Maybe Steve Ballmer Doesn't Deserve the Hate 240
Nerval's Lobster writes "Who could forget Steve Ballmer's defining moment, that infamous 'Developers! Developers! Developers!' rant that became a YouTube hit? Or the reports of frighteningly accurate chair-throwing? Who could miss the tech media and investors blaming him for everything from Microsoft's largely stagnant stock price over the past decade to its inability to get in front of trends such as mobile devices? But tech columnist (and Kernel editor-in-chief) Milo Yiannopoulos talked to a bunch of Ballmer's friends and colleagues, picked through Microsoft's history, and came away with the argument that the man deserves a second look as an effective leader. 'He stands accused of running one of the greatest companies in American history into the ground, even as its stock price remains remarkably resilient and the company continues to turn a healthy profit,' he writes. 'The mature verdict on Steve Ballmer is that he has made only one major strategic error: not combining his own brilliance for sales and detail with a visionary product leader who has the authority to create bold new revenue streams for the company.' Do you agree? Or does Ballmer deserve his reputation as a bad CEO?"
He deserves it (Score:5, Funny)
He's a bald CEO, there's no denying it.
Oh wait, you said bad CEO. My mistake.
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Is there a correlation between bald CEOs and a cushiony profit margin?
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Well, he's gotta compensate somehow...
The company you keep (Score:5, Insightful)
I tend to judge leaders by those they choose to surround themselves with. Delegating is one of the most important tasks any leader or executive has, and choosing to whom you will be doing so is the most vital decision they can make.
Therefore, I refuse to judge Ballmer as a leader, since I haven't really examined who he keeps company with. However, I still generally dislike Microsoft's products and strategies.
Re:The company you keep (Score:5, Informative)
Look at his right-hand man, Kevin Turner. Human waste on legs.
Look who he ran off, before anointing Turner: Kevin Johnston. Actually decent.
Balmer also flushed good guys like Allchin and Maritz, or drove them away. While toadies live Valentine were perked.
The best of the remaining lot hangs out a tier away from the stink. God bless Bill Laing. Actual good human being, and a pleasure to work with.
Re:The company you keep (Score:4, Insightful)
Look at his right-hand man, Kevin Turner. Human waste on legs.
Look who he ran off, before anointing Turner: Kevin Johnston. Actually decent.
Balmer also flushed good guys like Allchin and Maritz, or drove them away. While toadies live Valentine were perked.
The best of the remaining lot hangs out a tier away from the stink. God bless Bill Laing. Actual good human being, and a pleasure to work with.
For those of us who DON'T passionately follow the minutia of Microsoft's internal management and political issues and who generally tend to glaze over news about their VPs/middle managers as if they WEREN'T the most fascinating people with the most compelling stories to tell, what you did there was throw up a bunch of generic names that very, very few people could possibly recognize or care about. Would you please provide more detail as to who these people are, what they did, and why we should care, all while keeping in mind that the fact that we don't currently care about any of them means we're not at all compelled to waste our time justifying your personal corporate obsessions by Googling their names?
Re:The company you keep (Score:5, Interesting)
If you don't own a fair amount of MSFT stock or make million-dollar IT contract purchases? Why should you then care?
If you do, then these names are at least passing familiarity.
The whole article is a parlour game, even if you do own or buy significantly. Yes, Ballmer is shite. No, he's not going anywhere... Ever.
Re:The company you keep (Score:4, Insightful)
> If you don't own a fair amount of MSFT stock or make million-dollar IT contract purchases? Why should you then care?
This is the upper leadership of Microsoft, whose products have an impact on your day to day life whether you use the products yourself or not.
captcha: restrict
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For those of us who DON'T passionately follow the minutia of Microsoft's internal management and political issues and who generally tend to glaze over news about their VPs/middle managers as if they WEREN'T the most fascinating people with the most compelling stories to tell, what you did there was throw up a bunch of generic names that very, very few people could possibly recognize or care about. Would you please provide more detail as to who these people are, what they did, and why we should care, all while keeping in mind that the fact that we don't currently care about any of them
we're not at all compelled to waste our time justifying your personal corporate obsessions by Googling their names?
I did Google Bill Laing, still no clue who they are.
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Have you been snorting unicorn farts?
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No. I put the words that way on purpose to be funny. The intent though is serious. If Terry Myerson can get proper Windows to anywhere near 3% of share of sales he will be my hero - and Steve Ballmer too for appointing him.
