Microsoft FY11Q1 Results
How about some FY11Q1 Microsoft earnings!
My usual suspects for earnings discussion:
- Mr. Joe Wilcox over at Beta News
- Mr. Todd Bishop over at TechFlash's Microsoft Blog
- Mr. Joseph Tartakoff somewhere within paidContent.org.
Once more, with feeling.
I expect that we'll have yet another break-out quarter, a better idea that Kinect is poised to be a great seller for the holidays (sell-out pre-orders and screaming Oprah audiences can't be too wrong), and some glow from reasonable WP7 reviews (oh, and yes, we all realize that it doesn't have copy and paste - and yet the apocalypse will not arrive).
So this seems like a do-over with more good news from the last quarter. Will Wall Street react with the same "Meh?"
An interesting pre-earnings release article: Sleepy in Seattle - Microsoft learns to mature.
Again, not much love for Mr. Ballmer. So, since the last quarterly earnings, Ms. Friar at Goldman Sachs dropped a bomb on Microsoft and there's been serious concern that Mr. Ballmer is clearing the executive bench at Microsoft. Or is it cleaning house? Since we're unable to criticize any mistakes our departed leaders have made, it remains a big unknown.
iPad, iPad, iPad!
Once it was "Google, Google, Google." Now it's Apple's iPad meant to be Microsoft's undoing. First of all, major props to Apple's continued success. It's been a long journey for Steve Jobs and Apple - especially for those of us who read The Journey is the Reward back when it was new. I like my iPad. It's fun. It's also no notebook replacement. I'm not even going to use it for writing tweets on Twitter, let alone writing emails. It's for screwing around, and I like screwing around... so I like my iPad. I'm blessed that I've got the spare cash for such a luxury device and the spare time to play with it.
It's a new, quick consume experience that our Tablet vision failed to realize because our Tablet vision (like all visions of that time) was so firmly shoved up the Enterprise's butt we didn't care for consumers who'd pay good money to have a fun device to facilitate their screwing around.
We continue an expensive lesson in enlightenment. And spanking: Microsoft's consumer brand is dying.
And goodness help us if Apple TV takes off. Our inability to string together a coherent TV strategy (despite having been in the TV realm for over a decade) is yet another dropped pants embarrassment waiting to happen and represents the anxiety that Wall Street has about our future despite having successes in the present.
Bloodletting
Cost cutting's slippery slope continues. I'm sure if we don't talk about continued overhead management (people, benefits, etc) that it will be an analyst question. I still believe we need to chuck about 15,000 positions (and half of our super-ballooned contingent staff) rather than continue the slow squeeze around the company that's making this an ordinary job with some extraordinary wonderful people who just haven't given up on the company. Yet. I hope that the analysts realize that continued, consistent bloodletting because a negative for hiring, and (allow me to be pro-hiring for a moment) if we can't bring in deep-talented new blood to replace the departed dead wood, our future is doomed to mediocrity.
And that doesn't get you a good dividend.
New Talent
And we're losing the battle for hiring new talent. If you review who we're losing to, it's a big surprise. You look at who is ahead of us in preference and you say, "Really? Graduating students think they are a better place to work than us?" It's a cold splash of reality that makes me - they guy who said we've turned things around and things are going great for our major initiatives - wonder if things are worse outside of the Microsoft bubble than I thought.
Frank, you're fighting an epic battle.
655 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 401 – 600 of 655 Newer› Newest»I agree with most of the posts here, but there is some up-beat momentum that we have to consider when we keep talking about the "big picture"
I got the W7 phone, loving it
Got kinect,,, its pretty awesome
Windows 7 is less painfull then vista...
The only disaster lately launched was Kin, other then all good guys...
Is it a bit late,,? Thats another discussion to have
What is going on with Microsoft's PR department? Your company goes from making vague threats about legal action to protect the Kinect from attempts to write FOSS drivers for it, to basically (in Peewee Herman voice), "we meant to do that." Can you please make up your minds?
I'm leaving Microsoft after almost 10 years. A company with a great consumer reputation & a stock price that has actually increased approached me & hired me.
Good riddance. Go away and take your anger elsewhere. Glad you will be gone soon. We won't miss you for sure.
>I'm often skeptical when I hear "x is an asshole". Nine times out of ten it means x is just more productive and others see that as making them look bad.
My experience is the exact opposite, 9 times out of 10 'X is an asshole' means pretty much that, they are self-involved douches who talk to everyone in a condescending manner, cry if they don't get their way, think they are the most clever people in the world and act as though every problem faced by anyone is trivial and then suggest some retarded solution which wouldn't even work and really just serves to highlight their complete aloofness / failure to comprehend the problem. Most of these people tend to be either HiPos (which reinforces their belief in their own awesomeness) or Principal/Partner level people who haven't actually written code that shipped in 15 years, but still think they are super awesome.
