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Microsoft reorganizes
- gesman 13y agoOne Strategy, One Microsoft, One Ballmer
- tribaal 13y agoWell I am personally quite glad there is only one :)
- lulzcraft 13y agoEin Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer.
- venomsnake 13y agoWindows 8 could be Stalingrad then?
- the_mat 13y agoWas that cut and pasted from some kind of template for empty, verbose corporate-speak?
- jaynate 13y agoHe must have used the Dilbert reorg memo generator.
- mrgreenfur 13y agoIt's a word-template for "Reorganizational Memo - Large Software Business". While I'm here: "I see you're trying to reorganize your company, would you like help with that." - Clippy Tip your waiter/waitresses, try the lamb chops.
- venomsnake 13y agoIs there a reason CEOs cannot use normal English but have to dilute the language so much? For me the TL:DR after struggling to read it was - full steam ahead to the biggest walled garden on earth. We are still the Borg. Someone correct me if I am wrong.
- bornhuetter 13y agoI don't understand how anyone in their right minds can consider Windows to be the "biggest walled garden on earth". There is plenty to criticize about Microsoft, but when you descend into completely nonsensical arguments you lose all credibility.
- sbierwagen 13y agoHe's talking more about Windows Phone, the Windows 8 apps, and Xbox.
- bornhuetter 13y agoIs Windows Phone more of a walled garden than than iOS? Is the Xbox more of a walled garden than the Wii U? The argument is still complete hyperbole.
- iaskwhy 13y agoTogether they are.
- bornhuetter 13y agoI'm not sure I understand your point - can you please elaborate?
- iaskwhy 13y agoTogether Windows, Windows Phone and Xbox are the "biggest walled garden on earth".
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- bornhuetter 13y agoI think this is a positive move for Microsoft. In particular, having all OS development work (including desktop, phone and XBox) looks like a good idea, as I've heard there have been a lot of problems with Windows Phone being managed on the periphery.
- astrodust 13y agoI'm not sure this is such a great idea. Doesn't the OS for the XBox have entirely different concerns than Windows for Enterprise? You cannot make an OS that works just as well for Billy the 10 year old gamer, and Mega Co. with 400,000 employees. Apple's recognized this and decided to pretty much abandon enterprise. Linux has fragmented into different distributions (server, desktop, mobile) each with a different focus. Microsoft, instead, has doubled down. They all even look the same.
- daigoba66 13y agoPersonally, as a consumer I like using Apple products over MS, and I like using Microsoft products as an enterprise user (I'm a programmer). In my perfect world, the two companies would complement each other. Typically Microsoft has done far better in the enterprise versus consumers (the xbox is the rare exception). Apple is the reverse.
- gecko 13y agoYou answered your own question the second after you asked it. Look at Linux first. Note that it happily goes from cell phones to supercomputers. The reason that works is because "Linux" doesn't actually that much. Really, it means the kernel and (usually) the GNU userland. (Though note that Android proves that you can swap out the entire userland and still get something that people will call Linux.) Supercomputers don't have GUIs. Desktops run X or Wayland or Mir or whatever Ubuntu is doing these days, or sometimes just Chrome. Mobiles tend to run Android, although there's also Maemo and others. Meanwhile, a supercomputer would likely have no UI at all. In all cases, when we say these devices all "run Linux", we're really referring to the driver model, the kernel, and (when applicable) the user space. The same happens with Windows. Windows Phone 8, Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, and the Xbox One all are Windows. They all run the Windows kernel, they all have the Microsoft CLR, and they all have (a lot of) the same APIs--especially at the driver layer. But while Windows 8, Windows Phone, and Xbox all run DirectX and have GUIs, Windows Server prefers to run headless. Windows Phone 8 and Windows both use WinRT, but Windows Phone 8's UI stack is slightly different from Windows 8 proper, mostly to facilitate power consumption and allow for the wildly different form factors. Xbox pretty clearly has a lot of Win 8 UI internally, but games mostly just code against DirectX. But of course these all count as Windows, because they all are Windows. Just sliced and diced in different directions, exactly like Linux does. And unlike Linux, there's actually a lot more in common that can legitimately be shared. I don't think unifying all the OS here is really a big deal. It's been proven to work just fine with Linux (and actually, I'd argue, with OS X, but we can save that for another time).
- czr80 13y agoWow, re-organising the company by function. They're going all in on copying Apple. Who knows if it will work, but it's a fascinating experiment.
