Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Microsoft's Robbie Bach Retires... Whoo-Hoo! (And J is gone, too.)

Just a quick celebration of this morning's news: Robbie Bach is retiring from Microsoft.

I'm so happy for him. And for Entertainment and Devices. And Microsoft.

This is a great opportunity for E&D to evolve and restructure. And, of course, a great opportunity to really screw up who to put in charge and such.

And yes, J Allard is out of here as well. Don Mattrick and Andy Lees step up. Also: David Treadwell side steps. And Office shuffles up a little bit.

What would you do with the various groups, products and who else would you put in charge?


-- Comments

278 comments:

«Oldest   ‹Older   201 – 278 of 278
Anonymous said...

Just how small are you?

I'm not the OP but at my first week at work at a startup a few years ago, SteveB dropped by for a visit and walked past my office. I was surprised how short he was since the only other times I've seen him were at MS company meetings or on a stage.

Anonymous said...

@Since Ballmer took over from Bill Gates as CEO in January 2000, Microsoft's market value has more than halved from $556 billion to Wednesday's close of $219 billion. Rival Apple's market value has surged from $15.6 billion to $221 billion over the same period.

Microsoft, Get rid of the ego and learn something from your competitors. Results are results.

Anonymous said...

The old Windows culture used to throw heads at problems in a futile attempt at big wins. The new culture doesn't even try.

Good. The things Windows considers "big wins" would take half an hour to explain to a typical computer user and then they'd shrug their shoulders at it. Like WinFS. Everybody who wants to do a big win like that should be fired. Notice how consumers love Windows 7 and all it is is a faster version of Vista with a simpler task bar? Let's keep that trend going. There are enough "little" things in Windows that should be fixed/improved that it would keep the division busy for 10 years. You have no business working on big wins.

Anonymous said...

This means that we have a shot too - if our product is any good. Have you tried it? If yes and didn't like it, did you try to join the group and try to improve it? Did you write an app for it?

Groups hire people to work on the plans they already have. If you join a group with the idea that you want to change the product for the better, you will quickly find yourself bogged down in office politics, then you'll get bad reviews, then you'll be asked to leave (or you'll be laid off). There is no mechanism that allows ICs to improve products at Microsoft.

Anonymous said...

Ahah, Balmers strategy is starting to show light ...

... forget trying to inovate. MSFT can pick up the tail end of the market the rest of the world has left behind.

According to Microsoft’s Australian chief security adviser, Stuart Strathdee, companies are avoiding upgrading their internet browsers from IE6 because Facebook, among other things, doesn’t render properly within the browser.



http://www.allfacebook.com/2010/05/how-to-keep-your-employees-off-facebook-use-ie6/

David@thenobles.us said...

Perhaps I’m a cynic, but this looks a lot like the kind of thing a CEO does when he knows he’s in trouble. By booting out some direct reports, Ballmer pushes the blame onto them and sell himself to the board as a leader who's made a tough decision required to get things back on track.

Basically, Ballmer has bought himself some time. But it’s hard to imagine the Microsoft's board and their big investors will wait long while the company slides downhill into the future.

I'll give 2:1 odds. Who'd like to bet that Microsoft's got a new CEO within 18 months?

Anonymous said...

"My team just canned 4 people today."

For the rest of us... How are they 'canning' them? Is it a surprise that they are being told their jobs are actually going away or that they were "Performanced Out". I supposed management doesn't share the latter with you, but that you'll know if the jobs are now open and/or reposted of they tell you they are looking for a 'replacement' for the such and such role.

What types of roles are the canning - manager or IC, tech or external facing?

Anonymous said...

For just the last second, of the last minute, on the last day, that Bach is employed by MS, he will receive more in personal compensation than the combined net profit of the entire division he ran for a decade. And let’s not even talk about the future threat MS now faces as a result of his dropping the mobile ball so badly.

Todd said...

Those thinking there will be another Massive layoff day wrong. However, I have been told that the way it will work this year is that some groups are not part of FY11 planning. So, the axe will fall ever quietly through-out the company. It won't be layoffs to the same degree and is a result of several re-orgs throughout the company.

Anonymous said...

I work in windows phone 7 client. I cannot understand the shake up at this stage of the project. Really leadership, is this the time you had to make these shake off’s? I mean really, you cannot wait till the product ships? Cannot wait till the review cycle ends?

When will Windows Phone 7 ship? This is the date everyone should be paying attention to (a.l.a. Windows 7)

Anonymous said...

As a person that worked in E&D for a long time in various groups and roles, I can tell you that some of the main problems with E&D are organizational problems that Robbie let go on forever. Churn, super deep orgs (GMs reporting to GMs reporting to GMs), bad hires (some have come and gone, some still there), priority changes, and culture shifts at the top impede the teams and drive attrition. And this stuff is happening all the time.

The last three years have been particularly chaotic. Most of the original guys from Xbox LIVE that won the Circle of Excellence Awards have gone to other groups in MS out of frustration. CTO left the company as well. Major culture, process and product changes all the time.