For example, alot of people here were praying that Kinect would be a flop. Oops, getting rave reviews and is flying off the shelves...therefore, no mention of it here.
What are the margins like for Kinect? Will sales of Kinect help to preserve the the market position of the Windows server / application / client stack? Can sales of Kinect and associated games save Microsoft? Given the choice, would Microsoft rather see success with Kinect, or with Windows Phone 7?
I don't support bashing a particular nationality, but the stories about Indians are more true than some of us are comfortable with. Example anecdote: I found a nasty regression in a pretty important component. I looked into it, only to discover that the dev team responsible for that component are all L59s from India who six months ago were residing halfway around the world.
One poster says: don't make that political. Well. Folks like BillG (even after being gone) go to Congress and claim there is a shortage of good workers coming out of American colleges and they need to bring in these people. That makes it inherently political already. It's a fair question to ask, then: are these people, for whom MSFT got special authorization to bring on board, doing shoddy work? In my admittedly small sample size the answer is yes. Most often they are excellent yes-men and put in a lot of hours, but are doing sloppy work and don't have very original ideas.
That's not to knock a country full of people; I don't know, maybe the best and brightest Indians went to Google or something.
Which brings me to my next point. I think at Microsoft this is related to a few larger trends. One is the acceptance of mediocrity: mediocre work, mediocre people, mediocre new hires.
Further, by saying "We can't find these people from American schools", the wrong question is implicitly being asked. I would say to that: Why does MSFT need so many new graduates? It's especially absurd to make the argument that there is a shortage of qualified people when you have a culture where it's hard to "perform in place"; we dismiss qualified people all the time due to the "up or out" mentality.
It's a fair comment that you need to keep your skills and perspective fresh, but let's be honest: moving up constantly is unsustainable even for some of the most desirable engineers, and in aggregate it's not because an engineer in their 30s and 40s can't do the job. It's because we don't want to pay them.
So in an effort to keep wages down, each year we need a massive influx from college kids, and that means going to India when we run out. I'm sure many of us reading, myself included, were hired due to this bullshit cycle. Coming to this realization is somewhat depressing. You might think from some of my complaints that I could be a cranky old timer, but no; a handful of years out of college and I started thinking about the long haul, and the sustainability of this scheme.
Not to mention that the young people are also being screwed by this here and now: if I'm young and I execute well on something that a more senior person used to do, and they got rid of a bunch of high-paid people to hire people more fresh young faces like mine, and these young people are so valuable that they need to beg congress to allow more of us in, why then am I not getting paid more?
When you think about it, this makes all of our wages lower. Of course, MSFT is not the only one doing this.
@ "A lot of Engineers from India, some of them are good, most of them are just talkers. This is worrisome. Indians are generally good at politics, so today's ms suffers from that."
The fact that you post this kind of ignorant sh@*t is worrisome. I've worked at MS long enough to know that poor performers stem from all walks of life. Making these kinds of statements are unnecessary and unproductive.
Wow! Miley Cyrus was paid $1.2 million just to sing 5 songs at the MS store opening in Bellevue.
Does anyone else see a bit of Ballmer in this shot of the character Kilowog from the upcoming Green Lantern movie?
http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Green-Lantern-s-Kilowog-Revealed-20062.html
(I mean the topmost images on the page, where he has a dreamy look on his face, not the concept art at the bottom.)
CHART OF THE DAY: Windows Has Been The Majority Of Microsoft's Growth Lately
Microsoft has been trying very hard to diversify its business in the last ten years. For the most part it has done a pretty good job, building 8 new billion dollar businesses in the last decade.
But as hard as it tries to change its ways, there's no escaping that Windows is one of the main drivers for the company. The SF Gate recently reported that "87% of its growth in the 12 months before its last quarterly report came from its Windows and Windows Live division."
As for the anti-Indian comments on this blog let me say that:
1. Most if not all are not from those at MSFT.
2. If you do work at MSFT and you share a racist view of any ethnicity, I or any one of hundreds of managers will gladly see you out the door.
3. Needless to say the characterizations of Indians posted here are not even remotely true in my experience.
Those of us raised in Kent however, seem to live up to our tractor hat wearing, tobacco chewing, broken down car in the backyard stereotype. :)
Apple will be obsolete in 4 years. The facade of cute, overpriced hardware won't be able to compete with truly capable devices.
Hmmm. OK. To which "truly capable devices" do you refer? Windows PCs? As-yet-to-ship Windows Tablets? iPads? Enlighten us please.
