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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

#41

Post by mieses »

gesman wrote: post #20

Ways to boost MSFT stock in 1 hour: 1. Announce that Bill Gates is coming back. 2. Announce that Ballmer is leaving.

Not really. Gates is still anti-web. He also doesn't absorb how culture has changed - both the culture of technology creation and the culture of technology consumption. Ballmer is not great but he probably has more daily exposure to the right arguments than Gates. Also, Ballmer's buffoon-psychopath persona seems to be a cover for a paranoia or fear. Gates seems genuinely more cocky, perhaps because he's more intelligent, while Ballmer seems more likely to listen to ideas he doesn't agree with. A contemporary Microsoft led by Gates would probably make some awesome but irrelevant products.

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

#42

Post by hugi »

jug6ernaut wrote: post #2

No one involved in the transition from Windows Mobile to Windows Phone should be satisfied, it was a complete failure. At the time Windows Mobile pretty much owned the Smart Phone market(unless you consider BB at the time smart phones, they were close to but not just IMO. No where near the freedom as WM). But over Windows Mobiles life time it completely stagnated, but even with that had a large following. With there…

wut? I don't recall Windows mobile ever being usable, or "owning the smart phone market". Where are you located in the world?

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

#43

Post by maeon3 »

I think the most telling evidence of Bill Gates satisfaction level is on the following page:

http://biz.yahoo.com/t/38/567.html

6-Feb-13 3,189,267 MSFT Automatic Sale at $27.44 per share. (Proceeds of $87,513,486)

5-Feb-13 3,810,733 MSFT Automatic Sale at $27.56 per share. (Proceeds of $105,023,801)

4-Feb-13 3,000,000 MSFT Automatic Sale at $27.64 per share. (Proceeds of $82,920,000)

1-Feb-13 5,500,000 MSFT Automatic Sale at $27.87 per share. (Proceeds of $153,285,000)

31-Jan-13 4,500,000 MSFT Automatic Sale at $27.50 per share. (Proceeds of $123,750,000)

We are in a world drowning in words, follow the money, it does not lie.

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

#44

Post by iso-8859-1 »

rdouble wrote: post #39
potatolicious wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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.

Why do you not like San Antonio? Look how great it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_San_Antonio

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

#45

Post by AnthonyMouse »

rdouble wrote: post #39
potatolicious wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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.

Nashville, Las Vegas, Dallas, Portland, San Diego, ...

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

#46

Post by Jare »

larsberg wrote: post #25
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.

I'd argue against your statement that the company doesn't: > take risks and work together When I was there, I was _constantly_ being told (as a manager in DevDiv) that our next release had to work together with each and every new technology that might almost be ready near our ship time (Windows, SQL, Office, etc.). This added not only a huge amount of schedule risk, but dramatically slowed everything down. When your…

I believe the point is that while the software HAS to work together, the people (product owners and stakeholders) often don't. The result is that features cost a lot, and innovation costs even more; overall quality is driven by the lowest common denominator, and most products stagnate naturally because of that.

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

#47

Post by seanmcdirmid »

iso-8859-1 wrote: post #44
rdouble wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Why do you not like San Antonio? Look how great it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_San_Antonio

I like San Antonio, the river walk area is really cool.

I'm not sure about the suburban blight around it, I never lived there to experience any of it. But inner tubing down the Guadalupe....

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

#48

Post by jebblue »

Just one question, where is my Microsoft Linux? Give me that and a UI better than Unity (like Gnome 2) and I'll actually pay for it. Subscription. Seriously. I don't even need a "Visual Sudio for Linux", Eclipse works great but hey if you want to put C# apps on Linux I might go back to buying MSDN (for Linux) oh and this deal is only on if you don't take it all away in a year or two. You bet the farm on Linux Microsoft, and I'll bet the rest of my future on Microsoft and Linux.

If you don't I bet IBM or HP will.

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

#49

Post by rbanffy »

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.

> It seems pretty clear that Microsoft's problem isn't with their ability to innovate

Citation needed. Seriously.

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

#50

Post by ekianjo »

It's not like Microsoft ever innovated much anyway. DOS was bought from a hobbyist and repackaged as MS-DOS in the early days, Windows was not the first OS with GUI (on the contrary, it was quite late in the game), the Xbox 1 was no more no less than a PC under the hood, DirectX was Microsoft's own library to copy OpenGL, etc... In that sense, what they are doing nowadays reflects their past history of poor innovation.
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