5 ms·

No he wasn’t haha. The only thing he did was slide the company sideways via pre existing illegal monopoly. In fact, they lost most of their monopoly under his s

No he wasn’t haha. The only thing he did was slide the company sideways via pre existing illegal monopoly. In fact, they lost most of their monopoly under his supervision . At no point did the quality of their products improve, and that’s evidenced with this year’s massive massive Windows outage, or Garmins mega ransomware, out a hundred other people who’ve been hacked via Windows. If you’re running Windows for anything, it’s only a matter of when, not if.

abirch 2y ago
I remember when he retired and the MSFT jumped. Satya is underrated.
- parl_match 2y ago
  Satya's tenure has seen the fall of Xbox, the lost relevance of Windows. While moving to a services model is going to be very lucrative for them, they risk competitors offering swap-out models.
  - readyplayernull 2y ago
    Recall Recall??
  - p1necone 2y ago
    Gamepass and the lack of first party exclusives both seem like moves to kill the console in the long term, but as of now it's still a serious competitor to playstation and switch no?
    - Sakos 2y ago
      In which region? It's basically irrelevant outside the US.
    - noirbot 2y ago
      Nintendo's always been on its own for these sorts of things, but even the folks I know with an XBox just use their Playstation these days if they have both. XBox just isn't really in the conversation any more. That could totally change in another generation of consoles, but their position wasn't great coming into this generation and it doesn't feel like it's gotten any better. Basic numbers I've been seeing on a quick search has PS5 almost doubling the Series X sales.
    - bydo 2y ago
      Not really. The only generation of Xbox that was competitive was the 360, which still came in third in sales, just not as distantly.
      - wbl 2y ago
        Having Halo as an exclusive was huge.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - ytoawwhra92 2y ago
    The fall of Xbox started with the Xbox One, which was developed and released while Ballmer was CEO. They put an enormous amount of investment into that console, but made some bad calls in both its development and marketing that put them in a deep hole that they've been unable to get out of since. The increasing backwards compatibility of modern consoles means that the current 4th generation Xbox is paying for the sins of the 3rd generation in addition to dealing with its own struggles. Really the only thing that can fix the situation is money, but the business is probably under pressure to show profits after two decades of heavy investment with minimal return. I don't necessarily think you can blame Ballmer for the missteps the Xbox team made, but I definitely think you can't blame Nadella.
    - ThrowawayB7 2y ago
      Yes, one can't blame Ballmer for the missteps of the Xbox team directly (that honor goes to Don Mattrick, VP in charge of IEB at the time of the Xbox One launch). Divisional VPs get a lot of latitude in how they run their org. However, Ballmer does have to accept ultimate responsibility for allowing Mattrick to head up IEB and how long he allowed him to stay there.
      - ytoawwhra92 2y ago
        I agree with this. And it wasn't just Don Mattrick. Late in Ballmer's tenure there were a lot of VPs with poor track records who weren't being held accountable (or, in some cases, were being given more responsibility). Microsoft is still feeling the impact of those people today.
    - jfim 2y ago
      Out of curiosity, what do you see as the fall of Xbox? It seems to work fine to play games, even if they had missteps with certain things (eg. Kinect being deprecated after being mandatory, some hardware issues).
      - ytoawwhra92 2y ago
