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Satya Nadella Added $850B to Microsoft

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Re: Satya Nadella Added $850B to Microsoft

#131

Post by jdminhbg »

saagarjha wrote: post #128
jdminhbg wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're not talking about whether or not someone is an expert, we're talking about whether they have even a passing familiarity. What an operating system is isn't esoteric knowledge.

You'll find that it's not common knowledge among the general population, and presumably to some extent among the readership and authors of a financial newspaper.

It's fine to not know what an operating system is. There are lots of areas of life where I'm almost totally ignorant. The difference is I wouldn't try to report on them before I learned very basic, elementary things about them. It's not too much to expect someone to learn "it's like Android or iOS" before professionally writing about it.

Re: Satya Nadella Added $850B to Microsoft

#132

Post by DataGata »

supercanuck wrote: post #130
stakhanov wrote: post #4

First: A stock can rise for reasons having zero to do with the reality of the business behind the stock, for example mispricing, availability or the lack thereof of alternative investments, inflation, currency devaluation etc. Second: To me it always leaves a very foul aftertaste when the achievements of a team are ascribed to whoever the visible front-person is. I find it hard to believe that among the other 149999…

Microsoft has also been steadily buying back its own stock https://www.wsj.com/articles/microsoft-to-buy-back-up-to-40-... https://ycharts.com/companies/MSFT/stock_buyback

Shouldn't stock buy backs actually lower the valuation of the company (as cash leaves)?

Re: Satya Nadella Added $850B to Microsoft

#133

Post by kevstev »

hylaride wrote: post #41
yodon wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bill Gates built an amazing airplane. Steve Ballmer crashed it in the desert. Satya Nadella rallied the survivors, put it back together, and got it flying again. Yes, he absolutely deserves the credit just as Ballmer absolutely deserves the blame.

Actually, Ballmer did quite well at MS. He consistently increased earnings via Windows and Office during his tenure as CEO. He was a very good businessman. He was not, however, a product guy. Witness their failures with the Zune, mobile, early cloud computing. His problem was that he always tried to do what would be best for Microsoft and not the customer. You can get away with this if you already have an install bas…

The Zune was a great product, IMHO better than the ipod, if for no other reason than you didn't have to deal with itunes. The hardware may not have been as sexy looking as the ipod, but the software was far superior, and it was better in all other ways- I loved that it had an FM tuner.

Re: Satya Nadella Added $850B to Microsoft

#135

Post by fragmede »

hylaride wrote: post #92
ghaff wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course success with a vision often also includes a significant degree of luck and being in the right place at the right time. The iPod was just another MP3 player, albeit one with a certain style and design that captured lots of attention in spite of a premium price. But it certainly wasn't ordained that Apple would parlay that into the runaway success of the iPhone.

Luck and timing play into it, but so does design and usefulness. Keep in mind the state of the world when the iPod came out. College kids sharing MP3s across school networks, etc. If you used microsoft's media players, by default they often "protected" the music by converting it to WMA files that were locked. Now you're unable to share with the other kids in your dorm. The cute boy/girl who asks "what song is that" t…

The iPod had, famously, "No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame." It won for various reasons, but the iTunes music store started off with DRM, with tracks limited to 5 devices, so it didn't win for lack of DRM. (Well-executed UX and design played a huge part.)

Re: Satya Nadella Added $850B to Microsoft

#136

Post by TomMarius »

mywittyname wrote: post #56
hylaride wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, Ballmer did quite well at MS. He consistently increased earnings via Windows and Office during his tenure as CEO. He was a very good businessman. He was not, however, a product guy. Witness their failures with the Zune, mobile, early cloud computing. His problem was that he always tried to do what would be best for Microsoft and not the customer. You can get away with this if you already have an install bas…

Short term thinking can make for excellent quarterly financials, but detrimental to long-term growth in ways that aren't obvious. With the benefit of hindsight, we can see that Ballmer's Microsoft missed the boat on several important major technologies. Imagine a world where the "iPhone" was a Microsoft product and Apple was a company left buying out other phone companies in a futile effort to catch up. That would wo…

Gates had those visions back in 2003 and even earlier. I'm not sure what happened.

Re: Satya Nadella Added $850B to Microsoft

#137

Post by blobbers »

sumedh wrote: post #134
anoncake wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the question is who deserves the blame.

So who deserves the blame?

The large group of strategy executives that had hubris related to touch screens. RIM got killed by the iphone AND android. Perhaps it was inevitable - the iphone is the only real premium smartphone on the market. It's a zero sum game?

Re: Satya Nadella Added $850B to Microsoft

#138

Post by sumedh »

blobbers wrote: post #137
sumedh wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So who deserves the blame?

The large group of strategy executives that had hubris related to touch screens. RIM got killed by the iphone AND android. Perhaps it was inevitable - the iphone is the only real premium smartphone on the market. It's a zero sum game?

> The large group of strategy executives that had hubris related to touch screens.

So in a way its the CEO's fault for hiring/having such executives?

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