Steve Ballmer Blew Up At the Microsoft Board Before Retiring 248
mrspoonsi writes with this excerpt from Business Insider on Steve Ballmer's final months as Microsoft CEO: "Ballmer decided to announce his retirement a few years before anyone expected him to. It all came to a head in one board meeting with Ballmer in June 2013. According to Businessweek, Ballmer got into a shouting match with Microsoft's board when directors said they didn't want to buy Nokia and start making smartphones. Ballmer told the board last June that if he didn't get what he wanted, he wouldn't be CEO any more. Businessweek said Ballmer's shouts could be heard in the hall outside the conference room. In the end, the board compromised with Ballmer. Ballmer wanted to buy both Nokia's handset business and its mapping platform called HERE. Instead, Microsoft ended up buying just the handset business for $7.2 billion and licensed HERE maps from Nokia."
Ballmer seems to be regretting not getting into hardware sooner (although given that not making hardware propelled them to success in the 90s...)
asshole (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sorry... is there a better word to describe this self-absorbed troll?
Re:asshole (Score:5, Funny)
Anonymous Coward?
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I'm sorry... is there a better word to describe this self-absorbed troll?
Consistent.
Fat.
Shall I go on? :-)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:asshole (Score:5, Insightful)
I've always felt that "potty-mouthed, chair-throwing, murder-threatening, monkey dancer" was an adequate moniker.
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Some people cuss a lot. Others swear. Some use foul language.
But some are just potty-mouthed. Their attempts to sound tough are just so infantile.
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Shut up, you poo poo head!
Re:asshole (Score:4, Insightful)
Some people cuss a lot. Others swear. Some use foul language.
But some are just potty-mouthed. Their attempts to sound tough are just so infantile.
Profanity is the resort of of those who have too weak a mind to formulate a good counter argument or biting riposte.
I'd say he was just too unimaginative -- fancy that for someone hailing from Marketing.
Re:asshole (Score:5, Insightful)
But the Board is just as worthless. They and Ballmer are why microsoft is second banana now.
"Developers developers developers"..... FUCK Developers.
Users, Users, Users and more importantly.... CORPERATE USERS. Windows 8 and 8.1 and from what I have seen 9 are worthless steaming turds. Whoever is in charge of the Windows OS division needs to be not only fired, but locked in stockades in front of the corporate entrance as a warning to the other executives.
The Dumb asses screwed things up so bad that most businesses are STILL on Windows XP in the corporate world and Server 2003-2007 Then the dipshit move with Office will break that lock on the market they had for decades.
Steve Ballmer destroyed Microsoft. Everything released in the past 3 years is complete crap, complete and utter crap and it is ALL his fault.
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I'm always amused by posts like this. You're bitching at MS because they are not #1, yet if there were #1 you would be bitching at them too!
No chairs were involved (Score:2, Funny)
He wasn't really mad.
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You mean he wasn't really angry, or he wasn't really crazy?
Misleading title (Score:5, Funny)
Damnit. :P
Change is good (Score:5, Interesting)
And making typewriters and mainframes propelled IBM to success in the 60s.
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I don't think anyone is arguing money can't be made with hardware- just that pursuing both software and hardware systems is difficult and fraught with risks.
Look at Apple's wild swings.... I don't really have an opinion on Apple but I certainly think they could be very profitable or not 5 years from now.
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I don't see Windows doing that, actually worse, things that Microsoft hope would go extinct aren't (ie. XP).
Now Microsoft already has some forays into hardware but they just aren't that terribly profitable.
While the Xbox One and Xbox 360 sold 3.9 million and 3.5 million units respectively, gross margins for the Devices & Consumer Hardware division were down 46% to $0.4 billion. Total Surface revenue doubled to $0.89 billion (probably selling around 1 million Surface tablets), but costs also spiked to $0.93 billion (probably due to marketing and slim margins on the Surface tablets).(http://www.extremetech.com/computing/175350-microsoft-delivers-record-revenue-profits-due-to-strong-xbox-windows-phone-and-commercial-sales)
Wow, $0.89 bil for the Surface that's amazing and .... oh... wait....
Commercial Licensing (Windows, SQL Server, Hyper-V) revenue grew 7% to $11 billion.