Everyone in offices - waterfall! Everyone in cubes - scrum! Everyone in team pits - scrumerfall! PUM structure! No Sinofsky structure! No - Producer structure! Fund game production! Buy game studios! Sell game studios! Own the IP! Publish the IP! Games for Windows - no games for Xbox - no games for Facebook - no games for the mobile! Mobile for enterprise! No mobile for consumers!

No wait what? Stop snapping my neck!

Also, J is not that great of a thinker, people just give him a lot of crediblity because he's a hipster-geek. But the secret about J is that he's faking the hipster stuff (check out old pictures of J), and really not that geeky or smart. He's good at convincing execs to fast-follow competitors at any cost.

Robbie left so that he won't be blamed for Natal. Good move. J is out because Zune is a lost cause, he's not the guy that will save mobile, and his baby got cancelled. I think the company is done letting him spend billions to build product that can't compete.

Anonymous said...

The "technorati" and the "blogosphere" and the Wintel fan crowd inside and outside MSFT laughed off the iPad as a joke. Well it sold a million units in a month and now is, not at all surprisingly, a threat in the enterprise.

Apple ushered consumer computing in, and now they are ushering in the next iteration of it. *That* is vision and *that* is birthright.

In the cloud, MSFT is "all in". Meanwhile, almost nothing is truly productized in a cohesive and understandable way and the mindshare is owned entirely by Salesforce, Google, *Amazon* and others. Tons of money sunk in. Some really truly great work. Even some great wins. But the disastrous licensing mess, the albatross of the legacy platform, and the pissing contests between execs who should have been out to pasture *loooooooooong* ago make MSFT a *non-contender* even here.

Phone? Please... WP7 will some day be out. With many of the flaws of iPhone 1. Before it is out, iPhone 4 will be out. Android updates friggin hourly (exageration, but you see the point). HP now owns WebOS. Let me reiterate that.

HP
Bought
Web
OS

When your NUMBER ONE OEM unholy alliance has written you off and said *publically* that "MSFT isnt providing us with solutions we need to stay competitive, so we're buying an OS"... You're done.

I mean thats really all she wrote folks.

SB is UTTERLY clueless... He and the other partners will keep cashing 7 figure checks and running the legacy monopoly into the ground.

Windows owns 90+% of traditional desktop and mobile computing. Unfortunately, each year, "traditional desktop and mobile computing" is going to represent a smaller and smaller slice of computing in general.

IBM still has 100% of the mainframe market too. And dont get me wrong... It's a nice little business unit. That will be MSFT maybe 10 or 15 years on. At best.

Apple is now solidly larger than MSFT in every measure (market cap, net value) except revenue. Expect that lead to just continue to widen.

Next Google will surpass Microsoft's size.

Make the wiseass comments about "oh... nice crystal ball you have!"

Then come back in a few years when GOOG has higher market cap than MSFT and the PC is at "90% share" yet Apple has shifted 100M iPads and PC sales continue to decline, and we'll see who is right...

Im not pro or anti anything. I just call it like I see it after living in this business for 30+ years. MSFT decline didnt *have* to be inevitable, but with SB on board, it certainly is. Anyone who rejects the clear signs either doesn't possess the insight they think they do and can't see where things are trending, or they are in *deep* denial.

Anonymous said...

Why can't we be humming along like Apple is?

Because you haven't had a near-death experience to flush out the deadwood.

Apple's management is world-class. Microsoft's management is considerably less than mediocre.

Anonymous said...

Antonio from Office is taking over windows live. Windows live will soon be dead.

Anonymous said...

I think it is time MSFT realizes that it has become an IBM and begins to act like one. (How many of you would buy a MP3 player produced by IBM?)

IMHO, I think something like the following will happen after Steve Ballmer either leaves or is forced out.

Windows Mobile, Zune are either sold or shut down.
Online division (MSN, Windows Live, Bing etc) is spun off or shut down. Hotmail remains.
Xbox is spun off.

Rest of the company focuses on server products, client OS, Office Apps, Azure cloud platform and developer tools. MSFT stock will hit $40 soon after.

Right now some divisions are doing well, but the irrelevant products/divisions listed above are a drag on the company and the stock. And a flat stock makes it harder to attract the best talent.

Anonymous said...

"I think Roz Ho should be next for the Kin debaucle and wasting $500M on Danger."

+1 Total mess. DOA. All it did was add to our mobile embarassment and worry people that WP7 will be similar. Should have just kept the one really good part, studio, under wraps for WP7. Now others will be busy copying it.

Anonymous said...

Okay, you guys didn't see Mp3 players coming. Fair enough; you got clobbered.

And you didn't really have a clear focus on smartphones. This is at least debatable. So you got clobbered, a second time.

But what's amazing is, you guys did see tablets coming! Like, saw it clearly! Microsoft was way out in front with tablet computing for a long time. You were totally reaching for it... And yet you got clobbered again! By the same company who clobbered you the first two times!

That must feel really bad. Anybody would sympathize with that.

Anonymous said...

Now that Balmar has direct control over WM will he be sacked if its unable to turn-arround?

Anonymous said...

