6 ms·

Satya has done a tremendous job turning around Microsoft. It was headed in the direction of becoming a slowly sinking behemoth under Ballmer, but he's turned it

Satya has done a tremendous job turning around Microsoft. It was headed in the direction of becoming a slowly sinking behemoth under Ballmer, but he's turned it around. Sundar, on the other hand, is just content collecting $$ and showing more ads.

bryanlarsen 7y ago
The stuff propping up Microsoft now (Office 365, Azure, Windows 10) were all started under Ballmer, weren't they?
- shubhamjain 7y ago
  How does that matter? The article clearly states that Microsoft was still hanging on Window and PC software for majority of its revenue and made terrible bets (like Nokia acquisition) under Ballmer. Satya worked hard to change the direction of the company. He pushed to cut budgets from other departments and invested in Azure. Another important thing is that he resisted the urge to make shiny bets (like self driving cars) and kept the company focused on its cloud strategy.
  - Spooky23 7y ago
    They still are. Azure is to Office 365 as Apple's rebirth is to the iPod. "Halo effect". Office 365 was a classic Microsoft bundled cost play -- you have this big investment in your EA around the Microsoft ecosystem and you basically pay to put email in the cloud, and get Sharepoint and Skype for free. They then made deals on EA renewal to convert "on-prem" Office licenses to subscriptions to lock you in. In subsequent renewals, Microsoft uses Azure gift cards like a "tax credit" to drive behavior without a competitive process. They're essentially applying the Office 365 playbook to Windows Server/Active Directory/SQL Server and eventually Windows Client. Example: You pay for Azure AD by getting ATP for "free". It's not taking away from Satya, his genius is dressing up the classic Microsoft hard-nosed deal playbook and making it friendlier in key ways, and cutting the cord on legacy. (Which is a risk, as it's an opportunity for AWS, Google, Oracle, etc to sell) But ultimately, the strategy existed and was executed before with Ballmer, but with less charisma and humanity.
- Amezarak 7y ago
  Yeah, it's hard to see what Nadella's leadership has actually added to MS from where I've standing. As best as I can tell, there hasn't been any major new products or shifts since Ballmer left. People talk about MS "stagnating" under Ballmer, and that's true of the stock price, but revenue and profit more than doubled under Ballmer and he introduced multiple new billion-dollar products/services. Nadella has made some notable acquisitions (LinkedIn, Github, Minecraft), but I'm not real sure that these are really winners from a business perspective, aside from Minecraft. Sure, Ballmer had failures too - Windows Phone and Zune didn't take off. But you can't win every time. EDIT: Sorry, was lazy and abbreviated Windows Phone to WP.
  - godelmachine 7y ago
    May I ask what’s WP?
    - ranie93 7y ago
      Windows Phone
  - luckydata 7y ago
    Nadella has made a few key changes, for example exempting internal product teams from having to consider Windows as the only OS to develop for, changed the incentive structure for sales to avoid pushing products enterprises didn't care about etc... When you're a CEO your success is usually not dependent by flashy all in decisions, especially if you're managing a giant company like MS. You are successful by setting policies that allow your talent to do more of the right stuff, your sales folks to sell more and better etc ...
    - Amezarak 7y ago
      All those things are great and I'm glad they're doing them, but I'm not convinced they make MS a more successful company in the long run.
    - maxxxxx 7y ago
      I think they are in danger of neglecting Windows too much to the point of people leaving the platform. I personally wouldn't recommend Windows anymore. And almost nobody who isn't using Windows will use azure or .NET Core.
- 1024core 7y ago
  Ideas are dime-a-dozen. It's execution that matters.
maxxxxx 7y ago
In what way was MS sinking under Ballmer? Maybe they were not exciting but they were super profitable every year. I think it's more about better PR. Not everything is golden at MS now either. I am working on creating a platform for our medical software on Windows 10 and it really makes me want to switch to Linux or iOS. Windows is a big mess of old and new code and attempts of sandboxing like iOS but only half-hearted. Keeping up with the semi-annual channel is also insane. I would much prefer annual or biannual releases that are actually stable. It's a very developer unfriendly platform now.
- tabs_masterrace 7y ago
  Windows always been a pain to develop for. And every Windows version redundantly includes "a new api for everything" alongside all the horrible legacy stuff. But Microsoft's recent efforts on Linux & macOS, i.e. VSCode, has been surprisingly good. They do a lot of things, I think Typescript is run by MS as well. So that's something that positively changed under Nadella.
  - tabtab 7y ago
    I believe this is because MS wants to move away from being an OS provider to being a service provider. If a service runs on Linux they won't care as long as its generating revenue for them. Whether this is Nadella's push or obvious from MS's accountants is hard to say.
    - maxxxxx 7y ago
      They may turn into an IBM variation long term. Profitable, stable business. Not glamorous, but good money.
      - Zanni 7y ago
        As a Microsoft shareholder, this was my favorite line from the article: "for Microsoft, 'profitable and boring' is just a longer way of saying 'profitable.'"
      - 7y ago
lokidokiro 7y ago
Sundar gets paid 4x what Nadella makes, too. Hopefully, the board will reconsider that obscene level of compensation given the company's poor performance in the most recent earnings report.
omnifischer 7y ago
Except windows 10 privacy issues, Satya has really fought the status-quo inside the company. Honest interview: http://freakonomics.com/podcast/satya-nadella/ http://freakonomics.com/podcast/satya-nadella/

bryanlarsen 7y ago

The stuff propping up Microsoft now (Office 365, Azure, Windows 10) were all started under Ballmer, weren't they?