        > Out of curiosity, what do you see as the fall of Xbox? The ever-declining hardware revenue and market share. If the decline that started in 2013 continues long enough it will stop making sense for Microsoft to sell consoles at all. They seem to be planning for this, as they're clearly pivoting the Xbox business towards "content and services". This is a stark contrast to how Xbox was positioned prior to the 3rd gen. Xbox One. They had taken significant market share away from PlayStation and they were expecting to continue to do so, particularly outside the USA. They were also trying to get a foothold in the household computing market (this market was in its infancy then, now: Alexa/Fire TV, Nest/Chromecast, Apple TV/HomePod). Those ambitions are gone.
  - dh2022 2y ago
    Windows was already losing relevance in the data center when Nadya took over -because of Linux. At AWS in 2008 / 2009 adoption was all about LAMP stack - AWS's tools were all geared for LAMP. AWS offered some Windows + SQL Server licenses on their cloud, however it was a struggle to get a deal (any deal) with Microsoft. On the mobile side Windows was losing relevance to iPhone - which Ballmer so famously derided. Satya figured out that with cloud computing Microsoft would still interpose between hardware makers and the customer - and the results show. (Why hardware makers do not figure this out for themselves is a different topic..)
    - kristianp 2y ago
      Valve figured it out when making the Steam Deck. But they're a brilliant exception that makes your point.
    - cyberax 2y ago
      > Why hardware makers do not figure this out for themselves is a different topic Have you _seen_ the typical software produced by hardware makers?
  - wkat4242 2y ago
    > the lost relevance of Windows. Yes but this doesn't matter. The market has evolved. macOS has also lost a lot of relevance in Apple's world, but it doesn't matter. Because they are raking it in by the billions on the iPhone.
    - parl_match 2y ago
      In Apple's case, the lost relevance of one platform lead to the increase in relevance of another one - that they controlled. Microsoft has no such "luck". Also, it does matter, because there's over a billion Windows PCs in active use. It's still relevant, but it's getting eroded. That's a huge issue.
  - Maxatar 2y ago
    XBox's irrelevance is thanks to Don Mattrick for ruining the XBox One release. It is fair to point out that XBox continues to stagnate and despite many billions of dollars that Microsoft has pumped into gaming and acquiring numerous studios and publishers, they still have yet to succeed in that area.
- ThrowawayB7 2y ago
  The SDET role at Microsoft was eliminated under Satya and it shows in their products.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
  Satya’s success is built on stuff that began under Ballmer. Azure’s core services are all from Bing, which was something Ballmer pushed for.
analog31 2y ago
I wonder if Windows is even their flagship app any more. I think people will give up Windows before they give up Excel. And they might not even notice a different OS, so long as it had the same file manager. In fact Excel is the last non-FOSS app that I still use, even if sporadically.
- _mlbt 2y ago
  In some ways Office is actually superior on macOS. The fact that it still has a menu bar being my favorite thing it does better.
  - xanderlewis 2y ago
    It used to have much funkier icons as well! Sadly not anymore. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office_for_Mac_2011 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office_for_Mac_201...
  - analog31 2y ago
    Indeed, MacOS was where I first experienced Excel with VB macros, which is when it came alive.
- ipaddr 2y ago
  Give them LibreOffice - Calc and most won't care.
  - analog31 2y ago
    My mom is happy with LibreOffice. For myself, I try it every few years (usually when there's some big announcement) to see if it's improved. There's some kind of latency in the UI that makes it laborious, if not painful, to use. And recalculating a large spreadsheet, or reformatting a graph, takes an eon. I found that out when trying to graph data sets with thousands of rows. Now I use Python. This may be a place where the major paid apps still have an advantage. I think that MS sweats the details of Office the way that Apple sweats the details of the iPhone, and it's laborious work that can only be done by hiring a huge army of programmers and paying them a lot.
