This can't be good
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| djohnston Aug 23, 2013 3:39 PM EDT |
Where will the future lack of vision come from? Who can possibly throw a chair farther? Will there be monkey dance auditions? Inquiring minds want to know. |
| Bob_Robertson Aug 23, 2013 3:45 PM EDT |
10 PRINT "DEVELOPERS!" 20 GOTO 10 |
| DrGeoffrey Aug 23, 2013 4:03 PM EDT |
I can still hear the high pitch screech of my last dot matrix, and it's been at least 15 years. Some things never leave you. |
| cr Aug 23, 2013 4:16 PM EDT |
I still think he looks like The Penguin, which is ironic. |
| montezuma Aug 23, 2013 5:04 PM EDT |
Bob,
You forgot: 11 Print "Zune FAIL" 12 Print "Bing FAIL" 13 Print "Surface FAIL" 14 Print "Hotmail FAIL" 15 Print "Windows Vista FAIL" 16 Print "Windows 8 FAIL" 17 Print "Windows Phone FAIL" 18 Print "Games for Windows LIVE FAIL" 19 Print "Internet Exploder FAIL" It really is amazing he lasted this long..... |
| hkwint Aug 23, 2013 6:04 PM EDT |
Montezuma: Perfect point of while you should not code BASIC with 10 20 30 etc but 100 200. I mean, where can we insert XBox One Fail? Silverligth fail? KIN fail? Windows HPC fail? Windows Marketplace fail? Usually, with so many failures you can only keep your job in our government, and being promoted 5 times because people want to get rid of you. |
| seatex Aug 23, 2013 6:08 PM EDT |
I think the new CEO will have to change the name of the company. The whole Microsoft brand is so damaged now. |
| BernardSwiss Aug 23, 2013 6:09 PM EDT |
I think you guys have it all wrong. Windows was an awful operating system, sold under an awful EULA and licensing (which got ever more expensive, and confusing and ever more onerous over the years), and an awful degree of blatantly contrived, expanding lock-in. Yet the people who ran Microsoft managed to sell Windows to the general public and IT pros alike as the default, industry standard desktop OS and nearly did the same in the server market (and we know lots of IT folk who do in fact consider Windows the default, standard-setting, even trend-setting, rightful mainstay of the corporate server and network infrastructure, as well). That this couldn't be maintained indefinitely was a forgone conclusion, and every attempt by MS to broaden its portfolio into other spheres failed, in part from the need or commitment to maintain the dominant, effective monopoly status of its two main products (MS Windows, and MS Office), in part from the mindset engendered by that commitment. Opportunities were either muffed, or missed entirely. Bill Gates got out while he could still claim his success was due to extraordinary technological vision and managerial savvy. Ballmer was left to manage a rear-guard action, but the job was impossible without acknowledging (seriously acknowledging) the company's ingrained institutional problems and taking the company down a new and risky path. Which would require actual vision and actual extraordinary skills -- and the power, backed by major stockholders, to actually take the necessary risks. Which Ballmer never had, and couldn't use (wouldn't be allowed to use) if he did. So even now, even though everybody is complaining about the Microsoft's performance, and hence Ballmer's performance, the complaints tend to be along the lines that while profits have doubled under Ballmer's tenure as CEO, stock prices have remained flat. "Lack of vision" is really just code for "lack of exciting new profit streams". Ballmer essentially did what people (ie. investors) really wanted -- they're just upset that the stock prices haven't continued to rise "just because" like they did in the glory-days.. I would be surprised if Ballmer's successor is much different. He might look different, but actually doing things different, without alienating investors, and employees, and maybe even customers to the point that the new "great leader" isn't tossed, will be quite a trick to pull off -- even if all concerned understand enough to really want "fundamentally different", rather than just "looks different enough to keep the stock climbing". |
| BernardSwiss Aug 23, 2013 6:28 PM EDT |
In other words (tl;dr): the problem isn't really Ballmer. He's taking the blame (profits have only doubled, and the stock is flat) for keeping the priorities that the investors really want. Microsoft has always relied on having a privileged or effective monopoly position, and they're not willing to risk letting go of that. If they get do someone that really commits to the kind of changes they say they want, they'll probably dump that "reckless gambler". |