Yeah software is still the main cash cow and it's going to stay that way unless people, I dunno, everyone su
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Windows is very much in danger of becoming extinct. It no longer commands 98% of the O/S market for devices (even if you restrict that to desktop computers and full sized laptops). There's now OS X with a 5-10% share of the computer market, and Apple charges nothing or nex
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Microsoft has not been a "success." It's been a cancer eating away at decent automation.
Re:Change is good (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft has not been a "success." It's been a cancer eating away[...].
What is precisely the definition of "success" from the cancer point of view.
ballmer was right (Score:3)
phones and tech in general is going the way vertical integration like the auto industry almost 100 years ago
at one point cars were "open" where you could mix and match and lots of manufacturers made the different parts
then came henry ford and the industry went vertical where one company was doing all the design and most of the manufacturing for most of the parts
alfred sloan took it one step further where he had a few basic designs with slightly different bodies to look different and sold them under different brands
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no one makes their car 100% internally, even today
but lots of car makers build their own engines and other major components or have them made to exact specs
Repeats aren't necessarily good... (Score:4, Insightful)
"Ballmer seems to be regretting not getting into hardware sooner (although given that not making hardware propelled them to success in the 90s...)"
That's because during the 90's there were dozens of people in hardware but only a few strong software people. By the time the 21st century got rolling, the tables had flipped, software as an industry was well developed and now it was all about miniaturization and portability, so the pendulum swung back to hardware being the profit driver. Just because something worked last decade doesn't mean it's going to work this decade.
Re:Repeats aren't necessarily good... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm confused... (Score:2, Funny)
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They did get into bed with nokia, and it really hurt nokia.
Re:I'm confused... (Score:5, Funny)
I think Ballmer is going to take an extra flush.
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Forget RTFM (Score:2)
Nokia blew it up ages ago .. (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree with the board here (Score:5, Interesting)
There's no reason MS couldn't have taken the route Google has with branding phones (eg. the Nexus 4, actually made by LG or Asus or I don't remember). I don't think buying Nokia is going to look like a good decision down the road.
Overall, MS's continuous doubling down on mobile has succeeded only in poisoning their other products.
Re:I agree with the board here (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with Microsoft and Nokia, is that nobody really wants a Microsoft Phone, and Nokia was driven into the trash heap by going the Microsoft Route exclusively (among other notable awful choices).
Microsoft has been a "Windows Company" for so long, they don't know how to do anything else besides "Windows". And now, with the dawning of Google Apps and Libre/Open Office, and ChromeOS / Android / iOS as choices to compete, there is a huge problem for Microsoft Windows ... it isn't even a good choice any more, it is just another choice. Microsoft is stuck, being a Windows Company.
Anything they do now, is too little, too late. They needed to change 10 years ago (yes, 2004) when the tide started to change. I saw it then, and knew the end was near. Microsoft has no new products, no new vision. It is dead.
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The problem with Microsoft and Nokia, is that nobody really wants a Microsoft Phone
The WinCE-based phones were pretty bad - heck, MS itself called the OS "wince". The Win8 phones are fine, and while they had a rough launch, their market share continues to grow - they outsell iPhone in (poorer) European countries. Seems credible to me that they could take second place once Blackberry is fully gone, if they can crack the Asian market, where right now you're right.
Outside of phones, Office (PowerPoint and Excel, Word no longer matters) and MS SQL have pretty good lock-in in business use,
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Tasteful and profitable wins over open or closed.
OSX might have awful market share but Apple sells more than most Windows OEMs do and they make money on each unit sold.
That's winning. Not massive market share. Profit and sustainability. Only fools go after popularity.
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They made an attempt at MS branded PCs and all the OEMs balked and forced them to shelve the idea. They have similar issues with the Surface lineup. Google has been able to get away with their hardware branding strategy because they didn't have an existing customer base that would object to the competition.
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Microsoft just doesn't get it. (Score:4, Interesting)
Microsoft was trying to push smartphone before it was popular, but no one wanted or wants what they were or are selling. They have never really had the kind of charismatic salesman that Apple had in Jobs, so they weren't able to create convince people to buy this new thing and create a market. Now that the market's set, and Microsoft essentially isn't part of it, they're done. Just copying Apple or Samsung are doing by having hardware isn't going to make people want Windows Mobile (or whatever they're calling it these days) anymore than they did previously. The Nokia purchase is a huge waste of money. Most people aren't going to buy Microsoft phones. Microsoft needs to spend its resources building something cool (that isn't a phone) and a separate brand for it. That's the kind of gamble that big companies don't take though. There's too much to risk, and it takes a long term vision and commitment that investors don't have.