In fairness to SteveB, at $500 the iPhone really did have no chance. As I'm sure all you Apple lovers who can't stay away from the blog know, Steve Jobs did a major blink a couple of months after product launch and lowered the price of an iPhone to $200. It's not fair to hold Ballmer accountable for remarks clearly aimed at the former outrageously high price point.

And yes I own an iPhone and yes I am counting down the days until I can replace it with a Windows 7 phone.

Anonymous said...

You've been out of the loop too long my friend. I've seen great ideas and projects die simply because the current management doesn't like taking risk because if it fails, they won't get as big of a bonus. I've heard GMs and VPs explain how they will only invest in an area if their hand is forced by another company (i.e. - let them take the risk first). The current management's pay and bonus structure is DESIGNED to discourage risk and new challenges. Fix that, and you will fix the whole enchilada.

Microsoft Research found something similar with code quality.

The performance management system and organizational structure may seem unrelated to the quality of the products produced but it does matter a lot.

Will Ballmer read about what Microsoft Research discovered, understand it and do something about it?

The answer is "No". The paper was published in 2008.


Keep it in mind if you start your own company or leave to manage another company but don't hold your breath waiting for Ballmer to do something.


The Influence of Organizational Structure On Software Quality: An Empirical Case Study

In our case study, the organizational metrics when applied to data from Windows Vista were statistically significant predictors of failure-proneness.
The precision and recall measures for identifying failure-prone binaries, using the organizational metrics, was significantly higher
than using traditional metrics like churn, complexity, coverage,
dependencies, and pre-release bug measures that have been used to date to predict failure-proneness. Our results provide empirical evidence that the organizational metrics are related to, and are
effective predictors of failure-proneness.


Exploding Software-Engineering Myths

The Influence of Organizational Structure on Software Quality: An Empirical Case Study, by Nagappan, Brendan Murphy of Microsoft Research Cambridge, and Victor R. Basili of the University of Maryland, presents startling results: Organizational metrics, which are not related to the code, can predict software failure-proneness with a precision and recall of 85 percent. This is a significantly higher precision than traditional metrics such as churn, complexity, or coverage that have been used until now to predict failure-proneness. This was probably the most surprising outcome of all the studies.

Anonymous said...

What divisions/teams?

OfficeLabs.

Anonymous said...

For the rest of us... How are they 'canning' them? Is it a surprise that they are being told their jobs are actually going away or that they were "Performanced Out". ...
What types of roles are the canning - manager or IC, tech or external facing?


I know each of the people pretty well and while it surprised them that they were being laid off, they all had poor performance reviews (which they deserved). They were not being managed out though the usual process. They were just laid off with job search time and severence packages. Roles were IC and lead.

Anonymous said...

I don't think Jobs has significant interest in his personal wealth. His focus is on making great products .

HA Jobs is all about making money and locking down the format - he likes being in control and forcing people to things HIS way. Why do you think getting anything into the appstore is a nightmare. Can you say Flash (and don't go off about the problems with Flash - it's still used extensively).

Anonymous said...

Steve Ballmer is on the board of directors and in the 2009 annual shareholders meeting he received 98.98% favorable votes. Those of you calling for the board/shareholders to do something about him have a tough job on your hands.

True enough ... so on the surface only 1% of shareholders disapprove of SteveB. However consider that around 12% of proxy approvals come from Steve and BillG. Probably another 5% come from employee 401k accounts where people cannot be bothered voting, or are fearful of doing so. So given these facts and other executives' holdings beholden to Ballmer, perhaps 20% of proxies are "guaranteed".

About 75% of MSFT stock is held by institutional investors. It would require 80% of the institutions to disapprove, a seemingly impossible task ... unless some new broom could show a credible plan to significantly grow the stock price in 2 years e.g. Carl Icahn. Nonsense, you say?

Here's how:
Spin off E&D into a separate company. This will force a commercial discipline that is sadly lacking today. Negligible effect on overall profits.

Spin off all online properties into a separate company. They will quickly learn how to make money or go under. Saves $3bill year in opex.

Cut R&D by 50% to $4.5bill annually. This is a black hole - Apple spends far less and produces more innovation.

Trim corporate fat. EPG is a great example of a bloated group which field sales hates, and which produces no value. Easy $1bill there in corporate savings.

Sell CSS to IBM or an Indian outsourcer. Given they spend $2bill a year, such a sale could easily generate $6bill or more with 10 year contract.

Overrall impact of these changes would increase EPS by $1.20, with resultant share price increase of $15-18. As a result dividend could easily be doubled or even tripled. The company would be far less complex and easier to manage. The spun off entities would be initially 100% owned then IPO after 12-24 months.

Anonymous said...

SteveB dropped by for a visit and walked past my office. I was surprised how short he was since the only other times I've seen him were at MS company meetings or on a stage.

Apparently you only dreamed that you saw SteveB.

Anonymous said...

