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Amid layoffs, Microsofties reveal further turmoil in Redmond

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Re: Amid layoffs, Microsofties reveal further turmoil in Redmond

#71

Post by todayiamme »

nostrademons wrote: post #68
todayiamme wrote: post #55

I don't think that even if Microsoft layed off 60% of its staff it would become competitive as Apple or Google. The more I read into their problems the more I think that this is not a management issue. No they have rigid management controls to ensure that stuff doesn't go wrong like the other giants, but due to the lack of a vision. If you ask an Apple, Google, old HP, or any employee of an innovative company they wi…

I think a lot of Microsoft's problem is that they succeeded in their mission statement. "A computer on every desk, all running Microsoft software" was incredible hubris in 1974. It's reality now. What can Microsoft do to top that? It makes me wonder about what the world will look like in 15 years. Google's mission statement is "Organize the world's information, and make it universally accessible and useful." Right no…

I agree with what you say, but a part of having a vision also means looking beyond your own accomplishments. I have noticed something in how I think/do things everything feeds to the next thing. Unrelated things become connected somehow and just continue some undefinable chain. 'What's next?' is really the question they can't seem to answer.

Maybe, the problem over here is that the dreamers have stopped dreaming and they're now concentrating on spreadsheets?

Look at Elon Musk after he exited PayPal he could have coasted in that paradigm. Done incrementally better things, or just continued looking after it. He didn't do that. Instead, he asked himself what's next for me, and put his money where his mind was. In a lot of ways to me that defines a vision.

Or, we could take the perennial example, Steve Jobs, Apple could have coasted after the iPod, or the iPhone but they somehow keep on pushing on and they've started creating an ecosystem where all the other products feed into one another. It is true that his dictatorial style helps him, but someone had to see this possibility to work towards it, and that's where the challenge lies in my opinion.

Re: Amid layoffs, Microsofties reveal further turmoil in Redmond

#72

Post by InclinedPlane »

timr wrote: post #38
Anechoic wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, and it's arguably happening right now to some of the companies I mentioned (Dell, Yahoo) but if/when they recover it will likely happen again. Apple will likely face bad times at some point in the future.

Don't tell anyone, but I think it's happening to Google right now . It's just early stages (like MS in 1995), and Google still has more good products than bad, so it isn't exceptionally noticeable. But the recent, high-profile launch disasters, the clutter that's slowly creeping into the result pages, and stuff like the search page background goofiness...they sure feel like early MS-style mistakes.....

Google is probably past an inflection point, they've still got plenty of upward momentum and almost certainly won't peak for many, many years. However, Google seems to have empire-itis just like any other big company. Eventually they'll start believing their own BS more than they will external truths, they'll become process bound and bureaucracy bound, they'll start to saddle themselves with more and more strategy taxes until they become increasingly like any other big company.

There's still time for that not to happen, but all the signs are pointing that way.

Re: Amid layoffs, Microsofties reveal further turmoil in Redmond

#73

Post by spamizbad »

nostrademons wrote: post #64
wallflower wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always been amazed looking back at how IBM embraced open source back in the early 90s with a vengeance. I wonder if this saved the company.

I think it both saved and killed the company. It saved the company in that it stopped the hemorrhaging of cash and gave them an actually profitable business model. Without this, they would've gone out of business entirely sometime in the early-mid 90s. It killed them as a center of innovation. IBM hasn't invented anything worthwhile since the IBM PC in 1981. (No, I don't count Eclipse: IntelliJ idea came out first an…

> It killed them as a center of innovation

I'm not so sure. Thinkpad laptops are legendary. They've been spun off to Lenovo but they pretty much set the standard for quality business-grade notebooks. Steve Jobs even used them as inspiration for the updated Powerbook line upon his return to Apple.

They pioneered SOI manufacturing, BlueGene TeraFLOP super-computing, and several other major advances.

Also, their consulting business sort of set the standard for other big players in that market. IME it's not that great, but none of them are great, so kudos for getting there first and not becoming significantly worse! On second thought, lets forget about this one....

Re: Amid layoffs, Microsofties reveal further turmoil in Redmond

#74

Post by btilly »

nostrademons wrote: post #64
wallflower wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always been amazed looking back at how IBM embraced open source back in the early 90s with a vengeance. I wonder if this saved the company.

I think it both saved and killed the company. It saved the company in that it stopped the hemorrhaging of cash and gave them an actually profitable business model. Without this, they would've gone out of business entirely sometime in the early-mid 90s. It killed them as a center of innovation. IBM hasn't invented anything worthwhile since the IBM PC in 1981. (No, I don't count Eclipse: IntelliJ idea came out first an…

Without this, they would've gone out of business entirely sometime in the early-mid 90s.

There is a problem with your timeline. My memory says that IBM only openly embraced open source in 1998, which means that it saved them later than you indicate.

Lemme look. (Searches, finds http://www.salon.com/technology/fsp/2000/09/12/chapter_7_par..., reads.) I was right. They joined the Apache Project in June. They released Jikes (a Java compiler for Linux) in July. In September it was open sourced. At the same time they ported DB2 to Linux. And, what I hadn't known, all of this happened at a skunkworks level. It was not until Dec. 14, 1998 that open source as an issue landed on Lou Gerstner's desk, and the decision was made that the whole company adopted an official policy on open source.

IBM hasn't invented anything worthwhile since the IBM PC in 1981.

Really? They introduced the AS 400 in 1987. I consider an operating system whose _average_ uptime in the field is better than 99.9% to be pretty worthwhile.

