Major Microsoft Re-Organization 286
Robert Scoble writes "Microsoft is unveiling a major reorganization today to help get Vista out the door. Some of the major changes include the appointing of three new officers to the three major divisions. The Microsoft Platform Products & Services Division will be led by Kevin Johnson and Jim Allchin as co-presidents; Jeff Raikes has been named president of the Microsoft Business Division; and Robbie Bach has been named as president of Microsoft Entertainment & Devices Division. In addition, the company said Ray Ozzie will expand his role as chief technical officer by assuming responsibility for helping drive its software-based services strategy and execution across all three divisions."
Same old story... (Score:5, Insightful)
Going the wrong direction (Score:4, Insightful)
the appointing of three new officers
Adding more bureaucracy doesnt help anything, especially in an organization already totally overbloated.
What is Vista anyway? (Score:4, Insightful)
Vista (n) -"A distant view or prospect, especially one seen through an opening, as between rows of buildings or trees"
How apt, because I'm struggling to see through the Microsoft PR to see what Vista really is. We had this problem about five years ago when the marketing team got hold of .NET. .NET was mentioned everywhere from in the server family, to Office, to
development tools. When PR gave way to reality, .NET was a only a development tool and was really just Microsoft's (good) answer to Java. Nothing
like the revolution the PR machine would have you believe.
They question is whether Windows Vista going to solve a problem for me? The one thing that made XP a solution to my family was the welcome screen. Once they could select their username from a list that made it possible to give each family member an individual and run them in low privileged accounts. This has turned the family computer maintainence problem from a daily hastle to a once in a year activity.
What is Vista going to give me to make my job any easier? The only thing I would have bought Vista for is IE7 because of its nice anti-phishing features but this is going to be available in XP too. Even if this was ever a reason to upgrade, Firefox will likely have these features too in the next couple of months negating the need for Vista.
Feature after feature has been culled from Vista. We've got all these security "enhancements" in it but I can achieve the same in XP by following the NSA's Hardening Guide [nsa.gov]. Okay, this same level of hardening may be easier for the laymen to achieve in Vista but the layman doesn't care about security. When his PC fucks up due to a huge malware problem he just buys a new computer [slashdot.org].
The man off the street does not need vista. In fact the man on the street doesn't even need XP. There are plenty of people still using Windows 98 and having a good time. Lord knows how they keep malware off their machine but they do it.
And what about business. WinFS might have been useful, but it was cut. Monad might have been useful, but it was cut too. They've wasted time with Maestro when the open, widely deployed PDF format already exists.
A reorganisation of Microsoft will not help these problems and I suspect the PR team will not save them from interia this time..
Simon
Re:Same old story... (Score:5, Insightful)
I still can't work out why nobody at MS doesnt look at their nearest (and very much growing) competitors: Apple, Google and Linux aren't innovative because they hire more managers, they're innovative because they let the designers design, the coders code and the corporate bullshitters sit at home unemployed.
Re:Going the wrong direction (Score:1, Insightful)
This is a sweet fucking story by the way. Nothing to discuss of course, just something negative about Microsoft so we can have our afternoon anti-M$ circle jerk.
When I get re-org e-mails at work I ignore them. Why do you think we care about Microsoft's?
Oh...okay. (Score:3, Insightful)
For a moment I hoped they were doing a major code reorganization to finally rid their code base of all the design/security flaws.
But hey, whatever floats their boat...
Uaaaahhh... next... (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm sure MTV changes the VJ's sometimes.
I start missing the delightful interesting SCO articles.
A Quick Comparison (Score:5, Insightful)
But they lose that when they add management. Some people think that its inevitable that such a thing happens to large companies, but I give you a counter example: Pixar.
Pixar has become the number one name in computer animated movies, and have had at least half a dozen box office toppers. But they continue to produce quality and quantity quickly because they have relatively few mangement positions which do their jobs well, and there are fewer seperations between ideas and implementations.
That is the problem that needs to be addressed, not only in MS, but in other companies like Yahoo and even some non-profit projects.
This is kind of sad... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why don't they just buy Apple? (Score:5, Insightful)
Brilliant. (Score:3, Insightful)
I've always found that when I'm working on a ginormous software project that's literally years and years behind schedule despite drastic pruning of scope, the _exact_ trick to speed things up is to reorganize the whole company and add a few more officers.
I experience unshakeable confidence that the one and only thing the visthorn development effort was lacking was enough officers.
Re:Same old story... (Score:5, Insightful)
And in that case, is Apple really one of their nearest competitors? Microsoft's quarterly reports show that it PROFITS more than Apple SELLS. And that is including all of Apple's hardware.
I really don't think that Microsoft aspires to be the next Apple...or Google...or Linux...COMBINED.
Money in the Bank (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A Quick Comparison (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:A Quick Comparison (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, Microsoft has been successful in the past few years. But I think that is despite all the seemingly random new projects and acquisitions, rather than because of them.
In some ways, Microsoft seems like a tobacco company: they have a ton of money, and no idea how they can use it to increase their growth. The tobacco companies just went out and acquired many other companies, often large and totally unrelated ones. Microsoft seems to have acquired many software companies that aren't really related to things that Microsoft does.
This reorganization might help that, by shoehorning them into core areas that Microsoft does well. There (if things go well...) they can adapt and profit, or else they will not adapt, and either be sold off or killed. Ideally, anyway. They could also continue on indefinitely, doing unrelated things and losing money. But at least that seems less likely now.
The main response I'm left with (Score:4, Insightful)
What exactly goes into "entertainment and devices"?
Re:How funny. Split is half way to... (Score:3, Insightful)
I hate to say it, but it's the right choice. Microsoft succeeds when it gives people what they want. As competition stiffens, its only edge is in providing a better user experience. You don't go about doing this by putting developers in charge.
Re:This is kind of sad... (Score:2, Insightful)
If I were Bill Gates, besides permanantly sealing off the gateway to hell I have in my basement, I would break with M$ start a new company. Let's face it, the guy did some nice stuff way back in the day. By that I don't necessarily mean DOS either...we can forget how novel the concept of a "software company" or a "personal computer" was 20 years ago and he played a large part in changing that (...donning my asbestos now).
It's amazing what you can accomplish unencumbered by Suits and PR types. Part of running a big company should be knowing when to kill it. If they don't kill it, it'll die a slow painful death from immobility. Kind of like corporate ALS, I guess.
--
Ok, gotta go. Mom sez no more slashdot and boy does she sound mad!
Re:Same old story... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later."
--Fred Brooks [wikipedia.org], The Mythical Man-Month [wikipedia.org]
(Yeah, yeah, it's a "re-organization". Call it whatever makes you feel better.)