Microsoft Financial Analyst Meeting 2005
No commentary, just links (which greatly reduces my chance of writing pouching instead of poaching… not that it currently matters…). Below are postings relevant to today's Financial Analyst Meeting at Microsoft. If you have some spare minutes and are vested in Microsoft's future, I recommend reading below and considering the immediate pre-, during-, and post-reactions to today's presentations. If you find other links relevant to today worth reading, please by all means post the link in a comment.
Microsoft's Investor Relations:
- Microsoft Financial Analyst Meeting 2005
- There's a link to each presenter here, with a transcript and downloads. A wealth of presentation information to go through. For instance:
Joe Wilcox at the Microsoft Monitor:
- Steve Ballmer: "Synergy" #
- Bill's Better Together Message #
- Windows Vista's Challenges #
- What's New in the Office #
- Server and Tools Update #
- Reading Microsoft's Expression #
- MSN: Social Networking Edition #
- Microsoft Premium #
Todd Bishop at the Seattle-PI:
- Microsoft foresees bigger revenue growth
- Posting from FAM ...
- MSFT's piece of the pie
- High-end versions coming
- Apple on Windows radar
Random other links:
- Please, Mr. Gates, I Want More
- Microsoft's Ballmer 'very bullish' on growth prospects - Computer Software - Technology, Software - Software - Company Announcements - Earnings - General - M&A
- Microsoft sets out internet growth strategy
- Ballmer Busts Out the Bullishness
- Microsoft Struts Its Stuff
- Ballmer High-end Windows, Office coming CNET News.com
- Ballmer Tries to Restore Luster of Microsoft's Stock
30 comments:
I'm surprised that no one has commented on the departure of Kai-Fu Lee for Google, and Microsoft's suit to enforce his non-compete agreement. I'd like to hear thoughts from this group.
Personally, I suspect that Kai-Fu is a Trojan Horse, since everyone I know who's ever had contact with him came away feeling underwhelmed. There are other rumors I've heard, but I think detailing them would verge on slander, and I'd hate to have the PRC's goons after me. :)
If he's the guy who came up with MSFT's search story, Google is welcome to him.
Sorry to have nitpicked about "pouching". I thought you would want to correct it. Honestly, though, a "sexy group" "pouching" sounds more like something that would happen at the Wet Spot than Microsoft. Hmmm. I think I remember something about that in diversity training.
I'm just amazed the analysts (and others paying attention) haven't called for CEO blood. The CEOs job is to create real shareholder value, and while the $3 dividend was nice - for the VPs like Allchin and Ballmer who participated, the stock is a laggard with no change in sight. I would love to see Steve's only get a 4.5 this year...
Microsoft wins the first round in the whole debacle regd Kai-Fu Lee's departure
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/234454_msftgoogle29.html
The ironic thing is, Kai-Fu isn't like the first one to allegedly violate the non-compete clause - and no, I'm not going to cite examples, they're easy enough to find/figure out if you are fte...
The Google lawsuit is all about making an example of Kai-fu so that other high-level employees think twice about leaving MSFT for much greener pastures.
It's a desparate move. MSFT clearly can't compete with Google on merit alone, so we have no choice but to force loyalty by legal means.
Well, he *did* have a non-compete agreement. I don't know know if every MS employee has one, but I did and it was pretty straight-forward. In my case, I could not work for any of my previously assigned customers for at least one year. I assume that Kai-Fu Lee as an executive would have an agreement that is more restrictive.
I wonder if they are hacking his computer and bugging his house to see what he is saying....
Remember when good ol Ed Fries left for Sony? I think he joined Sony immediately after his 1-year restriction ended?
If nothing else, this lawsuit should give potential future MS employees pause. Think long and hard about what your options will be if you decide it isn't the right place for you once you start. The non-compete clause isn't restricted to VPs only, these sort of clauses are applicable to everyone. It is in your own best interest to DEMAND to see every piece of paper you will be asked to sign BEFORE accepting the job (especially for any company headquartered outside of CA).
The lawsuit is an embarassment to MSFT, regardless of its merits or lack thereof. As another poster said above, it smacks of desperation.
After all this "kindler, gentler Microsoft" crap that's been coming out of Ballmer and HR for the past few years, it feels like the same old cutthroat win-at-any-cost attitude is rearing its ugly head. If that's how Steve & Bill want to continue to run the company, then fine, but be honest about it and stop feeding us BS about corporate citizenship and the nausea-inducing Bennetton-ad-inspired MS Values.