- astrodust 13y agoI wonder if they can still preserve the "culture" of having as many as fourteen superiors in one long, risk-averse chain.
- venomsnake 13y agoIf they lose it they could always import some from the EU commission excess supplies. Seems that there is no global shortage for spineless inefficient bureaucracies.
- jkolko 13y agoThey seem to be missing functions like "design" and "product", which is unfortunate. I'm sure they roll up to engineering and I bet they continue to garner little respect.
- lotso 13y agoThe design groups at Microsoft are highly respected within the company.
- WayneDB 13y agoIs Apple the first company to have done that? I highly doubt it.
- kvb 13y agoIf you want to understand Microsoft, you could do a lot worse than reading http://hal2020.com/ http://hal2020.com/, by a former General Manager at Microsoft. I learn something from pretty much every blog post he writes. For instance, in his most recent post he discusses how the lack of coordination between the divisions after the 2005 reorg can be viewed as a feature rather than a bug, but also something that now needs to be changed.
- brador 13y agoWhat does 'dotted line report' mean?
- kvb 13y agoSee for instance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_management http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_management. Basically there's a solid line to your primary manager but a dotted line for secondary relationships.
- dman 13y agoI guess this is why you have to file multiple TPS reports?
- mberning 13y agoAn artifact of a form of management known as 'Matrix Management'. Any given employee could have 2 or more managers that they report to. If you want to expose your engineers directly to politics and managerial power struggles there is no better way...
- michaelochurch 13y agoWhat look like complex failures in organizations are often rooted in simple causes. In Microsoft, it's stack-ranking and Enron-style (that is, visible in transfer packet) performance reviews. When you have stack-ranking, you never get harmonious teams and "all-star" sub-organizations are out of the question. When performance reviews are part of the transfer process, people become largely immobile and teams become permanent camps and you get warring departments. Closed allocation, at that scale, is cultural toxic sludge in general. Simple causes. Simple fixes. Wordy say-nothing emails that inject political complexity, when simple solutions are available, are really not helpful.
- hga 13y agoBTW, Wikipedians considered Microsoft's stack ranking notorious enough to provide the date they started doing it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitality_curve#Microsoft http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitality_curve#Microsoft): "Starting in 2006 Microsoft has used a Vitality Curve despite intense internal criticism." Which I've noted elsewhere is the year in which Bill Gates stopped his day to day roles at Microsoft. I could talk about how Ballmer himself is a significant problem, but then again these "simple fixes" would surely require removing him from an position of direct power in the company.
- mikestew 13y agoMicrosoft has been doing stack ranking long before 2006. I left in 2005'and attended stack rank meetings, where managers indirectly decide your review score before you even get the form from HR. it goes back to at least the late 90s, IIRC.
- hga 13y agoWere those in the bottom rank shown the door in due course?
- mikestew 13y agoThere was certainly mention of "up or out", and a bad review or two would bring about the PIP stick (which seems to be only legal CYA before the firing, not for any hopes of real improvement). And, frankly, it was a long time ago and I haven't gone to any effort to remember details. I will say that in general it was as screwy and demotivating then as it is described to be now. It was based on a model proposed by Ballmer's hero Jack Welch. What Ballmer forgot is that Welch himself said the "trim the bottom 10%" model didn't work once a company got larger than a certain size.
- consultutah 13y agoInteresting that the guy that said, "Developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers", didn't mention where the developer tools end up in the re-org...
- ethomson 13y agoIt's easy to miss specific units when they enumerated so many of the organizations of such a large company. We haven't really moved: > Cloud and Enterprise Engineering Group. Satya Nadella will lead development of our back-end technologies like datacenter, database and our specific technologies for enterprise IT scenarios and development tools... (Emphasis mine)
- YuriNiyazov 13y agohttp://taffywilliams.blogspot.com/2011/07/write-3-letters-you-are-not-that-good.html http://taffywilliams.blogspot.com/2011/07/write-3-letters-yo... A new CEO was hired to replace an outgoing CEO. The outgoing CEO met with the incoming CEO for an exit interview. During the discussion, the departing CEO stated he had placed 3 very important letters in his drawer just as his predecessor had done for him. He explained that the new CEO would find opening the letters in order most useful when a serious event took place. He also stated the letters left for him had really helped him over his tenure. Several months passed before a major event came up. The new CEO now remembered the letters and noticed they were numbered 1, 2, and 3. The former CEO had instructed they be opened in order for maximal benefit. The new CEO opened letter #1 and the paper inside had the words “blame it on your predecessor.” The new CEO did as the letter stated and amazingly he was able to avert serious problems and keep his job. Several months passed before the next serious event took place. This one was growing in magnitude and things were starting to get ugly at the company. There were even calls for the CEO to step down. In desperation, the CEO opened the drawer and pulled out letter #2. With great fear he, opened it carefully to read the word “reorganize.” He followed the instructions and just as before he was saved. The whole company quieted down and went back to business as usual. After about a year, a third serious event took place and it was much worse than the rest. The CEO knew how to get out of the mess because he had a third letter left to open. With a smile he reached for the letter #3 and opened it to read “write 3 letters.”