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They also didn't have the discipline which Jobs imposed to not market a product until the technological infrastructure was in-place to support it:
- Apple waited on the iPod until there were enough machines w/ FireWire so that it could synch in a reasonable timeframe and they had sufficient content deals lined up to make it work --- Microsoft released the Zune before they could find a compelling reason for people to buy them.
- Apple deferred on the iPad, instead first releasing the iPhone 'ca
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"Microsoft needs to spend its resources building something cool (that isn't a phone) and a separate brand for it. "
IMHO they did exactly that with xbox.
But they still managed to mess it up in the long run.
If you don't let me throw away $$$ ... (Score:5, Funny)
... I will quit and you will be forced to hire A MORE COMPETENT CEO!
That is right. I will QUIT because I failed to make revenue off WIndows 8 mobile due to things that were all my fault! DON'T Make ME make your job easier now by having me LEAVE?
Board of directors: (... a look of shock. Then grins with each other. ) Oh Balmer. NO!! You may not. Take your anger out.
Balmer: Throws a chair. I QUIT!!
Board of directors: (... in a lame semi sarcastic tone). Oh no Balmer. What a shame. Soo sorry it had to come to this.
Should have bought Here instead (Score:2)
Should have bought Here instead. I don't see what they gained with the Nokia handset business. It's basically a $7B buy for the Lumia line. Here/NavTEQ is really reliable data source. They've been in this mapping business for a long time and know what they're doing.
Microsoft should have... (Score:4, Insightful)
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XBox is still a failure ultimately.. the cost outweighed the profitability until very recently, and that doesn't consider the lost opportunity that investment money could have been put to. Its a bit debatable but no other company could have done the XBox as they don't have Microsoft's bottomless pit of cash and nothing else to spend it on.
Microsoft did do some excellent hardware though - their mice were the best, their keyboards are good, and their webcams are good too.
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Possibly - I think its debatable, but still the amount if investment required would have bankrupted any other company that tried to release it as their only product.
Sony seems to be winning the latest console war, with anecdotal reports of shops stacked with XB1s and PS4s sold out completely. Maybe that is more distribution and production than sales... but I think it says Sony made a good product that people want to buy, whereas Microsoft made a product they wanted to sell you.
So the final results on the XB
Microsoft still has a chance... (Score:4, Interesting)
Microsoft still has a chance...
They need to make Windows Free, maybe even open source (ok, that's a pipe dream)
Then they need to invent all kinds of stellar business apps that integrate with it flawlessly...
and license those apps to businesses. Businesses will pay for supported apps, because they like to be covered if something happens (thats how oracle makes money)
Basically everything Microsoft is currently doing is wrong. They are digging their own grave and anyone with any tech savvy at all knows it.
Re:Microsoft still has a chance... (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft makes billions from selling Windows. The most popular consumer operating system ever made. You want them to forgo that revenue stream so they can become a more trendy 'open source' provider, in the hope that they might, potentially, maybe make more money in another way. Despite the fact that no company doing this makes money in this way.
Apple -> gives away software (kinda) -> makes money from hardware (and always has)
Google -> gives away software (kinda) -> makes money from ads (and always has)
Microsoft -> gives away software -> makes money from 'supported apps'
Do you really think you have any idea how to run one of the best companies in the world?
Astronomical arrogance.
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It would make sense - when your product reaches a certain point in its life, its peaked and starts to become a target for alternatives, and when those alternatives gain enough traction (which often happens "overnight") then your product becomes an also-ran that no-one wants anymore.
Now until recently we only really had Windows, but today we have Android and iOS as serious competitors. What happens on the desktop - generally no-one cares anymore. Microsoft continues to sell fewer and fewer copies and Windows
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Then they need to invent all kinds of stellar business apps that integrate with it flawlessly...
and license those apps to businesses. Businesses will pay for supported apps, because they like to be covered if something happens (thats how oracle makes money)
They already have that. It's a little-known suite of programs called "Microsoft Office"
Re:Microsoft still has a chance... (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft still has a chance
Microsoft is a huge successful company, and is not going anywhere. If anything, they will have to scale back in a few sectors.