@the fellow who said "Apple will be obsolete in 4 years"...
Great piece of sarcasm! Gave me a genuine laugh... the sad thing is, if any MSFT execs are reading this blog they will actually think you were serious!
They will *really* be believing that what the "tablet space" needs, even despite 10 years of MSFT and various Linux vendors already having done this with a massive lack of success, is a big, complex, "rich in capabilities" OS with no surrounding ecosystem and 0 user friendliness or suitability to the form factor.
Meanwhile, Apple continues to make incursions into the enterprise and shift units to consumers despite "limiting 3rd party innovations" (never mind that AutoDesk is extending AutoCAD onto the iPad, for example), and despite having "insufficient capabilities" (never mind that barcode scanners have already found their way on) and not supporting Flash.
What people want is a computing device that is the child of the twin trends of consumerization and industrialization. What people dont want is the same old user experience, just in a less usable form factor since it wasnt designed to be there. This is what MSFT execs simply cant warp their minds around.
Because there are no visionaries left there, they simply cannot comprehend a computing paradigm that doesnt involve a start menu and 24" monitor with a mouse and keyboard. Increasingly, all that are left are the yes men curmudgeons who, like the Mainframe stalwarts of the late 70s, are not only ready, but HAPPY and EAGER to go down with the ship even as the rest of the industry CLEARLY moves on.
REALLY a sharp piece of sarcasm!
I saw a lot of comments like: Who wants to work for MSFT, a company using 90's technology...
Well, let's name it: you mean C/C++, low level OS components, etc. Right?
Unfortunately, that's the area why there are still ppl working for MSFT. Think about amazon. I have quite a few friends going there. What are they doing? Order process team, shipping team, payment team, mobile UI team...well, if you call those "modern technology", that's fine. I don't understand why playing with database and displaying how many books you bought could be interesting.
Senior leaders dropping like flies . . . Pete was up there, probably VP level (68-70 or so) in mid-market sales. Interesting it was not mentioned where he is going. Housing cleaning?
From: Phil Sorgen
Sent: Monday, November 22, 2010 4:59 PM
To: US SMS&P
Subject: Organization Update - Pete Fox Announcement
It is with mixed emotions that I am writing to inform you that Pete Fox is pursuing an external leadership opportunity. As someone who has known and worked with Pete for almost his entire 15 years at Microsoft I am happy for Pete that he will be getting the opportunity to follow his long term interest of leading a North American sales organization for a growing mid-size company. Even better, the company Pete is joining will be supporting one of Microsoft’s key pillars and new multi-billion dollar market opportunities.
Pete joined Microsoft in 1995 as an Account Executive in our Enterprise Business. He has made an impact in many areas across Microsoft as a leader in our enterprise sales organization, our services business and as a District GM for 2 different districts. Most recently Pete has been a valued member of our SMS&P organization where he had the opportunity to launch our National Tele-Platform.
I would like to thank Pete on behalf of the US SMS&P leadership Team for his many contributions to Microsoft. He has been a true champion of the field sales and marketing teams over the years and his willingness to take on big challenges with such a collaborative approach will be missed.
Pete’s last day will be December 3rd. Please join me in wishing him well in his new endeavor and I look forward to seeing him at future Worldwide Partner Conferences.
I will be posting this position immediately and will make it a top priority to find an outstanding replacement for Pete. In the interim, I am asking Jordan Chrysafidis to lead this team in addition to his current responsibilities.
Thanks,
Phil Sorgen
Corporate Vice President, US SMS&P
700 Bellevue Way NE | Bellevue, WA | 98004
425-707-0773
Bellevue WA Microsoft store opens this morning. Hundreds line up, some camp overnight. Why? A chance to shake hands with SteveB? To see the awesome video wall? Kinect? Windows Phone 7?
Sadly NO on all counts. Just a bunch of miscreants wanting free Miley Cyrus tickets. For those of you who care, one of the Kardashians (not sure which one) will be at Nordstrom's tomorrow. And Apolo the Skater will be at the MS Store to play Kinect. Woo hoo.
I actually went to the store, rather than sitting on the sidelines complaining. The people there were strolling around, checking out the software and hardware and having a good time. It's a roomy and inviting place actually and I was surprised at how many people were just hanging out and talking. I talked to a few of the associates and they were all genuinely excited about the store and talking to customers.
Sadly no on all counts? You obviously didn't get off your butt to see for yourself. A lot of people were playing with Mobile 7, the Kinect, and gosh, even the Kindle which we sell there. A lot of sales were being written up. The video wall is cool. We did a good job there.
You also weren't at Nordstrom's. *Kim* drew a very small crowd.
"I mean, ultimately, the stock market gets it right as long as we get it right. So we optimize every day on getting it right."