- jaredmcateer 13y agoI actually did this when I was leaving as the only division systems admin, half-jokingly since my replacement was a friend. Except in the case where I read it was "Blame your predecessor", "Blame the old technology", "Write 3 Letters."
- snowwrestler 13y agoHow many second letters does Ballmer have? http://www.mondaynote.com/2010/05/30/ballmer-just-opened-the-second-envelope/ http://www.mondaynote.com/2010/05/30/ballmer-just-opened-the...
- 13y ago
- xradionut 13y agoLooks like the Devices and Studios Engineering Group is doomed...
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- clavalle 13y agoIf their new tack is as sharp and focused as that memo, Microsoft is in trouble. "We will be all things to all people by getting rid of anything that is not a huge profit center. Those profit centers will be organized in appropriate silos. Those silos will assign people to product committees for collaboration with other silos on individual products. Each committee will have a leader (Champion) who reports to the layer just below me. This new, tighter, organization will make us leaner and more nimble." Sounds -- as good as it could for a large organization I guess but there is a lot of contradiction. Greater reach through consolidation? Nimble action through layers of management? We are all One except for these few special cases? Build on our character as Microsoft but emulate Apple? One Strategy through rigidly defined feifdoms with their own Champions battling for influence? I also love their list of 'high-value activities' "high-value activities — serious fun, meetings, tasks, research, information assurance and IT/Dev workloads" Does anyone know what they mean by this? And all of this couched in such thick Business-Speak that 10 different people will come away with 10 different messages. Mr. Ballmer. For the love of all of the brilliant people you employ, step down. It's time.
- josephpmay 13y agoIt's doublespeak straight out of 1984.
- AmVess 13y agoI won Buzzword Bingo by the end of the second paragraph.
- mherdeg 13y agoYes, having Champions in silos does seem a little bit "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome", doesn't it.
- knodi 13y agoI honestly think he doesn't realize that he's the problem and people around him won't tell him the truth. Ballmer is a very intimidating guy both in physical size and attitude and is always ready to be combative. This make it very difficult to have a open dialog with him. Him remaining still as the CEO is not his fault its the boards fault they should have made moves to genteelly replace him a long time ago.
- knodi 13y agoLets if anything changes.
- jaynate 13y agoComplete and utter lack of focus is what I read: "Going forward, our strategy will focus on creating a family of devices and services for individuals and businesses that empower people around the globe at home, at work and on the go, for the activities they value most."
- apalmer 13y agoI really was intrigued by comparing this vision to the previous vision of putting a computer in every home... The previous was while completely open ended at least on some level measurable. The current is basically saying, we will make stuff to help customers do whatever wherever.
- jaynate 13y agoAgreed. And across business and personal use. "We will be all things to all people." If I'm a Microsoft employee there is not much here for me to get behind.
- DrJokepu 13y agoThe frontier of high-value scenarios we enable will march outward, but we have strengths and proven capabilities on which we will draw. What a sentence!
- seanmcdirmid 13y agoBallmer is a sales guy, not an engineer. No surprise he would write like that.
- outworlder 13y agoAssuming he did write it in the first place.
- mhartl 13y agoBallmer isn't exactly non-technical; he has a degree in applied mathematics from Harvard.
- keithpeter 13y agoI take both points (marketing, maths education) but can the man not pay a speech writer? OK for JFK, LBJ, Obama et al
- smacktoward 13y agoIt's a perfectly cromulent encapsulation of their newly synergized core competencies.
- jfb 13y agoMy fellow Americans. As a young boy, I dreamed of being a baseball, but tonight I say, we must move forward, not backward, upward not forward, and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom.