whimsicalism 2y ago
there was no windows outage
wbl 2y ago
Steve Ballmer has not been CEO for a decade. At 10 years later it is very much Nadella's ship.
- belter 2y ago
  Still Bill Gates: "Bill Gates never left - Insiders say he's still pulling the strings at Microsoft" - https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-still-pulling-strings-microsoft-ai-copilot-chatgpt-2024-4?international=true&r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-still-pulling-str...
belter 2y ago
Same culture at Azure: "Azure’s Security Vulnerabilities Are Out of Control" - https://www.lastweekinaws.com/blog/azures_vulnerabilities_are_quack/ https://www.lastweekinaws.com/blog/azures_vulnerabilities_ar...
burnte 2y ago
Agreed. He was the "put windows everywhere" guy because he forgot that Microsoft and Windows weren't the same thing and thus he failed Microsoft AND Windows. Microsoft is a software company, they sell software (and now software services). Steve thought that because their main product was Windows, that Windows was the only product that mattered and everything else had to depend on being run on Windows. Office sells very well on Macs. Office in the browser is really improving every year. XBox 360 was a huge hit while not really running "Windows" at all, just a related kernel and DirectX APIs; it wasn't even x86! Steve made MS a Windows First company, and the entire company stagnated for years. He may have been a great number two to BillG but that doesn't mean he was suited to being CEO. Being the XO is a very different job from being the Captain, and a lot of times they take two very different types of people.
amadeuspagel 2y ago
I'm assuming that "this years massive Windows outage" refers to the Crowdstrike thing, which wouldn't have happened if Microsoft had been able to lock down the kernel, which antitrust regulators prohibited. (The essay extensively deals with antitrust, I'm sure you have thoughts on this.)
- trelane 2y ago
  Only if you believe that executing in the kernel is necessary and that there could not be another way to do this, with public interfaces.
- Ragnarork 2y ago
  At this point I wonder if half the commenters have read the article.
Sakos 2y ago
Ballmer's tenure started with XP and eventually gave us Windows 7. Nadella gave us 10 and 11. Though 10 was largely developed under Ballmer before its initial launch, it's been under Nadella's stewardship ever since. I'll take Ballmer, thanks.
- SoothingSorbet 2y ago
  Ballmer also gave us the maligned Windows Vista and Windows 8. Microsoft has also been way more open source friendly during Nadella's tenure, whereas Ballmer was openly hostile to FOSS. I'll take Nadella, thanks (although he should fix his user-hostile spyware).
  - Krssst 2y ago
    Windows 8 was misguided but not user-hostile. I miss not being repeatedly asked by my OS to create an account or share my data. If it was a human doing it rather than software I am not sure it would be legal.
    - Brian_K_White 2y ago
      These are both valid takes really. I'll take neither Ballmer nor Nadella thanks.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- cyberax 2y ago
  WinXP was developed mostly during Gates' tenure. Ballmer is responsible for the disastrous Windows Vista, Microsoft phone operating systems, and Windows 8.
  - Sakos 2y ago
    You mean the best mobile phone OS that we ever had? Unfortunately disastrously managed and then squandered, but still. Also, Vista was a mess, but it was ambitious and it laid the foundation for 7 and it was only around for a few years before being replaced. Unlike 10, where Nadella has doubled down on the worst choices and even worse ones were made going into 11 (HOW THE FUCK DO YOU SET DEFAULT APPLICATIONS NOW, THIS IS FUCKING NONSENSE).
legitster 2y ago
> that’s evidenced with this year’s massive massive Windows outage, or Garmins mega ransomware, out a hundred other people who’ve been hacked via Windows Window's massive install base is not really a testament to their failure.
gosub100 2y ago
Vista was released under his watch too.
- kasabali 2y ago
  Vista was underrated, too.

