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I've come to a conclusion that Cook's reign at Apple will probably mirror Ballmer's reign at Microsoft. Both are biz guys who inherited companies from technolog

by Jerry2 10y ago

I've come to a conclusion that Cook's reign at Apple will probably mirror Ballmer's reign at Microsoft. Both are biz guys who inherited companies from technology visionaries with massive revenue streams and yet they both lacked vision and tech expertise to create successful new products. Ballmer tried it numerous times and Cook has tried it with Watch, Music and so on. Neither of them have succeeded. Apple's now become a "me too" company as they keep on releasing products that other companies have released already. Apparently, Apple is now working on their Amazon Echo and Google Home clone. They'll be third to market once it's out. In 2014, when Apple bought an urban fashion brand that sells overpriced headphones, Google bought Deepmind for 1/6 of the price. That said it all about where both companies were headed. Steve Jobs is famous for quoting Gretzky's line about "skating where the puck is headed and not where it is" and it seems that Google's skating where the puck is going while Apple's skating backwards. Apple's headed for a decade of stagnation... just like Microsoft was under Ballmer. My only question is: how long before Apple gets its own Nadella and who will be their savior? I don't see anyone in their executive ranks who's as good as Nadella.

argonaut 10y ago
DeepMind is probably losing Google tens of millions a year. Now, it may pay off financially in the future, but it's hard to disentagle its effects given that Google already had a deep learning research group, Google Brain.
- niketdesai 10y ago
  I think having multiple approaches was the key here. Worse case scenario these teams converge, but the true best case scenario is discovery of different methods to solve Google's ambitions. In some ways, the depth of the search team needs to be replicated by their AI-research groups. As you stated, what is unclear is if the investments will be obviously lucrative (as search has been).
partiallypro 10y ago
It happens with all big companies. I don't think Cook is a bad CEO, he's just not a -great- CEO. He also had the unlucky chance to step into Steve Jobs' shoes, and also came in so late in the cycle that much of the market is already saturated. Similar happened to Balmer, he came in after the boom was over. But tried to push into new markets (and failed.) I don't honestly think Balmer was a bad CEO, he was just very bad at pushing into new markets...and they already had the FTC on their backs, so their strangle hold on the existing market was diminished. Doing walled gardens like Apple and Google did would draw FTC ire, so they couldn't really do it. In the end, Apple doesn't have the FTC on its back, basically controls the supply chain. They'll be fine, but they are in a saturated market and their explosive growth is over. Investors are much more interested in explosive growth in tech than slow steady cash flow. I'm more concerned about the Google model than the Apple model. Apple's margins will probably fall, but I think the Google PPC cashcow is soon going to hit a wall as millennials become the majority and their adblockers and immunity to online advertising drives down conversions.
- scholia 10y ago
  > Similar happened to Balmer, he came in after the boom was over. Steve Ballmer joined Microsoft on June 11, 1980, before DOS on the IBM PC transformed the company. He was a big part of its success all the way through..... > But tried to push into new markets (and failed.) When he became CEO the company was under close US judicial supervision (which lasted more than a decade), under attack from the EU, and paying out $billions in fines. So he started with a mess and operated with one hand tied behind his back, but he still managed to triple turnover and double profits. Ballmer had some spectacular failures on the new product front, but when he handed over to Nadella, Azure was already a success, Microsoft had an online Office suite better than Google's, and it was already moving into Android and iOS apps (of which there are now dozens). Not the best CEO of all time, but he could have done a lot worse. He certainly beat the forecasts of the Linux/OpenOffice fans of the day, who reckoned the company would be out of business by 2007 ;-)
  - partiallypro 10y ago
    I think your and my post basically say the same thing, yours is just more detailed.
    - scholia 10y ago
      Yes, I agree completely....
dfischer 10y ago
Definitely agree that Google is positioning themselves to take the next decade or two.
zach 10y ago
The systematizer who takes up leadership from the visionary is an ancient pattern. The systematizer may lack inspirational genius but makes up for it with analytical and organizational genius. They can turn a phenomenon into a movement, or a movement into a world power. You see this a lot with religions and philosophies — if you have n systematizers who take up the leadership from the prophet, you probably end up with n religions (including n = 0).
nilkn 10y ago
> Neither of them have succeeded. What's the basis for this claim? Didn't Spotify just have to lower its family plan prices to compete?
mathattack 10y ago
One big difference - Microsoft's stock price languished under Ballmer, while Apple's is doing fine under Cook. (I haven't compared versus the market, but I suspect that it will still hold) Cook's legacy will be if Apple pulls off the bet on autonomous cars. Auto manufacturing is very much a logistics challenge, which plays to his strengths. It's too early to write him off.
- metaphorm 10y ago
  has Apple done anything whatever in the self-driving car domain? I've seen literally nothing about it from them and I've been paying attention. I don't mean rumor mill stuff or "open secrets". Have they announced any products? Have they discussed any actual projects?
  - swombat 10y ago
    They have not. It's not Apple's style to make announcements about products they're not sure they'll release, and they won't release an Apple car unless they believe they can do it better than anyone else. I think it is a strength of their brand that it is plausible that even after investing $10b+ in autonomous car research they may well decide to scrap the project if they think it's not right.
  - munificent 10y ago
    I think the main data point known so far is that they've hired a bunch of people with automotive or autonomous driving expertise.
- PeCaN 10y ago
