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Satya Nadella – Microsoft's CEO

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311–320 of 584 posts

Re: Satya Nadella – Microsoft's CEO

#311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's not Microsoft that was/is bad, it's having any single entity have too much power. I can't come to the same conclusion. Just look at how much innovation has happened to areas that Microsoft dominated as opposed to those dominated by Google. Google basically sets fire to whatever it gets into. Look at how much they've enriched the developer space in those areas. Everything Microsoft is still stuck in the early 20…

I'm guessing you haven't tried MS's latest desktop platform developer suite?

Yeah, I don't really get that above post at all. Perhaps it's just because I haven't strayed too far into the web/mobile space (Dart, Android applications, etc.), but when I think of the "programming space", I think of Microsoft (VS, C#, XNA, .NET, etc.) much quicker than I do Google.

Re: Satya Nadella – Microsoft's CEO

#312
post #293
post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the world needs a strong Microsoft again Why? A strong anti-competitive troll/racketeer which fights open standards and etc. is not something the world really needs.

They were only able to be a racketeer when they had near monopoly power. Now Google is in that role and we need someone to keep them in check.

No, it's like saying that since there are powers with nuclear weapons we need more of them to keep them in check.

Re: Satya Nadella – Microsoft's CEO

#313
post #263

I hope the new CEO has the courage and the power to set out a vision and stick to it for more than just a few years in a row. Microsoft under Ballmer has been a study in short attention span. Changing themes, names, and directions every three to five years. When I was a Windows sysadmin back in the day, it was incredibly frustrating to build anything on the Microsoft platform because by the time you wrapped your brai…

The Zune is at the foundation of Microsoft's Metro design language.

Yeah, Zune was a market failure, but it was a really great product that was totally underrated.

Re: Satya Nadella – Microsoft's CEO

#314
So I've done consulting with a 20MM+ USD startup that has engaged MSFT over a long period for acquisition potential. It was the case that Balmer had to personally approve every M&A activity over 10MM USD. Hopefully Satya will put in place an A-team of shrewd investors to delegate much of this activity because it seems nonscalable for a CEO to get involved in nearly every transaction. Satya has a lot of work to do to keep what works, modernize and throw out the bad (repeatedly trying to apply the same UX from one platform everywhere).

PS: Azure is great technically and is lightyears ahead most other parts of MSFT but it has not found enough customers to warrant applause. AWS eats their lunch.

Re: Satya Nadella – Microsoft's CEO

#316
post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft started as a development tools company and they're still pretty damn good at it. Why are they so behind in C++11 support in their tools then? I think they are falling behind in their tools advantages already. With emergence of OpenGL debugger from Valve that will only escalate (at least on the gaming scene).

That's ironic considered that Microsoft was ahead of the curve on C++03. They were the first, IIUC, to fully implement the standard, and were way ahead of the competition during the whole process. It wouldn't be unfair to call me a Microsoft "hater", but I've always had respect for their development tools, and especially their compilers. I'm doing a little Windows development these days, but it's on an ancient versio…

They are behind competition (gcc and clang). I doubt they can excuse it with the lack of resources, so I'm not sure why it is so. I don't really use their compilers so it doesn't bother me, I'm just pointing out the fact.

Re: Satya Nadella – Microsoft's CEO

#317
post #160

I'd never thought I'd say this after the years of aggressive (and at times anti-competitive) dominance but I think the world needs a strong Microsoft again. Although Microsoft remains very strong in the corporate world, its presence in the Internet and mobile worlds are now pretty limited and leaving the two power-houses of Google and Apple to shape the industry. Satya has done a good job with Azure, and it will be i…

The only reason I want them around is for competition.

Re: Satya Nadella – Microsoft's CEO

#319

Just asking, how can a new CEO change Microsoft's directions. Or What suggestions would you give Satya, if you were to meet him today?

I am no fan of MS given what I went through with them in the '90s, but I'll give Satya the benefit of the doubt. Here's what I'd say to him:

Recognise that operating systems are less relevant than they were and port everything to everywhere. This means dev tools, Office, etc. People will pay for Visual Studio on the Mac and on Linux if it's the same experience as it is on Windows.

De-complexify Windows and focus on its number one use case: Office. Windows is essentially a platform for running Office and playing games.

Buy Oculus VR.

Re: Satya Nadella – Microsoft's CEO

#320
post #160

I'd never thought I'd say this after the years of aggressive (and at times anti-competitive) dominance but I think the world needs a strong Microsoft again. Although Microsoft remains very strong in the corporate world, its presence in the Internet and mobile worlds are now pretty limited and leaving the two power-houses of Google and Apple to shape the industry. Satya has done a good job with Azure, and it will be i…

>> the two power-houses of Google and Apple to shape the industry

and they went in a bad direction imho:

- Apple closed down the app distribution process (we don't like what they are saying, let's censor Phone Story etc. etc. ..)

- The One of Google graps all information it can reach: the world (how boring it gets), me (nicely aggregated behind closed doors). Meanwhile spamming the world with ads.

Regarding the former, governments should enforce a non-exclusive app store policy. Regarding the second, it's more difficult, maybe the Chinese were right to 'shut them out'. Of course I like/kind of depend on some google services. Tricky.

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