They commercialized gigantic magneto-resistance in 1997. That's in your hard drive right now, and gives it at least an order of magnitude improvement over what previous technology could do. I consider that pretty darned worthwhile as well.

IBM is a big company that does a lot of things. I'm sure they have some other cool stuff.

Other than those points, I agree with what you say.

Re: Amid layoffs, Microsofties reveal further turmoil in Redmond

#75

Post by kenjackson »

philwelch wrote: post #67
kenjackson wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The conspiracy theory is that they want to lock you in for no other reason but to give you no other viable option. That's absurd. They want to sell you as much software as possible, of course, they're a company. But the reason they will stay in the mobile space isn't to keep you from getting any other mobile device. But because there's money to be made in it and it fits into their core competency.

I see no evidence mobile phones are in any way even close to Microsoft's core competency. It would be a lot more dignified and profitable if Microsoft acted like a mature business rather than unsuccessfully chasing the latest trends.

You see no evidence that an operating system for a mobile device is not their core competency? Clearly, determining core competencies is not one of yours. :-)

Re: Amid layoffs, Microsofties reveal further turmoil in Redmond

#76

Post by kenjackson »

evilduck wrote: post #61
kenjackson wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The conspiracy theory is that they want to lock you in for no other reason but to give you no other viable option. That's absurd. They want to sell you as much software as possible, of course, they're a company. But the reason they will stay in the mobile space isn't to keep you from getting any other mobile device. But because there's money to be made in it and it fits into their core competency.

I don't think it's absurd. They've demonstrated several times over that they're willing to accept short term losses for the sole purpose of damaging or killing off competition. Hell, they even invented the slogan "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish".

Everyone is willing to take short=term losses to kill off "competition". I'd expect they'd do that in the mobile space too. It's called "competition".

But why are they competing in the space? Microsoft could get into the soy bean industry, but the margins there really suck. They are in the mobile space because there's money to be made.

Lets put it this way, if you could prove that this mobile industry is at its peak now and there effectively no profits ever to be made in it, do you think MS would stay in it just so people would have no viable choices? Of course not. They're in it for the money. It's absurd to think otherwise.

Re: Amid layoffs, Microsofties reveal further turmoil in Redmond

#77

Post by philwelch »

kenjackson wrote: post #75
philwelch wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see no evidence mobile phones are in any way even close to Microsoft's core competency. It would be a lot more dignified and profitable if Microsoft acted like a mature business rather than unsuccessfully chasing the latest trends.

You see no evidence that an operating system for a mobile device is not their core competency? Clearly, determining core competencies is not one of yours. :-)

I think you snuck in an extra negation that I didn't and turned my sentence around, so now I don't know if either of us knows what the other meant!

Me: "I see no evidence mobile phones are in any way even close to Microsoft's core competency"

"in any way" and "even close to" are non-negating modifiers we can remove, so:

Me: "I see no evidence mobile phones are Microsoft's core competency"

You: "You see no evidence that an operating system for a mobile device is not their core competency?"

(pronoun and noun substitution)

Me: "phil sees no evidence that an operating system for a mobile device is Microsoft's core competency"

You: "phil sees no evidence that an operating system for a mobile device is not Microsoft's core competency?"

Re: Amid layoffs, Microsofties reveal further turmoil in Redmond

#78

Post by flomo »

wallflower wrote: post #57
nostrademons wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IBM has been bleeding for a long time and they still haven't died yet.

I've always been amazed looking back at how IBM embraced open source back in the early 90s with a vengeance. I wonder if this saved the company.

Nope, IBM's open source efforts are generally 'lipstick on a pig' sex-appeal marketing efforts rather than something they are seriously invested in.

What IBM doesn't tell you in their PR is that mainframes are still very much the profit engine of the company. Although the money is more in support services and business process outsourcing rather than the actual hardware/software.

Re: Amid layoffs, Microsofties reveal further turmoil in Redmond

#79

Post by dflock »

steadicat wrote: post #58
rbanffy wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were highly regarded in their niches. If you needed a computer to edit photos or to assemble a print publication, a Mac would be your obvious choice. In the PowePC era, it was the fastest computer you could buy that ran off-th-shelf productivity software and many found their way into labs as instrument controllers. Considering the size of their lineup, a couple lemons (pun intended) were to be expected. Still, c…

That's not the history as I remember it. Windows 95 came before NT4, and it was the first to introduce the famous "start button" visuals. 95 however was still based on the old kernel and it crashed a lot. NT4 came later, with the same visuals, but due to the NT kernel it was remarkably stable.

Windows NT4 was much more stable than the previous Win3.11->95->98->Me line, but - primarily due to moving Graphics drives into the kernel for performance - was considerably less stable than its immediate predecessor in the NT line, Windows NT 3.51.

Re: Amid layoffs, Microsofties reveal further turmoil in Redmond

#80

Post by flomo »

rbanffy wrote: post #43
kenjackson wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple's products weren't highly regarded through most of the 90s. The survived on a niche market at the time, but weren't highly regarded during this phase either for their design or technical architecture. Pricing wasn't their problem -- their products were the problem. It wasn't until 2000 or so when they got their mojo back.

They were highly regarded in their niches. If you needed a computer to edit photos or to assemble a print publication, a Mac would be your obvious choice. In the PowePC era, it was the fastest computer you could buy that ran off-th-shelf productivity software and many found their way into labs as instrument controllers. Considering the size of their lineup, a couple lemons (pun intended) were to be expected. Still, c…

The quality/competitiveness of Apple's mid-1990s computers is subjective and invariably turns into a back-and-forth.

However, Windows 95 demolished Apple's profit margins, and that's what counts.

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