  Microsoft's net income increased dramatically under Ballmer¹ however. Dude made money. Apple's stock has stagnated lately, though that may very well be temporary. I think people discredit how smart Ballmer actually was, given how badly Microsoft did technology-wise in that period. Ballmer was as logistically talented as Cook is, IMO. I agree with you on cars though. Apple could strike gold on that one, and Cook may be the person to do it. ¹ http://www.statista.com/statistics/267808/net-income-of-microsoft-since-2002/ http://www.statista.com/statistics/267808/net-income-of-micr...
snowwrestler 10y ago
Apple Watch and Music have barely been out for a year; it's a bit early to say they haven't succeeded. Likewise, it's a bit early to high-five Google on the Deepmind aquisition. The Go achievement is great, but how will it help Google's business? IBM holds the previous big AI-beat-human trophies (Deep Blue and Watson) and neither has done much to help their bottom line. And of course Microsoft Research did a bunch of interesting work under Ballmer. Also, what successful new products has Nadella personally delivered with his "vision and tech expertise"? The biggest thing he has done for Microsoft is help them get over the loss of the Windows monopoly. He's like Obama in 2009--he gets a lot of credit for just showing up and saying "I'm the new guy, we screwed up, and we're going to do better now."
- mrep 10y ago
  Have you used apple music? If you'd like to see how you shouldn't design your UX, then try it out. It's by far the worst design I have ever used.
  - pohl 10y ago
    It's terrible, I agree. They could easily fix this problem in iOS 10, though. If they don't, I'll be worried.
  - optimuspaul 10y ago
    I use it and I love it. I often find myself following down new and interesting rabbit holes discovering and rediscovering music. Could it be better? Probably. It is clear that it is geared towards the top 40 listener on one end and the explorer willing to click around to discover things on the other, but not much in the middle.
    - gonzo41 10y ago
      You can do this with youtube way better and the barrier for entry is lower. For artist and consumers. A greater observation about apple. From the outside it interesting to see it transition from a company that did computers differently to more of a luxury good brand. A bit sad really. Apple used to lead with expert implementation of innovation. Now its just meh. Microsoft is really leading the pack with its outreach to the tech world of tomorrow with so much of its stack opensourced. Apple just seems to be making the black box even more inaccesible
Steko 10y ago
I think you've oversold the similarities between Jobs and Gates and undersold the fact that Tim Cook is doing basically the same job at Apple that he did during most of 2004-2011 when a number of hit products were developed and launched. I also think you're underselling the Watch et al and forgetting about lots of underwhelming products that Jobs introduced. Is Apple Music a failure compared to Ping or MobileMe ... or only compared to Spotify a company that had dominated the category for 5 years? What % of the smartphone market did the smash hit iphone have 1 year in again? 2 years? 3 years?
- wwweston 10y ago
  >undersold the fact that Tim Cook is doing basically the same job at Apple that he did during most of 2004-2011 when a number of hit products were developed and launched. Oh, no question Tim Cook is doing the same job: operations, supply chain. And being good at that is nothing to sneeze at. But it doesn't look like that job was "visionary," R&D, or product development. The question is: who's doing that at Apple now?
  - optimuspaul 10y ago
    Jonny Ive?
    - jacobsenscott 10y ago
      He innovates at pretension for sure, but that's not what apple needs.
    - Jerry2 10y ago
      Jony Ive is not at Apple day-to-day anymore. I've heard from people who work there that they don't see his car in the lot anymore. There are other rumors that Jony now spends most of his time in London. He's still listed on Apple's exec page but I have no idea what he does anymore.
  - Steko 10y ago
    {apologies for slow reply, just saw this} I think the answer is more complicated than "Jony does what Steve used to do". I think the answer Apple wants to be true is that "what Steve did" was always way more than "just Steve doing stuff" and a lot of it was and is baked into the culture and institution (of Apple) itself. How accurate that is I can't say but there are a lot of companies I would bet against before Apple.
abritinthebay 10y ago
> I've come to a conclusion that Cook's reign at Apple will probably mirror Ballmer's reign at Microsoft. Doubtful. Cook seems well aware of his limitations in vision and abilities. You see a microcosm of this at the Keynotes: he wisely hands off to other experts as soon as possible. You also see this in his handling of senior roles in Apple. He's not the visionary Steve was but he hires to keep the vision active in the culture by finding domain experts. This is true in retail, in industrial design, in chip design... He's nothing like Balmer in how he actually handles the company and it's staff, and that's why I think you'll be surprised. I mean, the "me too" thing is symptomatic of this line of thinking: Apple has always followed on; it's what they are best at. They see a market, see how it works, then take what works and distill it down to a product that is narrower in scope but "just works" for the general market. First to market isn't a big deal, it never has been, it's getting the product right that's important. Apple is very good at that.
paulcole 10y ago
Is 13 million paying subscribers for Music really a failure?
hinkley 10y ago
I have some of the same concerns you do, but remember that the common complaint about Apple is that they "Don't come up with anything original, they just copy everybody else." Their MO is that they bake other people's half-baked product ideas, and then make a killing on them while naysayers sit around scratching their heads trying to figure out why everybody else is acting crazy. Whether Cook and Ive can do that I think remains to be seen. But just because they're producing a 'Me Too' product doesn't mean the party is over. For me, I'll have my answer when version 3 of the apple watch comes out. If it's a flop, we're in big trouble. If it sells like crazy, then I'll know they still have it, or at least some of it. If in the meantime they manage to pull off haptic touch screen interfaces or a curved phone, then I'll have my answer early.
- lloyddobbler 10y ago
  Agreed. A good example - the iPod and iPhone were both "Me, too" products. Apple just engineered, designed, produced, and delivered exponentially better versions of products everyone else was trying to build at the time.
d0lph 10y ago
Have they ever been anything other than a "me too" company. They really haven't invented anything (see this video by Tek Syndicate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFeC25BM9E0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFeC25BM9E0).