And if that happens then a new era in convenience, utility, security and innovation for desktop and laptop users all over the world. Much like happened in mobile. Microsoft won't participate in the benefits of this new era of course, but that's a given. We're going mobile and they
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the only company he keeps for keeps is bill - or rather bill keeps him. that's why you haven't examined who he keeps company with, because he doesn't.
"I love him! but don't mention my name on the article!" smells, you know. it smells of poo. if a guy needs a orientation session for every meeting, you can guess why he doesn't sleep much and has to work constantly despite not having a hand in the actual work... and if he really combs everything with a fine tooth then fuck him, fuck him for nsa, fuck him for d
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> I tend to judge leaders by those they choose to surround themselves with
Hmm. If the company tanks, no-one's going to remember those other people. Or the company, ultimately. In business, it's just profit that counts - keeping the company going, making products people want (or need). Currently, Microsoft don't seem to be doing very well, hence the falling PC sales, price cuts on Microsoft's overpriced tablets with poor battery life etc, shocking Windows 8 sales to which Microsoft reluctantly conceded
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The CEO sets the priorities and the big picture stuff for the corporations and leaves it up to the other executives to actually make it happen.
When you have a company like MS that doesn't seem to have a particular vision, that reflects poorly on the CEO as it means that something is getting screwed up. Either he doesn't have one, isn't effectively communicating it or the marketing department isn't adequately communicating it to the world.
But, considering that MS has largely failed to do much more than maint
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GE has no single vision either, yet they do okay. MS's problem is that it defines itself by destroying competition, not competing with them. Hence its products are limp. MS doesn't care, they figure to screw their competition out of the marketplace and then their limp noodles will necessarily be bought. This strategy also makes it possible to attack a lot of markets simultaneously, because they never have to concentrate on a few and make good products for them.
And it isn't Ballmer's fault, it is Bill's faul
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And what do you think of:
An exec who trows chairs across a room and yells "I'm going to F^#*ing kill Google" when an employee puts in his notice?
A good follow up is:
What do you think of a summary that insinuates that is a "good" management tactic/effort?
I respect your point, but can't agree that the only thing to judge a managers merit on is delegation. Delegation should be a majority of what a manager does, but crisis management and people skills are two other areas I tend to judge. Balmer has failed in
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PENIS
Hard to argue with regular quarterly profits (Score:3, Funny)
Many of which are usually a record for the company, even if it's a company that hasn't used it's brilliant engineering talent to maximum effect. Oh wait, this is /. uh, Microsoft is Satan, all hail our savior lord FOSS.
Re:Hard to argue with regular quarterly profits (Score:4, Insightful)
Slashdot, where Microsoft is Satan, Google is Evil, Apple is the Devil and open-source projects are pointless because thousands of programmers pulling in different directions.
Re:Hard to argue with regular quarterly profits (Score:5, Funny)
and open-source projects are pointless because thousands of programmers pulling in different directions.
Just like the universe is pointless because thousands of galaxy clusters pull in different directions...hey, wait a minute...
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and open-source projects are pointless because thousands of programmers pulling in different directions.
Just like the universe is pointless because thousands of galaxy clusters pull in different directions...hey, wait a minute...
The universe is pointless. There's no goal "success" state so there isn't a point to it, it just is.
Ah but there is a goal and it will be achieved when it reaches thermodynamic equilibrium (maximum entropy), the question then would be "is that it"?
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Slashdot, where Microsoft is Satan, Google is Evil, Apple is the Devil and open-source projects are pointless because thousands of programmers pulling in different directions.
Damn when did Google become "Evil"? Never the less they are the lesser of the rest and still my search engine.
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I'm sure those profits were a direct result of Ballmer himself appearing on TV ads and pitching Windows.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sforhbLiwLA [youtube.com]
Or maybe not.
Steve is that you? (Score:5, Funny)
I think we found out Steve Ballmer's /. account name
What? (Score:5, Insightful)
. 'The mature verdict on Steve Ballmer is that he has made only one major strategic error: not combining his own brilliance for sales and detail with a visionary product leader who has the authority to create bold new revenue streams for the company.'
I don't know a thing about Ballmer - I don't follow corporate politics. But if you dig through all the marketing-speak there, didn't that just say "Ballmer's one major error as a CEO was not doing that thing that CEOs should be doing"?