"Zig's speech group has been a disaster! MS used to be a leader but we are behind Google. To his credit, Zig was able to convince XD Huang to help speech. XD, MS's best speech expert, left speech group in 2004. It is a sad story that MS wasn't able to keep our technical leaders focused on speech"

I think XD is the divisional architect for Satya driving OSD's technical directions, not working for Zig on speech. XD used to have Zig's role on speech before 2004. The decay of speech after XD left was Gurdeep's fault as he had a new GM for almost every other year in the past 6 years! None of them was even 1% close to XD's technical caliber.

XD and J got something in common like their names (J or XD :-). Both are sort of missed by their teams...

Anonymous said...

Cool Apple or Stodgy Microsoft? This article says it all:
http://online.barrons.com/article/SB127508624930598443.html

Natal, Bing, WP7 and Windows 8 could be our best hope to be cool again if we drive hard on 1 cloud (Bing) and 3 screens (Natal, WP7 and Windows 8) as hard as Google or Apple is doing. To make sure we can deliver, we need to have BillG come back. Ray and Craig did oversee our decline in the past 2 years. Why do we still have both pretending they can do the job of Billg?

Anonymous said...

"... Rival Apple's market value has surged from $15.6 billion to $221 billion over the same period. Microsoft, Get rid of the ego and learn something from your competitors. Results are results."

With the above post, I'm reminded when I was managing a team and HR came in to talk to me about the upcoming review cycle for my team: "Microsoft rewards based on Results, not Activity" So that should mean the board awards on results, right? Wrong it seems.

Congrat's to those in the 80s level bands. The already exiting execs (with 7 to 8 figure severance deals in their hands) will be assigned one of the only 10%s going out the door [to make that quasi curve work], as they usually do in the exec ranks, and thus KT is virtually assured he'll get the Exceed and can continue to award most all of his directs with those "Exceeds" too - Nothing's changed.

Anonymous said...

Someone wrote about Zig's speech group. There is a day & night difference today in the leadership and level of positive impact coming from the new speech group vs. the Kai Fu Lee/XD years and as compared to huge time and money wasted with the Tellme former leaders. As for XD, the level of misinformation on this blog is a real laugh. For facts, here is XD's last product attempt: www.microsoft.com/responsepoint - discontinued after complete failure and another example of a misguided idea without sound product judgment. Zig is better off keeping his distance from XD.

Anonymous said...

For all of the MS employees who are whining here and are finding this to be an emotional outlet or a forum that you think may lead to action: I’m all for healthy spirit of getting the views out there and having conversation BUT I hope that each of us considers for a moment that the best place to make a difference is to stand up as a leader no matter where you are sitting in the company. If you expect to see your groups do better then YOU should think about what you can do differently each and every day step up and lead – talk to others in your team, talk to people across the company, get a movement going. Do something NOW or else shut up. If you choose the easier path of complacency and simply tagging along for the ride OR worse yet just coming in and barely skirting by –DO YOURSELF a favor and leave – longer run it will be better for your health and well-being. As for those of you that are ex-MSFT that are investing your time here – if you have great ideas and think you can make a difference – step up and come back to MS.

Anonymous said...

I worked in Zig’s org for 3 years and have nothing but the highest respect for him –he is devoted to his people, develops his leaders, makes sound business and technical decisions, has his heart in the best interest of MS.

Anonymous said...

"Online division (MSN, Windows Live, Bing etc) is spun off or shut down. Hotmail remains."

Why keep Hotmail? It is basically break-even.

Messenger is the money maker and the one you'd want to keep.

KeithX said...

"Let me see if I'm following this. You've been a Mac user for six years, but spontaneously decided to buy a laptop to check out Windows 7 instead of taking advantage of the evaluation period and loading the software on your Mac with bootcamp? And since you say “just”, by your own admission you’ve given yourself almost no time to learn the system’s capabilities and where it’s stronger than OS X, or get over your existing six year bias? And then you show up here to tell us all about it? Sorry, not buying it."

I've been a Mac user since 1984 and PC DOS/Win user since 1985. Throughout the 90's I was primarily focused on the Win platform, because that's where the consulting money was. I started buying Mac hardware again around 2000, and shifted to 100% Mac hardware in 2004. I used Virtual PC and now use VMware Fusion to run XP and Linux. So I am no stranger to OS's.

I bought a small Toshiba laptop with a long battery life for several reasons, not least of which was to become intimately familiar with Win7 in it's native environment. It was the same price as an iPad, but dealing with the OS intricacies hasn't been real fun. The main apps I'm using to supplement the OS holes are Macafee and Sandboxie. About 60% of the time I'm using a web browser, and the rest of the time I'm using writing / journaling tools.

I will restate my earlier point:

If this is the best Microsoft can do after 15 years of OS development, the party is over. It'll take a while to wind down, but the mustard is off the hot dog.

And consider this question:

What operating system does your washing machine run on? The answer is irrelevant to the end-user, as it should be. It just has to be super simple for any dummy to figure out how to get the clothes clean. The "need a techie to make it run" era is over.

Anonymous said...

Natal, Bing, WP7 and Windows 8 could be our best hope to be cool again if we drive hard on 1 cloud (Bing) and 3 screens ...

Actually that is the WORST POSSIBLE PLAN.

Didn't you ever go to high school? Does copying the coolest guy in class somehow make you cooler than that guy? No. Duh. Most likely you become a laughingstock for trying too hard.