They need to make Windows Free, maybe even open source (ok, that's a pipe dream)
Absurd. The near monopoly of Windows gives them the muscle to keep better products off the market. They are also the only player in town when it comes to PC OSs (sorry Linux), and the Windows tax is not something that they would or should give away for free.
Then they need to invent all kinds of stellar business apps that integrate with it flawlessly...
and license those apps to businesses. Businesses will pay for supported apps, because they like to be covered if something happens (thats how oracle makes money)
That has never been their business model. Either buy the better app and rebrand it MS, or else crush the competition through their Windows monopoly, e.g. withholding parts of the API.
Basically everything Microsoft is currently doing is wrong. They are digging their own grave and anyone with any tech savvy at all knows it.
I really don't think that you speak for the "tech savvy."
Please think of... (Score:3)
Ballmer is supposed to be a nice guy (Score:4, Interesting)
I think Ballmer inherited a very large unwieldy and nearly ungovernable organization. All the real genii had either cashed out, burnt out or were pushed out. Near monopoly status meant every one is producing huge torrents of revenue and it was difficult to cull out the wheat from the chaff. Those who remained and got promoted were the third or fourth echelon of talent who excelled in office politics and political intrigue. Much of the credit the media heaped on him in the early were undeserved and so is most of the scorn heaped on him.
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I have relatives who work for Microsoft who use the same gym Steve Ballmer uses. He does not have any sidekicks hanging around him, nor does he project any kind of superior airs there. Quietly shows up and works on some free machine, wipes the equipment with a towel like everyone else before leaving. I am not disputing "he throws chairs" or "shouts at the directors" etc. Both could be true.
That makes him sound like a pretty ineffectual CEO. Seriously, shouldn't he be taking charge and reading the law to his reports? There is so much going on at MS, that I'd expect there to be a constant flurry of activity around the CEO. It sounds more like he was just "phoning in" the performance.
I met him once... (Score:2)
I should add... (Score:2)
Thanks (Score:2, Funny)
Missed Opportunity (Score:4, Insightful)
So Microsoft could have declined to buy Nokia's handset business, retained the $7b they would have spent on it, and have gotten rid of Ballmer sooner? That just has win all over it. And in classic fashion, they stumbled once again and made the completely wrong move. At this point, watching Microsoft implode is starting to transition from hilarious to slightly sad. After what they've done to the software industry, they deserve to suffer, but at some point they're going to need to start making smart moves if they want to continue providing serious competition.
Ballmer was a millstone around MSFT's neck (Score:2)
Sometimes those heavy stones complain when you toss them down a ravine where they belong.
Interpersonal intelligence should be a requirement (Score:3)
Re:What a surprise. (Score:5, Funny)
His amazing salesmanship skills:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... [youtube.com]
At the end of that, I feel myself pulling my wallet out and going "NO, IT CAN'T BE JUST $99, let me pay more!"
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Re:What a surprise. (Score:5, Insightful)
Absolute bullshit.
CEOs are a cult of personality in modern society. It isn't about smarts, savvy, or any other jazz. It's a type of show business.
Go look at the "promotional photos" available for people like Carly Fiorina. She's not smart enough to run a hot dog stand, but boy can she take a good photograph. And the corporate worshipers eat it all up.
Re:What a surprise. (Score:4, Insightful)
CEOs are a cult of personality in modern society. It isn't about smarts, savvy, or any other jazz. It's a type of show business.
It's not even in modern society, though. It's in a subset of modern society: movers and shakers, and their dick-riders. Only a tiny percentage of people would recognize a significant percentage of vulture capitalists, CEOs, or other wearers of golden parachutes.
She is too! (Score:4, Funny)
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--Yeah - right into the ground. Just like she did HP. The hot dog stand would come to life and have to form its own union just to protect itself from her!
Re:What a surprise. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What a surprise. (Score:5, Interesting)
I think his history in the company was what went horribly wrong, and if Gates were still around, the same mistakes would have been made. Microsoft operated under the old adage "don't change your horses in midstream", and that meant hanging on to Ballmer even as everyone saw the titanic shifts in the marketplace.
