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Bill Gates 'not satisfied' with Microsoft's innovations

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Re: Bill Gates 'not satisfied' with Microsoft's innovations

#31

Post by seanmcdirmid »

jug6ernaut wrote: post #15
martinced wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was working in the mobile business before the iPhone came and owned everybody (waiting then for Android) and I recall things totally differently than you. The smartphone market was owned by Nokia and their Sxx series. That and the BlackBerries. We were working on mostly Nokia (either native or Java), Qualcomm BREW (C++) and, granted, we had some demand for Windows Mobile but they were pretty much a nobody in that p…

I cant really argue with to much of what you say, but in my defense as i said in my original post i dont really consider BB to be smartphones, i would also extend this to Symbian. Though this is entirely my opinion, most of which i would probably say is as much my bias to WM as anything :). But at the same time if you look at the statistics here on market percentage [1], you see my main point to that windows has lost…

But WM's marketshare of the overall mobile phone market was never that large, so ya, they lost half, but half of a small share.

I don't see anything else Microsoft could have done with Windows Phone (disclosure: I'm a Microsoft employee but no inside info). I mean, the iPhone was pure disruption. Android then comes a long and destroys the market for OSes because they gave it away! So iPhone disrupts the high end, Android disrupts the low end, and Microsoft is put into an interesting non-trivial position.

Re: Bill Gates 'not satisfied' with Microsoft's innovations

#32

Post by dylangs1030 »

This title is somewhat inappropriate.

Technically it's true, but I think it gives the impression that Bill Gates is not happy with Microsoft's decisions.

Really it's that Gates doesn't think Microsoft has reached the end of its innovations, and that he wants to improve smartphones.

Re: Bill Gates 'not satisfied' with Microsoft's innovations

#33

Post by yuhong »

Nelson69 wrote: post #30
DenisM wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having worked there for 11 years I also got the impression that company management is inadvertently trying to stay culturally isolated. For example, when the iPhone came out, the management called AT&T and asked them to exclude the iPhone from the previously negotiated Microsoft Employee Discount program. MS phone is Ok, Blackberry is Ok, iPhone not Ok. The effect was, obviously, even less awareness of the best produ…

Re: 'trying to kill MS..' I've never worked there. I did work at IBM while MS was beating the hell out of OS/2 and Lotus though. During those years, MS did use phrases like "cut off the air supply" and "embrace, extend and extinguish." "Killing the opposition" seems like it's a very deep part of their corporate ethos, at least that's what a lot of their competition thinks and FWIW, their golder years seemed to be whe…

I wrote a blog post about the 32-bit OS/2 one: http://yuhongbao.blogspot.ca/2012/12/about-ms-os2-20-fiasco-...

Re: Bill Gates 'not satisfied' with Microsoft's innovations

#34

Post by [deleted] »

mynameisvlad wrote: post #26
dman wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft invented their own troubles in this market. How many parallel mobility teams can one company reasonably sustain - a) Windows phone 6.5 b) Windows phone 7.x c) Windows phone 8.x d) Project Pink / Kin e) Danger f) Windows 8 RT g) Courier

To be fair, those teams were not parallel. 6.5 died with 7, which died with 8. Danger was a subsidiary, and they made Project Pink, so they're the same. Windows on ARM, yes, was a team, but not associated with Mobility. They're a Windows 8 team, not a Windows Phone team, so they're not actually competing with WP nor are they working on mobility-specific platforms. They simply deal with Windows on ARM processors. And…

[deleted]

Re: Bill Gates 'not satisfied' with Microsoft's innovations

#35

Post by seanmcdirmid »

potatolicious wrote: post #7
taligent wrote: post #4

It seems pretty clear that Microsoft's problem isn't with their ability to innovate. It's in their complete inability to get to market quickly, take risks and work together. And that is directly related to their HR policies in particular their ranking system.

