14 ms·

I can't believe that the article doesn't contain the slightest mention of any of the numerous disasters that took place under Ballmer's leadership. The writer m

I can't believe that the article doesn't contain the slightest mention of any of the numerous disasters that took place under Ballmer's leadership. The writer makes it sound like Ballmer's only fault was that he was only a little too slow to change the company. In reality Microsoft lost billions due to tactical business errors like the Surface, Xbox hardware failures, Windows Phone, and the Zune.

dragontamer 13y ago
What the hell? Lost Billions? Microsoft has tripled its revenue in 10 years. Its profits have been tripled as well. As much as people hate on Microsoft, it is at its core... an extremely profitable buisiness.
- taopao 13y ago
  Very few new lines of business. Most of their new ventures are failures or perpetually in the red.
  - dragontamer 13y ago
    Who were Microsoft's biggest competitors circa 2000? Sun Microsystems? BeOS ? Apple's G4? The big players in Server-space have lost to Linux, but Microsoft has managed to remain big with Azure, Office 365. * Sun Microsystems / Java is basically dying at this point. Oracle screwed the pooch on this one. C#/.NET are big, and the biggest users of Java don't even use Java anymore. (See Android and Dalvik) * Internet Explorer has actually survived past Netscape Communicator, Mozilla (the original), and is making inroads into Firefox. Its a bit weird that Firefox was able to capture IE's marketshare, but IE has remained consistently in the top browsers for far longer than any other web browser right now. * Some products, like Microsoft SQL Server and MS Office, have been repackaged into new forms. Office 365 is price-competitive against Google's line of "cloud" products, and Azure is profitable. New business ventures have also begun * XBox / Gaming has been generally considered successful (despite mostly losing money so far) * Purchases, such as Skype, have brought Microsoft into other markets, like VOIP. ----------------- Most of Microsoft's "business ventures" are very successful. Windows Phone was the dominant Smartphone of 2007, with 42% marketshare. That is hardly a failure by any stretch of the imagination. I'm talking about Windows Mobile platform and older btw. (Future of Windows Phones, such as Windows Phone 8 / Lumia devices seems relatively positive, especially in India) Again, why are businesses... in business? To make money. PERIOD. And Microsoft is by all accounts extremely successful at it.
- blinkingled 13y ago
  That's missing the point - Even if the sum total was positive the revenue came from businesses such as Windows and Office which everyone agrees are set to decline. Microsoft was supposed to be in a position to offset the decline from Windows/Office by being a leader in the SmartPhone/Tablets/Online game. Instead, they kept losing money big time and constantly readjusting to no avail in those areas and there is still no sign of them picking up steam at a rate they need to.
  - lotso 13y ago
    Uhh Microsoft is definitely in a position to offset the losses from Windows and Office through their strong Enterprise division.
    - blinkingled 13y ago
      And what happens when Windows isn't the most widely used Enterprise platform because they failed at SmartPhones and Tablets and Google happily took their Exchange revenue? Kind of opposite of iPod effect. Things are more interdependent than they look. Sure, it would take a long time to make a dent but reduced consumer side influence of Windows and office cannot possibly be good for Microsoft's Enterprise business in the long run.
  - Zigurd 13y ago
    There are a whole lot of people who will never migrate away from traditional desktops and laptops, nor away from Windows and Office. The prices of those products could be raised substantially before these is any price sensitivity, because the direct product pricing is a small part of the lifecycle expense of those "seats." Microsoft has a lot of time and a lot of money to help figure out what comes next for them. Though the money can be kind of a curse. It enabled them to overspend on projects until they became permanent unkillable money losers. Mostly they need to get rid of dogmas and let their people rip and make something that isn't Windows, and has no Windows legacy tail to drag around (I did not say no migration path or protocol-level compatibility).
  - tanzam75 13y ago
    > Even if the sum total was positive the revenue came from businesses such as Windows and Office which everyone agrees are set to decline. Microsoft was supposed to be in a position to offset the decline from Windows/Office It is true that Windows and Office grew over the past ten years. On the other hand, the Server & Tools division grew from 12% of Microsoft's operating income in fiscal year 2003, to 31% of operating income in fiscal year 2013. Also, there is no decline in "Windows and Office." There is a decline in Windows -- but not in Office. Maybe you think that Office will decline, but the analysts don't. So it's certainly not true that "everyone agrees" it is "set to decline."
breckinloggins 13y ago
They referenced "missed opportunities", which is where I presume that stuff fits in. It seems like the main purpose of the piece was to be - for lack of a better term - a "business tear-jerker". You're supposed to see him as a human being. It did a good job at that, but I agree that it glossed over some truly bad things that happened under his command.
ChuckMcM 13y ago
That is an interesting narrative. Microsoft didn't "lose" anything, they have made billions over the last decade. So you have a profitable company bringing in billions of dollars that is pretty much qualifies as "doing a good job." So when people talk about the 'lost billions' they create a hypothetical Microsoft, the one of today which made billions of dollars but also dominated in new markets and made billions more. There is absolutely no evidence that Microsoft could have done both, regardless of who was at the helm. It would have been epic, but it isn't clear that it was possible. So this article was Ballmer's take on his reign, he's not going to say "I didn't capture the smartphone market" he is going to remember that he made a lot of money off enterprises for his employees and his shareholders. I would happy to be that successful. Google has never made serious money off their hardware products or operating system products, Apple has never made serious money off their operating system products or their network products, and Microsoft has never made significant money on either network products or hardware products. All three have a space where they are really good, all three are so so in the other two spaces. Why is Ballmer presented as an idiot and Page and Cook not?
- r00fus 13y ago
  Imagine if Apple spent billions on boondoggles that made it such that instead of having $150B in their bank account, they only had $100B or $50B - because that's what's evident - MSFT might have double it's current cash ($80B) [1] if it had executed well on those new key ventures. Is it any less a managerial failure to repeatedly fail to execute like this than it is to push a company from profitable to unprofitable (or run it into bankruptcy)? And that's ignoring the cultural morass that failed policies like stacked ranking promote - that could likely have poisoned Microsoft's productivity well.
  - ChuckMcM 13y ago
    Well if you are unconstrained from reality you could argue that Apple could have made MacOS available for any x86 laptop and sold it from $50/copy and completely STOLEN what was left of the technical Windows market. But no, their stupid reliance on only putting it on some over priced hardware left BILLIONs on the table. You see how that works? In lots and lots of ways MacOS is much better than Windows 8, and yet Apple won't sell it to Dell or Lenovo to pre-install on their laptops, they won't even talk to them about it. But it would be cool (and we know its possible with all the Hackintoshes out there). Everyone agrees that Microsoft fumbled on the phone business and Apple executed very well. Apple so far has totally fumbled their network products offering, social music network? icloud? not stellar.
InclinedPlane 13y ago
Those were stumbles the biggest failures are not as easily seen. One of them was the way MS responded to the economic downturn. Despite having billions in the bank MS acted scared. They put the brakes on bonuses, promotions, and hiring. They indulged in a series of layoffs, giving many the impression that their jobs were not secure. MS had the money to project strength, to acquire talent from its competitors, and so forth. Instead they project weakness and abused their own employees. And the result was that many of the most talented people left the company. People who saw that MS no longer had their back, people who had the easiest ability to find more interesting, more rewarding, or higher paying work elsewhere. And that exodus is still ongoing. It's a process of evaporation. As so many good people leave that diminishes the goodness of the rest of the company, which causes even more people to leave. The changes in corporate culture and Ballmer's bad strategy decisions have had their role in people leaving as well. Moreover, Ballmer has been pruning the company of high level leadership which could challenge his authority. With predictable results. Overall the difference in the average quality of people at MS is astounding. It used to be, even in the mid '00s, that the best and brightest work there. Now only a few people at MS fit that category and the ability of the company to execute on projects has been diminished in untold ways.