Which sums up Microsoft's position nicely.

Be Paid said...

In fairness to SteveB, at $500 the iPhone really did have no chance. As I'm sure all you Apple lovers who can't stay away from the blog know, Steve Jobs did a major blink a couple of months after product launch and lowered the price of an iPhone to $200. It's not fair to hold Ballmer accountable for remarks clearly aimed at the former outrageously high price point.


I'm thinking - wasn't this normal way of introducing a new product to market, get the price high at first to get as much money as possible from technology addicts with too much spare money, then lower the price? Was it Jobs who first invented such a strategy first, when introducing IPhone? Nice side effect of this was that Jobs had Ballmer laugh IPhone initial price off and made him ignore the threat as not serious (laughable, wasn't it), buying the Apple product time to grow without any Microsoft counteraction. Nice played by Jobs, if intentional - but does anyone else does things differently with tech gadgets? To be honest Jobs got me too then - I wasn't laughing maybe but I thought the price was ridiculous. Only I'm not the one who has to have every new gadget right away, at any price.

And I have no pale idea about marketing whatsoever - why didn't SteveB, who's supposed to be an expert in the area, didn't think about the possibility that Apple will lower the price after product premiere is over and start selling big numbers? One would think one of the world most famous salesmen would know, but well, apparently he forgot some of his art of selling knowledge already. Or he was too busy (laughing) to think of what pricing trajectories Jobs might be planning for the future.

Anonymous said...

Someone wrote about Zig's speech group. There is a day & night difference today in the leadership and level of positive impact coming from the new speech group vs. the Kai Fu Lee/XD years and as compared to huge time and money wasted with the Tellme former leaders.

Did Zig deliver anything ever that is close to be competitive to anyone? Zig acquired Tellme and he has been the guy behind the mess.

Kai Fu Lee at least delivered Google's best services in China.

Anonymous said...

Zig's heart is in the right place. He just doesn't know how to ship a workable speech product. He is a good biz dev guy reaching Peter's roof a while ago. A sad story for the company. We only appreciate after we experienced the loss of our technical leaders. Google voice is so much better than ours and the result is the best judge worked.
Someone compared Zig with XD. The response point at least was a great product. XD's people loved working for him. It failed not because XD didn't ship a good product. It failed because he didn't have a good channel and he was killed by the big brother internally.

Anonymous said...

"Most of the original guys from Xbox LIVE that won the Circle of Excellence Awards have gone to other groups in MS out of frustration..."

Have anyone track the team(s), after they won the Excellence Awards, where their team member go?

Anonymous said...

With Kurt Delbene now running Office, and with Kirill Tatarinov on Dynamics ....really....what is Stephen Elop being paid for, what's his role - word on the street is he's just another expensive overseer - doesn't have a clue for shipping products. He was mostly a sales leader at Macromedia (Ballmeresque) - and timed things well enough to come to MS and ride the coat tails of Antoine Leblond and Kurt. Antoine saw this and ran and it's great to see Kurt now in charge.

How long before Elop is gone?

Anonymous said...

This blog has gone from a place to discuss current problems at MS and how to make it better to just another blog with a bunch of clueless comments. KeithX is the perfect example. He thinks that he can make comments like "The main apps I'm using to supplement the OS holes are Macafee and Sandboxie" and thinks it will impress people. Notice to Keith, this blog more than likely is full of engineers that will sniff out your BS right away. I know you love your MACs and well great for you but I don't see why Windows 7 is a failure because you don't like it. It is the fastest selling OS in history and the user ratings are at an all time high. The users have spoken and they like it. Now if you want to talk about why MS creates a wonderful product like Zune HD and fails to market it I will listen.

Now back to the real topic. I do find it interesting that these two execs ar gone. I actually think that division has executed over the last year and finally got it together. Why not make these changes earlier or simply see how Natal, WP7 and Kin work out? Also, I see a lot of Kin bashing on here. Does anyone really know if it is not selling? I mean I see almost 200,000 Facebook fans saying they want a Kin or love their Kin. Could it be that people are simply out of tune with the Kin's target market?

Anonymous said...

I wonder what the audience demographics are here... Here's my guess:

40% - current MS employees with valid comments about company management;
20% - current MS employees who just like to complain;
20% - ex-MS employees with sour grapes;
15% - competitors trying to bash MS and discourage MS employees
5% - investors trying to short MSFT stock

I mean, really... anyone commenting about WEX clearly doesn't really work at MS. At least not any more.

Anonymous said...

If you help make Microsoft a larger success, there's zero reward for you, other than eyeing an Exec's Lotus thinking "I helped ship the product that got him the $500,000 bonus that probably bought that!"

What are you talking about? You got your T-shirt, didn't you? If not, check with your admin..

Anonymous said...

I find the notion of a cut throat board of directors calling the shots amusing. The "board" is non-existent. They collect 4000 shares a year and keep their mouths shut. Bill and Steve are the board.

Anonymous said...

>Messenger is the money maker and the one you'd want to keep.