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone needs to patch up the holes, find a pump, and build a rudder. I just don't see Ballmer doing any of those things.
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What do you mean rudderless? Of course it has a rudder... it's just hard over to one side, and the control cable is broken.
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Re: What? (Score:2)
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
And given that Microsoft has an 80%+ marketshare, a "largely stagnant stock price" could have been pretty much achieved by doing absolutely nothing, which, when you look at the company over the last decade, isn't far from the truth.
So it begs the question: what in the world are they paying him for?
Re:What? (Score:4, Interesting)
And given that Microsoft has an 80%+ marketshare, a "largely stagnant stock price" could have been pretty much achieved by doing absolutely nothing, which, when you look at the company over the last decade, isn't far from the truth.
This! Too big to fail doesn't only apply to corporate bail-outs. It also means that massive companies can ride through one period after the other of colossally stupid mistakes. If you split Microsoft up into various division then take a look at where the money is coming from, the company is surviving on it's monopoly and cash cows Windows and Office, and neither of those can be attributed to Steve Ballmer.
We can attribute to him everything else at Microsoft. Unfortunately all those things seem to be making a loss. Search, mobile, entertainment, all of these things are what Ballmer has been pushing for in the past few years while letting the Windows and Office divisions rot and all of them can at this point be considered a failure.
Now the real question is, given Ballmer's fetish for trying to one-up Apple and screwing Windows in the process will the company continue to survive on it's old cash cow, or will he let that slip through his hands? Honestly I don't know what the board of directors is thinking supporting the drunk at the wheel.
Re:What? (Score:4, Interesting)
Building an enterprise products division: SQL Server becoming very high end, Dynamics, Lync, SharePoint becoming a central component in many enterprise applications. That's Balmer's contribution and it is worth tens of billions per year.
Re:What? (Score:5, Interesting)
Building an enterprise products division: SQL Server becoming very high end, Dynamics, Lync, SharePoint becoming a central component in many enterprise applications. That's Balmer's contribution and it is worth tens of billions per year.
What about IE, Windows 8, Bing, Zune, Windows Mobile.
The fact of the matter is MS once owned 85% of the mobile market too with Windows CE. MS owned 90% of the market with IE. Windows was liked more and XP loyalists are still hear loving that OS and refusing to upgrade as it was perfection. Those my friend happened under Gates and were handed too Balmer.
First Blackberry and now Google and Apple are all eating MS PDA and smartphone market. Mozilla and now Google took IEs dominance away. Bing never materialized and Apple too got rid of WindowsCE as MS planned to own 90% of the embeded and mobile market by now and iOS, Linux, and Android have taken that away.
Those are all under Balmers watch. He deserves to go.
Even if MS did make improvements for Windows 7 and Sharepoint it doesn't matter as there is no compelling reason to upgrade. Ms is competing with the ghost of itself as Windows 2003, IE 8, Exchange 2003, are here to stay for a very long time. That hurts and costs money.
Windows 7 is great but took almost years to get there from XP as we know longhorn failed (vista is not Longhorn), same with IE 10 being too little as IE 6 was the last thing close to cutting edge and none of the users count as they were catch-up to Firefox.
He failed. Apple and Google are the new kings now.
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When? If you mean phones Symbian and JavaVM had huge share. If you mean before that, Palm.
Absolutely. Balmer was handed a desktop monopoly. And for that matter an office suite monopoly. High marketshar
Re:all the marketing-speak (Score:3)
Kinda drifting of topic, but "Nerval's Lobster" is/related to Slashdot BizInt guys, so anytime you see that handle, and it's increasing, it's another effect of the Dice takeover.
On his watch (Score:5, Insightful)
It all happened on his watch. The buck has to stop somewhere--at the top. That's how it works. If some VP was causing problems, it was his responsibility to get rid of that VP. If it was a particularly bad market for tech, that's not his fault; but it wasn't a particularly bad market. Other companies innovated and grew. They didn't. The whole strategy became, "let's make lame Apple clones that will piss off people who prefer the traditional Windows way, and won't convert people who prefer the Apple way".
I just don't see how the man at the top can escape responsibility for all that.
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Sounds a lot like Mozilla's attempts to clone everything that Google does, except in a half-assed way. Kind of funny, really, because I hadn't actually thought to connect Steve Ballmer and Asa Dotzler like that before. When you think about it, though, they seem pretty similar. Neither Microsoft nor Mozilla seem terribly interested in actually doing anything until Apple/Google do it first.
