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Microsoft’s Resurgence Under Satya Nadella

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Re: Microsoft’s Resurgence Under Satya Nadella

#191

Post by tinus_hn »

ahartmetz wrote: post #150
king_magic wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every slide deck ever that a director or VP has used to justify their budget for all that great Excel work. Every pitch deck to win a deal. Every teacher or professor that gives a presentation with PowerPoint. I hate endless slides, but fact is millions of people build and present them every day. How exactly is all of that not real work?

Well point one I think it's a shit way to disseminate information. Point two and more seriously, the alternatives aren't much worse in PowerPoint's case.

Most alternatives are much better than PowerPoint. Which isn’t surprising because it’s hard to be worse than ‘20 bullets on a slide’ PowerPoint.

Re: Microsoft’s Resurgence Under Satya Nadella

#192

Post by remir »

m0zg wrote: post #117

It's important to know when to give up, sure, but what did he actually start? Everything that carries MS today (Azure, Exchange Online, subscription software, Office 365, XBox) was started and got traction under Ballmer.

Everything is about perception. What Satya did was change Microsoft's image and culture for the better, insuring Microsoft's cash cows have a future and stay relevant in a world that is changing rapidly with other strong competitors.

Ballmer's style of leadership would not fly today. Saying stuff like Linux is cancer, the iPhone a toy/joke, acting like a clown during conference.

Re: Microsoft’s Resurgence Under Satya Nadella

#193

Post by CamperBob2 »

bradford wrote: post #79
VRay wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I take it you don't know anyone who works at MSFT?

I work at MSFT. There's a difference between being critical of a product in an effort to improve it, and classifying the product as 'crap'. My opinion, and I think most msft employees would share it, fall into the former, and not the latter. There's a lot to be proud of in both Windows and Azure, even with full recognition that they aren't perfect.

I don't buy it. MSFT employees go home to their extended families during the holidays just like many of the rest of us do. There, just like the rest of us, they will be expected to maintain their non-technical relatives' Windows PCs, or at least explain why said computers are so badly hosed.

They are doing a terrible job on Windows and they have to know it, if only at a subconscious level.

Re: Microsoft’s Resurgence Under Satya Nadella

#194

Post by sonnyblarney »

remir wrote: post #192
m0zg wrote: post #117

It's important to know when to give up, sure, but what did he actually start? Everything that carries MS today (Azure, Exchange Online, subscription software, Office 365, XBox) was started and got traction under Ballmer.

Everything is about perception. What Satya did was change Microsoft's image and culture for the better, insuring Microsoft's cash cows have a future and stay relevant in a world that is changing rapidly with other strong competitors. Ballmer's style of leadership would not fly today. Saying stuff like Linux is cancer, the iPhone a toy/joke, acting like a clown during conference.

"What Satya did was change Microsoft's image and culture for the better, insuring Microsoft's cash cows have a future and stay relevant in a world that is changing rapidly with other strong competitors.

Ballmer's style of leadership would not fly today. "

Totally disagree.

Which of MS customers do you think care about 'perception' of how nice the CEO is?

Do you think Siemens is going to spend $500M on Google cloud because their CEO is nicer than Ballmer was?

Which Windows users are thinking about Satya vs. Ballmer? 99% of Windows users have no idea who either of those people are :)

Satya's 'nice guy ways' are almost irrelevant to the business overall, other than maybe recruiting, or something like that, but I doubt they've ever had a problem.

Analysts and investors read GAAP statements and those are 100x more important than 'how nice' the CEO is perceived.

Some issues, like Linux as you mention, I think are important, but I'll bet that Ballmer would have arrived there anyhow.

Linux support was not so much a strategic decision as it was a 'forced hand'. They had basically no choice and the decision was inevitable.

I think that the reason Ballmer was disliked by Wall St. was A) the failure of Windows Mobile b) the perception that Windows was in decline (it's not) c) Cloud revenues had not yet hit the big time yet.

I actually feel that the P/E ratio pushed on Ballmer would have come around for him eventually.

I like Satya, I think he's the right choice - but he still has to prove himself. As of today, he's mostly riding Ballmer's coattails.

Re: Microsoft’s Resurgence Under Satya Nadella

#195

Post by sonnyblarney »

SatvikBeri wrote: post #57
doctorpangloss wrote: post #12

A VC friend of mine characterized these kinds of answers nicely: incredible, profound bullshit that no one seems to know how to cut through. On a level specific to Microsoft, their biggest threat is how agreeable and self-deprecating everything they do is now. Corporate cultures thrive on hierarchy, and yet their employees are pretty comfortable admitting to their friends that Windows and Azure are crap. The quiet tr…

Satya became CEO in February 2014. Since then, Microsoft's stock has significantly outperformed Google and Apple, and slightly outperformed Facebook. While it significantly underperformed each of those in the years before. So it's not just the bull market.

The stock rise was a function of changing analyst ratios - not changing fundamentals.

Ballmer grew the company like a machine during his tenure.

Satya has been iffy, in fact, without 2018 numbers, quite unstable in fact. It's just that that 2018 numbers were good enough to bring everything back to nice growth.

Without a lot of movement in P/E ratios, both CEO's would have really been doing about the same.

Basically, the stock was held back for whatever reason during Ballmer years, even as sales were growing well. Then when Satya took over the ratios changed and the stock flipped up like an elastic.

Satya's a good guy and the right choice but I don't think he's done anything quite fundamentally important yet relative to Ballmer.

