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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

#731

Post by dragonbonheur »

jamieb wrote: post #718
Silhouette wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then there's Microsoft, with thousands of smart people working for decades with billions of dollars of resources to work with---the most powerful of them all until what feels like "recently" to me. And the evidence of their innovative power: we have one of several game platforms, a billion-dollar write-off tablet that they can't give away, and a kind of keyboard that accounts for less than 1% of keyboards in use toda…

>We have a standardised desktop operating system that is familiar to nearly every computer user on the planet, And then there's Windows 8. Also, while we're on the subject, my 8 year old can put together an amazing Keynote presentation on an iPad. She has never used a Windows OS.

8 year olds used to put together and modify games in BASIC. Microsoft BASIC. How low we've fallen...

Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months

#732

Post by wisty »

Aaronontheweb wrote: post #419
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.

Failed Windows 7 launch? What the hell are you smoking? Has a lot of failures on his plate for one man? Please hand this comment an award for middlebrow remark of the year. Let's put Steve Ballmer's accomplishments in perspective: Have you tripled a multi-billion dollar company's revenue over ten years? Did you launch the Xbox? Did you launch Windows Phone (10% marketshare in 3 years)? Did you launch Bing (growing fa…

> People are already starting to grumble many of the same criticisms of Tim Cook's innovation that they did about Steve Ballmer, and who can blame them? Over the past three years all Apple has shipped are the same products they had before but with different screen sizes.

I think the big difference is, Cook doesn't seem to be pushing innovative people out. The only big head to roll under Cook's watch was Scott Forstall's, and apparently he left because he clashed with Jonny Ive (and wanted to go to war with Google in the machine learning space - not just having a few in-house alternatives, but trying to lock Google out of the iPhone to promote Apple's stuff).

Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months

#733

Post by throwawaykf »

sitkack wrote: post #706
laureny wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Microsoft revolutionized the PC industry, which has led to the generation of billions of dollars of wealth for millions of users on the entire planet. You don't seem to be very fair in evaluating the merits of tech industries by focusing only on the bad parts of the one you don't like and the good sides of the ones you like.

Microsoft was there as an epiphenomenon. If they didn't exist (at all) the PC industry would still be here and some would argue that without the monopolistic innovation stifling practices, it would be much more vibrant today.

What? Correct me if I'm remembering incorrectly, but before Microsoft (and Compaq's IBM PC "compatibles") caused PCs to be commoditized, every computer-maker was trying to foist their own closed, proprietary walled garden onto the market. Instead of the PC revolution that created a common platform everywhere, we'd have a hundred small, fragmented, incompatible ecosystems fighting each other for market share. That just does not sound like it would allow for mass adoption through steep hardware price drops and the insane innovation that it enabled (which includes things like Linux). You might think the resultant situation as "vibrant", but I think the more appropriate word is "fragmented".

Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months

#734

Post by pritambaral »

leetrout wrote: post #303
ant512 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's one of Microsoft's main failings. "Google are making baked beans? Why aren't we in the baked bean market? Let's make beans!" "What? Now Facebook are making Facebook Soda? We need to make Microsoft Soda!" Every time a tech company produces something new MS have to muscle in on the market, despite having a) no prior experience, b) no aptitude, c) existing products that could use their attention.

It does feel like MS just shows up like that. Azure did (and does) give that impression; Zune, as well. And Surface tablets are also a clear response to the iPad (whether MS ever had anything in R&D previously or not, they certainly didn't ship). But I think Google is much more prone to jump in to a market with force, they just seem to execute "better" (I leave that open to interpretation). FB comes out and MS buys i…

Agree with G+ being FB inspired. There's more to it (Google ecosystem etc.) but I'll leave that. Android, however, was totally unrelated to the iPhone. In fact, Android's development started before the iPhone. Android's inspirations were also totally different. It's just that the iPhone appealed to a larger number of initial users and thus gained market share quickly, because, well that's what it was designed to do.

Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months

#735

Post by rickjames28 »

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…

What happened to Microsoft? While the rest of the tech sector exploded and prospered, it stayed still. 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.

You've got a huge case of reality distortion field.

Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months

#736

Post by Dewie »

SiVal wrote: post #654
laureny wrote: post #609

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft's approach was different: let others innovate, then we'll dominate. XBox, Surface and ergonomic keyboards would beg to differ. Not mentioning the countless other innovations that didn't become as popular as these ones. I know the Hacker News hive mind likes to perpetuate the myth that Microsoft doesn't innovate but it innovates at least as much as, if not more than, Google and Apple.

I'm speechless. Well, almost. Apple revolutionized the music industry, how music is sold, and how it's listened to. It revolutionized phones. Its iPad changed consumer computing, media consumption, user interface expectations.... Five year olds are totally at home on an iPad and think a screen without touch "isn't working". As they get older, all screens will have to conform to the new reality. They revolutionized sh…

> Apple revolutionized the music industry, how music is sold, and how it's listened to.

How? iPods are great, but they are just mp3 players (not the first at that) with a great user interface. iTunes is a program I used as a music player only because I had to in order to transfer songs from my iPod. At least when I was using it, I could get "illegitimate mp3s" by putting in only a slight amount more effort than by buying them from iTunes. And when I did buy mp3s from iTunes, I wasn't able to make them to play on different computers - so an inferior product compared to the illicit mp3s. I have an eBook that I bought from iTunes that I have never been allowed by iTunes to listen to.

Maybe you're (also) talking about some Apple products that I don't know of.

Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months

#737

Post by WayneDB »

jabr wrote: post #730
WayneDB wrote: post #691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah right, Microsoft is just another enterprise software company . Gimme a break. What other enterprise company has major footholds in even half of the markets that Microsoft has? Who else has Windows?

In a single day, I routinely use up to four different operating systems and none of them are Windows.

Congratulations?

Are you aware that like 90% of corporations run Windows? No other operating system can claim anything even close to that.

Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months

#738

Post by parasubvert »

jabr wrote: post #730
WayneDB wrote: post #691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah right, Microsoft is just another enterprise software company . Gimme a break. What other enterprise company has major footholds in even half of the markets that Microsoft has? Who else has Windows?

In a single day, I routinely use up to four different operating systems and none of them are Windows.

Your point? In a single day, hundreds of millions of people use one operating system and it is Windows.

Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months

#739

Post by parasubvert »

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…

> "Content with lower resolution" screens, when almost all of them dramatically led Apple at the time of their retina unveiling

I call bullshit, that's not how I remember it at all.

The iPhone 4 was released in June 2010 at 960x640. The Samsung Galaxy S2 wasn't available until 11 months later - May 2011, at 800x480. The Motorola Droid X was also available May 2011, at 960x540, along with the HTC Sensation, with the same resolution.

This is the mythology of anti-Apple postings that is so bizarre. They just know that Apple is always technologically inferior.

By 2012, the Android competition has gotten better than Apple in resolution... but only because Apple made resolution important.

Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months

#740

Post by parasubvert »

gnaritas wrote: post #525
CamperBob2 wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What does that have to do with anything? The iPhone is still a consumer device as well. The enterprise isn't about mobile anything, it's about internal applications and B2B systems integration and .Net and Java rule the roost here, as does SOAP still. What works on the public net and what works in the enterprise are light years apart and probably always will be.

The enterprise is desperately, rapidly re-building all of those internal applications (at least the client-side) on mobile platforms, and iOS is in the lead.

This is why these "mobility" servers like IBM WorkLight or SAP/Sybase Unwired are hot products.

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