Yeah, Kin, ongoing share losses in mobile, the embarrassingly similar failure in tablets, ongoing financial losses in search (with zero share success against Google), losing MS’s multi-decade advantage over Apple in market cap and revenue, the departure of Elop and Ozzie, and of course Steve selling 1/5 of all his shares, are all great examples of how well MS is optimizing and getting it right. And that’s just this year. But none of that affected the stock, at least according to Steve. The fact that the stock crashed at 4x the rate of the market is just a coincidence. Same with MS's uniquely bad performance over the decade. Again, coincidence. Or maybe it's that enterprise companies are out of favor versus consumer ones. Let's just disregard the multiple currently being awarded to Salesforce, or even Oracle. It’s always the market’s fault, never his, SLT’s, or the board’s for not firing them.
And of course there's the problem that MS isn't especially cheap, which it should be if this was just about the market being fickle. MS trades roughly in line with other slow growing mature companies that can't or won't reinvent themselves (e.g. INTC).
Seattle Times has a story on going private. That won't save Microsoft. The only way is to break it up into at least four different pieces in order for the share price to go up.
"Mini, you're 100% right about iPad. It's a cute toy, but that's about it. These folks claiming iPad is the future are the same people who swore by Crocs. A big iPod is a fad. Get over it."
Heaviest Adoption of iPad in the Enterprise Coming from Financial Services, Technology and Healthcare Industries
"When a tablet supported by an OS that doesn't actively discourage 3rd party innovations is released (hint: Google or MS) THEN we can talk about the true value of the form factor."
HP Slate doesn’t rise to Apple challenge – only 9,000 built
"Apple will be obsolete in 4 years. The facade of cute, overpriced hardware won't be able to compete with truly capable devices."
BoxTone Mobile Management Surveys Show Enterprise iPad Adoption Accelerating
"Then, I was inspired.
Now, I'm sad and tired.
Listen, surely I've exceeded expectations,
Tried for three years, seems like thirty.
Could you ask as much from any other man?"
>The primary reason I'm commenting today, Mini, is to spank you for your iPad comments.
>It's an interesting thought. What would you use, an "iPaddle"?
Never. I get the impression that Mr. Jobs has never looked at a picture of a nude woman and admitted that he enjoyed it. Must be all that zen. So no iPaddles. Something from Coco's "Chanel After Dark" collection, black leather crop, gold monogram.
As for you people talking about a union, it's a very pointless conversation. You can't organize the workers who are genuinely being ground to dust these days, and you sure as heck can't organize an office like MS, not matter how "bad" some of you might think you have it. Get over it.
How much does a partner make at MS?
Novatech nTablet Windows 7 tablet: a touch too far
For anyone who genuinely hoped that Windows 7 could work as a tablet OS, this is a dose of harsh, harsh reality. Some excerpts:
The reason I'm going to have to be negative about it is nothing to do with the hardware, which is perfectly fine. It's the software. Windows 7, which it runs, definitively proves that there is a difference between a touch-screen operating system, and a tablet operating system. Windows 7 is, certainly, a touch-screen operating system. What it is not is a tablet operating system.
[...]
Turns out that a lot - and I mean a lot - of the interface elements on Windows are simply too small once you put them on a 10.1" screen to be easily controlled. They're too close together to avoid accidental taps; back buttons are too close to home buttons, the close/minimise/expand window widgets that you're so used to are just a finger smudge apart, and it turns into a vicious game in which you have to plan your angle of attack if you're going to hit the button you want.
[...]
The upshot of all this is that using Windows 7 on the nTablet is a hugely frustrating experience. Though there are few tablet-friendly elements - tap to zoom, pinch and pull to squeeze and contract, and the keyboard pops out when you touch a text field - it's not enough to make up for the fact that Windows was designed to be driven by a mouse and keyboard, not your fingers. Add to that the inevitable lags you get when you do touch something (because it's powered by an Intel Atom, not a Core 2 Duo or similar) and you have a recipe for intense, enduring, teeth-grinding bad user experience.
Steve Ballmer has been insistent that there will be Windows 7 tablets available around Christmas; and the company has told all who approach it, whether press or manufacturers, that it's not going to allow Windows Phone 7 to run tablets. Both are strategic errors. Windows Phone 7 could make a fantastic tablet operating system (you'd get more on the front page, apart from anything), whereas Windows 7 is just awful. And manufacturers aren't allowed to run Windows 7 Starter (which would put a bit less strain on the processor) because that's only for netbooks, and doesn't support multi-touch.
[...]
