4 ms·

This feels like PowerPoint-driven strategy. All of the executives in Microsoft are like circling vultures, fighting with each other over the flesh of the Window

This feels like PowerPoint-driven strategy. All of the executives in Microsoft are like circling vultures, fighting with each other over the flesh of the Windows cash flow stream, trying to get their organizations funded. You’d think they could just leave and found their own companies, but no, they’d have to make something people wanted relatively immediately, instead of being able to mouth platitudes about being “strategic” and “building moats” to “protect” Windows and so on and so forth. Or if you prefer, there is a Windows Tax, and these divisions are like government projects, each trying to justify their existence and draw upon the tax revenues. Like government projects, they are not accountable to the people who pay the taxes, just faceless mandarins at the top.They only lose if they are silly enough to cause a scandal with their foolishness and embarrass the company into firing them and defunding their projects. Building Kin, then killing it, then getting into bed with Nokia, then building their own tablet... Reminds me of the way the city contractors tear up my street, then pave it, then tear it up again, then pave it again, and so forth. As long as the bureaucracy is in control, and as long as the tax dollars keep flowing, it’s a game of who has the best PowerPoint.

deleted 14y ago
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brudgers 14y ago
Because Gates managed to more or less bootstrap Microsoft, he and Ballmer have maintained a significant degree of control. This allows them to orient the company toward the long term, rather than chasing this quarter's advice from Wall Street analysts. Microsoft has always approached relationships with a B2B strategy - the mea culpa following the red ring of death shows the way in which that culture extends into the consumer side of the equation. Management's job is to make sure that there are dividends going to all those pension funds which own their stock, not to entertain bloggers. If Microsoft is actually releasing their own tablet hardware as a long term strategy for extending an existing franchise (such as Xbox), it's probably because their is little interest in Windows Tablets from existing hardware manufacturers. Releasing their own hardware also brings the Windows RT restrictions regarding BIOS into a sensible light - not that dearth of consumer interest in Linux tablets made all the whining sensible. I suspect that Microsoft has looked at the existing tablet landscape and sized it up pretty accurately as people want eReaders and iPads, and believe that the best way to expand the market is to get telemetry on how tablets are actually used. Unlike your local paving company, Microsoft is gambling their own money, not driving up profits by looking for change orders.
- wittjeff 14y ago
  > If Microsoft is actually releasing their own tablet hardware as a long term strategy for extending an existing franchise (such as Xbox), it's probably because their is little interest in Windows Tablets from existing hardware manufacturers. Current Windows tablet makers may infer that investing money on Windows 8 tablets is as likely to pay off as the last round. The story there is similar to the iPod natural monopoly -- no one made any money on any of those cheaper-but-not-cheap-enough hard-drive-based portable music players. What is needed is an optimal hardware+software combo, plus a different business model. Following Amazon's lead, it might make sense to sell a Win8 tablet at cost and make the profit on cloud-based subscription services.
  - brudgers 14y ago
    Who is in a position to follow Amazon's lead? The list of hardware manufacturer's is pretty short: Sony. Given the existence of a Games Hub focused on Xbox Live, even that seems somewhat problematic. The second thing I see is that the idea of a media consumption device is somewhat antithetical to Microsoft's culture of treating computing devices as computing devices. Going to the roots of the Courier concept, it was about productivity not entertainment and Microsoft traditionally pushed productivity applications down onto mobile devices as a matter of course - I wouldn't be surprised to see Office on any tablet they provide. Finally, one of the Metro red threads is that devices are occasionally connected, not permanently connected to the cloud like Chromium.
TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
Not to mention cancelling the Courier research, for what looked like a very interesting device.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

brudgers 14y ago

Because Gates managed to more or less bootstrap Microsoft, he and Ballmer have maintained a significant degree of control. This allows them to orient the company toward the long term, rather than chasing this quarter's advice from Wall Street analysts. Microsoft has always approached relationships with a B2B strategy - the mea culpa following the red ring of death shows the way in which that culture extends into the consumer side of the equation. Management's job is to make sure that there are dividends going to all those pension funds which own their stock, not to entertain bloggers. If Microsoft is actually releasing their own tablet hardware as a long term strategy for extending an existing franchise (such as Xbox), it's probably because their is little interest in Windows Tablets from existing hardware manufacturers. Releasing their own hardware also brings the Windows RT restrictions regarding BIOS into a sensible light - not that dearth of consumer interest in Linux tablets made all the whining sensible. I suspect that Microsoft has looked at the existing tablet landscape and sized it up pretty accurately as people want eReaders and iPads, and believe that the best way to expand the market is to get telemetry on how tablets are actually used. Unlike your local paving company, Microsoft is gambling their own money, not driving up profits by looking for change orders.

wittjeff 14y ago
> If Microsoft is actually releasing their own tablet hardware as a long term strategy for extending an existing franchise (such as Xbox), it's probably because their is little interest in Windows Tablets from existing hardware manufacturers. Current Windows tablet makers may infer that investing money on Windows 8 tablets is as likely to pay off as the last round. The story there is similar to the iPod natural monopoly -- no one made any money on any of those cheaper-but-not-cheap-enough hard-drive-based portable music players. What is needed is an optimal hardware+software combo, plus a different business model. Following Amazon's lead, it might make sense to sell a Win8 tablet at cost and make the profit on cloud-based subscription services.
- brudgers 14y ago
  Who is in a position to follow Amazon's lead? The list of hardware manufacturer's is pretty short: Sony. Given the existence of a Games Hub focused on Xbox Live, even that seems somewhat problematic. The second thing I see is that the idea of a media consumption device is somewhat antithetical to Microsoft's culture of treating computing devices as computing devices. Going to the roots of the Courier concept, it was about productivity not entertainment and Microsoft traditionally pushed productivity applications down onto mobile devices as a matter of course - I wouldn't be surprised to see Office on any tablet they provide. Finally, one of the Metro red threads is that devices are occasionally connected, not permanently connected to the cloud like Chromium.

TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago

Not to mention cancelling the Courier research, for what looked like a very interesting device.