To my (admittedly untrained) eye, I'm not sure what Microsoft could have done differently. It had put forward mobile operating systems before; Windows Phone and Pen both had longstanding iterations. So while I think it's easy to blame Ballmer, it strikes me to some extent that Microsoft suffered a lot of bad luck. It's timing was wrong on some products, and after having won the PC wars it simply didn't know where to go.
In the meantime, RIM comes along and recreates the mobile computing industry, and then Apple, and a little later Google, take the initiative and basically create the computer marketplace we see today. Maybe Microsoft could have done something earlier, but the way I look at the chronology of smartphones, I don't see where Microsoft had a lot of room to take the initiative. I mean, who would have thought in the mid-00s that the smart device would become the pre-eminent consumer computing platform in less than a decade?
Where Ballmer screwed up, if you can call it that, was in the vain attempt to basically buy Microsoft a market; with the Surface tablet line and the Nokia purchase, and even worse, to try to force a homogeneous GUI on everyone from Windows Server customers to Surface RT users. Metro is the real Ballmer fuck up, the one that spread Microsoft's mobile weakness across its entire product line.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
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In the 1990's, Microsoft were all go, they were knocking down the UNIX workstation vendors, and making them replace their operating systems with Windows NT, the one true "multi-threaded" standard for workstations applications. And they improved on that with Windows XP, even if did take them a couple of service packs.
Then it's a natural conclusion for Microsoft to decide that if workstations with different monitor sizes have the same GUI, then everything else from mobile phones and tablets should do the same
Re:What a surprise. (Score:5, Insightful)
But it isn't a natural conclusion. The workflows on mobile devices is entirely different than a PC. Metro was based on a false premise, and Microsoft is reaping the punishments of that false premise. Even Microsoft seems to know that, and Metro on the desktop has taken the first step towards becoming a gimicky new gadgets bar with Windows 8.1, and I'll wager by Windows 9 it will have completed that voyage.
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Re:What a surprise. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not clear. Why is Metro the right thing for the staff of my company, who have basically been using the same GUI for the better part of 20 years now? What exactly does Metro offer my staff that they don't already have, and aren't already familiar with? Why should I spend my company's IT and training budgets on:
1. Teaching them a new GUI paradigm?
2. Investing in new technology like touch screens to actually use this GUI?
3. Invest even more money in new licensing costs to take advantage of the advantages you plan on specifying?
Here's what I think, if you want my 2 cents. Metro offers absolutely fuck all that wasn't already available, is a retard's GUI on a desktop, fucks up the kinds of multiasking that the taskbar makes easy, and has done fucking to sell Redmond's mobile offerings.
Here's what I want, if Microsoft ever wants to see me spend another fucking nickel on their operating systems. I want Metro if not outright removed, then made so that it can basically be ignored. I want the GUI that my staff have known for two decades back right in front where it fucking belongs.
Otherwise, we'll just keep using our Windows 7 licenses until January 14, 2020, by which time the last software that requires Internet Explorer will have been updated and discarded, and we can abandon Windows on the desktop.
You see, in the business world, conservatism tends to reign over "the latest fucky dunky dunky" GUI set that the Redmond developtment teams seem to masturbate to these days.
Re:What a surprise. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not clear here. Why should I use Start button replacement of dubious merits to replace functionality that was present prior to Windows 8. I'm in an enterprise environment, where GPOs rule the roost, and your suggestion is that I use a third party tool that likely won't integrate into that environment in any meaningful way.
You seem to be of the opinion that the world should bend to Metro. Pretty much every organization I deal with does not want it, will not use it, and wants it completely hidden. Most plan on using their Windows 7 licences until that becomes nonviable for security reasons.
And if you think, by 2020, there won't be challengers to Microsoft Office, then you're deluded. If Metro isn't invisible by 2020, we will be moving to other platforms. Period.
Re: What a surprise. (Score:3)
Probably the smart ones that want todo away with archaic file extensions. Does Mac have them, or Linux? Or unix? Just how do they get by without seeing them?
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If you think you can cram the same UI for a 5 inch touch-screen and a 25 inch desktop computer, I'm afraid it just means you haven't much of a clue about UI in general.