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well. how he came to that conclusion was pretty simple. he saw the statistics for pc software sales and thought that 30% of that money is a large sum, that's the larger strategy behind metro and literally giving money to developers to jump ship to it.
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Microsoft took a gamble on a new UI paradigm.I've been struggling to understand why that's so offensive to the /. masses for quite some time.
It's trying forcing a touch interface onto a desktop. I would think that pissing off your desktop base would be an obvious reason for hate. This is like Vista all over again, but worse.
I remember when 95 and XP came out, and people were generally pleased. Especially 95. That was when Microsoft almost buried Apple for good.
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There's no contradiction because in one case the behaviour is aimed towards the employees and in the other it's towards the customers.
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If you compare MSFT to the S&P 500 during Balmer's reign it's essentially the same. During the same time period, AAPL soared. Charting back further is interesting. On most comparisons (including the S&P) MSFT is soaring and everything else is flat at the bottom. The transition occurs right around 2000. It's easy to blame that on the economy except... the one company that doesn't look like a pancake next to MSFT during this period is AAPL. After 2000, AAPL takes off and makes up for lost time,
Hewlett Packard had intense competition. (Score:3)
Microsoft had a near monopoly. Like IBM for many years with lousy management---the recurring revenues coming in from backward compatibility let mediocrity evade responsibility.
One thing is true, Ballmer did not ram through a value-destroying merger over the objections of Gates, for instance the way Fiorina did with HP.
But the destruction of valued corporate culture is the same.
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It is if it's moving up. If it goes down it's due to external things like unusually hot weather, market forces, the state of the economy, or unusually cold weather.
You need to watch more Fox News.
Stack ranking? (Score:2)
There are always two sides to every argument, but this one is particularly damning:
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2012/07/microsoft-downfall-emails-steve-ballmer
(Kurt Eichenwald traces the “astonishingly foolish management decisions” at the company that “could serve as a business-school case study on the pitfalls of success.”)
Maybe a bad leader/manager? (Score:2)
Basically, a good leader/manager tries to find the best possible people for his organization to get things done. It is not necessarily his own job to do things himself, but rather to find the right people, promote, coach and help them to deliver the best possible results.
So, if it's true that Ballmer didn't have a good product guy next to him, then it would be his fault as he is the President & CEO of the company, i.e. he is the ultimate decision-maker for hiring such a person.
Either he didn't see the n
CEO Level (Score:2)
Every man makes mistakes, that's for sure. But we're talking CEO-level here, which means "best of the best". Any small mistake that would otherwise pass unnoticed or with minimal impact at lower levels would turn into a disaster if you're a CEO.
Ballmer can be a good manager, even a good VP. But CEO is a different league.
It's the difference between driving a car or a plane: if you flip the car lights switch instead of honking, it's no biggie, but if you drive a plane with 300 people and pull out the landing
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America is a classless and meritocratic society. People don't get a place in the senate (where they dress up in dead animals) just for being born, and there's a complete absence of old German women with gold hats bossing people around.
So if Baldmer has risen to the top of one of the largest companies the only explanation is that he's better than anyone else, or they'd be in the position instead.
QED.
Bad CEO? No. (Score:5, Interesting)
does Ballmer deserve his reputation as a bad CEO?
Bad CEO? Throwing chairs, browbeating your employees, prioritizing squeezing your customer over making a quality product, bribing government officials all over the world to expand your regulatory monopolies while preaching laissez-faire extremism to excuse cheating on your taxes -- those things don't necessarily make you a bad CEO. By the quarterly profit measure, they make you a good one. Those things don't make you a bad CEO; they make you a bad person.
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http://stratechery.com/2013/why-microsofts-reorganization-is-a-bad-idea/ [stratechery.com]
Perhaps judge him on the basis of what he should be doing as a CEO then? That article has some of the best insight into Ballmer's latest move that I've seen so far, and it indicates that he's way off-base.
Biased, much? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is pure Microsoft talking points.
Given the most recent revelations about Microsoft, the author should be reconsidering that claim to Microsoft's virtue.
