5 ms·

People usually don't get credit for what didn't happen, but in the case of CEOs, they deserve it. There are so many choices that could've been made, and would'v

People usually don't get credit for what didn't happen, but in the case of CEOs, they deserve it. There are so many choices that could've been made, and would've been made by a worse exec, that would've destroyed MS. It takes effort to maintain the status quo in a competitive world. Microsoft might not have been as hip as Apple or Google, but they became and remained the most significant software company in the world for decades. They're still the number one desktop OS by a huge margin. Compare Steve Ballmer to Carly Fiorina, Jonathan Schwartz or Stephen Elop and tell me he wasn't a good CEO. I also think Ballmer deserves credit for .NET. "Developers developers developers" has been MS's saving grace as OS X emerged, and Nadella is essentially banking the company on .NET-as-a-platform via Azure. It's entirely possible that we'd all be using Solaris on SPARC workstations by now if .NET hadn't existed.

chimeracoder 11y ago
Ballmer also served during the toughest time in Microsoft's history. He took the reigns right before the final ruling in a massive antitrust lawsuit that literally almost broke the company apart[0]. The DOJ continued to have oversight over Microsoft until 2012[1]. I'm sure Microsoft would have loved to make much bolder decisions during that decade (particularly when it comes to hardware), but they were hardly in a position to do so legally[2]. A lot of the good things Microsoft has (deservedly) received praise for recently under Nadella were started under Ballmer's tenure. Yes, he is not personally responsible for everything that goes on at the company, but it's important to keep that in mind. [0] While the decision was reversed on appeal, Microsoft was literally ordered by the courts to split itself into separate companies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp.#Judgment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor... [1] http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2011/04/department-of-justices-long-oversight-of-microsoft-to-end/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2011/04/depart... [2] Incidentally, the Surface, which now appears to be Microsoft's attempt to clean up the wild west that OEMs have created, was announced right at the end of the DOJ's oversight. I cannot believe that this is a coincidence.
- vezycash 11y ago
  Your comment and the parent comment hits close to home. The anti trust investigation killed Microsoft's mojo. They never under estimated any one in the past. They were paranoid and always responded to "potential threats" with crappy solution but they responded nonetheless. In my opinion, Google and the iPhone owe their dominance to time granted them by the anti trust suit. The same tactics that got Microsoft in trouble is being used my Google and Apple today. Google services is bundled in Android. There is no alternative browser in chrome OS by design. The default browser can't be changed in IOS(not sure if that's still the case). It's difficult to take risks when everything you do is under a microscope.
  - striking 11y ago
    You can install Firefox on Android, and it has proper integration. But the rest of Google Play Services, yeah I see your point.
    - chimeracoder 11y ago
      > You can install Firefox on Android, and it has proper integration. You can (and I do, because it's the only way to block ads without root on Android). But that was literally the same claim that was made against Microsoft - while you could install alternative browsers, you couldn't really uninstall IE. And as parts of IE were factored into separate components for reuse by other applications, the concern was that IE was being turned into part of the operating system. (The difference is that Android's market share, while still dominant, is still not as high as Windows's was back in the 90s[0]. Ditto for iOS, which has a minority market share. But in terms of the software vs. OS components, it's almost exactly the same.) [0] or even as high as the Windows marketshare is today, for that matter.
      - TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
        It's not the same claim. The claim against Microsoft was that browser and OS dominance had killed competition ("cutting off the oxygen supply" of other browser makers) and was literally distorting the industry. Browser dominance on its own was not the problem. The problem was that Microsoft's strategy was deliberately anti-competitive and monopolistic, and the browser was one symptom of that - not just because it gave MS massive market share, but because it created a technological chokepoint which limited the commercial potential of everyone working in the PC and Internet industries. Remember, MS spent a lot of time and money promoting site/browser technologies like ActiveX that only really worked on Windows PCs, and seem to have been an attempt to look out everyone else. It's hard to argue that iOS or Android are anywhere close to doing the same. Both may be walled gardens, and both have toxic effects. But they're not de facto standards setters, and they can't use their influence to kill competing products at equivalent scale. (They can and have killed or assimilated smaller products - but that's plain unethical behaviour, not clear evidence of monopoly. Taking steps to crush Twitter, WhatsApp, or Facebook would probably count as monopolistic. Killing SmallAppCo is just shady; sad, but true.) If it was found that Apple and Google were colluding, that would be a serious problem - just as both had problems when it was proved they'd made secret agreements about employee mobility and salary negotiations.
rconti 11y ago
I was with you up until "It's entirely possible that we'd all be using Solaris on SPARC workstations by now if .NET hadn't existed." I admit I don't follow the Windows world very closely, and I'm no developer, but Wikipedia says .NET got started in 2002, by which time Solaris was already on its way out. I'm not sure what you see in .NET that you think killed Solaris/SPARC, or where you see the overlap (where a lack of .NET could have presented an opportunity for Solaris), but from my point of view Solaris was an also-ran by 2002, even though I continued to administer it until after the Oracle acquisition.
- cookiecaper 11y ago
  Without .NET, Java would've been the undisputed champ of enterprise programming, meaning Sun would've had a lot more clout than they did, and the need for metal that "runs Java better" (as SPARC/Solaris would've been sold) might've been much more influential. Once .NET came out, a lot of companies used that instead of Java since they were already familiar with Windows and the x86 hardware that ran Windows was much cheaper than SPARC hardware that ran Solaris. All this massively diminished Sun and Java's influence in enterprise systems, and caused the sales of expensive specialized hardware like SPARC to plunge.