No, an embarassment is when you find yourself living in a real-life version of The Truman Show and you have such a lack of privacy that people even talk about your bowel movements, to name only one of a thousand examples. That's an embarassment.
"The lawsuit is an embarassment to MSFT, regardless of its merits or lack thereof. As another poster said above, it smacks of desperation."
You know, I really don't agree with many things we as company do - but I totally agree with this lawsuit. For few reasons:
- he had an agreement with us
- Google must have figured so too... just because they are google, they are not a holy cow
You bet it was desperation... we spent few Mil $$ on that guy, he knew what the strategy was etc... Google would be desperate if tables were turned too. I doubt we were desperate from HR viewpoint but rather from sensitive info viewpoint.
I doubt we were desperate from HR viewpoint but rather from sensitive info viewpoint.
Read the depositions, it's not about the knowledge in this guy's head. Hell, is it really that much of a mystery what MS is likely to do in China? This case is all about FUDing employees into staying away from Google. Same old MS playbook. And no, I don't think Google would be nearly so desperate...they have already lost a VP or two to the competition and you didn't see them crying all the way home.
The analysts meeting was a joke. Clearly, Ballmer has finally realized that the market doesn't believe him or the company's story on future growth (I wonder why when Q1 is forecast at just 6% growth?). So the whole day was one pathetic attempt after another to try and show MST's performance as something other than the marginal growth that it in fact is. Last year, it was compare MSFT to competitors using absolute numbers. This year, 5 year growth rates vs the competition. Of course, the only number that matters is current/future YOY growth expressed as a % and since that sucks, he omitted it and was left to bullshit and talk about how the emerging businesses are "poised" to take off. And how about the choice of refering to the legacy divisions as "anchors" -isn't that a great namesake and one which Office and Windows (at least) appear to be quickly living up to? Then again, I guess you could add all the emerging businesses since collectively they don't even make a profit. Finally, gotta love the CFO referring to the company's 5 year performance as "outstanding". Gee, if we have another 5 years of outstanding performance and lose as much market cap as we have in the past 5 years, then I guess we can look forward to a super successful company with zero market cap. Suggestion to the new CFO: go talk to a shareholder and ask them whether they think the past 5 years have been "outstanding" - or simply grab a brain, look at your own stock chart and see that over the past 5 years, this management team has overseen the largest destruction of shareholder value in corporate history. Wow, what an impressive achievement. It certainly stands out but "outstanding"? Don't think so. Meanwhile, the management team has bilked shareholders out of more than $30B that has gone primarily to pay the same top talent who's strategies/business choices have helped to deliver this abysmal performance. Worse, they now refer to this money as having been "returned" to shareholders. WTF? Did we ever see it? No. Did we ever see a reduction in shares outstanding as a result of it? No. All it did was avoid $30B in further dilution. The reality is that MSFT is buying back its stock now (as then) not because it "believes" in it or because it wants to "return" money to shareholders. It's buying it back because it no longer has the earnings to withstand the ongoing massive dilution that would otherwise result if the prohibitive ongoing payments to insiders were allowed to continue increasing shares outstanding. But hey, better to bullshit about current/future growth, where the money has really gone and how the company is truly poised - right? We shareholders need a management team that will take responsibility/accountability for growing this company at the rate necessary to drive the overall valuation or failing that, will bring expenses into line with diminished growth to accomplish that same objective. In other words, one that is focused on our needs for a change and one which is above all candid - all of which appear to preclude these guys.
They can have Kai Fu. That guy ran NISD into the ground by trying to keep his loss-leading pet projects alive. He had to jump ship before Allchin canned him.
"They can have Kai Fu. That guy ran NISD into the ground by trying to keep his loss-leading pet projects alive. He had to jump ship before Allchin canned him."
Oh, so the guy we were paying $1M+/yr and entrusted with the details of our entire GOOG strategy was really a screwup? Wow, I feel better now. Not. Speaking of $1M/yr (+) screwups, why does Allchin himself still have a job? Or Raikes? Or Burgum? Or [fill in the blank]. Our corporate motto should be "Failure is rewarded, success merely tolerated".