Not sure why you were downvoted. Upvoted even though I don't particularly agree. Having lived in Seattle for a couple of years, and knowing many Microsoft employees during that time, my outsider's view is that MS's consumer-side failures are largely geographical and cultural. Redmond, or even Bellevue, is extremely isolated from Seattle, which in and of itself is not exactly deeply intertwined with the cultural cente…

I graduated from high school in Bothell (just north of Kirkland) and I'm a Microsoft employee, but I've never been based in Redmond before. I find your post is a bit weird, bizarre, and maybe a bit biased.

Yes, suburb Seattle is quite different from urban Seattle, but ALOT more people live in the suburbs. You also have to compare it to San Francisco and San Jose, how many of your friends from the city will visit you once you moved to San Jose? Honestly any?

Seattle is fairly international and non-isolated, its in the same category as the bay area, which is to say: we have a lot of space between us and the next mega-cities (Vancouver or Portland), but that is true of any western city.

As for Redmond, I remember when it was just a bunch of trees with a filming lot for Northern Exposure. It never had much of its own identity, like Kirkland, Bothell, or Lynwood; they are just part of the suburbs. Even Bellevue is a bit souless, they have an urban core but its mostly a shopping mall. Not much difference from any other big city in the states!

Microsoft employees are actually brutally honest. We internally criticize our own stuff all the time, there is not much of a reality distortion field in Redmond or Beijing. But we aren't going to hang our dirty laundry in public, what company would do that?

Finally, Microsoft has many offices around the world, many are deeply involved in core products; Silicon Valley for example. My own office has a 1000 people I think.

Re: Bill Gates 'not satisfied' with Microsoft's innovations

#36

Post by seanmcdirmid »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #29
bunderbunder wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Their brand reputation became toxic over time. This. Combined with their failure to realize this. I strongly suspect that Windows Phone would have been more successful if they hadn't given it a name that evokes innumerable products with which everyone has a love-hate relationship at best. > They are just an old company. They're 362 days older than Apple.

> They're 362 days older than Apple. This Apple is really NeXT.

No its not. Culturally, its very similar to the pre-Jobs Apple, just with a lot more focus.

Re: Bill Gates 'not satisfied' with Microsoft's innovations

#37

Post by taligent »

kvb wrote: post #5
taligent wrote: post #4

It seems pretty clear that Microsoft's problem isn't with their ability to innovate. It's in their complete inability to get to market quickly, take risks and work together. And that is directly related to their HR policies in particular their ranking system.

None of what you wrote is obvious to me. Partly this is because Microsoft is big enough that I find descriptions that treat Microsoft as a monolithic entity unconvincing. After all, they got Kinect to market quickly. SharePoint seemed to come out of nowhere to dominate its market, too. Thankfully, I've never had to deal with stack ranking, but I find it unlikely that it's the explanation behind Microsoft's various fa…

Kinect was acquired and SharePoint is popular but it really did so on the back of existing infrastructure i.e. it was like an upsell.

And I am not saying that stack ranking is responsible for all its failures but I fail to see how it encourages co-operation which is so critical for successful companies.

Re: Bill Gates 'not satisfied' with Microsoft's innovations

#38

Post by potatolicious »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #35
potatolicious wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why you were downvoted. Upvoted even though I don't particularly agree. Having lived in Seattle for a couple of years, and knowing many Microsoft employees during that time, my outsider's view is that MS's consumer-side failures are largely geographical and cultural. Redmond, or even Bellevue, is extremely isolated from Seattle, which in and of itself is not exactly deeply intertwined with the cultural cente…

I graduated from high school in Bothell (just north of Kirkland) and I'm a Microsoft employee, but I've never been based in Redmond before. I find your post is a bit weird, bizarre, and maybe a bit biased. Yes, suburb Seattle is quite different from urban Seattle, but ALOT more people live in the suburbs. You also have to compare it to San Francisco and San Jose, how many of your friends from the city will visit you…

> "Yes, suburb Seattle is quite different from urban Seattle, but ALOT more people live in the suburbs."

I was careful to disclaim that this isn't a urban vs. suburban thing (though it is, to a limited extent) - this is a company town vs. business-diverse city thing.

