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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

#571

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

polyomino wrote: post #423
corresation wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-ae…

Even the $3000+ laptops from Sony or other oems were littered with crapware. When consumers shifted from desktops to mobile all of the hardware innovation was moved to the oems' suppliers, which led them to drop all of their technical talent. Now the likes of dell and hp are full of mbas whose job is to make deals with companies like McAfee to squeeze an extra penny out of each sale and to annoy clueless consumers wh…

My Sharp MM10 wasn't.

Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months

#572

Post by biot »

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…

Some people don't see computers as fungible computing commodities priced in $/GHz and $/GB.

Much like they don't see cars as fungible transportation commodities priced in $/Watt and $/N·m.

Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months

#573

Post by vinceguidry »

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…

No, they can. They just don't care.

Windows laptops are packed full of hardware and software crap that nobody really wants. Fingerprint readers are unsafe toys. 17 inch monitors make it impossible to use comfortably on your lap. Doesn't matter how many cells are in your battery, it won't outlast mine because Windows drinks juice like a sailor.

I don't care how much more money I'm paying for my MacBook over a comparably specced PC. There's just no comparison. Software, hardware, support. I took my laptop to the Apple Store three times last year, got a quick turnaround and paid nothing for the repairs. I did not have to go through a phone maze or argue with anybody.

People who buy PCs just don't understand quality. Only price.

Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months

#574

Post by chris_mahan »

mandeepj wrote: post #547
tlogan wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we should compare MSFT against other companies in enterprise space. So lets take, for example, ORCL. From 2000 till today, ORCL become the clear leader in enterprise: they acquired PeopleSoft, Siebel, BEA, Sun, etc. On the other hand, MSFT position in enterprise space is in much weaker position comparing to competitors such as ORCL. Enterprises will replace their Windows with tablets, but I don't see them rep…

"Enterprises will replace their Windows with tablets" really? What can you do on your tablet in enterprises? You can have them only as an additional device. They don't even have any port where you can plugin something. And, you will have your tablets interact with whom? At the end of the day, you need real machine running full blown OS to get shit done and not devices meant for playing with those face painting apps.

no port needed. everything wireless. I'm waiting for NFC keyboards.

google now says you interact with the tablet by voice, and you watch the screen with your eyes. Now, tablets can even derive events from looking at your face (samsung you look away video stops).

Noticed you don't need a mouse with a tablet?

Oh, the software will have to be rewritten, no doubt, but since most of the software is interface anyway...

Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months

#575

Post by encoderer »

epo wrote: post #420
runjake wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For one man, he sure has a lot of failures on his plate. As do all successful people. If success were easy, everyone would be doing it. For all the ways I disagree with Ballmer, this seems like a poor choice to point out.

OK, name his successes. How has Microsoft improved on his watch? Failures are acceptable if there is ultimate success, what is Ballmer's success? Retiring rich? (Most of which was accomplished on Gate's stewardship.) Perhaps his name could become a unit for excess inventory. The "Ballmer", 500 cubic metres of unsold goods. EDIT: or perhaps the name of a new airplane seat, "The Ballmer" the only chair to fly in!

Huge increases in revenue. Huge increases in profit. Consistent dividend yield.

Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months

#576

Post by RockyMcNuts »

onebaddude wrote: post #317
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. The world moved on, and Microsoft didn't move with it. Nonsense. There was a 2 for 1 stock split in 2003. Also, MSFT paid no dividend in 2000. Since then the dividend has gone from $0 in 2004 to $0.23 per share this past quarter. That's real value created and returned to shareholders. There's more to a company than share price…

not sure if your math is right. actual price on 1/1/2000 was $116, $43 adjusted for dividends and splits -

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=MSFT&a=00&b=1&c=2000&d=07&e=...

Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months

#577

Post by Systemic33 »

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…

You can't really blame people for abandoning sharepoint, it's really an excellent display of why you shouldn't try to interbreed all your gui applications with internetexplorer iframes. It's literally the worst MS have ever produced.

Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months

#578

Post by calbear81 »

corresation wrote: post #569
calbear81 wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple's willingness to invest in making higher resolution panels and better screens the standard helped bring down prices for everyone else to be able to get the same level of quality. On the phone side, for several years, the iPhone had the BEST possible screen available on any phone because they invested in the panel and locked up the supply (since they paid for it) while other phone makers were content with lower…

"Content with lower resolution" screens, when almost all of them dramatically led Apple at the time of their retina unveiling. Add that companies like LG, Sony, and Samsung actually make the screen (and rest assured, Apple is not stopping any of those companies from doing what they want with their own lines). This is the mythology of Apple that is so bizarre. Apple overshot competitors not because Apple has such a de…

Sorry corresation, I should have been more specific that I wasn't referring to the current "Retina" era of screens since yes, all of the competitors (especially Samsung who makes the panels) have the same thing or are doing better.

I'm talking about when the first iPhone came out (2007?) and you couldn't find a multi-touch capacitive touch screen in any mass market device that was able to match the precision and responsiveness of what Apple delivered in v1 of their mobile phone. It was not for a few years that competitive devices came out with a screen that had the same level of responsiveness.

Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months

#580

Post by scholia »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #94
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…

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…

Actually, he tripled revenues ($23 billion to $74 billion) and almost doubled profits.

Along with "what have the Romans ever done for us", Ballmer can also be forgotten for some billion-dollar business such as SharePoint and for making Microsoft a serious player in cloud computing ;-)

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