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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

#531

Post by com2kid »

corresation wrote: post #424
braker wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Apple does have better hardware, yes, but the difference in speed out of the box is stunning when bloatware is involved Aside from the odd "Apple has better hardware" bit (they use the same binned devices that other OEMs like Dell do, so not sure where that comes from), you've benchmarked this purported speed difference? Because most of the crapware that companies like Dell, HP, and others put on, while irritating, c…

> Aside from the odd "Apple has better hardware" bit (they use the same binned devices that other OEMs like Dell do, so not sure where that comes from)

Apple pushed IPS screens when PC OEMs were happy with the lowest quality TFT panels available. For years Apple insisted on having a proper GPU in their machines, until Intel finally was able to offer a competitive IGP. And finally Apple also moved forward with SSDs early on.

Add on top of that, Apple's laptops look good. Asus is one of the few PC OEMs making laptops that are even within striking distance of Apple, but their distribution and advertising is abysmal. Asus's best ultrabook was exclusively available from Amazon for the longest time! And then their model numbers are so confusing I knew what I wanted to buy but I couldn't figure out exactly what magic combination of model numbers equated to the machine that I desired.

Every PC Laptop out there has "something" missing from it. Then there is the terrible buying experience, pretty much the only sane way to buy a Dell or an HP machine is to find a magic sales link that takes you to the site which will now show you the real price of the laptop, rather than the rather insane price that is shown by default.

> Buy a pure Windows device and you'll be pestered endlessly for Skydrive, Hotmail, Bing, photo backups

Really? Pestered? I signed into my MS account and my Skydrive files are synced down, but aside from that, I've had no other notifications or requests on either of my Win8 machines. Granted these are both raw Win8 installs.

Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months

#532

Post by snowwrestler »

wnevets wrote: post #215
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…

why is stock price the only measure of a company and its CEO? Unless of course you're a share holder.

It's not, but it's one of the best financial measures (as opposed to revenue, for example).

I would argue that by other measures, Microsoft under Ballmer has not seen improvement either. These might include market power (the power to dictate future market directions), product sales share, product mind share, cultural association, recruiting, innovation, etc.

That said, I think there are a few areas where Microsoft has seen improvement under Ballmer. Xbox went from a "what? really?" product, to the clear console leader. And Microsoft government affairs is miles ahead of where it was under Bill Gates--from its own federal conviction, to instigating multiple actions against competitors.

Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months

#533

Post by Spearchucker »

mrdodge wrote: post #518
Spearchucker wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see that slightly differently. Oracle is huge in government, world-wide. But while it used to be "Oracle is the answer. What was the question again?", there's a shift towards F/OSS, open standards, and commodity hardware. This hurts Oracle. And yes, the exact same thing hurts Microsoft, too. Microsoft, however, have three products that will ensure their continued profitability[1] - Excel, Exchange and (probably mos…

And how much growth potential is there in selling Active Directory, Excel, and Exchange? Every sizable company already has these things installed. Smaller and new companies may choose to spend their dollars elsewhere and that's a change of events for Microsoft. Projects that previously would go on Sharepoint are now done less expensively with cloud services, for example. In tech, growth is in consumer, and with consu…

Who knows? What I do know is that this is exactly what I was hearing in the late 90's.

Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months

#534

Post by yuhong »

com2kid wrote: post #531
corresation wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple does have better hardware, yes, but the difference in speed out of the box is stunning when bloatware is involved Aside from the odd "Apple has better hardware" bit (they use the same binned devices that other OEMs like Dell do, so not sure where that comes from), you've benchmarked this purported speed difference? Because most of the crapware that companies like Dell, HP, and others put on, while irritating, c…

> Aside from the odd "Apple has better hardware" bit (they use the same binned devices that other OEMs like Dell do, so not sure where that comes from) Apple pushed IPS screens when PC OEMs were happy with the lowest quality TFT panels available. For years Apple insisted on having a proper GPU in their machines, until Intel finally was able to offer a competitive IGP. And finally Apple also moved forward with SSDs ea…

>For years Apple insisted on having a proper GPU in their machines, until Intel finally was able to offer a competitive IGP.

Even stayed one CPU generation back in order to do so.

Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months

#535

Post by jimbokun »

SiVal wrote: post #506
EthanHeilman wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There is a non-trivial possibility that Facebook/Google etc become lumbering giants just like MSFT. It might already be true, how do you distinguish between a lumbering giant and not without the help of hindsight? The public consensus on such things lags a few years behind reality. What signs have you seen in 2013 that Google is not a lumbering giant?

Microsoft's approach was different: let others innovate, then we'll dominate. Others would come up with new stuff, and Microsoft would "embrace and extend" whatever got traction in the market by adding it to their near-monopoly OS/app stack at whatever price served the purpose of eliminating the inventor and taking their market. This strategy always made Gates paranoid, because the risk was that some alternative to t…

"(MS did things second, not first, was only a minor hardware developer, and seldom gave things away except when tied to something they sold)"

This is where Jobs learned a lesson from his first time running Apple.

Apple introduced such a polished product for an initial launch, and iterated so fast with iPhone that the market was already taken before Microsoft understood what was happening. I can imagine Gates responding to iPhone with an emergency memo like he famously did with the web, but Ballmer didn't seem to understand the significance of this new market being created until it was too late.

Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months

#536

Post by yuhong »

bengrunfeld wrote: post #291
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that he will probably not be remembered for having more than doubled revenue and almost tripled profits. He will not be remembered for transforming Microsoft into one of the most important enterprise software companies. Not for introducing .NET, C# or Kinect either. All of that will be forgotten. He will be remembered for missing mobile. He will also be remembered for caring a lot about developers and about d…

I feel that many people dislike the idea of him, without exactly knowing what he did during his time as CEO, because the Windows platforms are known as being notoriously buggy and unsecure. XP was a nightmare that caused SysAdmins to cry themselves to sleep until the expansion pack 3 came out, Windows Vista was an unmitigated disaster, Windows 7 was surprisingly decent, and Windows 8 has been hailed as a terrible ide…

>"expansion pack 3"

You mean SP2? Reminds me of "Feature Packs".

Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months

#538

Post by yuhong »

seldo wrote: post #337
simonh wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that IE was just a clone of Netscape and XBox was an attempt to duplicate PlayStation. Neither of these were original or ground breaking products. In fact with IE 6 he so badly misjudged the market that he assumed the game was over and didn't even bother continuing development. IE 7 didn't come out until 4 years later! Gates founded Microsoft's online businesses, which have been losing money ever since. You co…

I can't really speak to XBox as it's not my field, but IE 6 was definitely not a clone of Netscape. I hate it with every fiber of my being, but Internet Explorer invented a bunch of stuff we take for granted every day -- the iframe tag is the first one that comes to mind, and they were also the first browser to adopt CSS, way back in IE3. People forget that for a hot second in 1995 Netscape started swinging its weigh…

The "Mariner" cancellation certainly don't help either.

Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months

#539

Post by asdfs »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #511
gnaritas wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iOS and Android are largely for consumer devices, .Net is largely used in the enterprise for B2B products that consumers never see. .Net and Java dominate the enterprise market. Apples and oranges.

iOS and Android are largely for consumer devices Gee, when have we heard this before. Oh, yes: when the iPhone was released.

Elaborate? I don't understand what you're suggesting.

Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months

#540

Post by MikeCapone »

300bps wrote: post #446
corresation wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My most recent purchase was a Dell laptop with a 3rd gen i7, 16GB RAM, eMMC accelerated TB magnetic disc, IPS 1080p screen, fingerprint reader, backlit keyboard, blah blah. Weight and battery life fit my usage. I believe it was somewhere around $800, and is a perfect device for my needs. Spent a few minutes after booting removing the various trials of junk on it. Colour me clueless, I guess.

For me, i7 2650QM, 8 GB of RAM, 500 GB hard drive, 17.3" monitor, fingerprint reader, 9 cell battery. $550. People who buy Macs can't even conceive that you can buy 4 PC notebooks for the price they are buying 1 Mac notebook. They can't conceive that the typical person doesn't buy overpriced Ultrabooks that are different only in marketing name. All they will say is that their computer "holds its resale value" or that…

It's because they use different criteria than you do to judge the machine, and that's fine.
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