by Jerry2 10y ago

argonaut 10y ago

DeepMind is probably losing Google tens of millions a year. Now, it may pay off financially in the future, but it's hard to disentagle its effects given that Google already had a deep learning research group, Google Brain.

niketdesai 10y ago
I think having multiple approaches was the key here. Worse case scenario these teams converge, but the true best case scenario is discovery of different methods to solve Google's ambitions. In some ways, the depth of the search team needs to be replicated by their AI-research groups. As you stated, what is unclear is if the investments will be obviously lucrative (as search has been).

partiallypro 10y ago

It happens with all big companies. I don't think Cook is a bad CEO, he's just not a -great- CEO. He also had the unlucky chance to step into Steve Jobs' shoes, and also came in so late in the cycle that much of the market is already saturated. Similar happened to Balmer, he came in after the boom was over. But tried to push into new markets (and failed.) I don't honestly think Balmer was a bad CEO, he was just very bad at pushing into new markets...and they already had the FTC on their backs, so their strangle hold on the existing market was diminished. Doing walled gardens like Apple and Google did would draw FTC ire, so they couldn't really do it. In the end, Apple doesn't have the FTC on its back, basically controls the supply chain. They'll be fine, but they are in a saturated market and their explosive growth is over. Investors are much more interested in explosive growth in tech than slow steady cash flow. I'm more concerned about the Google model than the Apple model. Apple's margins will probably fall, but I think the Google PPC cashcow is soon going to hit a wall as millennials become the majority and their adblockers and immunity to online advertising drives down conversions.