There is good news, though, some light at the end of the tunnel. The nTablet will also come in a dual-boot form able to run Android 2.2 (the version I tested didn't). That, I think, will be much more pleasant: from trying Android on a couple of 7" tablets (ie slightly under half the screen size of a 10" tablet), it's an elegant, tablet-friendly operating system - and the latter is a point that I can't emphasise enough. Windows might be fine for desktops. But it is not for, and you should never buy it on, tablets. You'll regret it, mark my words.
Can anyone tell me level/compensation of a General Manager (within Infrastructure) at Microsoft?
is it more or has the kool aid chugging never been more prevalent?
it's been the two worst years for MSFTers (benefits cuts, oops evolution, 0 pay raises, layoffs), while partners make out like bandit$ with no accountability and disaster after disaster
and yet this has made employees more excited than ever before!?
I was about to have a kid. MS takes my benefits away. Just got a great job at the big G. Got a big pay increase as well.
After ten years at MS and about to get to senior level I realized that I was only 15% away from entry level. That is the big secret they keep from new hires. Your pay remains about as flat at the stock in comparison to entry level pay.
I left the team responsible for DirectManipulation. I heard they had to cut a bunch of stuff as a result. Think of me and the lousy benefits the next time you try to do something with touch and find out it still sucks in comparision to Apple. Sorry. I have a family to think of.
Been looking for another job full-time. I can't wait to tell my boss to go stuff it.
http://money.cnn.com/2010/10/27/technology/microsoft_pdc/index.htm
I swear, have been posting here for years as a customer. All the while the above link has been happening before your very eyes. While you a;; were infighting, the world was innovating. Yes, you all had some great ideas but did not believe in them yourselves. Those ideas that you killed off/left on the cutting room floor... Well I'm here again to tell ya that they were used by your competitors to TAKE the consumer market from your drippings. As if you do not know by now the Consumer market is the most profitable business segment. Mess around with an iPad? Droid your self? What you people there somewhere in the clouds of redmond do not to this day understand is that the public will pay your price even with an outrageous contract... Mega business as YOUR "new business model" is a low bid margin. That is why your stock SUCKS!!! while your competitors stockholders reap profits.
Anyone who owns their own business gets this. The average consumer gets this. Oh, forgot, you all there somewhere in the cloud are smarter than the rest of us...
Former Customer
Has Microsoft issued any sort of policy that states that employees aren't supposed to post on this blog since there is a lot of negative stuff? I haven't seen anything, but don't want to be doing something that I'm not supposed to be doing (which maybe I am doing already by posting the question?)
The only stated policy is not to divulge proprietary information. God knows what the unstated policy says.
Mini,
You are the man ... but perhaps it is time to delegate or turn off moderation. This blog should be more real-time. 2-3 weeks for comment approval is too long. Time to hang up the towels?
Your obedient HR drone-queen,
LisaB
if we can't bring in deep-talented new blood to replace the departed dead wood, our future is doomed to mediocrity.
Sorry mini, your joint / MSFT mediocrity was pre-ordained. Really. The fact that this blog exists at all speaks to that fact.
LisaB, SteveB, BillG and all the other aliases are, well, tired. or, retired. Dude, nobody of these old people cares! See any 20-somethings sweating over whether Windows Phone 7 is a success?
Sorry to burst your bubble.
Hope that your 15/55 works out.
Hear that sound? That's the sound of Microsoft's software empire, crumbling a bit more each day:
HP drops Windows Home Server in favor of webOS
@mini,
This blog has become just a depressing place instead of what it was 4-5 years ago, a great site with a lot of insight from people who actually work here at Microsoft.
Today I would say the above type of content is only about 10% of the site. The rest is trolls, people working for other companies or people hating MSFT and disguising as employees.
The intent of about 90% of the content on this site is therefore, to hurt our company culture and peace of mind. Everytime I read the comments in here, I lose about 50% of productivity for the week. Most of the reactions I read here are comical at best and do not for one bit reflect the overall atmosphere inside the company. And I am not even talking about dropping in false information, like "OMG layoffs next Tuesday guys better polish that resume".
You should seriously consider closing the comments unless you find a way to make sure only MSFT people can comment on this blog. Or moderate more aggressively.
This is not helping anymore. You have gone off track on your mission and forgot your initial goals, not unlike the company you're working for. That's my 2 cents.
I think we need a new post and discussion around Microsoft's quest to irrelevance and oblivion in the consumer arena. I only say this because I see all these posts on greatness on Facebook etc on Kinect and Windows Phone and for Windows Phone, in particular, the only people saying anything decent are MSFT employees. Seems to be similar (but less so) for Kinect. WTF MSFT!?!?!? Create some buzz with the nos......MAKE SOME NOISE!!!!!