- podperson 13y agoSeems to me like the emphasis is on XBox. "Terry Myerson will lead this group, and it will span all our OS work for console..." Interesting, because I think XBox One (from One Microsoft) is a bit of a Hail Mary. It's not clear to me that the "next console" is going to be that big a deal. (My secret hope is that Apple has a really juicy Apple TV up its sleeve with iOS dev support, etc., and is just waiting to announce it when it will do the most good / damage.)
- jroseattle 13y agoHow, exactly, does this top-level re-organization change what happens on the ground, where products are built? I fail to see what an organizational change does here that improves product creativity and collaboration across teams. I can't imagine their chief problem was "if only our superiors had different reporting structures, then we could get along with ABC team from 123 group."
- Spooky23 13y agoI've lived that situation. In dysfunctional organizations people are sometimes not allowed to talk across org silos. It's horrific.
- famousactress 13y ago"...his product leaders will dotted line report to..." Okay, so still fucking broken. Moving along.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- canistr 13y agoIt wasn't immediately clear in Ballmer's statement, but is the Office division moving under the Cloud services group? It's interesting that they are putting their money-making operations (Office + Server&Tools) under Cloud with Satya Nadella instead of moving it over to Application Services under Qi Lu. Which, given the name, you would think Office would move under Applications.
- snuxoll 13y agoThe big push with Office is in Office 365 now, the desktop and server products of the Office family (Office, Exchange, Lync, Project Server, Sharepoint) are all direct results of the direction MS is headed with cloud services. Of course I don't see MS killing their on-premises products, but the change makes sense to me.
- awa 13y agoOffice is indeed moving under Qi Lu. (Applications and Services group)
- mieses 13y agoGrouping Bing with Office will hide Bing's massive financial losses from investors.
- akoumjian 13y agoI wonder if this will make any tangible difference in hiring and the volumes of contractors they have on payroll.
- Zigurd 13y agoAll the critical decisions have already been made: Microsoft branded hardware, running Windows, everywhere. No courier. Bring XBOX solidly into the Windows fold. It's all Windows. Why reorg? Who would accept the job of telling Ballmer that, when Nokia goes under, the "devices" part of that story is a fable? On top of that, the press release was apparently written by a student of Vogon poetry.
- smacktoward 13y agoAnd why on Earth would you want to bring your entertainment console closer to a brand that says "stuff I use at work because my boss says I have to" to everyone who sees it? That's not marketing, it's the antithesis of marketing. Anti-marketing. > Mark Penn... will lead with Tami the newly centralized advertising and media functions Oh. Well that explains that, then.
- WayneDB 13y agoDid Nokia build their Xbox, keyboards, mice, Surface, Surface Pro, Kinect or any of the other devices that Microsoft offers?
- Zigurd 13y agoSeems like a rhetorical question, but it actually has an answer: Game console unit volume, even two generations ago when it was still growing, is less than 5% of mobile handset unit volume. That said, walking past the Microsoft store at the Pru last night, the only display drawing a crowd was the Kinect darts game.
- WayneDB 13y agoYes, but is Microsofts game console unit volume less than 5% of Microsofts mobile handset unit volume?
- Zigurd 13y agoSeems like a rhetorical question, but it actually has an answer: Game console unit volume, even two generations ago when it was still growing, is less than 5% of mobile handset unit volume. That said, walking past the Microsoft store at the Pru last night, the only display drawing a crowd was the Kinect darts game.
- InclinedPlane 13y agoHmmm, well, this seems to be some marvelous buzzword bingo / word salad. It's looking more and more like MS is well and truly clueless. They don't understand the market. They don't understand their strengths. They definitely don't understand their weaknesses. And Ballmer isn't going to leave until he has a heart attack or maybe two. Edit: fine, I'll add some useful details. What are Microsoft's actual biggest advantages/disadvantages, how should they embrace the market? Advantages: the PC platform is still enormously powerful, and open, and they've still got huge ins with corporate computing. They could own the market on business oriented tablet form-factor computing but they don't have the vision. Disadvantages: stack ranking is poisonous to morale and retaining talent, the company is too monolithic (they used to be monolithic in multiple silos, now they're becoming monolithic in one giant silo, that's not better), and they still struggle with agility. The market? Android is the MS of the mobile generation, is it really so crazy to imagine that MS becoming the MS in mobile as well could be a route to success for them? And that's just what I could type in about 2 minutes.