| JaseP Aug 23, 2013 9:52 PM EDT |
@ BernardSwiss: Hate to disagree, but I must... MS had 20 years to reinvent themselves after learning that an emerging new OS that was FREE was looming on the horizon... They failed to reinvent themselves after THAT much time even after the Linux community made mis-steps in increasing acceptance by the general populace. PLUS, they had to realize that Moore's Law would not bode well for their profit margin... When yester-year's computer is twice as powerful today, and cost half as much... year after year,... What kind of profit margin can a software company expect to keep up??? Nope... MS had familial relations with the canine... |
| BernardSwiss Aug 23, 2013 9:55 PM EDT |
@ JaseP Ummm... where are we disagreeing? |
| djohnston Aug 24, 2013 12:37 AM EDT |
Wow, Bernard. Nice dissertation(s). Both of 'em. |
| notbob Aug 24, 2013 6:09 AM EDT |
> XBox One Fail? Silverligth fail? I'm not sure how you figure they failed. Silverlight is still the primary protocol for Netflix and Netflix surely is NOT failing. As for the Xbox, I'm no gamer, but my daughter's 2nd gen Xbox is still chugging away doing rigorous duty as a home video/audio player. As a DVD player, it has no equal and from what I understand, it was easily hackable to run Linux. Even as a gaming platform, it's still a popular system, despite all the later attempts to lock it down. Now, montezuma's list is pretty accurate, all except for the hotmail, which was successful in its day. Krikey, I think even I had a hotmail acct for a short while. Plus, they successfully migrated it off the BSD servers over to M$ servers, after a laughably long delay. ;) |
| montezuma Aug 24, 2013 11:36 AM EDT |
notbob, But no one has a hotmail account anymore (closed) and most folks I know did not transition to the MS replacement. They have gmail or yahoo. |
| JaseP Aug 24, 2013 12:15 PM EDT |
@ BernardSwiss: Where do we disagree??? The problem WAS CERTAINLY Ballmer... He had the reigns and failed to steer MS through to a new era despite having ALL the resources to do so... The blame is squarely on his shoulders. |
| BernardSwiss Aug 24, 2013 8:44 PM EDT |
@ JaseP OK, Ballmer was probably not a great choice to lead the company. I'm just not sure a "right" choice would have had significantly better luck in making the kinds of changes that MS really needs for long term relevance and prosperity. |
| jdixon Aug 24, 2013 9:13 PM EDT |
> I'm just not sure a "right" choice would have had significantly better luck in making the kinds of changes that MS really needs for long term relevance and prosperity. The real problem Microsoft is having is that they want to be three or more companies in one. The can't let go of their bed and butter OS/Office division that makes them 90% of their money, but keeping it locks them into the slowly withering PC market. They want to move into mobile platforms, into games, and into servers/services/the cloud, but they refuse to do so without forcing their legacy Windows OS into those markets, for which it is demonstrably not suited. The effort to do so has even done extreme damage to the Windows OS brand by trying to force Windows 8, which might be an adequate mobile OS, on legacy desktop users. The best thing Microsoft could probably do is pull a GM and separate their various divisions into essentially separate companies all under the Microsoft umbrella. Let them each go their own way and even leave Windows behind (save for the legacy OS/Office company, of course) if they felt that was necessary to serve their market. |
| montezuma Aug 25, 2013 9:56 AM EDT |
@jdixon Interesting analysis which hits the nail on the head. They are burdened by an inferior OS. This happened to Apple in the 90s in some sense too and Jobs response was to effectively purloin BSD and add a fancy Jobs inspired desktop (to simplify). Technically Linux might have been a better choice because it has a much bigger development community and seems to have matured on much hardware more rapidly than BSD. When you think of natural fits for companies I think of Red Hat and MS. The former has the server market locked up with a superior OS while the latter has (well at least had until Ballmer blew it) the desktop locked up. If the two combined and used Linux as their engine it might make for a viable competitor for Google and Apple. Probably won't happen but I think unless MS does something radical they will fold in 5 years or so. |