Re: Microsoft’s Resurgence Under Satya Nadella

#196

Post by userbinator »

naikrovek wrote: post #112
matrix wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The heavy-handed updates forcing frequent reboots are the deal-breaker for me. It seriously pisses me off to come back to my machine only discover that all those editor windows I had open gone, the IDE close, and all the open browser tabs lost, etc. Why are frequent full reboots even necessary in this day and age?!

Those reboots are heavy handed because attackers are heavy handed with new attacks and if not forced to reboot, you never will. You get plenty of time to prepare for the reboot that's coming. You can even delay it by a day or more. It isn't Windows' fault that you aren't prepared for it when it comes; it's yours.

This ridiculously idiotic notion of "security" needs to stop. Especially when "fixing" things that already require full admin access anyway. True remote exploits are (fortunately) very rare, and even then there should never be a need to reboot --- patching files in memory was perfected years ago.

Give the users freedom to choose when to reboot, and even to choose whether they want to. Some users will continue to manage to get infected with malware despite constantly being disrupted by the constant reboots, others never installed a single security patch and yet would never be infected due to what they do (or what they don't, to be more accurate.) But that's their choice and theirs alone.

Unfortunately it seems companies are far more authoritarian and would rather breed a docile obedient type of users in which to force their ideas on and control.

I will resist the urge to post that old Benjamin Franklin quote again.

Re: Microsoft’s Resurgence Under Satya Nadella

#197

Post by vijayagrawal18 »

skizm wrote: post #156
Ruxbin1986 wrote: post #126

Steve Ballmer, technical bits aside. Just couldn't play as a successful CEO in PR Role. He was too aggressive, abrasive and even somewhat rude. Aside from that, one of thing most amusing things and one Ballmer excellent business moves was suing nearly every Android Smartphone Company for patent infringement. Microsoft literally makes money off of Android Smartphones but what's confusing to me is how Apple takes all o…

IIRC the android revenue is rolled into the x-box revenue under some nebulous category when they break out revenue in their earning (forget the exact title). This hides the massive losses they are taking on x-box and all things x-box related. The android revenue is almost pure profit and nearly $2B annually. (they make this money by licencing patents to phone makers that use android such as HTC and Samsung)

Looks like "new" Microsoft is not aggressively going after that pie. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/microsoft-may-relinquishing-b...

Re: Microsoft’s Resurgence Under Satya Nadella

#198

Post by krapp »

userbinator wrote: post #196
naikrovek wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those reboots are heavy handed because attackers are heavy handed with new attacks and if not forced to reboot, you never will. You get plenty of time to prepare for the reboot that's coming. You can even delay it by a day or more. It isn't Windows' fault that you aren't prepared for it when it comes; it's yours.

This ridiculously idiotic notion of "security" needs to stop. Especially when "fixing" things that already require full admin access anyway. True remote exploits are (fortunately) very rare, and even then there should never be a need to reboot --- patching files in memory was perfected years ago. Give the users freedom to choose when to reboot, and even to choose whether they want to. Some users will continue to mana…

>I will resist the urge to post that old Benjamin Franklin quote again.

Good, because like everyone else who does, you'd probably misrepresent what he actually meant by it.

Re: Microsoft’s Resurgence Under Satya Nadella

#199

Post by m0zg »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #194
remir wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything is about perception. What Satya did was change Microsoft's image and culture for the better, insuring Microsoft's cash cows have a future and stay relevant in a world that is changing rapidly with other strong competitors. Ballmer's style of leadership would not fly today. Saying stuff like Linux is cancer, the iPhone a toy/joke, acting like a clown during conference.

"What Satya did was change Microsoft's image and culture for the better, insuring Microsoft's cash cows have a future and stay relevant in a world that is changing rapidly with other strong competitors. Ballmer's style of leadership would not fly today. " Totally disagree. Which of MS customers do you think care about 'perception' of how nice the CEO is? Do you think Siemens is going to spend $500M on Google cloud be…

There is one area where Satya is better leadership-wise. The success of Microsoft in the long term ultimately depends on its ability to run a good engineering organization. Everyone at MS knew Ballmer was never an engineer, so he had very little respect from the engineering rank and file. His brash, business oriented personality and the lack of "filter" did not help matters. While it is true that customers largely don't give a shit who runs Microsoft as long as it's run reasonably well, Microsoft employees (and prospective employees) do care, and the ability to attract and retain them is the cornerstone of Microsoft's continued success.

I saw a post in another thread that suggested that former enlisted men do better as officers than people who were never soldiers. The same is true here in terms of people leadership, if not the vision.

Re: Microsoft’s Resurgence Under Satya Nadella

#200

Post by scarface74 »

Bamafan wrote: post #58
sonnyblarney wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Ballmer made several missteps:" Growing an already massive company company by 3x in revenue is the important thing, which is the 'bottom line' in which missteps have to be contextualized. Any company in tech is going to make mistakes, this should be happening, so listing them off doesn't so much help - what matters is how all of this works out in the mix. I worked in mobile during that time, it was vicious. Surely M…

> Growing an already massive company company by 3x in revenue is the important thing, which is the 'bottom line' in which missteps have to be contextualized. Yes, he managed to creatively squeeze revenue out of existing markets. This is what he was known for. But as far as finding new markets or growing existing markets, he failed and that's all Wall Street cares about. > Surely MS could have done better, but I view…

Beats was already profitable when they bought it.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/2018/03/08...

Beats Music was also the foundation of Apple Music which is also gaining subscribers like crazy.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/careypurcell/2018/05/15/with-50...

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