- kyllo 13y agothe company is too monolithic (they used to be monolithic in multiple silos, now they're becoming monolithic in one giant silo, that's not better) Exactly, they are too big, and this reorg is going to make that worse, not better. I think they would have been better off actually spinning off their business units into separate companies, each with a clear product category and a clear organizational mission.
- InclinedPlane 13y agoOne of the things that Surface, Xbox One, and Windows Phone 7/8 has shown is that MS is scared but not hungry. They're still arrogant. Much more so than if they were a bunch of separate companies rather than one huge empire.
- cs702 13y agoI almost choked when I read Microsoft's new mission statement: "our strategy will focus on creating a family of devices and services for individuals and businesses that empower people around the globe at home, at work and on the go, for the activities they value most." In other words, Ballmer wants the company to "focus" on being everything to everyone! Not a good sign for the business. -- PS. Compare Ballmer's long, complicated memo to Google's mission statement: "to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful." (Source: http://www.google.com/about/company/ http://www.google.com/about/company/ )
- Metrop0218 13y agoThis isn't an agile startup here, it's one of the world's largest software companies. I think aiming to do a lot isn't a big stretch.
- InclinedPlane 13y agoIt's not a mission statement though, or a goal. "We're a company that does stuff for customers." Yeah, not helpful in the least.
- smacktoward 13y agoMicrosoft has always had big ambitions. Its original mission statement, first articulated all the way back in the late '70s, was "a computer in every desk and in every home, running Microsoft software." (http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/gat0int-1 http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/gat0int-1) Which was pretty audacious when the state of the art in personal computing was machines like the MITS Altair (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_8800 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_8800). Bill Gates: It's very hard to recall how crazy and wild that was, you know, "on every desk and in every home." At the time, you have people who are very smart saying, "Why would somebody need a computer?" Not saying this new statement is audacious (it feels kind of anodyne to me), just that "hidebound behemoth" isn't the only gene in their DNA.
- prewett 13y ago
- X4 13y agoMicrosoft http://maxcdn.fooyoh.com/files/attach/images/3004/144/040/008/lazyass.JPG http://maxcdn.fooyoh.com/files/attach/images/3004/144/040/00...
- JOnAgain 13y agoAzure will not catch AWS because it's not a first class division. It's an offering in a broader context. Contrast with Amazon who has an SVP of AWS (and he's considered one of the "more important" SVPs). Any chance I had of considering Azure just evaporated. And there's nothing that screams "ownership" like having a VP's reports "dotted-line" report into someone else, and to have that called out in a company-wide email. Then if you read it, every product MS comes out with will need strong cooperation from 3 SVPs. New Phone? Get the hardware guy, OS guy, and apps guy to coordinate. Recipe for disaster.
- ethomson 13y agoThere's a division called "Cloud" being headed up by Executive VP Satya Nadella that encompasses Azure and the apps that build on top of it (Office 365, visualstudio.com...) That seems pretty first-class to me.
- JOnAgain 13y agoNo, there's a division called "Cloud and Enterprise Engineering Group". This suggest that either it encompasses non-cloud offerings specific to enterprise or the cloud they're building is targeting specifically enterprise. Either way, they will not be focused on making Azure a product I wouldn't be interested in: 1 of 2 focuses or targeting someone I'm not. Furthermore, looks like they've split sales/marketing from engineering which will probably help them build more features which are irrelevant to me and put as many PMs between the clients and engineers as possible.
- ethomson 13y agoThat you're condemning Azure based on the name of the business unit its produced in and the location of sales and marketing people in a company makes me think that even if we'd named it "JOnAgain's Special Cloud!" that it would be unlikely to have been of interest to you. (Edit: obviously by "we" I mean "my employer Microsoft", not that I had anything to do with any of these decisions.)
- marshray 13y ago
- cykho 13y agoThis is going to be a disaster. Managing teams that large (thousands) is near impossible. Microsoft needs to become more fragmented with lower level P&L accountability to really innovate. This is understandably difficult when everything revolves around Windows and you have a shared salesforce. However, imo this is the only way forward for Microsoft.
- taopao 13y agoWHY are they keeping Lisa Brummel? MS' HR department is notoriously bad at recruitment and performance management. It's rotten at the core. I'm very disappointed that they didn't use this opportunity to nip the problem in the bud.