Re:What a surprise. (Score:5, Insightful)
It would have made more sense to have the mobile GUI run as an application over a desktop system, and just give users the choice.
Agreed. But Microsoft got greedy. It wasn't just about getting into the mobile market, it was BEING a market. Metro is a vector for the Microsoft store, where they get to take a cut of every app sold. Bean-counters saw the revenue of Apple's App Store, and demanded that Microsoft get in on that racket by leveraging their market-share of the desktop.
They figure if Metro wasn't front-and-center on every desktop as a non-option, people would opt out and the Store might take too long to take off and generate the apps needed to persuade people to switch from iOS or Android. Trouble is, these things can't be forced.
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> It would have made more sense to have the mobile GUI run as an application over a desktop system, and just give users the choice.
Given that my mobile phone is more powerful (or at least responsive) than the desktop my company provides, largely due to the SSD, we may not be too far off from seeing a world where your mobile phone is your desktop and having the right UI up will depend on whether or not you're connected to a screen and keyboard or not. The underlying technology you're suggesting would mak
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Windows Mobile was obsolete. Their successor platform was also completely incompatible with it. That was the problem.
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All I heard from people doing applications for Windows Mobile was how nasty it was to program for. When the competition was still Symbian this was ok. It was the best mobile operating system for a time but it was utterly outclassed by iOS and Android. Windows CE was not Windows NT kernel based. It was a completely different beast altogether.
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As for Microsofts disasters trying to do hardware to compete with Apple it all started a long time before Surface. Remember Zune?
Re:What a surprise. (Score:4, Insightful)
To my (admittedly untrained) eye, I'm not sure what Microsoft could have done differently. It had put forward mobile operating systems before; Windows Phone and Pen both had longstanding iterations. So while I think it's easy to blame Ballmer, it strikes me to some extent that Microsoft suffered a lot of bad luck. It's timing was wrong on some products, and after having won the PC wars it simply didn't know where to go.
It's not *what*, it's *how* and *what for*. Microsoft had everything they ever wanted - complete dominion of the computer industry at the time. At the dawn of the millennium, no one made a move if they weren't sure Microsoft wouldn't or couldn't compete in that arena. A few years earlier, a stray remark from Ballmer brought the tech market stocks down 5% in a single day. They have everything to lose, and nothing to gain.
Apple, Google, and RIM were *hungry*. They each had a vision that didn't necessarily involve dominating the market and instead was more customer focused. They cared about the finer points of their customer's issues. They iterated rapidly.
Microsoft's attempt to grow the computer industry ran into their real desire to simply dominate what existed. If they couldn't dominate it they wouldn't grow it. And that attitude persisted for over a decade, so they became incapable of competing - they didn't have to for years. They still don't have to in their core markets. It's just that those markets don't comprise "all of computing" anymore.
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I mean, who would have thought in the mid-00s that the smart device would become the pre-eminent consumer computing platform in less than a decade?
Uhh...Alan Kay [wikipedia.org]? Although I'm sure he hates the "app store" notion with a vengeance.
Really? I saw exactly where MS fucked up. (Score:5, Insightful)
When Jobs was on stage and first introduced the iPhone, he stated that he would be happy if they captured 3% of the smartphone market (which itself at the time represented only 1% of the overall mobile phone market).
Apple took a big gamble to create a product that at the time, was mostly a niche product, I don't think anyone was expecting the iPhone to be the staggering sensation it became. Yet, Apple spent millions to develop the hardware and the operating system, both of which were, at the time, quite revolutionary.
Apple didn't capture a segment of an existing market, they *created* their own market -- people that had never bought a smartphone before were buying this thing.
Now let's contrast to MS; They launched the Zune, hoping to capture some segment of the market that would have otherwise have purchased an iPod. When it failed to do that after 2 years, they dumped the entire thing. They launched a smartphone geared towards teens and canceled it after a week, if I recall.
For MS, the product has to be a huge hit or it's a disaster, and there's no in-between for them. That's their failure, which is they are looking for the kind of success Apple had, or they kill the product before it can even get a foothold.
Contrast to Google, who suffered through years of crappy Android releases before the OS became a serious contender to the iPhone. Google (fortunately) stuck with it, but MS don't play that game. They want instant success or the product is dead.