dragontamer 13y ago

What the hell? Lost Billions? Microsoft has tripled its revenue in 10 years. Its profits have been tripled as well. As much as people hate on Microsoft, it is at its core... an extremely profitable buisiness.

taopao 13y ago
Very few new lines of business. Most of their new ventures are failures or perpetually in the red.
- dragontamer 13y ago
  Who were Microsoft's biggest competitors circa 2000? Sun Microsystems? BeOS ? Apple's G4? The big players in Server-space have lost to Linux, but Microsoft has managed to remain big with Azure, Office 365. * Sun Microsystems / Java is basically dying at this point. Oracle screwed the pooch on this one. C#/.NET are big, and the biggest users of Java don't even use Java anymore. (See Android and Dalvik) * Internet Explorer has actually survived past Netscape Communicator, Mozilla (the original), and is making inroads into Firefox. Its a bit weird that Firefox was able to capture IE's marketshare, but IE has remained consistently in the top browsers for far longer than any other web browser right now. * Some products, like Microsoft SQL Server and MS Office, have been repackaged into new forms. Office 365 is price-competitive against Google's line of "cloud" products, and Azure is profitable. New business ventures have also begun * XBox / Gaming has been generally considered successful (despite mostly losing money so far) * Purchases, such as Skype, have brought Microsoft into other markets, like VOIP. ----------------- Most of Microsoft's "business ventures" are very successful. Windows Phone was the dominant Smartphone of 2007, with 42% marketshare. That is hardly a failure by any stretch of the imagination. I'm talking about Windows Mobile platform and older btw. (Future of Windows Phones, such as Windows Phone 8 / Lumia devices seems relatively positive, especially in India) Again, why are businesses... in business? To make money. PERIOD. And Microsoft is by all accounts extremely successful at it.
blinkingled 13y ago
That's missing the point - Even if the sum total was positive the revenue came from businesses such as Windows and Office which everyone agrees are set to decline. Microsoft was supposed to be in a position to offset the decline from Windows/Office by being a leader in the SmartPhone/Tablets/Online game. Instead, they kept losing money big time and constantly readjusting to no avail in those areas and there is still no sign of them picking up steam at a rate they need to.
- lotso 13y ago
  Uhh Microsoft is definitely in a position to offset the losses from Windows and Office through their strong Enterprise division.
  - blinkingled 13y ago
    And what happens when Windows isn't the most widely used Enterprise platform because they failed at SmartPhones and Tablets and Google happily took their Exchange revenue? Kind of opposite of iPod effect. Things are more interdependent than they look. Sure, it would take a long time to make a dent but reduced consumer side influence of Windows and office cannot possibly be good for Microsoft's Enterprise business in the long run.
- Zigurd 13y ago
  There are a whole lot of people who will never migrate away from traditional desktops and laptops, nor away from Windows and Office. The prices of those products could be raised substantially before these is any price sensitivity, because the direct product pricing is a small part of the lifecycle expense of those "seats." Microsoft has a lot of time and a lot of money to help figure out what comes next for them. Though the money can be kind of a curse. It enabled them to overspend on projects until they became permanent unkillable money losers. Mostly they need to get rid of dogmas and let their people rip and make something that isn't Windows, and has no Windows legacy tail to drag around (I did not say no migration path or protocol-level compatibility).
- tanzam75 13y ago
  > Even if the sum total was positive the revenue came from businesses such as Windows and Office which everyone agrees are set to decline. Microsoft was supposed to be in a position to offset the decline from Windows/Office It is true that Windows and Office grew over the past ten years. On the other hand, the Server & Tools division grew from 12% of Microsoft's operating income in fiscal year 2003, to 31% of operating income in fiscal year 2013. Also, there is no decline in "Windows and Office." There is a decline in Windows -- but not in Office. Maybe you think that Office will decline, but the analysts don't. So it's certainly not true that "everyone agrees" it is "set to decline."