scholia 10y ago
> Similar happened to Balmer, he came in after the boom was over. Steve Ballmer joined Microsoft on June 11, 1980, before DOS on the IBM PC transformed the company. He was a big part of its success all the way through..... > But tried to push into new markets (and failed.) When he became CEO the company was under close US judicial supervision (which lasted more than a decade), under attack from the EU, and paying out $billions in fines. So he started with a mess and operated with one hand tied behind his back, but he still managed to triple turnover and double profits. Ballmer had some spectacular failures on the new product front, but when he handed over to Nadella, Azure was already a success, Microsoft had an online Office suite better than Google's, and it was already moving into Android and iOS apps (of which there are now dozens). Not the best CEO of all time, but he could have done a lot worse. He certainly beat the forecasts of the Linux/OpenOffice fans of the day, who reckoned the company would be out of business by 2007 ;-)
- partiallypro 10y ago
  I think your and my post basically say the same thing, yours is just more detailed.
  - scholia 10y ago
    Yes, I agree completely....

dfischer 10y ago

Definitely agree that Google is positioning themselves to take the next decade or two.

zach 10y ago

The systematizer who takes up leadership from the visionary is an ancient pattern. The systematizer may lack inspirational genius but makes up for it with analytical and organizational genius. They can turn a phenomenon into a movement, or a movement into a world power. You see this a lot with religions and philosophies — if you have n systematizers who take up the leadership from the prophet, you probably end up with n religions (including n = 0).

nilkn 10y ago

> Neither of them have succeeded. What's the basis for this claim? Didn't Spotify just have to lower its family plan prices to compete?

mathattack 10y ago

One big difference - Microsoft's stock price languished under Ballmer, while Apple's is doing fine under Cook. (I haven't compared versus the market, but I suspect that it will still hold) Cook's legacy will be if Apple pulls off the bet on autonomous cars. Auto manufacturing is very much a logistics challenge, which plays to his strengths. It's too early to write him off.

metaphorm 10y ago
has Apple done anything whatever in the self-driving car domain? I've seen literally nothing about it from them and I've been paying attention. I don't mean rumor mill stuff or "open secrets". Have they announced any products? Have they discussed any actual projects?
- swombat 10y ago
  They have not. It's not Apple's style to make announcements about products they're not sure they'll release, and they won't release an Apple car unless they believe they can do it better than anyone else. I think it is a strength of their brand that it is plausible that even after investing $10b+ in autonomous car research they may well decide to scrap the project if they think it's not right.
- munificent 10y ago
  I think the main data point known so far is that they've hired a bunch of people with automotive or autonomous driving expertise.
PeCaN 10y ago
Microsoft's net income increased dramatically under Ballmer¹ however. Dude made money. Apple's stock has stagnated lately, though that may very well be temporary. I think people discredit how smart Ballmer actually was, given how badly Microsoft did technology-wise in that period. Ballmer was as logistically talented as Cook is, IMO. I agree with you on cars though. Apple could strike gold on that one, and Cook may be the person to do it. ¹ http://www.statista.com/statistics/267808/net-income-of-microsoft-since-2002/ http://www.statista.com/statistics/267808/net-income-of-micr...

snowwrestler 10y ago

Apple Watch and Music have barely been out for a year; it's a bit early to say they haven't succeeded. Likewise, it's a bit early to high-five Google on the Deepmind aquisition. The Go achievement is great, but how will it help Google's business? IBM holds the previous big AI-beat-human trophies (Deep Blue and Watson) and neither has done much to help their bottom line. And of course Microsoft Research did a bunch of interesting work under Ballmer. Also, what successful new products has Nadella personally delivered with his "vision and tech expertise"? The biggest thing he has done for Microsoft is help them get over the loss of the Windows monopoly. He's like Obama in 2009--he gets a lot of credit for just showing up and saying "I'm the new guy, we screwed up, and we're going to do better now."