Huh? How does Messenger make us any money? I am seriously asking, it may make tons, I have just never considered it a money maker...hell I don't even know anyone that uses it. Where does the money come from?

Anonymous said...

Spin off discussions again...

Speculating... It seems far more likely to me that they are thinking about spinning off the Biz division. Based on current revenue, there is a lot of value there. But the future is looking shaky. Take the value out now? Helicoptering Antoine out into an odd role in Windows (but one that is close to buddy Steven) is a clue to my speculations.

OTOH, keeping E&D leaves the company looking more like Apple; probably thought of as a good thing, current execution vectors notwithstanding.

The odd Division out is S&T. Keep it with Windows or align it with Business? Split it into Server and Tools divisions? As poorly as Tools has been executing, spin them out and let them compete; they are waaaay past adding value to the platform as they did 20 years ago. Office+Server makes some sense; keeping the OS moving forward in a business-compatible way is the tough nut. But if the future is devices and the infra (back office) OS is legacy, then letting Server go and getting value for it now is probably a good thing.

But given 10 years of meh growth even among the SLT it's probably seen as time to DO SOMETHING to shake things up. Something big. Calving off the Business Division, including Server, seems like an appropriately sized bet. And the SLT REALLY likes to think they are making strategic, bet the company decisions.

Anonymous said...

Isn't everyone freaking sick of the "one cloud, three screens" tripe yet? It's like some sort of Maoist drivel from the Cultural Revolution repeated endlessly by people so their loyalty won't be questioned.

Anonymous said...

Look guys, this time the house cleaning won't work...besides, we all really know where Allard is going. To the pink lady he goes.

Anonymous said...

In business, there is no place for "nice" guy. You have to be tough, arrogant, and believe yourself the smartest.

That's the kind of bullshit that runs companies into the ground. There's a difference between knowing what you're talking about and sticking to your guns, and being a pompous, overbearing jerk.

Arrogance is not the same thing as confidence: it's a pretense at confidence, affected by people who aren't nearly as smart as they think they are.

If you visited the iPhone UIKit or the Core Graphics teams at Apple (just to name two examples with whom I have some direct personal experience), you'd find a group of highly skilled engineers who like and respect each other. Any of them is worth a hundred typical microsoft coders, but they're some of the most modest people you'll ever meet.

Anonymous said...

Steve Jobs did a major blink a couple of months after product launch and lowered the price of an iPhone to $200.

More like, the sales of the iPhone were surprisingly high, so much so that economies of scale kicked in sooner than expected, making it possible to drop the price by $200.

Don't forget that the iPhone was sold out again and again, and pretty hard to find for the first three months it was on the market.

Anonymous said...

if you want to talk about why MS creates a wonderful product like Zune HD and fails to market it

Microsoft did NOT fail at marketing the Zune. It had a wholly undeserved level of hype at the launch, but it fell flat because it simply wasn't good enough to dislodge the iPod.

How many times have you wanted to hand your friend a track you're listening to so he could hear it, too? Plenty of times, right? Now, how many times have you wanted to only give it to him for a three-day trial which would expire if he didn't pay up? Never in your life, unless you're a record company exec.

If you actually believe that marketing is the weak link in the Zune, then you're part of the problem.

Anonymous said...

Look at Microsoft's quarterly financial reports. In FY10, 59 million has been allocated for employee severance compared to 290 million in FY09.

Anonymous said...

He was mostly a sales leader at Macromedia (Ballmeresque) - and timed things well enough to come to MS and ride the coat tails of Antoine Leblond and Kurt. Antoine saw this and ran and it's great to see Kurt now in charge.

Elop kicked Antoine. It is only time before Balmar kicks Elop.

Anonymous said...

Natal is going to fail.

http://xbox-360.nowgamer.com/news/3276/ex-microsoft-studio-boss-natal-will-fail

Anonymous said...

@Considering your guess:

40% - current MS employees with valid comments about company management;
20% - current MS employees who just like to complain;
20% - ex-MS employees with sour grapes;
15% - competitors trying to bash MS and discourage MS employees
5% - investors trying to short MSFT stock.







1) 80% people are not happy overall...
2) 40% valid comments are more than enough from internal ppl.

Microsoft should seriously think about the internal issues.

Anonymous said...

Layoffs are coming (teams will shed throughout the year but there is a big one coming up in July). If your HR and finance people look busy, that's cause they're busy planning it in advance of FY11. When SteveB says we are still the most profitable, he means to absolutely keep it that way. The topline isn't growing in any meaningful way

Anonymous said...

Microsoft got lucky with Windows and Office and kept at it steadfast. The company does not have the gene to make it big in any other space.

Windows which was broken for a long time, won over the competition, because there was no competition. Mac OS, OS/2 Warp could not garner much market share due to internal issues at the companies.

Office was a huge success over competition due to sales tactics / tricks. It is a good product definitely, but it is rapidly reaching obsolescence.

These days hardware products can be created as easily as software by anyone anywhere and these device can compete with the best iPads and kindles. They are already out there from China.

Microsoft knows from its failures in UMPC, that courier wouldn't last in the market.