It's funny to hear Microsoft people talking about a "Google strategy". Sounds like people that are simply reacting to what Google does instead of taking initiative and being creative.
You are providing aid and comfort to your business adversary by acknowledging to the world that Google is the master.
And there is a distinction to be made between focusing on what Google is doing versus focusing on what the consumer wants.
"It's funny to hear Microsoft people talking about a "Google strategy". Sounds like people that are simply reacting to what Google does instead of taking initiative and being creative."
Any good strategy includes a review of your competitors and how you intend to compete against them. Whether that should be called a seperate GOOG strategy or not is debateable academically but of little practical value. That said, I agree that MSFT is a lot more comfortable when they can focus on crushing a competitor than when they're in front and need to lead. The latter does take creavity, innovation, understanding customer needs and execution excellence. Frankly, MSFT has always sucked at the first three and even the last one is looking suspect of late. However, some credit should go to GOOG. They've done a very good job of preempting YHOO and MSFT and making both respond to them vs the reverse. Obviously, someone over there read the Art of War and took some of its teachings to heart. We'll see if they can keep it up. And who knows, maybe Ballmer/Gates long promised "innovation" will finally materialize. Okay, forget that, better step up the "let's crush GOOG strategy"...
>>someone over there read the Art of War<<
Only civilian pansies even talk of reading BS like that. If you want to fight a war, join the Army and quit being a poser.
"Only civilian pansies even talk of reading BS like that. If you want to fight a war, join the Army and quit being a poser."
Wow, insightful. Why didn't you just say "my dick's bigger than yours" or something equally juvenile? BTW just about every military person with half a brain has read Sun Tzu and while its lessons are focused on war, their applicability to business and more specifically the current GOOG vs MSFT situation are self-evident:
1. Sun Tzu said: Whoever is first in the field and awaits
the coming of the enemy, will be fresh for the fight; whoever is
second in the field and has to hasten to battle will arrive
exhausted.
2. Therefore the clever combatant imposes his will on the
enemy, but does not allow the enemy's will to be imposed on him.
[One mark of a great soldier is that he fight on his own
terms or fights not at all. [1] ]
3. By holding out advantages to him, he can cause the enemy
to approach of his own accord; or, by inflicting damage, he can
make it impossible for the enemy to draw near.
[In the first case, he will entice him with a bait; in the
second, he will strike at some important point which the enemy
will have to defend.]
Join the Army, poser.
Looking at the new COO from Walmart, where does this leave Kevin Johnson?
Is he going to the big leagues? Any thoughts?
I just want to know how long before we're all wearing blue vests and making $5.00 an hour.
Doesn't it seem odd that the sales numbers always exceed the targets, but yet the stock price is staying in the same area? Why is that? Does Wall Street not believe the sales numbers?
Disagree with Rudder's claim that 53% of developers use .NET. Not sure what markets he's looking at, love to see his data, but I can tell you: this mix is absolutely not reflective of what I see in the field.
It's maybe 35% of our business. Up from essentially zero in the spring of 2003.
Since 2001, I believe I owned exactly two engagements dealing specifically with .NET web services.
You can conclude one of two things:
1) People are, in fact, writing and using web services, and they're all so simple and perfect to implement that you never hear about them. Or see them at any customer site.
2) The adoption rate is way lower than Rudder claims.
From where I sit, I'd vote for 2).
In the MS shops, the bulk of what I see is ASP with lots of add-ins, lots of COM components in VS 6 (maybe 5% C/C++, the rest VB), a smattering of Javascript.
Microsoft is becoming the 300 pound gorilla in the room, and it is eating away at their talent, profits (12% decline since Ballmer took over), innovation, and workplace productivity. I am pretty sure Microsoft employees would like to spend more time writing code and innovating, than they do at Mr. Ballmers' pointless rally meetings and senior exec strategy sessions. Keep up the not-so-good work guys!
P.S. People violate the non-compete clause all the time, so deal with it buster's. Just another win for Google, sooner or later we are going to have to throw in the towel ladies. "No Mas"
You should read this, by another Microsoft defector:
http://www.ervin-peretz.blogspot.com/
The reason why MS is going down the drain is because we have started hiring flakes like this http://spaces.msn.com/members/businessofmarketing/
http://spaces.msn.com/members/businessofmarketing/
check the link above and comment on how MS does marketing nowadays
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