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Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months

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Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months

#391

Post by braker »

axelf wrote: post #363
potatolicious wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no fan of Ballmer, but I think "insulting OEMs" is one of the good things he did. The OEMs carry a great deal of blame for the collapse of Windows. While Apple was shipping beautiful metal enclosures with great convenient features like MagSafe and magnetic latches, OEMs like Dell were shitting all over the Windows brand with plasticky (and still expensive!), heavy, unreliable, loud-as-shit laptops with terrible s…

not to mention loading up the OS with a ton of crapware and free trials.

This is honestly the worst of it IMO. Apple does have better hardware, yes, but the difference in speed out of the box is stunning when bloatware is involved. Microsoft didn't have a chance to keep up with OSX.

Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months

#392

Post by darkchasma »

rlanday wrote: post #240
benihana wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Positives: Xbox/Games division

Are people saying this because the Xbox actually makes money, or just because it’s popular and seems successful? The most recent overall look at profits I’m aware of is this one: http://www.neowin.net/news/report-microsofts-xbox-division-h... If this is accurate, Microsoft has been turning a profit in recent years, but not enough to make up for years of losses from the first Xbox and the first few years of the Xbox 3…

Mindshare and a device in the living room is what keeps Microsoft from slipping into IBM territory. And with the consumerization of IT, OSX or Linux would be even more present today I suspect.

Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months

#393

Post by jericsinger »

lbarrow wrote: post #23

He'll be remembered as a terrible CEO. Ballmer took over as CEO in 2000. In the 13 years since then, Apple has experienced an unprecedented resurgence. Google and Facebook have gone from being obscure startups to giants. The tech industry went through the bubble, recovered, and today is stronger than ever. What happened to Microsoft? While the rest of the tech sector exploded and prospered, it stayed still. A MSFT sh…

There are a few things worth noting when talking about Balmer and MSFT's share price. Since 2004, MSFT has returned over $164 billion [1] to shareholders in a ~50/50 split of buybacks and dividends -- on today's balance sheet, that cash would be worth an incremental ~$20/share (assuming $0 reinvested). Meanwhile, revenue and free cash flow have grown at a respectable 12.4% compounded, and it wasn't until 2012 that Apple passed Microsoft in terms of gross profit.

I don't think anyone would argue that Ballmer's been the most innovative CEO of his era, but as a custodian of shareholder value, it's pretty hard to fault him. Could he have done better? In hindsight, we know the answer is yes, but the answer in hindsight is always yes. He managed to try and fail at big ideas without bankrupting -- or even significantly impairing -- his company. Not many CEOs can claim the same.

What happened to Microsoft? It built and sold unsexy products that people were willing to pay gobs of money for. I'm sure many businesses would love to fail so successfully.

[1] http://www.gurufocus.com/financials/MSFT#cs. For the sake of reference, AAPL returned ~$26 billion to shareholders over the same period.

Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months

#395

Post by corresation »

potatolicious wrote: post #334
eykanal wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And for missing search. And for missing social. And for insulting OEMs. And for his failed Windows Vista launch, and Windows 7, and Windows 8. For one man, he sure has a lot of failures on his plate.

I'm no fan of Ballmer, but I think "insulting OEMs" is one of the good things he did. The OEMs carry a great deal of blame for the collapse of Windows. While Apple was shipping beautiful metal enclosures with great convenient features like MagSafe and magnetic latches, OEMs like Dell were shitting all over the Windows brand with plasticky (and still expensive!), heavy, unreliable, loud-as-shit laptops with terrible s…

OEMs like Dell were shitting all over the Windows brand with plasticky (and still expensive!), heavy, unreliable, loud-as-shit laptops with terrible screens.

This is utter nonsense. There simply is no other way to put it.

There have always been premium Windows machines (Sony was doing the extremely-thin, fits in an envelope, made-with-unobtanium laptop thing years before Apple did), and discount machines. Focus-on-aesthetics machines, and ugly but functional machines.

That is how a diverse ecosystems work, and the consumer gets to choose what they want, and what matches their priorities (the fact that you have some sort of hipsterism dislike of "plasticy" should not restrict my purchase when I see it as simply a material that is often optimal. I don't have a fetish for materials).

Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months

#396

Post by smacktoward »

incongruity wrote: post #346
smacktoward wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because that has been Microsoft's strategy from the beginning: let someone else take the risk of proving whether a market for something exists, and then, if it does, get in there quick with their own offering. They got into the PC OS business with MS-DOS after the Apple II; into the GUI business with Windows after the Mac; into the word-processor business with Word after WordPerfect; into the browser business…

In the mobile market, Google was the fast follower. MSFT's entries with windows phone and the surface cannot be called fast .

I didn't say they were executing on that strategy well these days. Surface, Zune and Bing are all examples of fast-follower products that either came too late to be relevant (Zune) or that weren't good enough relative to the competition to displace them (Surface, Bing).

Which is not to say they can't execute a fast-follower play successfully anymore -- see XBox and Azure. Just that they don't nail it as thoroughly and consistently as they used to.

Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months

#397

Post by tanzam75 »

rdl wrote: post #33

Since the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has a huge percentage of its wealth still in MSFT stock, I think Bill Gates can make a case to himself that picking the best possible leader for MSFT will save hundreds of thousands of marginal children. If I were him, there would be two candidates: Qi Lu (insider, obvious choice), or, for the ultimate in turnaround ballerdom: Ben Horowitz (from a16z). Either would be a vas…

> Since the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has a huge percentage of its wealth still in MSFT stock, I think Bill Gates can make a case to himself that picking the best possible leader for MSFT will save hundreds of thousands of marginal children.

According to its most recent SEC Form 13F, the Gates Foundation Trust does not hold any Microsoft stock whatsoever. About 47% of its stock holdings are in Berkshire Hathaway.

As for Bill Gates himself, he currently owns less than 5% of Microsoft. That's still almost $14 billion, but it's just 11% of Bill Gates + Warren Buffett's combined wealth. (Both of them are giving essentially their entire fortunes to the Foundation.)

Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months

#398

Post by InclinedPlane »

ghshephard wrote: post #351
lbarrow wrote: post #23

He'll be remembered as a terrible CEO. Ballmer took over as CEO in 2000. In the 13 years since then, Apple has experienced an unprecedented resurgence. Google and Facebook have gone from being obscure startups to giants. The tech industry went through the bubble, recovered, and today is stronger than ever. What happened to Microsoft? While the rest of the tech sector exploded and prospered, it stayed still. A MSFT sh…

"A MSFT share was worth about $35 dollars when Ballmer took over; it's worth about $35 now. " When doing this type of calculation, please adjust for Dividends, which have been substantial from Microsoft, and only recently started from Apple.

The more appropriate time window is from 2008 to now, since that has been when Gates was absent from the company and when Ballmer truly ran the show on his own. Over that time the stock went from roughly $28.5 to roughly $34.5, while giving out a total of $3.51 in dividends per share. Inflation has a slight but non-trivial effect (adjusting that $28.5 stock price to about $30.9 in today's dollars). Overall you get a total rate of return on MSFT stock of about 23.5% over that 5 year period (even adjusting for inflation of the value of the dividends).

That works out to an annualized return of about 4.3%. That's better than a punch in the face but it's not that great compared to any other similarly sized tech company in any related industry.

Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months

#399

Post by flomo »

xradionut wrote: post #181
bornhuetter wrote: post #125

Earlier 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 don't know if Microsoft crapped on it's developers as much as they lost touch with them.

The other day HN had an item where a MS guy was talking about "dark matter developers" -- devs who are plugging along writing WinForm/WebForm apps like it's 2003. That's Microsoft's constituency and they simply don't care about WPF/WinPhone/Metro/etc.

Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months

#400

Post by hollerith »

rshlo wrote: post #36

I think the main problem with it's leadership is that Microsoft lost it's innovative spirit. I think the main reason for that is that Ballmer is a business and marketing guy, and not a tech guy. All the giants today are led by tech people and that's effect the entire culture of all the company.

Tim Cook has an MBA and a BS (earned in 1982) in industrial engineering. I was in college in the years leading up to 1982 and I socialized with industrial engineers. It is likely that Cook took only one course that involved programming (excluding programmable calculators). And the descriptions of his jobs ("chief operating officer (COO) of the computer reseller division of Intelligent Electronics", "12 years in IBM's personal computer business as the director of North American Fulfillment") suggest strongly that he did not do any programming once he left school.
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