Microsoft need to start productizing its R&D investments at a rapid pace..software and devices where they can provide a clear differentiation, a barrier for entry, which as of today it is not able to.

The best innovations today are coming from elsewhere.

Relying wholly on your ecosystem can be a safe bet , but your ecosystem cam move away from you when you see nothing sensible is coming out from you.

And for god's sake let your employees do the innovation.. not your low cost vendor staff. Who do you think has most stake in your success?
How many vendor companies does Apple work with in its R&D space -- '0'.

Anonymous said...

"If you actually believe that marketing is the weak link in the Zune, then you're part of the problem."
Well I made that comment so let's get something straight. I don't work for MS so how am I part of the problem? I am a consumer and I am telling you I like the Zune HD better than the IPod Touch which I also have. Other than it doesn't have all the apps, it is a better player. It sounds better, the video is sharper, the Zune pass is a better value and the HD FM radio is a nice feature. These are all facts. On the opinion side, I think if looks better, has a better user experience and the Zune software is better than ITunes. If you do indeed work for MS and can’t except that a consumer likes your product then you are the problem. The Zune HD was poorly marketed and that is a fact. When did you ever see a commercial for it?
“How many times have you wanted to hand your friend a track you're listening to so he could hear it, too?”
I am not even sure what you are talking about here but let me guess you mean sharing music on the Zune is somehow subpar to ITunes? Interesting because if both users have Zune Pass I can do just what you said at no extra cost to my friend. Can you do that with ITunes? I didn’t realize songs were free on ITunes if only someone recommends them. Wow, Apple sure is generous!

Anonymous said...

"Any of them is worth a hundred typical microsoft coders"

Ahem. Speaking of arrogant pompous overbearing jerks. Pot, meet mr. kettle.

Anonymous said...

http://www.dailytech.com/Ballmer+Welcomes+Googles+Android+OS+to+Microsofts+World/article9642.htm

Anonymous said...

Win7 the fastest selling OS in history: preceded by the Vista Void nobody dared to touch.... with Win7 PC sales also rebounded, together with some revival of the tech buyers after the financial crisis.

No wonder HP wants to reduce their dependancy by acquiring Palm and WEB OS. No company in the world likes a single source supplier messing up their numbers.

Anonymous said...

Layoffs are coming (teams will shed throughout the year but there is a big one coming up in July).

I have applied for a couple of jobs at Microsoft in the S&T division and statements like this make me nervous.

Please advise! Thanks!

Anonymous said...

Elop is a sales guy – don’t expect him to bring any new innovation to the table. Best bet Kurt could make is elevate Gurdeep Pall let him take charge of Office innovation.
Gurdeep is writing this to promote himself?

Anonymous said...

MS review system is broken - why we have this forced curve on our engineers - not good for building cohesive teams. This encourages back-stabbing and disrupts team chemistry over time.

Anonymous said...

microsoft adcenter is still chaos center. The new set of VPs in town still not sure what the causes are for this malfunctioning 1400 group.

What befuddles a lot of us is that Sachind and his buddie Nitinc are still here, not fired as many were speculating. These two and their circle of a- converted principals are all doing well.

Anonymous said...

@KeithX,
rather long reply to my comment and I guess you are entitled to your opinion. I am not sure why you listed your resume but mine would be just as long is I wanted to list it out and bore everyone.

That long reply says a lot though. You constantly refer to "my company" and "your company". I do NOT work for MS! You mentality is that only someone that works for MS could like Windows and that is why I called you our before. I know the writings of someone who is trolling.

Anonymous said...

"Why did I mention Macafee and Sandboxie? Because you can't do one single, simple thing with your brand new Win7 system until AFTER you install those products. Technically you could, but in a very short period of time you'd get botted or root-kitted and have to call someone to clean up the mess"

Oh My Keith, if you think those vulnerabilities only occur in Windows then you have wasted your life working in this field. That mindset is for end users who don't really care about operating systems. They know Windows gets viruses and don't realize Macs also have those same issues but are not as big of a target. Linux, well they never even heard of that. It is a great marketing ploy for Macs and Nix people but nothing more. How do I know this? Well I am a *nix head and work for a major security firm. My job is to find all these things you say or at least imply don’t exist in other systems.

Anonymous said...

Big layoff in July.... there's no need for such an event around review time, up to 10% has to go silently (every year now)... I would call this the most unrealistic rumor of the year... Congrats!

Anonymous said...

MS has nothing on the boards to compete in the biggest part of the next computing wave: The Idiot Proof OS.

As a member of an engineering team who built web terminals in the past, I have to ask how your Netpliance stock is doing? *snicker* Most people came to the realization that if you build idiot proof software, only idiots want to use it.

KeithX said...

I have to laugh at some of these replies. People reply to my comments with ad hominen attacks, yet I'm the only person willing to sign my name to my comments and describe my specific perspective. I used to be one of MS's very best customers, and I'm still a customer, though not as satisfied as I once was. I would add to this list:

40% - current MS employees with valid comments about company management;
20% - current MS employees who just like to complain;
20% - ex-MS employees with sour grapes;
15% - competitors trying to bash MS and discourage MS employees
5% - investors trying to short MSFT stock.


