still the Borg. Someone correct me if I am wrong.

No, the TL;DR is that they are currently organized into (almost) self-sufficient business units by product category, but now they are going to switch to being organized into interdependent departments by job function category. This is a huge shift for MS.

This is very interesting to me, and I'd like to know more about what didn't work in the previous structure.

I worked at Apple for a long time, and if I could have changed one thing organizationally it would have been to go _from_ the functional decomposition _to_ the product decomposition.

Re: Microsoft reorganizes

#193

Post by freehunter »

blankenship wrote: post #185
tallanvor wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It's a mission statement, not a strategy.

Re: Microsoft reorganizes

#194

Post by mark-r »

jt2190 wrote: post #40
venomsnake wrote: post #4

Is there a reason CEOs cannot use normal English but have to dilute the language so much? For me the TL:DR after struggling to read it was - full steam ahead to the biggest walled garden on earth. We are still the Borg. Someone correct me if I am wrong.

> Is there a reason CEOs cannot use normal English but > have to dilute the language so much? Just look at this message board to see how much people will (naively or willfully) twist the meaning of what they read. pg has written about this as well [1] ... How he finds himself being extra careful about what he writes, trying to anticipate the ways that people will misunderstand what he's trying to say. [1] Can't find…

Don't know about pg, but Scott Adams has mentioned it a few times. One example: http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/author_by_relocation/

Re: Microsoft reorganizes

#195

Post by JonFish85 »

mehrzad wrote: post #179
JonFish85 wrote: post #113

What is one good thing that Ballmer has done for MS? He's ridden the momentum left by Gates, and since then..... what? Nothing new & good. If I'm an investor in MS, is he really the best option? Not that Microsoft isn't a good company and does some great work (Microsoft Research labs are amazing, I don't care what people say), but honestly it seems like as a company, Microsoft hasn't really done anything new & better…

Windows Azure? 7? Those were under Ballmer's reign.

Ah, good point on Azure, that's fairly big. Windows 7 I guess I don't really see as anything more than iteration. It was an honest question, so I appreciate a good answer!

Re: Microsoft reorganizes

#196

Post by freehunter »

Pxtl wrote: post #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…

The problem is Microsoft's short attention span. Their products are usually better than the competition, but either no one uses them and MS kills the product, or people start using it and MS lets the product stagnate until it's not better anymore (or significantly worse).

Windows Mobile was amazing, the best thing to ever happen to the mobile devices world. But it had grown stale long before Apple joined the market. Windows Phone debuted as a refreshing change in the marketplace and in some ways, ahead of Apple. And then the lack of continued innovation has stalled what little progress it was making. Then they killed Windows Phone (7) just to relaunch Windows Phone (8) as "mostly compatible".

The Zune software was miles ahead of Apple's spreadsheet program. Then they killed it. The Zune Pass was and still is miles ahead of anything else in the music subscription space. But it hasn't just stagnated, it's actively become worse. You used to pay $10/mo and get 10 DRM-free songs per month, making the subscription part completely free. Now that's gone. But still, Google Play Music All Access Pass is the only thing remotely competing with it.

I love Skydrive and you get massive amounts of space and massive amounts of integration, but how many times can they rebrand the same service? I started using Skydrive back when you would log into it using your MSN ID, then your Windows Live ID, then your Microsoft Account.

It's the ADD-style lack of focus that killed Sega, and Microsoft just rides that train for all its worth.

Re: Microsoft reorganizes

#197

Post by telcodud »

Surprised that no one has mentioned Asymco or Horace Dediu and his recent podcasts and blog posts:

http://www.asymco.com/2013/06/27/preempting-the-praetorian-g... http://www.asymco.com/2013/06/27/the-critical-path-90-the-pr...

where he goes into a lot of detail about how functional organizational structure might be relevant to innovation in a large company.

Re: Microsoft reorganizes

#198

Post by nitrogen »

onedev wrote: post #175
Metrop0218 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, I see now. I definitely agree with you then. That line will most likely not sit well with employees that don't give a damn about the shareholders and would rather just create amazing products.

I'm curious what amazing products Microsoft is working on.

The new Kinect, were it not locked into the new Xbox and used for creepy advertising-related purposes, would be an amazing product.

Re: Microsoft reorganizes

#199

Post by bad_user »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #163

This is the change : "This means we will organize the company by function: Engineering (including supply chain and datacenters), Marketing, Business Development and Evangelism, Advanced Strategy and Research, Finance, HR, Legal, and COO (including field, support, commercial operations and IT). Each discipline will help drive our overall strategy. Each discipline will also be charged with improving our core capabiliti…

> Perhaps the most profound was that Microsoft has basically said "Oh by the way, the PC is dead." and by that tacit admission they fulfill the prophecy of this being the 'post PC' era

All this talk about the "Post PC" era is misguided, with people leaving out the elephant in the room.

It's not PCs that are dead - PCs are fine, you can find one in most homes and most people interact with PCs daily. This isn't going to change for a long time.

Something else is dying - the traditional licensing model for software. Software is becoming a cheap commodity, due to open-source, due to the freemium model on the web, due to piracy, due to the $0.99 or ads-enabled apps that are so popular lately.

By contrast, there's been a lot of innovation in hardware / devices. Skipping over the obvious innovations, like smart-phones with touch-screens, for example Samsung's Chromebook is amazing - a good looking ultra-portable with good battery, that does 90% of what people need and that's so cheap that you can replace it should you break or lose it.

Let's think about what the Chromebook is, because it's fascinating - all the apps you run on it are web apps. The just released Firefox OS does the same thing and I'm sure it's going to be a success. Apple themselves, before releasing their iPhone SDK, were telling devs to build web apps.

So where is Microsoft in this picture? Nowhere. Their empire is built on Windows and Office and without these in the picture they are fucked. And they can't rely on the current PC market for upgrades, because PCs are more than good enough, so people don't feel the need for upgrades, unless they buy based on sex-appeal. Many companies are still on Windows XP and Office 2003.

This isn't a "Post PC" era. This is the "Web Era". Furthermore, all the mobile app stores are just passing fads.

Re: Microsoft reorganizes

#200

Post by Silhouette »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #181
stonemetal wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not that MS hasn't always been about that, but it's clear they're doubling down on it.

They might as well play by the same rules as their competitors.

It's unfortunate for consumers, and I hope that in the long run market forces and/or regulation will open things up again. However, for the immediate future, if your major competitors are running closed worlds and you're the only guys running an open one, there's only one direction that customers can move in.

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