- NirDremer 13y agoA quick reminder of Ballmer being visionary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywi0h_Y5_U http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywi0h_Y5_U
- JonFish85 13y agoWhat is one good thing that Ballmer has done for MS? He's ridden the momentum left by Gates, and since then..... what? Nothing new & good. If I'm an investor in MS, is he really the best option? Not that Microsoft isn't a good company and does some great work (Microsoft Research labs are amazing, I don't care what people say), but honestly it seems like as a company, Microsoft hasn't really done anything new & better in over a decade. He's kept a steady course with the golden goose(s) of Windows/Office, of course.
- mehrzad 13y agoWindows Azure? 7? Those were under Ballmer's reign.
- JonFish85 13y agoAh, good point on Azure, that's fairly big. Windows 7 I guess I don't really see as anything more than iteration. It was an honest question, so I appreciate a good answer!
- frozenport 13y agoMS has been profitable for almost every quarter. Just being able to maintain the Windows Eco system is a huge source of revenue. The real problem is that his leadership style isn't sexy, which affects our ability as shareholders to speculate on the stock price. MSFT stock has hovered around $25,30 for the last few years, which makes it hard to stomach for my investment scale. I am looking for a jump from $25 to $50. Just imagine if he made a reckless but well advertized decision! The stock would rise and I would short that so hard they would name a cake after me.
- shmerl 13y agoOne thing won't change - they'll still remain complete jerks when it comes to software patents, vendor lock in, closed standards and other junk like that.
- Kurtz79 13y agoPity that Dilbert's Automatic Mission Statement Generator is not online anymore. This is not bad : http://cmorse.org/missiongen/ http://cmorse.org/missiongen/
- azinman2 13y agoI was kind of hoping Ballmer leaving would be part of the reorg. They seem quite lost, and this reorg a sign of desperation. Maybe Billy G should take on Microsoft as part of his new charity arm.
- codex 13y agoMediocre CEOs have only three levers to pull: "acquire," "layoff," and "reorg." Eventually Ballmer will pull all three levers in every order.
- chavesn 13y agoCan there be a "one more thing" where Ballmer retires, please?
- oscargrouch 13y agoIf they want to start to "be cool" again, they definitely need to start to opensource at least the "client" stuff.. and could remain with the "cloud ones" closed. (including office here) i think that if microsoft opens up some of its own software it would be a good sign .. things they dont monetize on.. like IE and the windows NT kernel (at least).. and with a bonus.. people would start to contribut to those projects.. This is a part of the strategy that has maded google cool.. and for the old timers to become cool too.. they need to learn some moves from the new boys in town.. just saying..
- sdfjkl 13y agoThis memo would only have been relevant if it had come from a new CEO.
- ChuckMcM 13y agoThis is the change : "This means we will organize the company by function: Engineering (including supply chain and datacenters), Marketing, Business Development and Evangelism, Advanced Strategy and Research, Finance, HR, Legal, and COO (including field, support, commercial operations and IT). Each discipline will help drive our overall strategy. Each discipline will also be charged with improving our core capabilities in its area. We must improve in all aspects of the business." So in the past each part of Microsoft seemed to operate both as a independent business (and sometimes competitor with other parts of Microsoft) and part of the whole. This re-aligns the company as a systems company focused on delivering a specific solution. A number of interesting thoughts ran through my head here. Perhaps the most profound was that Microsoft has basically said "Oh by the way, the PC is dead." and by that tacit admission they fulfill the prophecy of this being the 'post PC' era. Microsoft's reorganization is more about serving customers through a fusion of device + OS + product and less about serving customers as the supplier of "OS" or "Backend business management" or "gaming platform". That makes them a lot more like Apple and really puts Dell and HP in a sticky place. One wonders what the world would look like if Apple embraced people making cloned hardware. So if I read the tea leaves correctly, Ballmer is attempting to capture Google's Android strategy for Windows with the inclusion of the desktop/laptop component where the monetization comes not from the OS but from the environment. I don't know if Microsoft can pull it off but it reads like they want to be what Google and Apple would be if they merged. I give it top marks for aggressiveness, and it seems they are ready to step out of the shackles the monopolist next door, painting Google with that particular scarlet letter in the US and elsewhere. If I were Michael Dell, my first step after taking the company private would be buying Canonical and installing Shuttleworth as EVP of OS.
