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Microsoft Mission Impossible

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Re: Microsoft Mission Impossible

#31

Post by timedoctor »

I have a completely contrarian view: They should stop trying to be a competitor to Google and Apple. Continue with Windows and Office, and continue to improve them.

Get out of EVERYTHING else including all internet services and everything that is just a money-losing proposition.

Then buy back as many shares as possible, keep buying back shares and if the shares get too expensive start paying billions and billions in dividends.

Not every company is meant to be the next wave of the future, why not be content with how successful they are and be really good at it, continue to be great at it, and get out of everything else, banking as much money as they can in the process.

Re: Microsoft Mission Impossible

#32

Post by adventured »

nemothekid wrote: post #24
bane wrote: post #6

One of the really surprising things about Microsoft is that despite all the caustic internal politics, CEO antics, missteps, misfires, a business model designed to extract maximum money from everybody, and even questionable development and design practices, on occasion really great software (and hardware) comes out of there. World class, amazing, top of the industry with no true peers. For example, despite all of the…

>World class, amazing, top of the industry with no true peers. I'd argue you could say company with billions of dollars and the prestige to hire world class programmers. Windows Phone is an amazing piece of software, and if we got it 3-4 years earlier, it may have stood a chance.

It could still stand a chance.

Microsoft needs to do two things.

1) Give the mobile group vastly more independence to escape the dying desktop business.

2) Make Windows Phone compatible with Android applications. Bribe every major hardware vendor to put out a big new line of Windows Phones to launch with said compatibility. There would no doubt be big tradeoffs in doing this, but it'd be worth it, and would make use of the classic Microsoft strategy of embrace and extend that they seem to have lost an appreciation for after dominating for so long. It's a trojan horse approach superior to their goofy dual booting idea.

I see no reason Microsoft couldn't acquire 20% of the mobile market. Their currently mediocre strategy has delivered some success in Europe, so imagine what a good strategy could deliver. The real question is, can owning 20% of mobile ever be worth the cost if you don't own the hardware (Apple & Samsung)? I don't think so.

Re: Microsoft Mission Impossible

#33

Post by adventured »

programminggeek wrote: post #19
clarky07 wrote: post #8

I think the people who say Microsoft has been a huge failure for the last decade should take a better look at the numbers that matter. The stock price doesn't matter. In 2000, we were at the top of the tech bubble. Bubble means valuations were stupid. The story talks about 2000 report with 19.3 billion from windows and 23 billion total revenue. On the other hand, Microsoft made 19.9 billion in revenue just last quart…

Microsoft has done quite well financially, but where they look bad is when you see how much Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, etc. have grown in the same period. One thing I learned in business school is the measure of a CEO is not whether or not they did a good job, but rather if they did a better job than someone else in the same position. It's hard to look at Microsoft in the last 10 years and think that they have…

It's a false premise to think that Microsoft could have owned everything (such that they could have had all that other growth too).

They were going to do $60 billion in retail revenue (Amazon.com)? Why? They were going to run a social network? Why?

Indeed many of Microsoft's mistakes were to fire off far too many arrows mindlessly (from Slate to Expedia). Even those that produced a return likely diverted attention away from better results at their core. They have no business being in social as one example.

And why would anybody presume that an operating systems and productivity software company would dominate Web search? Or that they could have even if they had wanted to and had seen it all coming.

Re: Microsoft Mission Impossible

#34

Post by throwawaykf »

wvenable wrote: post #26
maxander wrote: post #21

I find the "iPhone killed Microsoft" story to be unconvincing, despite its popularity. Yes, the iPhone is wildly successful beyond anything Microsoft has invented in the 21st century, but its a smartphone - whereas, as this article itself states, Microsoft was in the business of peddling a Windows/Office bundle. So its not as if Apple and Microsoft are competing on that front; no one buys an iPhone to replace their c…

Ask a teenager if they'd rather give up their iPhone or their laptop; I guarantee they'll say laptop. The real problem for Microsoft and PC makers is that everyone has a PC and they don't need a new one. Whatever PC almost anyone has is now good enough. People are spending their money on the latest phones and tablets.

True, a teenager would say that, but that's because teenagers are pretty shortsighted. Just wait until they get home and have to type up a school report. A few attempts on the touchscreen and even the most headstrong teenager will be ready to swap it for a laptop.

And while it's true that the PC market is sort of saturated, the tablet market too will suffer the same fate.

In the end the only thing that will continue to sell is services.

Re: Microsoft Mission Impossible

#35

Post by throwawaykf »

adventured wrote: post #32
nemothekid wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>World class, amazing, top of the industry with no true peers. I'd argue you could say company with billions of dollars and the prestige to hire world class programmers. Windows Phone is an amazing piece of software, and if we got it 3-4 years earlier, it may have stood a chance.

