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A vote for Bill Gates as interim Microsoft CEO

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Re: A vote for Bill Gates as interim Microsoft CEO

#71

Post by dragonwriter »

stingraycharles wrote: post #48
kmfrk wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last I checked, Bill Gates was the richest person in the world. And that was something like a few weeks ago.

I find that hard to believe. Weren't there a few oil sheiks with more money?

The King of Thailand, Queen of England, Sultan of Brunei, and various other royals get left out of most lists, which focus on the richest private individuals.

And, from Forbes most recent listing of richest royals, the richest of them would only tie the 9th on their list of (private) billionaires).

Re: A vote for Bill Gates as interim Microsoft CEO

#72

Post by tmzt »

Zigurd wrote: post #20

Two problems with that: Bill Gates hasn't got Steve jobs's ego,and he hasn't got anything to prove. The days where PCs took over from minicomputers, and where Microsoft was the disruptor, are long gone. It isn't clear if Gates or anyone else can make Microsoft disruptive again. That's too bad, because one of the few sources of truly novel work in operating systems is Microsoft Research.

It's true that Microsoft Research is working on operating systems, including something to someday maybe replace NT. But the the biggest problem they've been working on has been input, specifically voice and touch input.

Somebody has to be the leader in the voice driven interface, as always on communications in cars become the norm, users are going to run into the wall that is Siri, Google Now, Samsung S Voice, and the OEM platforms behind them. They just aren't that capable, they can't really deliver voice results to simple questions, or effectively control navigation. They can't do full queries of contacts or calendars, or integrate with other systems. They are limited by the bandwidth of the company building them. Microsoft was always about empowering developers to create software, and voice is a platform with no category killer. There are no good APIs for voice input, no good app store for delivering small pieces of functionality to expand the ability of a voice interface, and no real work is going into building one. The smartphone is seen as a device with a focus on interaction through the screen, but it is an audio-based device, a telephone, and it makes sense for the wide capabilities of it's applications to be available through a hands-free interface.

Re: A vote for Bill Gates as interim Microsoft CEO

#73

Post by sliverstorm »

unono wrote: post #70
cmsmith wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Microsoft has 8329956402 shares outstanding. Do you honestly believe that MSFT stock price can rise to value in the trillions, making the MSFT market cap ten sextillion dollars? He said the market cap would be trillions, not the share price.

dragonwriter's right, I should have put that as an edit. But even from 'stock price', a reasonable person would infer market cap.

When something is vague you can infer. "stock price" is too specific.

Re: A vote for Bill Gates as interim Microsoft CEO

#74

Post by pearjuice »

the_economist wrote: post #12
bajsejohannes wrote: post #6

I'd much rather have Bill Gates continue trying to save the world.

If he had a second tenure at Microsoft as successful as the first, his efforts to save the world would be even more well-funded.

He is 58 right now. His "first tenure" was from (roughly) 1975 to 2000. That is 25 years from nothing to Microsoft as it were in 2000. When exactly will his second tenure end then, so he can focus again on "saving" the world? Reorganizing and making MS lean takes its time and I highly doubt Gates is actively analyzing the competition and keeping track of the market so there will not come any ground breaking line-up immediately (otherwise he would have told Ballmer his disruptive ideas, I am sure).

It will take some time (say years) to get Microsoft with Gates back on track again and the end result is unclear. Will it improve or will all his effort vanish in vain? Does he even know how to do it, after all those years? No, he currently has enough disposable income to do what he does. In fact, he can triple his efforts and he will still not run dry in his life time. It is hardly about money anyway, saving the world takes time - negotiating takes time. Money puts it in fifth gear but bureaucracy and human psychology can only change this fast.

Re: A vote for Bill Gates as interim Microsoft CEO

#75

Post by 4ad »

aryastark wrote: post #60
4ad wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bill Gates would have foreseen the iPhone as a really big threat from day one and we would now be marveling at one of his famous internal angry emails that changed Microsoft's direction Just like he foresaw the Internet as a big threat, right?

As far as web applications dominating and taking over market share from the Windows ecosystem? Yes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Java_Virtual_Machine > Sun Microsystems, the creator of Java, sued Microsoft in October 1997 for incompletely implementing the Java 1.1 standard.[2] It was also named in the United States v. Microsoft antitrust civil actions, as an implementation of Microsoft's Embrace, extend and…

Web applications from the last decade don't have anything to do with Java. Nothing. The web as it exists now is something Microsoft never understood; not even now.

Re: A vote for Bill Gates as interim Microsoft CEO

#76

Post by aryastark »

4ad wrote: post #75
aryastark wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as web applications dominating and taking over market share from the Windows ecosystem? Yes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Java_Virtual_Machine > Sun Microsystems, the creator of Java, sued Microsoft in October 1997 for incompletely implementing the Java 1.1 standard.[2] It was also named in the United States v. Microsoft antitrust civil actions, as an implementation of Microsoft's Embrace, extend and…

Web applications from the last decade don't have anything to do with Java. Nothing. The web as it exists now is something Microsoft never understood; not even now.

You couldn't be more wrong if you tried. Why do you think Netscape created something called Javascript (emphasis on Java)?

The answer is obvious if you lived in the late '90s. Java was a real threat to the desktop.

That doesn't mean MS was wrong. They were. But Bill Gates didn't have his head up his ass, either.

Re: A vote for Bill Gates as interim Microsoft CEO

#77

Post by 4ad »

aryastark wrote: post #76
4ad wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Web applications from the last decade don't have anything to do with Java. Nothing. The web as it exists now is something Microsoft never understood; not even now.

You couldn't be more wrong if you tried. Why do you think Netscape created something called Javascript (emphasis on Java )? The answer is obvious if you lived in the late '90s. Java was a real threat to the desktop. That doesn't mean MS was wrong. They were. But Bill Gates didn't have his head up his ass, either.

Javascript doesn't have anything to do with Java.

Re: A vote for Bill Gates as interim Microsoft CEO

#78

Post by penguin_gab »

ics wrote: post #66
pearjuice wrote: post #29

If I were him I would never-ever take that position as a CEO ever again. He is basically living the dream right now without debts to Microsoft - like unfinished duty or bad rep - and a clean name (founder of MS, steered himself and MS into billionairity yet giving away all his money now). Unless it is guaranteed Microsoft will climb out of the hole it is in when Gates gets on top, it can only hurt him in terms of pre…

Surely what Mr. Gates needs to do here is start a scrappy little tech startup, hide it away from the world for a few months/years, while developing all the stuff he wished MS could do if it wasn't in debt to its current customer base, and then infiltrate MS under guise of a courtesy acquisition.

And come back as interim CEO?
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