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It could be worse, they could have invented Appletalk and Applescript, or cut off any service at a whim, like Google does (Yes! I managed to anger all fanboys in a single post! Just like Vader did to the
Monty Phython (Score:4, Interesting)
All kidding aside he is not a great or even good leader. If he was half as effective as Bill Gates MS would have have only lost half of the product wars that it has. He has perpetually missed the boat on emerging trends, and then tried to chase the boat down in a runabout with a 5HP outboard motor.
Dance while you can monkey boy (Score:3)
I never understood why he was ridiculed for "developers developers" anyway. I don't remember the rest of the speech, but I doubt it was wrong. Platforms live and die based on how many apps they have.
It's kind of like that Howard Dean "yeargggg!" thing, something that sounds ridiculous out of context and is promoted by spiteful enemies for that reason.
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And you answered your own question -- you don't remember the rest of the speech.
The message may have been a good one, but the way it was presented invited ridicule and was so memorable that the only thing people remember is the way the message was presented and not the message itself.
One can infer from this that Ballmer either does not invite criticism or does not listen to criticism. A
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That brings to mind a 10MW emergency generator (jet engine) that was tested every month for thirty years without incident and maintained by people with aircraft engineer level paranoia, yet it would not start up the one time it was really needed. I don't think we can assume that there were no rehersals just because of a failed demo, even in the company that forgot time (Zune not
Re: Dance while you can monkey boy (Score:2)
> Remember the Surface RT presentation in which the device crashed?
No, but I remember Bill Gates showing off something DHTML or Active Desktop-related in some live conference & having it crash in front of 5 million viewers. I think it was the IE4 launch event in 1997.
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Did you watch the video? It looks ridiculous whether it's in or out of context. A fat sweaty bald man trying to pathetically stir up the audience with an uninspired chant as you hear his voice weakly give out. The sweat stains alone.... gag. Complete dork. He's like the anti Steve Jobs. They were both assholes, but at least Steve had charisma and vision, neither of which Ballmer is in possession of.
Why is a sales/marketing guy in charge of a technology company?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qycUOENFI [youtube.com]
To Be Honest (Score:2)
I don't really know much about Ballmer, or how he runs Microsoft. ... and I couldn't give a shit less; I don't work for MS or buy any of their products, so his policies, abilities, success/failure... doesn't really affect me.
I do, however, very much enjoy the jokes and memes that have resulted from Ballmer's tenure as CEO, especially the chair throwing incident. That shit was hilarious, if only because it actually happened.
Not sure I really blame him (Score:2)
Specifically, that is. Microsoft's business strategy has been to crush upstarts with overwhelming force (even at a loss), then move on. My company had started working on Palm apps just as that tactic took effect. In the oughties, technology expanded so far that there were simply too many holes in the dike to plug. And, with mobile devices and broadband eating into the role of the desktop, MS doesn't have the money tree of Windows and Office giving them unlimited cash to throw around squashing mosquitoes.
My level of caring is zero. (Score:2)
I have no opinion (about Ballmer). My level of caring is zero (about Ballmer).
I refuse to pay the "Micr$oft tax". I DO CARE about that.
Comment removed (Score:3)
Ballmer's performance (Score:3)
Culture of fear? (Score:2)
I *hear* that MS has a culture of fear, where lower levels are basically expected to kowtow to the management line. A company without dissent and an environment where employees can air and discuss their opinions is VERY bad since decision making then lays in the hands of the select few, and when mistakes are being made, people are prevented from even pointing out those mistakes.
So far we've seen the disasters of Surface pro, Windows 8 metro, XBone, and I'm sure there are others I'm missing. That a company
He might be brilliant... (Score:2)
Stock Price Comparison (Score:5, Interesting)
Maintaining a steady stock price isn't what makes the Wall Street Casino happy.
Microsoft is down from its high in 2000 [yahoo.com] while competitors like Apple [yahoo.com] and Google [yahoo.com] are now worth significantly more than they were. Considering Microsoft's once-dominant position, it shouldn't be flat.
Microsoft has done better than HP [yahoo.com] and Yahoo [yahoo.com], but considering even stodgy old IBM has seen its stock price rise [yahoo.com] you have to wonder if Ballmer knows how to set a new course, adjusting to changes in tech, or just keep the ship afloat, buoyed by Windows and Office.