shubhamjain 7y ago
How does that matter? The article clearly states that Microsoft was still hanging on Window and PC software for majority of its revenue and made terrible bets (like Nokia acquisition) under Ballmer. Satya worked hard to change the direction of the company. He pushed to cut budgets from other departments and invested in Azure. Another important thing is that he resisted the urge to make shiny bets (like self driving cars) and kept the company focused on its cloud strategy.
- Spooky23 7y ago
  They still are. Azure is to Office 365 as Apple's rebirth is to the iPod. "Halo effect". Office 365 was a classic Microsoft bundled cost play -- you have this big investment in your EA around the Microsoft ecosystem and you basically pay to put email in the cloud, and get Sharepoint and Skype for free. They then made deals on EA renewal to convert "on-prem" Office licenses to subscriptions to lock you in. In subsequent renewals, Microsoft uses Azure gift cards like a "tax credit" to drive behavior without a competitive process. They're essentially applying the Office 365 playbook to Windows Server/Active Directory/SQL Server and eventually Windows Client. Example: You pay for Azure AD by getting ATP for "free". It's not taking away from Satya, his genius is dressing up the classic Microsoft hard-nosed deal playbook and making it friendlier in key ways, and cutting the cord on legacy. (Which is a risk, as it's an opportunity for AWS, Google, Oracle, etc to sell) But ultimately, the strategy existed and was executed before with Ballmer, but with less charisma and humanity.
Amezarak 7y ago
Yeah, it's hard to see what Nadella's leadership has actually added to MS from where I've standing. As best as I can tell, there hasn't been any major new products or shifts since Ballmer left. People talk about MS "stagnating" under Ballmer, and that's true of the stock price, but revenue and profit more than doubled under Ballmer and he introduced multiple new billion-dollar products/services. Nadella has made some notable acquisitions (LinkedIn, Github, Minecraft), but I'm not real sure that these are really winners from a business perspective, aside from Minecraft. Sure, Ballmer had failures too - Windows Phone and Zune didn't take off. But you can't win every time. EDIT: Sorry, was lazy and abbreviated Windows Phone to WP.
- godelmachine 7y ago
  May I ask what’s WP?
  - ranie93 7y ago
    Windows Phone
- luckydata 7y ago
  Nadella has made a few key changes, for example exempting internal product teams from having to consider Windows as the only OS to develop for, changed the incentive structure for sales to avoid pushing products enterprises didn't care about etc... When you're a CEO your success is usually not dependent by flashy all in decisions, especially if you're managing a giant company like MS. You are successful by setting policies that allow your talent to do more of the right stuff, your sales folks to sell more and better etc ...
  - Amezarak 7y ago
    All those things are great and I'm glad they're doing them, but I'm not convinced they make MS a more successful company in the long run.
  - maxxxxx 7y ago
    I think they are in danger of neglecting Windows too much to the point of people leaving the platform. I personally wouldn't recommend Windows anymore. And almost nobody who isn't using Windows will use azure or .NET Core.
1024core 7y ago
Ideas are dime-a-dozen. It's execution that matters.

maxxxxx 7y ago

In what way was MS sinking under Ballmer? Maybe they were not exciting but they were super profitable every year. I think it's more about better PR. Not everything is golden at MS now either. I am working on creating a platform for our medical software on Windows 10 and it really makes me want to switch to Linux or iOS. Windows is a big mess of old and new code and attempts of sandboxing like iOS but only half-hearted. Keeping up with the semi-annual channel is also insane. I would much prefer annual or biannual releases that are actually stable. It's a very developer unfriendly platform now.

tabs_masterrace 7y ago
Windows always been a pain to develop for. And every Windows version redundantly includes "a new api for everything" alongside all the horrible legacy stuff. But Microsoft's recent efforts on Linux & macOS, i.e. VSCode, has been surprisingly good. They do a lot of things, I think Typescript is run by MS as well. So that's something that positively changed under Nadella.
- tabtab 7y ago
  I believe this is because MS wants to move away from being an OS provider to being a service provider. If a service runs on Linux they won't care as long as its generating revenue for them. Whether this is Nadella's push or obvious from MS's accountants is hard to say.
  - maxxxxx 7y ago
    They may turn into an IBM variation long term. Profitable, stable business. Not glamorous, but good money.
    - Zanni 7y ago
      As a Microsoft shareholder, this was my favorite line from the article: "for Microsoft, 'profitable and boring' is just a longer way of saying 'profitable.'"
    - 7y ago

lokidokiro 7y ago

Sundar gets paid 4x what Nadella makes, too. Hopefully, the board will reconsider that obscene level of compensation given the company's poor performance in the most recent earnings report.

omnifischer 7y ago

Except windows 10 privacy issues, Satya has really fought the status-quo inside the company. Honest interview: http://freakonomics.com/podcast/satya-nadella/ http://freakonomics.com/podcast/satya-nadella/