- bad_user 13y ago> Perhaps the most profound was that Microsoft has basically said "Oh by the way, the PC is dead." and by that tacit admission they fulfill the prophecy of this being the 'post PC' era All this talk about the "Post PC" era is misguided, with people leaving out the elephant in the room. It's not PCs that are dead - PCs are fine, you can find one in most homes and most people interact with PCs daily. This isn't going to change for a long time. Something else is dying - the traditional licensing model for software. Software is becoming a cheap commodity, due to open-source, due to the freemium model on the web, due to piracy, due to the $0.99 or ads-enabled apps that are so popular lately. By contrast, there's been a lot of innovation in hardware / devices. Skipping over the obvious innovations, like smart-phones with touch-screens, for example Samsung's Chromebook is amazing - a good looking ultra-portable with good battery, that does 90% of what people need and that's so cheap that you can replace it should you break or lose it. Let's think about what the Chromebook is, because it's fascinating - all the apps you run on it are web apps. The just released Firefox OS does the same thing and I'm sure it's going to be a success. Apple themselves, before releasing their iPhone SDK, were telling devs to build web apps. So where is Microsoft in this picture? Nowhere. Their empire is built on Windows and Office and without these in the picture they are fucked. And they can't rely on the current PC market for upgrades, because PCs are more than good enough, so people don't feel the need for upgrades, unless they buy based on sex-appeal. Many companies are still on Windows XP and Office 2003. This isn't a "Post PC" era. This is the "Web Era". Furthermore, all the mobile app stores are just passing fads.
- bubblebutt 13y agoYou going to love PR.
- JeremyMorgan 13y agoTL;DR: We're firing a bunch of people, giving more new jobs and focusing on phones and tablets finally.
- danbmil99 13y agoThis sounds suspiciously like the beginnings of a death rattle. What impressed me most about MS (worked with them around '97-2000) was that the company was divided into small divisions that had very precisely defined goals, and were able to operate somewhat autonomously (as long as they didn't conflict with core MS goals). Moving from a federated empire to a Soviet-style, run-from-the-top dictatorship is not likely to end with much success.
- teeja 13y agoMeet the new Snow White. Same as the old Snow White.
- cheery 13y agoWhat did Ballmer actually state there? I barely could find any message from that wall of nice words. How the reorganization is going to differ from the earlier one?
- jimray 13y agoI dug up Apple's reorg announcement from 1997, where Steve Jobs was officially brought on as an "advisory" role to then-CEO Gil Amelio. http://web.archive.org/web/19990128084705/http://product.info.apple.com/pr/press.releases/1997/q2/970204.pr.rel.structure.html http://web.archive.org/web/19990128084705/http://product.inf... Obviously, Apple and Microsoft are different companies and looking back 16 years with the benefit of hindsight is a bit unfair. And yet, even in the announcements, you can see a difference. Apple's is shorter, more direct, bereft of details but not trying to be everything to everyone. Most important is an emphasis on getting back to basics, whereas Microsoft is promising "one strategy, one Microsoft" and then immediately rattling off a laundry list of "core products". When every one of those products is core, it's clear nothing is.
- Macsenour 13y agoDid I miss something, what happened to games?
- Pxtl 13y agoThis seems horribly vague, except that they've been using the word "devices" a lot. Are they going to expand on the Surface thing and work closer with hardware vendors to make a complete suite of Microsoft-branded hardware? It really sounds like they're embracing the cloud + hardware model that is becoming standard in the mobile space - you have devices purpose-built for your OS and sold with your company's blessing and you have a suite of 1st-party web-supported cloud services. Google's various webapps and Android and their pseudo-first-party Nexus gizmos, Ubuntu and their new Ubuntu phone OS and their Ubuntu One services, Apple and their iOS devices and their own iCloud services, and MS with Win8/WP8/Win8RT and their various SkyDrive/Live services. My big problem with this huge move to cloud services is that interoperability has freaking tanked. Every consumer exists in one walled garden or another depending which infrastructure they bought into. To me, this statement implies a hard push on the WP8/Win8RT devices as well as SkyDrive/Live services... which is going to be a hard fight, since winphone is really late to the party, and the confusing branding of Win8RT (is it Windows 8? What?) has basically resulted in every vendor and manufacturer avoiding it like it's radioactive. Personally, I'd love a Win8RT HDMI stick device, but I'm weird that way... and Microsoft wants me to buy an XBox One so I'm guessing Win8RT HDMI sticks are off the menu.