It could still stand a chance. Microsoft needs to do two things. 1) Give the mobile group vastly more independence to escape the dying desktop business. 2) Make Windows Phone compatible with Android applications. Bribe every major hardware vendor to put out a big new line of Windows Phones to launch with said compatibility. There would no doubt be big tradeoffs in doing this, but it'd be worth it, and would make use…

The desktop business is not dying, it's just reaching its natural equilibrium in a world where tablets are sufficient for casual use. But no way are smartphones and tablets going to replace the machines that are used to do most of the work, so the "workhorse" market is pretty safe.

One way to leverage this (and pretty sure MS is doing it) is the opposite of what you suggest: to make their smartphones an effective auxiliary device for PCs, beyond just email and exchange and Office. Something like SmartGlass for productivity. Interestingly, there's already work from MSR along these lines, but it seems some way off.

As for Android compatibility, BlueStacks already goes a long way there. If they want to, they could snap them up anytime, but I'm not sure they'll want to capitulate on that front.

Re: Microsoft Mission Impossible

#36

Post by TheLegace »

bane wrote: post #16
quesera wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be interested to hear what your other examples are, but that doesn't surprise me at all. If OpenOffice (etc) ever had comparable staffing (quantity and variety, not even questioning quality) that MSOffice has had for 15-20 years, I'd expect more comparable results.

Bear in mind, I have no particular love for the company (I'm typing this on my rMBP right now). But I like to acknowledge good work when it happens. I know that all of these can be argued against, and some of my choices below are easy to argue as not great software -- but compared to any other competitor is still better (e.g. if mail and calendars are so easy why aren't there loads of Outlook/Exchange competitors?) -…

Oh my gosh the days I remember playing Midtown Madness, it was the only game I ever really bought and played endlessly. It was such an addictive game. I can't believe it was made by MS.

Re: Microsoft Mission Impossible

#37

Post by yuhong »

programminggeek wrote: post #17

The biggest problem with Microsoft after say 2005 was that it let things like Windows and Office drag it down to the point that if things competed with either, they were killed with fire. For example, look at what Ray Ozzie got built with Azure, or what J Allard did with the Xbox, Xbox 360, Zune, and Courier. Azure was in a prime spot to do what Amazon ended up doing - being the computing platform for the cloud. Inst…

I mentioned before that the HTML export in Word/Excel 2013 is pretty much unchanged from 2003, complete with setting "Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 or later" in Web Options causing things like VML to be required that is not supported by IE10 anymore by default. You can see this if you draw a shape for example. I wrote an Ars Technica forum post on this.

Re: Microsoft Mission Impossible

#38

Post by venomsnake »

coldcode wrote: post #4

I'd take the job on for about 5 seconds before I pulled my golden ripcord. This is a job that no one likely can succeed at.

And I would take the job for $1 yearly and turn the company around. No golden parachutes needed.

MS has so many resources and good people that it is almost impossible with the right vision to fail on delivering.

Re: Microsoft Mission Impossible

#39

Post by berntb »

bane wrote: post #16
quesera wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be interested to hear what your other examples are, but that doesn't surprise me at all. If OpenOffice (etc) ever had comparable staffing (quantity and variety, not even questioning quality) that MSOffice has had for 15-20 years, I'd expect more comparable results.

Bear in mind, I have no particular love for the company (I'm typing this on my rMBP right now). But I like to acknowledge good work when it happens. I know that all of these can be argued against, and some of my choices below are easy to argue as not great software -- but compared to any other competitor is still better (e.g. if mail and calendars are so easy why aren't there loads of Outlook/Exchange competitors?) -…

Oh, how things change. Time was, that comment wouldn't need to be written.

Let me note that Halo was made by Bungie, a Mac company. It was going to come out for Macs, but it went Xbox after Bungie was bought. Everyone with monopoly money can buy good products late in their development.

My problem with MS is the monopolist strategy. A monopolist need to keep the APIs hard to reimplement on another OS, to lock applications (and their users) to its platform. Complexity is needed for that -- and also to keep the OS API base a moving target with bug compatibility etc.

You see this horror of complexity throughout the whole ecosystem, not only for the suffering heroes working with compatibility with the Office file formats or the virtual file systems.

This extra complexity lowered my personal life quality, when the world was a dinosa... cough, Microsoft world. That makes it personal -- my personal pain.

Re: Microsoft Mission Impossible

#40

Post by pjmlp »

mtinkerhess wrote: post #15
quesera wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be interested to hear what your other examples are, but that doesn't surprise me at all. If OpenOffice (etc) ever had comparable staffing (quantity and variety, not even questioning quality) that MSOffice has had for 15-20 years, I'd expect more comparable results.

Visual Studio is probably the best way to write C++. Windows is probably the best operating system for the enterprise and is ahead of OS X and Linux in bringing a desktop OS to tablets and touch laptops. C# is arguably the best language for writing enterprise applications. Xbox arguably won the console war of the current generation. Kinect is the only consumer product like it. Surface Pro is probably the best desktop…

Actually C++ Builder is way much better, thanks to its RAD extensions, that have only now seen similar functionally appear in Visual C++ with their C++/CX extensions.

But Borland/Imprise/Codegear/Embarcadero lost track long time ago and is currently only relevant to a few enterprise customers.

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