11–20 of 132 posts
That's disappointing. I was really hoping that it would be someone external to the company who would be visionary enough to take them to new heights. Instead, they're picking the safe, enterprise bet, who won't change things too much. I would say Microsoft's consumer facing days are numbered.
It's like bitching that Walmart hasn't cornered Starbucks. Jesus.
⚫ This spot's proving very difficult to fill. Both in terms of finding the right person, and in getting them to accept. It's been 160 days from the initial announcement of Ballmer's retirement.
⚫ Given Ballmer's long-standing deficiencies and publicly-voiced dissatisfaction with his performance, this also speaks to very poor succession planning on the part of the Board. This would be they: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/exec/bod.aspx
⚫ Enterprise + cloud is probably a safe pick for now. It suggests a de-emphasis of consumer and mobile, and a retrenchment to core strengths, if not enduring ones.
⚫ I'm not sold that bringing in external talent solves problems that insiders can't tackle. The insiders will be well aware of strengths and weaknesses, the challenge is in acting on them given existing internal relationships and politics.
That's disappointing. I was really hoping that it would be someone external to the company who would be visionary enough to take them to new heights. Instead, they're picking the safe, enterprise bet, who won't change things too much. I would say Microsoft's consumer facing days are numbered.
As a Microsoft Developer, I don't want a Microsoft with new vision. I want a Microsoft that will continue to build a great platform to build business applications on. We moved away from WPF after Windows 8. We gravitated towards ASP.NET MVC, but increasingly started using Angular JS. While I love these new javascript libs, I miss the great tool set that Microsoft always provided. Without that, I think we can eventual…
From one former Milwaukeean to another, I hope this kicks more recruiters to the area. With three major universities in the city, there was a dismal number of national recruiters dropping by when I lived there (about a decade ago now, maybe things are different).
All this banter about it being a bad choice or a good choice because Satya's current role is enterprise focused is just goofy. Had Elop been chosen we would not be acting as if Microsoft is only a phone company now and is abandoning the enterprise.
I think an interesting side effect of this; his vacating of the Cloud/Enterprise role provides a natural succession up the chain for Scott Guthrie. It also gives Scott (who has more of an effect on the Microsoft dev community than any other person) a direct pipeline and solid personal relationship with the CEO.
Microsoft's most successful products recently have all been in the Enterprise field, so that reflects well on him. But there have to be questions about his experience with consumer software.
I think an interesting side effect of this; his vacating of the Cloud/Enterprise role provides a natural succession up the chain for Scott Guthrie. It also gives Scott (who has more of an effect on the Microsoft dev community than any other person) a direct pipeline and solid personal relationship with the CEO.
If Satya is indeed promoted to CEO, Soma -- not Scott -- will be promoted to EVP.
Going to be an interesting next couple years.