Microsoft had Windows for Pen Computing, Windows XP Tablet Edition, and later Courier, but lost the tablet market to Apple and Google. They had Windows CE and Windows Mobile well before iOS and Android, but never really made inroads in the smartphone market. Leveraging their default IE homepage, they couldn't get MSN / Live.com / Bing to overtake Google. Even in successful things, like HoTMaiL or IE, they simply stopped innovating until competitors appeared, and in the process those competitors took away chunks of Microsoft's market share. That they continue to exist off the profits from Windows and Office isn't the same as thriving, and that's why Ballmer gets the criticism he deserves.
Re: Stock Price Comparison (Score:2)
> but never really made inroads in the smartphone market.
Actually, circa 2005-2007, they basically *owned* the smartphone market. At least, in the US. I'm talking about the period when PalmOS stumbled badly (PalmOS 5 had the same problems with interactive networked apps as MacOS 9... it couldn't walk & chew gum at the same time, and PalmOS 6's Eclipse-based development chain sucked SO BADLY compared to Codewarrior, nobody *cared* whether it was free), Blackberry was mostly a closed platform with shit
Microsoft could have been more (Score:5, Insightful)
So many times in the last 15 years, you could tell that Microsoft was really really close to getting it right. Just a few more revisions and they would have done it.
* Smartphones: really an outgrowth of PDAs. WinCE (version 3 and later) bested Palm OS. Palm was crushed and what did Microsoft do? Sit there for 5 years with minimal investment in WinCE. WinMo 2003 was barely an upgrade to the previous version. I had the Jornado, HP iPaq, and the HP hw6515 (I think) smartphone. It even had GPS well before the iPhone.
* Tablets: Bill Gates was right, we all will have a tablet in the future. It's just not running Windows. I bought the HP TX tablet/convertible. And you can tell that even with Vista, it was potentially a great device. Handwriting recognition, touch support, pressure sensitivity and decent weight. But terrible bloat in the initial Vista release made the tablet boot up in about 2 minutes on a good day and put out heat like a nuclear reactor.
* GPS/media players: Remember all those Magellan and Garmin GPS units, and portable media players from China? They were likely running WinCE.
* Email: Hotmail was there early on and they sat there while Google took over. I remember the 4MB account limit.
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The point is, Microsoft was in the position where they could basically own the web, with just a little more effort they would be the gateway for nearly anyone; but they dropped the ball and allowed competing
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On surface / win 8 if you alt tab out of IE it will mute the audio on the webpage. WTF?
Great tech; terrible behaviour (Score:2)
Microsoft has great technology (as a developer, I think dotNet is the best), but their behaviour has been odius, e.g. always trying to hold back the web and scare users from the cloud in a failed attempt to safe-guard their client side bastion. And stuff like the Xbox One fiasco just re-inforces that.
And I rather doubt that Balmer is responsible for how good dotNet is.
he's doing his job (Score:2)
MS has been on the way down for a long, long time.
If you think Balmer's job is to take it to new heights, I personally think you're stupid. He's not the man for that kind of job, and everyone knows it.
His job is to keep the ship afloat as long as possible, to make the inevitable decline as slow and smooth as possible. And yes, he has been doing quite well on that task. Time and time again we on /., nerds in general and sometimes even the tech press have predicted MS imminent demise, but Balmer has managed t
i'm saying if not is (Score:3)
The mature verdict on Steve Ballmer is that he has made only one major strategic error: not combining his own brilliance for sales and detail with a visionary product leader who has the authority to create bold new revenue streams for the company.
It was my impression Ballmer's contribution was the bulk licensing trap that leveraged their monopoly. If that is the case, and with rules preventing manipulating the market using your monopoly, Ballmer's only strategy has been eliminated.
YouTube hit with only 31K views? (Score:2)
Of course he's to blame! (Score:2)
He's the guy in charge; the problems at Microsoft are well known and documented, hell I'm pretty sure there's even BOOKS on the topic.
I don't know what the hell is going on at Microsoft but I sure hope it's all sorted before Windows 7 gets EOLed.
2021 - year of the linux desktop?
He is supposed to be nice guy. But ... (Score:2)
But if he a great salesman but has not made any great products, but still continues to make great sales, what does it make him? A con man? The Great Snake Oil salesman?
They also say nice things abou
Stagnant because of monopoly (Score:2)
The only reason they've got any customers left is because of their monopolies. Their only customers are companies that don't know how to migrate away.
- Their latest OS: Just a remake of the same-old, many people don't see the need to move from what they have (XP/7). They only sold a bunch of licenses because you can't buy 7/XP but you can use the license to downgrade.