chimeracoder 11y ago

Ballmer also served during the toughest time in Microsoft's history. He took the reigns right before the final ruling in a massive antitrust lawsuit that literally almost broke the company apart[0]. The DOJ continued to have oversight over Microsoft until 2012[1]. I'm sure Microsoft would have loved to make much bolder decisions during that decade (particularly when it comes to hardware), but they were hardly in a position to do so legally[2]. A lot of the good things Microsoft has (deservedly) received praise for recently under Nadella were started under Ballmer's tenure. Yes, he is not personally responsible for everything that goes on at the company, but it's important to keep that in mind. [0] While the decision was reversed on appeal, Microsoft was literally ordered by the courts to split itself into separate companies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp.#Judgment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor... [1] http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2011/04/department-of-justices-long-oversight-of-microsoft-to-end/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2011/04/depart... [2] Incidentally, the Surface, which now appears to be Microsoft's attempt to clean up the wild west that OEMs have created, was announced right at the end of the DOJ's oversight. I cannot believe that this is a coincidence.

vezycash 11y ago
Your comment and the parent comment hits close to home. The anti trust investigation killed Microsoft's mojo. They never under estimated any one in the past. They were paranoid and always responded to "potential threats" with crappy solution but they responded nonetheless. In my opinion, Google and the iPhone owe their dominance to time granted them by the anti trust suit. The same tactics that got Microsoft in trouble is being used my Google and Apple today. Google services is bundled in Android. There is no alternative browser in chrome OS by design. The default browser can't be changed in IOS(not sure if that's still the case). It's difficult to take risks when everything you do is under a microscope.
- striking 11y ago
  You can install Firefox on Android, and it has proper integration. But the rest of Google Play Services, yeah I see your point.
  - chimeracoder 11y ago
    > You can install Firefox on Android, and it has proper integration. You can (and I do, because it's the only way to block ads without root on Android). But that was literally the same claim that was made against Microsoft - while you could install alternative browsers, you couldn't really uninstall IE. And as parts of IE were factored into separate components for reuse by other applications, the concern was that IE was being turned into part of the operating system. (The difference is that Android's market share, while still dominant, is still not as high as Windows's was back in the 90s[0]. Ditto for iOS, which has a minority market share. But in terms of the software vs. OS components, it's almost exactly the same.) [0] or even as high as the Windows marketshare is today, for that matter.
    - TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
      It's not the same claim. The claim against Microsoft was that browser and OS dominance had killed competition ("cutting off the oxygen supply" of other browser makers) and was literally distorting the industry. Browser dominance on its own was not the problem. The problem was that Microsoft's strategy was deliberately anti-competitive and monopolistic, and the browser was one symptom of that - not just because it gave MS massive market share, but because it created a technological chokepoint which limited the commercial potential of everyone working in the PC and Internet industries. Remember, MS spent a lot of time and money promoting site/browser technologies like ActiveX that only really worked on Windows PCs, and seem to have been an attempt to look out everyone else. It's hard to argue that iOS or Android are anywhere close to doing the same. Both may be walled gardens, and both have toxic effects. But they're not de facto standards setters, and they can't use their influence to kill competing products at equivalent scale. (They can and have killed or assimilated smaller products - but that's plain unethical behaviour, not clear evidence of monopoly. Taking steps to crush Twitter, WhatsApp, or Facebook would probably count as monopolistic. Killing SmallAppCo is just shady; sad, but true.) If it was found that Apple and Google were colluding, that would be a serious problem - just as both had problems when it was proved they'd made secret agreements about employee mobility and salary negotiations.

rconti 11y ago

I was with you up until "It's entirely possible that we'd all be using Solaris on SPARC workstations by now if .NET hadn't existed." I admit I don't follow the Windows world very closely, and I'm no developer, but Wikipedia says .NET got started in 2002, by which time Solaris was already on its way out. I'm not sure what you see in .NET that you think killed Solaris/SPARC, or where you see the overlap (where a lack of .NET could have presented an opportunity for Solaris), but from my point of view Solaris was an also-ran by 2002, even though I continued to administer it until after the Oracle acquisition.

cookiecaper 11y ago
Without .NET, Java would've been the undisputed champ of enterprise programming, meaning Sun would've had a lot more clout than they did, and the need for metal that "runs Java better" (as SPARC/Solaris would've been sold) might've been much more influential. Once .NET came out, a lot of companies used that instead of Java since they were already familiar with Windows and the x86 hardware that ran Windows was much cheaper than SPARC hardware that ran Solaris. All this massively diminished Sun and Java's influence in enterprise systems, and caused the sales of expensive specialized hardware like SPARC to plunge.