abirch 2y ago

I remember when he retired and the MSFT jumped. Satya is underrated.

parl_match 2y ago
Satya's tenure has seen the fall of Xbox, the lost relevance of Windows. While moving to a services model is going to be very lucrative for them, they risk competitors offering swap-out models.
- readyplayernull 2y ago
  Recall Recall??
- p1necone 2y ago
  Gamepass and the lack of first party exclusives both seem like moves to kill the console in the long term, but as of now it's still a serious competitor to playstation and switch no?
  - Sakos 2y ago
    In which region? It's basically irrelevant outside the US.
  - noirbot 2y ago
    Nintendo's always been on its own for these sorts of things, but even the folks I know with an XBox just use their Playstation these days if they have both. XBox just isn't really in the conversation any more. That could totally change in another generation of consoles, but their position wasn't great coming into this generation and it doesn't feel like it's gotten any better. Basic numbers I've been seeing on a quick search has PS5 almost doubling the Series X sales.
  - bydo 2y ago
    Not really. The only generation of Xbox that was competitive was the 360, which still came in third in sales, just not as distantly.
    - wbl 2y ago
      Having Halo as an exclusive was huge.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- ytoawwhra92 2y ago
  The fall of Xbox started with the Xbox One, which was developed and released while Ballmer was CEO. They put an enormous amount of investment into that console, but made some bad calls in both its development and marketing that put them in a deep hole that they've been unable to get out of since. The increasing backwards compatibility of modern consoles means that the current 4th generation Xbox is paying for the sins of the 3rd generation in addition to dealing with its own struggles. Really the only thing that can fix the situation is money, but the business is probably under pressure to show profits after two decades of heavy investment with minimal return. I don't necessarily think you can blame Ballmer for the missteps the Xbox team made, but I definitely think you can't blame Nadella.
  - ThrowawayB7 2y ago
    Yes, one can't blame Ballmer for the missteps of the Xbox team directly (that honor goes to Don Mattrick, VP in charge of IEB at the time of the Xbox One launch). Divisional VPs get a lot of latitude in how they run their org. However, Ballmer does have to accept ultimate responsibility for allowing Mattrick to head up IEB and how long he allowed him to stay there.
    - ytoawwhra92 2y ago
      I agree with this. And it wasn't just Don Mattrick. Late in Ballmer's tenure there were a lot of VPs with poor track records who weren't being held accountable (or, in some cases, were being given more responsibility). Microsoft is still feeling the impact of those people today.
  - jfim 2y ago
    Out of curiosity, what do you see as the fall of Xbox? It seems to work fine to play games, even if they had missteps with certain things (eg. Kinect being deprecated after being mandatory, some hardware issues).
    - ytoawwhra92 2y ago
      > Out of curiosity, what do you see as the fall of Xbox? The ever-declining hardware revenue and market share. If the decline that started in 2013 continues long enough it will stop making sense for Microsoft to sell consoles at all. They seem to be planning for this, as they're clearly pivoting the Xbox business towards "content and services". This is a stark contrast to how Xbox was positioned prior to the 3rd gen. Xbox One. They had taken significant market share away from PlayStation and they were expecting to continue to do so, particularly outside the USA. They were also trying to get a foothold in the household computing market (this market was in its infancy then, now: Alexa/Fire TV, Nest/Chromecast, Apple TV/HomePod). Those ambitions are gone.
- dh2022 2y ago
  Windows was already losing relevance in the data center when Nadya took over -because of Linux. At AWS in 2008 / 2009 adoption was all about LAMP stack - AWS's tools were all geared for LAMP. AWS offered some Windows + SQL Server licenses on their cloud, however it was a struggle to get a deal (any deal) with Microsoft. On the mobile side Windows was losing relevance to iPhone - which Ballmer so famously derided. Satya figured out that with cloud computing Microsoft would still interpose between hardware makers and the customer - and the results show. (Why hardware makers do not figure this out for themselves is a different topic..)
  - kristianp 2y ago
    Valve figured it out when making the Steam Deck. But they're a brilliant exception that makes your point.
  - cyberax 2y ago
    > Why hardware makers do not figure this out for themselves is a different topic Have you _seen_ the typical software produced by hardware makers?
- wkat4242 2y ago
  > the lost relevance of Windows. Yes but this doesn't matter. The market has evolved. macOS has also lost a lot of relevance in Apple's world, but it doesn't matter. Because they are raking it in by the billions on the iPhone.
  - parl_match 2y ago
    In Apple's case, the lost relevance of one platform lead to the increase in relevance of another one - that they controlled. Microsoft has no such "luck". Also, it does matter, because there's over a billion Windows PCs in active use. It's still relevant, but it's getting eroded. That's a huge issue.
- Maxatar 2y ago
  XBox's irrelevance is thanks to Don Mattrick for ruining the XBox One release. It is fair to point out that XBox continues to stagnate and despite many billions of dollars that Microsoft has pumped into gaming and acquiring numerous studios and publishers, they still have yet to succeed in that area.
ThrowawayB7 2y ago
The SDET role at Microsoft was eliminated under Satya and it shows in their products.
blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
Satya’s success is built on stuff that began under Ballmer. Azure’s core services are all from Bing, which was something Ballmer pushed for.

analog31 2y ago

I wonder if Windows is even their flagship app any more. I think people will give up Windows before they give up Excel. And they might not even notice a different OS, so long as it had the same file manager. In fact Excel is the last non-FOSS app that I still use, even if sporadically.