- Their latest Office: It moved to the *cloud* and thus everybody just stays on what they have currently. If they want to make the expense to
Did he TRY Windows 8? (Score:2)
If he didn't try it, but relied on underlings telling him that it was good, then shame on him.
If he tried it, realized how bad it was, but let it go out anyway because usability was less important than some other agenda--forcing developers into writing apps that would work on Windows Phone 8, maybe--then shame on him.
If he tried it and he thought it was good, then shame on him.
He deserves to burn for one reason (Score:2)
Windows 8
Nuff said - stick a fork in it.
kind of like asking if a prostitute (Score:2)
A Better Developers! Developers! Developers! (Score:2)
Not impressed (Score:2)
VP MMA match (Score:2)
The problem is that all the VPs are in a good damn penis fight over who will be the next Balmer instead of doing their god damn jobs.
The rod to measure Steve Ballmer by (Score:2)
Being CEO of the dominant provider of technology performance is measured along many lines.
The rod to measure his success by isn't any of these things though.
An exceptional position implies exceptional expectations of an exceptional person. For over a deca
Re:About your Thesis... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not just that, but the company has been largely coasting since Bill left. The reorganization is well over due.
Ultimately, they had a winner with 7, and chucked all the gains that they made with 8. Considering how important Windows still is to their bottom line, they should have been more mindful to evolve the product rather than chucking everything out.
They've also been doing abysmally at entering new markets since sometime in the mid '90s, and probably before that. Which hasn't improved under his watch. The XBox was the last successful entrance that they've made into a new arena. The Zune, windows phones and their other attempts haven't gone very well.
The share price itself is largely a reflection of the fact that they're still hugely profitable, albeit heavily dependent upon one or two product lines which are likely to be in trouble in the future if they can't enter new areas.
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They might not have been first to the punch but: .Net, Azure, significant UI redesign (for good or bad) of windows and Office, XBox. Yep they've been pretty stagnant.
I don't know if I like him or not I think Bill would be more of a fun guy to have a nerdy chat with. But I think this is the common scenario where the CEO that is in charge when a company goes from rapid growth to Blue Chip slow and steady gets blamed for "breaking" the company. Think of MS like a corner store. In this case you can by the corne
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I would go further, 7 wasn't a winner, it wasn't a (Score:3, Interesting)
I would go further, 7 wasn't a winner, it wasn't as big a loser.
Ballmer is overseeing a drugs operation in a city of billions where there is no law, everyone is a millionaire and all the other drug barons have long since gone from shooting themselves in the foot to traveling back in time and shooting their ancestors in the head.
MS didn't rise to dominance because of the brilliance of its leaders but because the competition made some of the biggest and most classic mistakes in business history. They have b
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The problem is, what could they have pushed in 7 that would have made it a success in the office market? Even in 2004 it would have sunk.
XP is, has and offers everything the office environment wants. Does printers out of the box, does networking out of the box, does WiFi out of the box, does USB out of the box... What does 7 offer more than XP? Aside of graphic gimmicks the average CFO brushes aside before you're done saying "graphics gimmicks"?
The main changes with 7 are not where the average user would se
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The problem is that the old IE6 browser harms the rest of the web at the same time too, and IE is a global system component.
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Every video of him I've seen make me think that he is a heavy user of cocaine. If so, he might be a nice guy when not on cocaine.
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Duuuuuude, can you imagine him on weed? He's gotta be aaaawesome!
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SQLServer is disrupting data warehousing and BI. Windows 8 is disruptive. Fails or succeeds it is changing the course of PC development.
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Both Oracle and IBM would disagree with you that SQL Server BI isn't disruptive. They have both lost many accounts to it and see it as one of the big 3 now.
As for Windows 8 sales, that's not disruption, different issue. Windows 7 was released into a health PC market and was meant as a mainstream OS. Windows 8 is a transitional OS released into a very unhealthy and rapidly declining market.
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What do you mean? Corporate America isn't generally run by the best and the brightest. But in spite of that, considering that Microsoft was once so dominant there was no second place, I think Microsoft is imploding. It certainly hasn't done anything terribly innovative in a long time, and all it's done lately is to hand over the mobile market to Apple and Android, and manage to piss off the one set of insanely loyal customers it has left -- XBox fans.
So, yeah. I think the man is about as dumb as /. thinks h