After all, Google and Facebook were both born and headquartered deep within suburbs. The difference is that Mountain View and Palo Alto are swimming in tech companies - even if your social circles were entirely tech people, it's extremely unlikely they all work at the same place.

Compare with Seattle (stronger in Redmond/Bellevue) where practically everyone works for Microsoft (if you're on the east side) or Amazon (if you're on the west). Even for members of the community who don't directly work for MS, the relationship with MS is so overwhelming that it grossly distorts reality inside the bubble.

There's a lack of perspective because just about everyone works for the same company, subject to the same cognitive biases, with no substantial competition base (or hell, just other tech companies) to give you the necessary occasional whack upside the head.

> " but its mostly a shopping mall. Not much difference from any other big city in the states!"

I very, very heavily disagree. The US has many incredibly interesting big cities, even if some of them are deeply flawed from a financial or civic perspective. NYC and SF are no-brainers, but even the much-lampooned suburban gridlock of LA is (arguably) the cultural center of the entire country. New Orleans, Detroit, Chicago, Boston... I don't think I can seriously describe any of those as soulless mostly-shopping-malls.

This is my personal opinion, but IMO Bellevue epitomizes the worst of forced-urbanization. Its soullessness and emptiness is far from the norm in the US, and definitely not the norm for urbanization in the world.

Re: Bill Gates 'not satisfied' with Microsoft's innovations

#39

Post by rdouble »

potatolicious wrote: post #38
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I graduated from high school in Bothell (just north of Kirkland) and I'm a Microsoft employee, but I've never been based in Redmond before. I find your post is a bit weird, bizarre, and maybe a bit biased. Yes, suburb Seattle is quite different from urban Seattle, but ALOT more people live in the suburbs. You also have to compare it to San Francisco and San Jose, how many of your friends from the city will visit you…

> "Yes, suburb Seattle is quite different from urban Seattle, but ALOT more people live in the suburbs." I was careful to disclaim that this isn't a urban vs. suburban thing (though it is, to a limited extent) - this is a company town vs. business-diverse city thing. After all, Google and Facebook were both born and headquartered deep within suburbs. The difference is that Mountain View and Palo Alto are swimming in…

The US has many incredibly interesting big cities

The US has far more boring big cities, though. You've already mentioned the interesting ones.

Re: Bill Gates 'not satisfied' with Microsoft's innovations

#40

Post by seanmcdirmid »

potatolicious wrote: post #38
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I graduated from high school in Bothell (just north of Kirkland) and I'm a Microsoft employee, but I've never been based in Redmond before. I find your post is a bit weird, bizarre, and maybe a bit biased. Yes, suburb Seattle is quite different from urban Seattle, but ALOT more people live in the suburbs. You also have to compare it to San Francisco and San Jose, how many of your friends from the city will visit you…

> "Yes, suburb Seattle is quite different from urban Seattle, but ALOT more people live in the suburbs." I was careful to disclaim that this isn't a urban vs. suburban thing (though it is, to a limited extent) - this is a company town vs. business-diverse city thing. After all, Google and Facebook were both born and headquartered deep within suburbs. The difference is that Mountain View and Palo Alto are swimming in…

Even if you are in Mountain View, say you have friends in San Jose; how often do you see them? Its really not that different.

I think you have a very poor understanding of the pudget sound area economy. On the west side, you are just as likely to run into someone working for a startup, Starbucks, or Boeing, or UW, than Amazon. Amazon isn't that dominating. Now, in the east side, Microsoft is bigger, but there are still a lot of other companies, eBay, Google (on both east and west sides, and even in freaking Bothell now), a bunch of startups. Its not quite the monoculture you make it out to be!

Now, when we are talking about Bellevue, you compare it to San Jose, not San Francisco, or Fort Worth, not Dallas, or some weird industrial wasteland suburb of New Orleans (of which there are plenty), not the wards or the French Quarter. All of these interesting cities have their souless mostly-shopping mall areas. Looking international, what I've seen the same nearby satallite cities of Tokyo, Paris, Bangkok, Amsterdam, Lausanne, etc...tells me suburban blight is not just an American problem.

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