What they could have done differently is had an overall vision to tie their products together. What if the Zune's OS became a launchpad to a phone OS, and they had used their existing PDA experience from Windows CE to make a really good product and stuck with it, even if sales were initially slow, but they kept improving it?
But either due to incompetence or interoffice politics, no microsoft product works with any other microsoft product, and they never seem to learn from their past products what works and what doesn't -- and that's why their stuff fails.
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I don't know about that. The reaction where I was was "that's the way it should have been done all along". I had had several pre-iPhone smartphones and they were all nowhere near good enough. The market was there for the taking, but Microsoft's usual "why try harder?" attitude meant they hadn't the balls to go for it.
Microsoft had won against entrenched players. (Score:3)
They also had enough money to have a long war of attrition against the video ga
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You're missing a few things. Saying that Apple got into the smartphone market right before it exploded is like saying my father's B-17 dropped bombs right before the target exploded. There was an existing smartphone market, and the existing players pretty much died. Android copied a lot from iOS, and also allowed phone manufacturers in general to make iOS-like smartphones both low-end and high-end, unlike iOS which was restricted to one manufacturer that only did high end.
The reason the market transit
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Divest itself of the operating system business. The handwriting was on the wall 10 years ago that there is a coming race to zero for the price of what an operating system is worth to the end-user.
I still maintain that the US Justice Department splitting Microsoft into multiple companies would have done wonderful things for Microsoft. The operating system people would be forced to compete and free to pursue thei
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Divest itself of the operating system business. The handwriting was on the wall 10 years ago that there is a coming race to zero for the price of what an operating system is worth to the end-user.
errr....you mean drop the business that has 90+% market share and earns them tens of billions of dollars per year? That's how they do business in the bizarro world. They still make record profits thanks almost entirely to that business.
Re:What a surprise (Score:4, Interesting)
"I mean, who would have thought in the mid-00s that the smart device would become the pre-eminent consumer computing platform in less than a decade?"
You mean other than Apple and the other people who helped make it happen?
Microsoft's problem moving off of the desktop has always been that they want a very similar experience on the desk and in the hand. This was a bad idea when they tried to emulate the Windows experience in WinCE, and is a bad idea going the other direction with Metro.
Re: (Score:3)
To my (admittedly untrained) eye, I'm not sure what Microsoft could have done differently. It had put forward mobile operating systems before; Windows Phone
When MIcrosoft released WP7, they still had an ~18% marketshare. My brother sold phones when the iPhone came out, and he would sell it to anyone who wanted to use Microsoft documents on a phone.
WP7 ruined all that by being a pretty UI that couldn't do much. If they'd maintained backwards compatibility (which they went out of their way to prevent), while making a pretty UI (which they did), then there's a good chance they would be competing now, and Nokia would still be alive.
Re:What a surprise. (Score:5, Insightful)
Because he owned like 30% of the stock and was a cofounder of the company and a personal friend of bill gates who owns 40% of the company.
8% at IPO (Score:3)
Because he owned like 30% of the stock and was a cofounder of the company and a personal friend of bill gates who owns 40% of the company.
Balmer never owned more than about 8% of Microsoft [wikipedia.org]. Gates owned about 45% of the company at the IPO but now is down to around 6.5% last I checked which still makes him the largest private shareholder.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Because he was the recipient of the "luckiest dorm room assignment in history". See http://www.washingtonspectator.org/index.php/Steve-Ballmer.html
Re: (Score:2)
Ballmer just comes across as a big fat baby with all the charisma of a loose turd.
Will someone tell me why he was there in the first place?
Ask Bill.
Re: (Score:2)
Will someone tell me why he was there in the first place?
Because, like they say in the mafia, you keep your friends close and your enemies closer [youtube.com].
Re:What a surprise. (Score:4, Funny)
I've always speculated that when MSFT was nailed for monopoly behavior, the DOJ gave the MSFT BOD a choice; MSFT would be broken up or put Ballmer in charge.
Instead of breaking MSFT up, the DOJ figured having someone like Ballmer in charge would be punishment enough. And ultimately achieve something close to the intended results of a breakup.
By using this strategy, the gov't didn't appear as though it's trying to tell a big business how to operate, but MSFT's growth certainly was stunted thanks to Ballmer's decisions.