_mlbt 2y ago
In some ways Office is actually superior on macOS. The fact that it still has a menu bar being my favorite thing it does better.
- xanderlewis 2y ago
  It used to have much funkier icons as well! Sadly not anymore. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office_for_Mac_2011 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office_for_Mac_201...
- analog31 2y ago
  Indeed, MacOS was where I first experienced Excel with VB macros, which is when it came alive.
ipaddr 2y ago
Give them LibreOffice - Calc and most won't care.
- analog31 2y ago
  My mom is happy with LibreOffice. For myself, I try it every few years (usually when there's some big announcement) to see if it's improved. There's some kind of latency in the UI that makes it laborious, if not painful, to use. And recalculating a large spreadsheet, or reformatting a graph, takes an eon. I found that out when trying to graph data sets with thousands of rows. Now I use Python. This may be a place where the major paid apps still have an advantage. I think that MS sweats the details of Office the way that Apple sweats the details of the iPhone, and it's laborious work that can only be done by hiring a huge army of programmers and paying them a lot.

whimsicalism 2y ago

there was no windows outage

wbl 2y ago

Steve Ballmer has not been CEO for a decade. At 10 years later it is very much Nadella's ship.

belter 2y ago
Still Bill Gates: "Bill Gates never left - Insiders say he's still pulling the strings at Microsoft" - https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-still-pulling-strings-microsoft-ai-copilot-chatgpt-2024-4?international=true&r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-still-pulling-str...

belter 2y ago

Same culture at Azure: "Azure’s Security Vulnerabilities Are Out of Control" - https://www.lastweekinaws.com/blog/azures_vulnerabilities_are_quack/ https://www.lastweekinaws.com/blog/azures_vulnerabilities_ar...

burnte 2y ago

Agreed. He was the "put windows everywhere" guy because he forgot that Microsoft and Windows weren't the same thing and thus he failed Microsoft AND Windows. Microsoft is a software company, they sell software (and now software services). Steve thought that because their main product was Windows, that Windows was the only product that mattered and everything else had to depend on being run on Windows. Office sells very well on Macs. Office in the browser is really improving every year. XBox 360 was a huge hit while not really running "Windows" at all, just a related kernel and DirectX APIs; it wasn't even x86! Steve made MS a Windows First company, and the entire company stagnated for years. He may have been a great number two to BillG but that doesn't mean he was suited to being CEO. Being the XO is a very different job from being the Captain, and a lot of times they take two very different types of people.

amadeuspagel 2y ago

I'm assuming that "this years massive Windows outage" refers to the Crowdstrike thing, which wouldn't have happened if Microsoft had been able to lock down the kernel, which antitrust regulators prohibited. (The essay extensively deals with antitrust, I'm sure you have thoughts on this.)

trelane 2y ago
Only if you believe that executing in the kernel is necessary and that there could not be another way to do this, with public interfaces.
Ragnarork 2y ago
At this point I wonder if half the commenters have read the article.

Sakos 2y ago

Ballmer's tenure started with XP and eventually gave us Windows 7. Nadella gave us 10 and 11. Though 10 was largely developed under Ballmer before its initial launch, it's been under Nadella's stewardship ever since. I'll take Ballmer, thanks.

SoothingSorbet 2y ago
Ballmer also gave us the maligned Windows Vista and Windows 8. Microsoft has also been way more open source friendly during Nadella's tenure, whereas Ballmer was openly hostile to FOSS. I'll take Nadella, thanks (although he should fix his user-hostile spyware).
- Krssst 2y ago
  Windows 8 was misguided but not user-hostile. I miss not being repeatedly asked by my OS to create an account or share my data. If it was a human doing it rather than software I am not sure it would be legal.
  - Brian_K_White 2y ago
    These are both valid takes really. I'll take neither Ballmer nor Nadella thanks.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
cyberax 2y ago
WinXP was developed mostly during Gates' tenure. Ballmer is responsible for the disastrous Windows Vista, Microsoft phone operating systems, and Windows 8.
- Sakos 2y ago
  You mean the best mobile phone OS that we ever had? Unfortunately disastrously managed and then squandered, but still. Also, Vista was a mess, but it was ambitious and it laid the foundation for 7 and it was only around for a few years before being replaced. Unlike 10, where Nadella has doubled down on the worst choices and even worse ones were made going into 11 (HOW THE FUCK DO YOU SET DEFAULT APPLICATIONS NOW, THIS IS FUCKING NONSENSE).

legitster 2y ago

> that’s evidenced with this year’s massive massive Windows outage, or Garmins mega ransomware, out a hundred other people who’ve been hacked via Windows Window's massive install base is not really a testament to their failure.

gosub100 2y ago

Vista was released under his watch too.

kasabali 2y ago
Vista was underrated, too.