| Fettoosh Aug 25, 2013 11:01 AM EDT |
You guys are giving too much credit to Ballmer for taking MS on the way down while Linux deserves most of the credit. Mobile is sending MS to its demise by Linux empowering many new OEMs to venture into Mobile and other markets. MS has no chance in recovering even if it adopts BSD or Linux for their Mobile platform. |
| notbob Aug 25, 2013 8:05 PM EDT |
> no one has a hotmail account anymore (closed)..... No one buys an Amiga or Commondore64, anymore. That doesn't mean they were failures or poor products when they did exist. ;) |
| JaseP Aug 25, 2013 9:23 PM EDT |
Amigas still have a cult following... Just sayin'... |
| djohnston Aug 25, 2013 9:24 PM EDT |
Quoting:No one buys an Amiga or Commondore64, anymore. I believe that should read "almost no one". It was about 4 years ago that I bought my first A4000, used, from an eBay seller. Matter of fact, I bought two. During Amiga's heyday, the 4000 was out of my price range. |
| JaseP Aug 25, 2013 9:28 PM EDT |
Word... |
| JaseP Aug 25, 2013 9:29 PM EDT |
I mean,... WRITER!!! |
| Bob_Robertson Aug 26, 2013 9:02 AM EDT |
If I may, profits measured in Federal Reserve Notes "doubled", but the FRN has lost substantial value. So profits have not, actually, doubled, any more than there's three times as much "value" in a gallon of gasoline merely because it's price has tripled. |
| gus3 Aug 26, 2013 11:15 AM EDT |
The most expensive thing in the typical US household, in terms of price per unit volume, is the inkjet cartridge. More expensive even than single-malt scotch. |
| JaseP Aug 26, 2013 12:38 PM EDT |
Wrong, gus3,... The most expensive thing in the typical US household is a copy of a divorce decree... |
| Bob_Robertson Aug 26, 2013 1:06 PM EDT |
Jase, True, for those costs that cannot be stated in terms of monetary price. |
| JaseP Aug 26, 2013 1:30 PM EDT |
Some of them most certainly can... |
| CFWhitman Aug 26, 2013 1:42 PM EDT |
notbob wrote:I'm not sure how you figure they failed. Silverlight is still the primary protocol for Netflix and Netflix surely is NOT failing. As for the Xbox, I'm no gamer, but my daughter's 2nd gen Xbox is still chugging away doing rigorous duty as a home video/audio player. As a DVD player, it has no equal and from what I understand, it was easily hackable to run Linux. Even as a gaming platform, it's still a popular system, despite all the later attempts to lock it down. Well, Silverlight is a definite failure for two reasons. One reason that Silverlight is a failure is that it was not developed to become the way for a few streaming services to use DRM, even if one of them is rather large. It was supposed to replace Flash, or at least compete greatly with it. It is clearly never going to do that. The second reason is that Microsoft is phasing out Silverlight, and Netflix is looking for another way to handle Netflix streaming on Windows and OS X. If Netflix's use of Silverlight were enough for Microsoft to consider it a success, they wouldn't be phasing it out. As to the XBox, hkwint did not say XBox, but specifically XBox One. Perhaps that isn't what he meant to say since it's way too early to call that a failure considering it hasn't been released yet. I don't really expect that to be a failure. The first XBox was a slow starter, but had enough success to get Microsoft going in the video game console market. |
| jdixon Aug 26, 2013 2:40 PM EDT |
> The most expensive thing in the typical US household is a copy of a divorce decree... I may be lucky or not, in that regard. My wife is rather old fashioned that way. There was an old Readers Digest story where a daughter asked her mother if she had ever considered divorcing her father. From memory, the reply went something like: "Divorce? Oh, no. Murder, yes, but never divorce. I have every reason to think she agrees with that sentiment. :) |
| JaseP Aug 26, 2013 2:51 PM EDT |
If you are ever found dead,... She goes to the top of the suspect list... LOL... |
| jdixon Aug 26, 2013 8:38 PM EDT |
> She goes to the top of the suspect list... LOL... That's usually the case anyway, in my experience. |
| JaseP Aug 26, 2013 10:59 PM EDT |
In your experience??? How many of your wives have tried to kill you, exactly?!?! |
| jdixon Aug 27, 2013 8:33 AM EDT |
> In your experience??? How many of your wives have tried to kill you, exactly?!?! None. But I've seen a lot of investigations from the sidelines over the years. |
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