- freehunter 13y agoThe problem is Microsoft's short attention span. Their products are usually better than the competition, but either no one uses them and MS kills the product, or people start using it and MS lets the product stagnate until it's not better anymore (or significantly worse). Windows Mobile was amazing, the best thing to ever happen to the mobile devices world. But it had grown stale long before Apple joined the market. Windows Phone debuted as a refreshing change in the marketplace and in some ways, ahead of Apple. And then the lack of continued innovation has stalled what little progress it was making. Then they killed Windows Phone (7) just to relaunch Windows Phone (8) as "mostly compatible". The Zune software was miles ahead of Apple's spreadsheet program. Then they killed it. The Zune Pass was and still is miles ahead of anything else in the music subscription space. But it hasn't just stagnated, it's actively become worse. You used to pay $10/mo and get 10 DRM-free songs per month, making the subscription part completely free. Now that's gone. But still, Google Play Music All Access Pass is the only thing remotely competing with it. I love Skydrive and you get massive amounts of space and massive amounts of integration, but how many times can they rebrand the same service? I started using Skydrive back when you would log into it using your MSN ID, then your Windows Live ID, then your Microsoft Account. It's the ADD-style lack of focus that killed Sega, and Microsoft just rides that train for all its worth.
- telcodud 13y agoSurprised that no one has mentioned Asymco or Horace Dediu and his recent podcasts and blog posts: http://www.asymco.com/2013/06/27/preempting-the-praetorian-guard/ http://www.asymco.com/2013/06/27/preempting-the-praetorian-g... http://www.asymco.com/2013/06/27/the-critical-path-90-the-praetorian-guard/ http://www.asymco.com/2013/06/27/the-critical-path-90-the-pr... where he goes into a lot of detail about how functional organizational structure might be relevant to innovation in a large company.
- soupboy 13y ago"The frontier of high-value scenarios we enable will march outward, but we have strengths and proven capabilities on which we will draw." What does that even mean? The letter is filled with nonsense sentences like this.
- ChrisNorstrom 13y agoSomething must be wrong at Microsoft... Either A) Windows 8 is not selling very well. B) Windows Surface is being ignored C) The Microsoft stores aren't doing too well either D) Windows phone is dying or E) all of the above. Anyway they can start by adding a left and right padding to their footer.
- suprgeek 13y agoI have much respect for a certain Mr. Tatarinov, who might be forgiven for dreaming about dotted lines all night long...From the Report "Kirill Tatarinov will continue to run Dynamics as is, but his product leaders will dotted line report to Qi Lu, his marketing leader will dotted line report to Tami Reller and his sales leader will dotted line report to the COO group."
- tmandarano 13y agoIt's about time.
- ams6110 13y agoThat heap of verbal diarrhea reads like any random enterprise reorganization effort I've seen in the last 20 years. What do failing, bloated organizations do when they have no other ideas? Reorganize!!
- firegrind 13y agoA fellow had just been hired as the new CEO of a large high tech corporation. The CEO who was stepping down met with him privately and presented him with three numbered envelopes. "Open these if you run up against a problem you don't think you can solve," he said. Well, things went along pretty smoothly, but six months later, sales took a downturn and he was really catching a lot of heat. About at his wit's end, he remembered the envelopes. He went to his drawer and took out the first envelope. The message read, "Blame your predecessor." The new CEO called a press conference and tactfully laid the blame at the feet of the previous CEO. Satisfied with his comments, the press -- and Wall Street - responded positively, sales began to pick up and the problem was soon behind him. About a year later, the company was again experiencing a slight dip in sales, combined with serious product problems. Having learned from his previous experience, the CEO quickly opened the second envelope. The message read, "Reorganize." This he did, and the company quickly rebounded. After several consecutive profitable quarters, the company once again fell on difficult times. The CEO went to his office, closed the door and opened the third envelope. The message said, "Prepare three envelopes."
- znowi 13y ago"One Microsoft: Company realigns to enable surveillance at greater speed, efficiency"
- Klaughton 13y agoI have to give MSFT some credit in this situation, for once. The acquisitions of Yammer and Skype, and evolution of the Azure and Office 365 platforms, are cornering the cloud collaboration market in the enterprise. MSFT has set a clear strategy in the cloud collab market up and down the stack, and it's paying off.
- rdl 13y agoThat whole memo seems like a parody of Microsoft -- it was pages long, included less than one page of actual content (and even that was confusing), was peppered with stock phrases (almost as bad as "our goals are to synergize using our core competencies, involving all stakeholders at the table in a comprehensive decision making process aimed at maximizing quality and correctness...". I kind of hate Microsoft even more after reading it, even though the changes (were there any?) may be good.