The question really is: who is the best to run Microsoft?
Its a hard choice: too much enterprise for anyone at Google, have to talk to folks outside of Microsoft (partners, enterprise) so that rules out anyone at Apple. So who then?
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months
221–230 of 784 posts
Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months
#222Huge news! Let's see what happens to the stock today. It edged up a little at the end of the day, suggesting that perhaps news was getting out. It's up 8% in premarket trading. [1] One interesting thing to note from that chart is their Beta (a measure of link to market volatility) is less than 1, which is very low for a high tech stock. It basically means that the market views them as less volatile to market conditio…
Thank God. (Speaking as an ex-Microsoftie). Hopefully MS will lose the "we need to put Windows on everything, including embedded systems" attitude. Windows is a horrible bloated mess barely capable of successfully running on a tablet PC, much less smaller things. (And if you've ever had to /build/ Windows . . . OMG. OMFG). There are core bits of Windows that are great; the I/O system is incredibly well done. Then the…
> Thank God. (Speaking as an ex-Microsoftie).
And the chairs breathe a sigh of relief ;-)
A happy chair makes a happy programmer ;-)
Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank God. (Speaking as an ex-Microsoftie). Hopefully MS will lose the "we need to put Windows on everything, including embedded systems" attitude. Windows is a horrible bloated mess barely capable of successfully running on a tablet PC, much less smaller things. (And if you've ever had to /build/ Windows . . . OMG. OMFG). There are core bits of Windows that are great; the I/O system is incredibly well done. Then the…
But what could be the future of MS look like a strategic perspective? I am pondering a bit about that. They are somewhat squeezed in between closed system and open source. How can they position themselves for a solid path for the future in that middle-ground.
I've always felt MS is two businesses, an enterprise systems (Office, SQL Server, Project, Dynamics, Azure) business and a consumer devices business (Windows, Xbox, Phone, Bing) which should have started building hardware sooner than it did.
They really need to either spin off a separate business, sell some divisions or just stop trying to compete in some areas. Experience shows their OS dominance doesn't count for much in the phone, tablet, search or cloud markets.
Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
I really don't think Microsoft's main product offerings are that bad. The biggest issue with Metro and Windows Phone is a lack of developer support - and I think a significant part of that is caused by a lot of the best developers being either Apple or Google "fanboys". Office remains excellent, Windows 8 is excellent at what it intended for - office productivity, games, VS development etc. But the media hates them,…
Bullshit. Microsoft crapped on it's developers, IT and users when it released Windows 8. How are you supposed to develop for a system when the frameworks change every couple of years? Not to mention pissing off independents, dropping TechNet and raising license costs across the board. Price out a decent MS server solution and 60 to 80 percent of the cost is Microsoft licenses. Azure isn't a solution either since Redm…
I have not been a Windows developer for many years, so I admit I may be wrong about things from that perspective. As a Windows user, I still think that their products are pretty good at what they do and that a large proportion of the media and its customer base hate everything Microsoft does by default.
Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months
#225Just after piracy hit all time lows. Good timing really.
http://fakevalley.com/microsoft-pirated-software-sales-also-...
Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
They also clearly missed the internet revolution, but managed to recover. Big companies have trouble adapting to new paradigms, but it's not impossible for them to do it, especially when they have so many resources at their disposal.
I don't think Microsoft's response to the web is comparable to their failures in mobile. billg's "Internet Tidal Wave" memo went out in 1995, long before the web had become ubiquitous. They still had plenty of time to (legally or otherwise!) ride the .com tidal wave to dominant marketshare and huge profitability. A similar memo would have done the most good in 2005, when it was becoming clear that we'd soon all have…
I don't think missing the Internet revolution was their biggest mistake. If you look at Apple they focused on hardware. What Microsoft could have done too. Instead, they just tried to continue this Windows monopoly and overlooked everything else.
Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
But what could be the future of MS look like a strategic perspective? I am pondering a bit about that. They are somewhat squeezed in between closed system and open source. How can they position themselves for a solid path for the future in that middle-ground.
A non-crappy enterprise mobile option alone (basically Blackberry 2013) would be a $100b business. Neither Android nor iOS is that out of the box, and the bolt-on ecosystem of crap doesn't turn either into as good a system as RIM was in its heyday. Look what phone DIRNSA uses today: a Blackberry. I'd sell non-core assets (Xbox, Bing, hotmail, consumer stuff in general, etc.), and focus on the core OS/mobile/Azure/Off…
I think you might be underselling the enterprise features of iOS, particularly with all of the Exchange support built in, ability to manage profiles with OS X server, the remote wipe, encryption, etc. It's what I use for work, and a Blackberry 2013 wouldn't get me to switch.
I would grant that there are specialized markets that MS could serve well in the enterprise market, but what do you think the typical enterprise deployment needs out of the box that iOS can't provide right now?
Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
A non-crappy enterprise mobile option alone (basically Blackberry 2013) would be a $100b business. Neither Android nor iOS is that out of the box, and the bolt-on ecosystem of crap doesn't turn either into as good a system as RIM was in its heyday. Look what phone DIRNSA uses today: a Blackberry. I'd sell non-core assets (Xbox, Bing, hotmail, consumer stuff in general, etc.), and focus on the core OS/mobile/Azure/Off…
Flag staff in DoD use blackberry because their IT goons are scared shitless of telling their dyed-in-the-wool-msft-fan bosses that a UNIX-like operating system is good business.
It's that Blackberry with BES has actually decent management and security, unlike a cobbled-on-Android MDM, and the Blackberry keyboard.
The underlying OS on the Exchange server doesn't matter. That DoD is (I'm pretty sure) the world's biggest MS deployment does matter, though -- even though I prefer UNIX, if I'm in an environment where 99% of systems are Windows based, I'd build my ancillary systems on Windows, too.
Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, I don't think he'll be seen worse than the CEOs of AOL Time Warner, Enron, Worldcom, or Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, but sure you go on with your hyperbole. It's turning into a staple on HN. Really raising the bar there. Edit: parent comment used to say "worst CEO of modern history"
> parent comment used to say "worst CEO of modern history" What about Stephen Elop? "As of June 2013, Nokia's [...] stock value dropped by 85% since Elop's takeover." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Elop
That probably would've happened anyway. Nokia was far to late in the post-iPhone introduction market. In fact, I get the impression that they are slowly recovering. They have a good hardware lineup and are starting to get traction in lower-income markets (e.g. South America). Also, the Lumia 521 and 520 are now topping the non-contract phones best-seller charts on Amazon.com.
Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, I don't think he'll be seen worse than the CEOs of AOL Time Warner, Enron, Worldcom, or Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, but sure you go on with your hyperbole. It's turning into a staple on HN. Really raising the bar there. Edit: parent comment used to say "worst CEO of modern history"
> parent comment used to say "worst CEO of modern history" What about Stephen Elop? "As of June 2013, Nokia's [...] stock value dropped by 85% since Elop's takeover." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Elop
You can't stop a train immediately. At least Symbian/MeeGo/Android chasm has been avoided.