Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months

Post by WayneDB » Sat, Aug 24, 2013, 3:42 PM UTC

nl wrote: post #328

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #94

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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…

It's hard to disagree with sarcasm on the internet. But in this case you are absolutely correct. Microsoft used to control the future of computing. Now they are yet another enterprise software company with no apparent mission except to make money. The lay somewhere on a continuum with IBM, Oracle, SAP all the way through to companies like CA. At one end of that spectrum they do research and produce software that peop…

Post by dredmorbius » Sat, Aug 24, 2013, 3:55 PM UTC

MichaelGG wrote: post #605

dredmorbius wrote: post #583

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I'd argue that search and Ajax did more harm and drove the first wedge. Search gave Google a business model and revenue stream. Ajax enabled Web apps, beginning with Gmail. That enabled platform independence and a split from the Office monopoly, particularly Outlook/Exchange and Active Directory. Mobile was another keg of coffin nails, particularly in consumer space showing that ease of use and zero configuration wer…

Microsoft essentially invented AJAX. In the late 90s they had some HTML remote update thingy via a Java applet, I believe. Then they introduced XMLHttpRequest. Developing for IE around that timeframe wasn't bad. They had excellent documentation, and added (proprietary, sure) extensions that let you do all sorts of neat stuff.

Post by philwelch » Sat, Aug 24, 2013, 5:09 PM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #535

SiVal wrote: post #506

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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 respondi…

Post by gdy » Sat, Aug 24, 2013, 5:44 PM UTC

cgh wrote: post #546

erikpukinskis wrote: post #468

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You have to understand that some of us, who were around and writing code through the 90s, are still a little PTSD about Microsoft. Back then, when Microsoft did control computing, it was easy to wonder if maybe they would control it forever. It was a shitty period. There was a sense of futility to building software. You could build small software, but as soon as you reached a certain scale, particularly if you were a…

Excellent post that captures my feelings precisely. I worked for a MS "partner" whose product integrated with BizTalk (I know, right?) A big part of our strategy was trying to keep MS from locking us out once we became successful. Eventually we got bought out and the product was killed. Around 2000, Linux was on the scene and like a lot of people I got the hell out of the MS ecosystem and never looked back.

Post by sbuk » Sat, Aug 24, 2013, 6:01 PM UTC

devx wrote: post #339

rdl wrote: post #72

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Positives: Only threw away 10-20b on pointless acquisitions (aQ, etc.). Successfully avoided buying Nokia, or pulling an HP/Compaq Fiorina fiasco, and didn't buy a big dying services organization to chase IBM. Also didn't do like HP's board with the lawsuits and revolving door CEOs and such. Avoided major criminal activity.

How about paying $8 billion for Skype, a zero-profit company, and almost paying $40 billion for Yahoo?