If any marketoids read this blog...
you should totally get Cheech and Chong to do your "To the Cloud!" adverts.
HP (the largest OEM of Windows Home Server) is dropping use of the Windows Home Server on its MediaSmart boxes. Newer releases of MediaSmart will be powered by the Linux-based WebOS. Microsoft's decision to drop storage-pooling functionality in the Vail release of WHS, was a contributing factor in HP abandoning WHS, since Linux comes with robust storage-pooling.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/01/hp-dropping-windows-home-server-to-focus-on-webos-wont-be-hitt/
Been a 15 yr veteran at microsoft. These are the things that I find are becoming extinct at microsoft...
Anthing else ...
Things I miss
7. animals at work
8. Micronews incl. Classifieds and Microsnooze
9. VP dares/wagers
10. Unified Christmas party
11. Old school tenure awards..incl stock certs
12. Seeing which 'softies were shopping at the Superyacht show...LOL
As a 15 year vet here are my additions.
13. Out of control MGX Parties
14. Nobody concerned about how many people reported to them. When your stock doubled every 6 months nobody was stabbing anyone in the back for an extra .5% raise
15. No help desk to rebuild your machine or build a new machine. Even sales people were technical enough to load and build a machine
16. Company product loyalty. In 95 and 96 I can't imagine anyone using Netscape, AOL, Wordperfect, Mac or Lotus. Now we have employees that have iPads, iphones, ipods, g-mail accounts, droid phones, firefox and chrome browsers.
To me a couple of these things are some of our problems. How many people on this board that are complaining about Steve or our stock price, are using or someone in their family is using a competitors products. This may be old school, but you are either with us or against us. If you have any of these products you are giving aid and comfort to our enemy.
What's up with all the _very_ senior, DE, GM level people going to IEB?
As an exercise for the truly caring, wind the tape back to MiniMSFT's first post then read forward to the present, sampling embedded links to still-existent press articles and other blog postings as provided along the way.
It's truly breathtaking to spend a few hours reading and comprehending the essentially unchanging essence of posts and comments on this site during the entire span of MiniMSFT's existence, let alone witnessing the continued sameness of MSFT share performance during the same period. The butter-free, all-lard icing on the cake is the equal monotony of Microsoft senior management and governance inertia as the years of pure, unchanging C-flat have stacked up.
Over half a decade of MiniMSFT is neatly recapitulated in an article from this past summer in the UK version of ZDNet. Teaser:
"So to summarise, Microsoft has talked about five different mobile platforms in 2010: Windows Mobile 6.5, Windows Embedded Compact 7, Windows Phone 7, Kin, and Windows 7, with very little explanation about how these platforms relate to each other and which ones Microsoft wants to use in which settings. Is it any surprise then that Microsoft is flailing around in mobile computing and has no coherent tablet strategy?"
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/mobile-devices/2010/08/06/microsofts-tablet-snags-show-deeper-malaise-40089751/2/
See especially the second page of that article; the tablet issue is a short-wavelength phenomenon simply featuring a specific noun, an analogy with numerous other instances of sluggish, rudderless weathervaning in what appears to be a slowly-thickening pot of bureaucratically sclerotic, over-marketed organizational glue.
How is it possible that the broad details of the story told in that article have not changed? A clue can probably be found in Mr. Ballmer's revealingly intransigent remark made in an interview w/Business Week, --5 years ago--. Asked if he read MiniMSFT, his response was "No, I don't." Hermetic isolation leads to suffocation, no doubt about it. There are after all several ways to "cut off an air supply," as Mr. Ballmer demonstrates.
Good luck, folks. With people like Barr, Obasanjo, "Whodapunk" obviously available in quantity for Microsoft's benefit, luck really should be a minor component for the success of the company but clearly something more metaphysical is going to be required to produce change at the top.
Microsoft is facing an old dilemma: Do you defend your turf, or do you go after new territory?
The choice seems to have been made by default: Defend Windows and Office.
But top management won't acknowledge that. So Microsoft's vision statement is incoherent: "Your potential inspires our passion..." Whatever. Yawn.
Until this is resolved, Microsoft will be an institution at war with itself. No one at Microsoft will be happy. The Windows/Office people will force everyone else to build douche-y "Windows Mobile x.x" products, where the Windows brand and look-and-feel will be a product killer. Product cycles will last many years.
Microsoft will never win in markets like Search, Mobile, and whatever other disruptions will be thrown its way.
You've also got to take a look at your strengths and weaknesses, and decide if you want to play to your strengths or remedy your weaknesses.