mrep 10y ago
Have you used apple music? If you'd like to see how you shouldn't design your UX, then try it out. It's by far the worst design I have ever used.
- pohl 10y ago
  It's terrible, I agree. They could easily fix this problem in iOS 10, though. If they don't, I'll be worried.
- optimuspaul 10y ago
  I use it and I love it. I often find myself following down new and interesting rabbit holes discovering and rediscovering music. Could it be better? Probably. It is clear that it is geared towards the top 40 listener on one end and the explorer willing to click around to discover things on the other, but not much in the middle.
  - gonzo41 10y ago
    You can do this with youtube way better and the barrier for entry is lower. For artist and consumers. A greater observation about apple. From the outside it interesting to see it transition from a company that did computers differently to more of a luxury good brand. A bit sad really. Apple used to lead with expert implementation of innovation. Now its just meh. Microsoft is really leading the pack with its outreach to the tech world of tomorrow with so much of its stack opensourced. Apple just seems to be making the black box even more inaccesible

Steko 10y ago

I think you've oversold the similarities between Jobs and Gates and undersold the fact that Tim Cook is doing basically the same job at Apple that he did during most of 2004-2011 when a number of hit products were developed and launched. I also think you're underselling the Watch et al and forgetting about lots of underwhelming products that Jobs introduced. Is Apple Music a failure compared to Ping or MobileMe ... or only compared to Spotify a company that had dominated the category for 5 years? What % of the smartphone market did the smash hit iphone have 1 year in again? 2 years? 3 years?

wwweston 10y ago
>undersold the fact that Tim Cook is doing basically the same job at Apple that he did during most of 2004-2011 when a number of hit products were developed and launched. Oh, no question Tim Cook is doing the same job: operations, supply chain. And being good at that is nothing to sneeze at. But it doesn't look like that job was "visionary," R&D, or product development. The question is: who's doing that at Apple now?
- optimuspaul 10y ago
  Jonny Ive?
  - jacobsenscott 10y ago
    He innovates at pretension for sure, but that's not what apple needs.
  - Jerry2 10y ago
    Jony Ive is not at Apple day-to-day anymore. I've heard from people who work there that they don't see his car in the lot anymore. There are other rumors that Jony now spends most of his time in London. He's still listed on Apple's exec page but I have no idea what he does anymore.
- Steko 10y ago
  {apologies for slow reply, just saw this} I think the answer is more complicated than "Jony does what Steve used to do". I think the answer Apple wants to be true is that "what Steve did" was always way more than "just Steve doing stuff" and a lot of it was and is baked into the culture and institution (of Apple) itself. How accurate that is I can't say but there are a lot of companies I would bet against before Apple.

abritinthebay 10y ago

> I've come to a conclusion that Cook's reign at Apple will probably mirror Ballmer's reign at Microsoft. Doubtful. Cook seems well aware of his limitations in vision and abilities. You see a microcosm of this at the Keynotes: he wisely hands off to other experts as soon as possible. You also see this in his handling of senior roles in Apple. He's not the visionary Steve was but he hires to keep the vision active in the culture by finding domain experts. This is true in retail, in industrial design, in chip design... He's nothing like Balmer in how he actually handles the company and it's staff, and that's why I think you'll be surprised. I mean, the "me too" thing is symptomatic of this line of thinking: Apple has always followed on; it's what they are best at. They see a market, see how it works, then take what works and distill it down to a product that is narrower in scope but "just works" for the general market. First to market isn't a big deal, it never has been, it's getting the product right that's important. Apple is very good at that.

paulcole 10y ago

Is 13 million paying subscribers for Music really a failure?

hinkley 10y ago

I have some of the same concerns you do, but remember that the common complaint about Apple is that they "Don't come up with anything original, they just copy everybody else." Their MO is that they bake other people's half-baked product ideas, and then make a killing on them while naysayers sit around scratching their heads trying to figure out why everybody else is acting crazy. Whether Cook and Ive can do that I think remains to be seen. But just because they're producing a 'Me Too' product doesn't mean the party is over. For me, I'll have my answer when version 3 of the apple watch comes out. If it's a flop, we're in big trouble. If it sells like crazy, then I'll know they still have it, or at least some of it. If in the meantime they manage to pull off haptic touch screen interfaces or a curved phone, then I'll have my answer early.

lloyddobbler 10y ago
Agreed. A good example - the iPod and iPhone were both "Me, too" products. Apple just engineered, designed, produced, and delivered exponentially better versions of products everyone else was trying to build at the time.

d0lph 10y ago

Have they ever been anything other than a "me too" company. They really haven't invented anything (see this video by Tek Syndicate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFeC25BM9E0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFeC25BM9E0).