5% Customers sincerely interested in the future of MS

"Oh My Keith, if you think those vulnerabilities only occur in Windows then you have wasted your life working in this field. That mindset is for end users who don't really care about operating systems."

This response perfectly illustrates the end-user viewpoint I've been trying to describe here. There are so many people these days who really don't care about operating systems. It's the growing mindset of my customer base. They don't perceive the vulnerabilities of other platforms, of which I'm perfectly aware, but only the issues they face with the computing tools they use. Virus attacks are at the top of the list.

These people are the target market for the next wave of workstation appliances. They're looking for something very simple, and very secure. Earlier I called it the "Idiot Proof Operating System", but perhaps this acronym is more meaningful: iPOS. Many in the tech community will want to leave off the "i" and use other words for POS. The potential buyers in this expanding market segment aren't techies, they're the people who don't care what operating system their washing machine runs on. It's a huge market segment.

So much for context, let's get back to business. The first case study I ever saw that descibes the situation MS is faced with was the story of Ford and the Model T. At first Ford's Model T dominated auto sales in much the same way that MS has dominated the desktop. Henry Ford never saw the need to design a car that would kill off the Model T until after other manufacturers permanently grabbed a big part of his market share. He never got it back.

IBM made the same mistake in the 1960's and 70's, they refused to design and build a new product that would eviscerate their existing computing and business products. By 1980 they couldn't even write a new operating system to compete with Apple's toy computer. MS is built on the shoulder's of IBM's epic fail.

Now it seems to be MS's turn to make the same mistake. MS can either kill workstation Win, or sit back and watch someone else do it. Balmer is definitely on the sit back and watch team, he seems to me to be MS's Henry Ford.

-Written on my Win 7 Laptop

Anonymous said...

heard few were fired today Confirmed from seattle MS atlas team and last day given this friday. it was a surprise. looks like silent clean up since no official mails.

Anonymous said...

Keith, I'm another customer, tbh it's hard to take your comments seriously because there's no substance. Sorry if you'd rather have a tongue-bath, but posting "EH WINDOWS 7 I'M NOT IMPRESSED" in anything but an Apple fan forum will just get you ridiculed and ignored. Troof.

Anonymous said...

@ KeithX

+1

It's amazing to me to see the negative replies to your thoughtful, well-reasoned arguments.

It's either "Shut up Apple fanboy" or "We know best, idiot." Strange.

It's like they have their fingers in their ears and are chanting "no no no."

That's exactly the attitude that's destroying Microsoft. No ability to listen and say, "Wow, that might be RIGHT."

@June 01 10:05pm poster

"As a member of an engineering team who built web terminals in the past, I have to ask how your Netpliance stock is doing? *snicker* Most people came to the realization that if you build idiot proof software, only idiots want to use it."

Wow, you were IN the biz and that's the lesson you learned -- only idiots want to use devices that aren't complicated?

I remember the "idiot proof" web appliances of the mid-late '90s. The problem wasn't that they weren't "idiot proof," the problem was THEY DIDN'T WORK WELL.

Put another way...

Idiot Proof + sucky user experience = dead.

Idiot Proof + amazing user experience =... I dunno, 2 million sold in 60 days?

Anonymous said...

microsoft adcenter is still chaos center. The new set of VPs in town still not sure what the causes are for this malfunctioning 1400 group.

What befuddles a lot of us is that Sachind and his buddie Nitinc are still here, not fired as many were speculating. These two and their circle of a- converted principals are all doing well.


Alexander Gournes had his visions, but he relied on the same pile of bullshit middle managers like Sachin, Nitin and their inner group to execute, so he landed in crash eventually.

adcenter is not only chaos center, also bs center.

Anonymous said...

I remember the "idiot proof" web appliances of the mid-late '90s. The problem wasn't that they weren't "idiot proof," the problem was THEY DIDN'T WORK WELL.

I think the problem was a lack of high-bandwidth Internet connections to the home.

Anonymous said...

MS review system is broken - why we have this forced curve on our engineers - not good for building cohesive teams. This encourages back-stabbing and disrupts team chemistry over time.

It also encourages angry 10-percenters who got booted from Microsoft to set out on a life-long mission to bring down Microsoft. How many enemies does Microsoft have in the industry? When you're king of the hill you may not need many friends but when you need a hand up...

Anonymous said...

More like, the sales of the iPhone were surprisingly high, so much so that economies of scale kicked in sooner than expected, making it possible to drop the price by $200.

This is truly world class imbecility talking. Wait, the iPhone was FLYING OUT THE DOOR at $500...so that made it essential to lower the price?

Just listen to yourself. And put down the bottle.

Anonymous said...

>>>And speaking of dead weight

Which thousand people did you mean? Many directors, general managers, vice presidents, Partners fit the criterion. Shareholders may overlook the lower bands becuase 25 of those carry the dead weight of one of these.

Anonymous said...

>> Microsoft's market value has more than halved >>

very painful. review bar is different for different people.

«Oldest ‹Older   201 – 278 of 278   Newer› Newest»