breckinloggins 13y ago

They referenced "missed opportunities", which is where I presume that stuff fits in. It seems like the main purpose of the piece was to be - for lack of a better term - a "business tear-jerker". You're supposed to see him as a human being. It did a good job at that, but I agree that it glossed over some truly bad things that happened under his command.

ChuckMcM 13y ago

That is an interesting narrative. Microsoft didn't "lose" anything, they have made billions over the last decade. So you have a profitable company bringing in billions of dollars that is pretty much qualifies as "doing a good job." So when people talk about the 'lost billions' they create a hypothetical Microsoft, the one of today which made billions of dollars but also dominated in new markets and made billions more. There is absolutely no evidence that Microsoft could have done both, regardless of who was at the helm. It would have been epic, but it isn't clear that it was possible. So this article was Ballmer's take on his reign, he's not going to say "I didn't capture the smartphone market" he is going to remember that he made a lot of money off enterprises for his employees and his shareholders. I would happy to be that successful. Google has never made serious money off their hardware products or operating system products, Apple has never made serious money off their operating system products or their network products, and Microsoft has never made significant money on either network products or hardware products. All three have a space where they are really good, all three are so so in the other two spaces. Why is Ballmer presented as an idiot and Page and Cook not?

r00fus 13y ago
Imagine if Apple spent billions on boondoggles that made it such that instead of having $150B in their bank account, they only had $100B or $50B - because that's what's evident - MSFT might have double it's current cash ($80B) [1] if it had executed well on those new key ventures. Is it any less a managerial failure to repeatedly fail to execute like this than it is to push a company from profitable to unprofitable (or run it into bankruptcy)? And that's ignoring the cultural morass that failed policies like stacked ranking promote - that could likely have poisoned Microsoft's productivity well.
- ChuckMcM 13y ago
  Well if you are unconstrained from reality you could argue that Apple could have made MacOS available for any x86 laptop and sold it from $50/copy and completely STOLEN what was left of the technical Windows market. But no, their stupid reliance on only putting it on some over priced hardware left BILLIONs on the table. You see how that works? In lots and lots of ways MacOS is much better than Windows 8, and yet Apple won't sell it to Dell or Lenovo to pre-install on their laptops, they won't even talk to them about it. But it would be cool (and we know its possible with all the Hackintoshes out there). Everyone agrees that Microsoft fumbled on the phone business and Apple executed very well. Apple so far has totally fumbled their network products offering, social music network? icloud? not stellar.

InclinedPlane 13y ago

Those were stumbles the biggest failures are not as easily seen. One of them was the way MS responded to the economic downturn. Despite having billions in the bank MS acted scared. They put the brakes on bonuses, promotions, and hiring. They indulged in a series of layoffs, giving many the impression that their jobs were not secure. MS had the money to project strength, to acquire talent from its competitors, and so forth. Instead they project weakness and abused their own employees. And the result was that many of the most talented people left the company. People who saw that MS no longer had their back, people who had the easiest ability to find more interesting, more rewarding, or higher paying work elsewhere. And that exodus is still ongoing. It's a process of evaporation. As so many good people leave that diminishes the goodness of the rest of the company, which causes even more people to leave. The changes in corporate culture and Ballmer's bad strategy decisions have had their role in people leaving as well. Moreover, Ballmer has been pruning the company of high level leadership which could challenge his authority. With predictable results. Overall the difference in the average quality of people at MS is astounding. It used to be, even in the mid '00s, that the best and brightest work there. Now only a few people at MS fit that category and the ability of the company to execute on projects has been diminished in untold ways.