The truly great ones remedy their weaknesses. Like Rocky in Rocky IV. In order to take on his Russian opponent, Rocky arranges to have the fight in Russia, not the US. Then he goes off to a camp in Siberia, and trains like crazy in the cold, so that he is stronger in the Russian cold than his rival. Rocky beats the Russian by outdoing him on his supposed strengths.
(contd. in next comment)
Consider the four Ps - Product, Pricing, Placement, and Promotion.
Google (2/4)
Google is fantastic at Pricing. They price their products at less than zero, by paying OEMs to make Google the default search engines.
They're good at Product too, although they occasionally produce a stinker like Google TV.
Placement and Promotion are alien to Google. They lack a serious sales force, have little idea how to play nice with other large companies, and don't believe in advertising.
Apple (3/4)
Apple is the king of Product. They are years ahead of their competitors.
They're fantastic at Promotion. Note the catchy product names, and catchier ads.
They don’t get Placement. Steve Jobs is far too arrogant to do what others want him to do.
They used to be very bad at pricing ($499 for an iPhone!), but they've gotten very good at it. The iPad is under $500. You can buy a Macbook Air for under $1,000!
Microsoft (1.5/4)
No one understands Placement like Microsoft. No matter how trivial the product, it has to have a developer API, and deals with partners.
Microsoft used to understand Pricing, but it doesn't anymore. Witness the UMPC debacle.
Microsoft is terrible at Promotion. Everytime I see one of those joyless Crispin-Porter ads, I feel the urge to slap someone to their senses.
Microsoft is lousy at Product. There is no reason - NONE - for a consumer to walk past iPhone, Android, and Blackberry, and buy a "Windows Phone."
If Apple is scoring 3/4, and Google is scoring 2/4, then Microsoft, at 1.5/4, is doomed.
So Microsoft needs to answer two fundamental questions:
1. Is it defending existing territory, or moving into new markets? It cannot credibly do both.
2. Is it going to play to its strengths, or remedy its weaknesses?
Based on the answers to these two questions, it needs to decide whether or not to keep SteveB as its CEO.
If it's focusing on existing territory, and playing to its strengths, then keep SteveB. Give up on Mobile and Bing, and become a cash cow. This is similar to what IBM did under Lou Gerstner in the 90s, when it sold its PC business. If SteveB won't do it, someone from the outside, like someone who's never run a tech company, could do it.
If it's focusing on new markets, then it needs a new miracle-worker as CEO. Someone who, above all, understands Product and Promotion. SteveB is not that guy. Ray Ozzie was supposed to make up for that, but he couldn't; so he quit. Reed Hastings has the Product, Placement, and Promotion chops. But he'll have to contend with the immovable forces of Windows and Office.
Until these fundamental questions are resolved, Microsoft will remain aimlessly adrift.
So Microsoft needs to answer two fundamental questions:
1. Is it defending existing territory, or moving into new markets? It cannot credibly do both.
2. Is it going to play to its strengths, or remedy its weaknesses?
Based on the answers to these two questions, it needs to decide whether or not to keep SteveB as its CEO.
If it's focusing on existing territory, and playing to its strengths, then keep SteveB. Give up on Mobile and Bing, and become a cash cow. This is similar to what IBM did under Lou Gerstner in the 90s, when it sold its PC business. If SteveB won't do it, someone from the outside, like someone who's never run a tech company, could do it.
If it's focusing on new markets, then it needs a new miracle-worker as CEO. Someone who, above all, understands Product and Promotion. SteveB is not that guy. Ray Ozzie was supposed to make up for that, but he couldn't; so he quit. Reed Hastings has the Product, Placement, and Promotion chops. But he'll have to contend with the immovable forces of Windows and Office.
Until these fundamental questions are resolved, Microsoft will remain aimlessly adrift.
Add to that the inevitable lags you get when you do touch something (because it's powered by an Intel Atom, not a Core 2 Duo or similar) and you have a recipe for intense, enduring, teeth-grinding bad user experience.
There is really no excuse for the bloat in Windows. The slowest Atom is still way more powerful than the CPU in the iPad, yet yields unacceptable performance when running Windows. It took a while but this is finally affecting Microsoft's bottom line, i.e., its inability to adapt Windows to phones or tablets.
What's up with all the _very_ senior, DE, GM level people going to IEB?
The entire leadership from the erstwhile "Oslo"(except for BradLo of course) has moved there now!
Anyone in the forum has any comments about Google Chrome OS. I believe it will be interesting.
Really glad to see that an innovative product like Kinectimals wasn't branded as Microsoft Anthropomorphic Mamilian Tookit 7.
"To me a couple of these things are some of our problems. How many people on this board that are complaining about Steve or our stock price, are using or someone in their family is using a competitors products. This may be old school, but you are either with us or against us. If you have any of these products you are giving aid and comfort to our enemy."
Whatever, dinosaur. I'm a 14-year vet but I've considered Microsoft more of my enemy over the last 5 years than our competitors given how toxic our culture has become.
I'll use whatever products I think are best, and if Microsoft ever provides me a reason to be loyal again then I'll consider revisiting the idealism of the early days.
I actually went to the store, rather than sitting on the sidelines complaining. ... You obviously didn't get off your butt to see for yourself.
Well I would have except for all those girly-girls waiting around for Miley, who, according to another poster, got paid $1mill+ for crooning to the crowd. Glad to hear that you enjoyed the Kim version of the Kardashians BTW.
fact remains that Apple releases a product and customers line up round the block to buy. Microsoft releases a product and has to bribe their way to get the rent-a-crowd present. Whatever. As long as whatever IT is sells, makes no difference I guess.
> If you have any of these products you are giving aid and comfort to our enemy.
Oh grow up. There are what, about 90k employees worldwide? That's like, 2 days of iWhatever sales? Apple won't die or survive based on 0% or 100% of MS employees being customers.
Furthermore, MS isn't losing anything (sorry SteveB!) by its employees buying Apple. Most of us, who were not provided WinMo 6.5- didn't need it. So dogfooding it didn't really matter. Plus, since MS didn't give out devices to the bourgoise, we didnt have opportunity to shape the development of the product. For that matter we didn't have the opportunity to shape Phone 7, but with all of the subsidized phones maybe the employee base can and will help provide feedback for 7.x++
>> comments about Google Chrome OS
Sure. It's a device and OS combination designed specifically for low-end users who are tired of upgrades and maintenance and who just need browser and email, and for Google Apps customers, for whom it removes the need to pay for in-house IT. If played well, this game could f#@k up Microsoft pretty bad. I don't think Google knows how to play this particular deck of cards, though.
Anyone in the forum has any comments about Google Chrome OS
Yawn...Wake me up when it goes the way of Wave. Google is not exactly Apple.
"2. If you do work at MSFT and you share a racist view of any ethnicity, I or any one of hundreds of managers will gladly see you out the door."
I'll see your rebuttal and raise you, "IIT grads and grads of other universities in India". That is not really any different from saying "non-Ivy League grads", which I've heard more than once at Microsoft.
It's not about the race. Saying "Indian" is just a convenient shorthand people use instead of saying, "people who spent a significant amount of time in the Indian educational system", as the two are mostly, though not completely, overlapping.
A native of India who grew up in the US school system isn't going to exhibit the same work/creativity characteristics as those who grew up in India. It's about "nurture" (the educational process in an environment) more than "nature" (ethnicity or race). By this, I don't just mean uni, but a significant number of years of their entire education.
How's that merging of Home and Small Business Server teams working for you, STB?
Anyone in the forum has any comments about Google Chrome OS. I believe it will be interesting.
Google is the new Microsoft. Throwing lots of darts in the hope something succeeds.
To me a couple of these things are some of our problems. How many people on this board that are complaining about Steve or our stock price, are using or someone in their family is using a competitors products. This may be old school, but you are either with us or against us. If you have any of these products you are giving aid and comfort to our enemy.
So your strategy in this fight is to pretend that the enemy doesn't exist? Good luck with that.
It kills me that OS X is so much better than Windows in so many fundamental ways, and Microsoft doesn't even seem to be trying to catch up. Probably because of ignorance-is-bliss attitudes like yours. If it were up to me, I'd make everybody in the Windows org use a Mac exclusively for 6 months before designing the next version of Windows.
Re: Miley Cyrus
Note the sort of people who've performed at the SoHo Apple store - acts like Sonic Youth.
And they have a stream of highbrow film types, like upcoming talks by Joel and Ethan Coen, Sophia Coppola, and Kevin Spacey.
An Idiot's Guide to Mental Retardation:
“Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer had flown to Palo Alto to visit his young counterpart twice. As Zuckerberg is wont to do, he took Ballmer on a long walk. Zuckerberg told Ballmer that Facebook was raising money at a $15 billion valuation. But Ballmer had come with something more sweeping in mind. “Why don’t we just buy you for $15 billion?” he replied, according to a very knowledgeable source. Zuckerberg was unmoved even by this offer. “I don’t want to sell the company unless I can keep control,” said Zuckerberg, as he always did in such situations.
Ballmer took this reply as a sort of challenge. He went back to Microsoft’s headquarters and concocted a plan intended to acquire Facebook in stages over a period of years to enable Zuckerberg to keep calling the shots. But Zuckerberg rejected all the overtures. What Ballmer finally agreed to instead was an advertising deal that included a provision for Microsoft to pay a huge amount, $240 million, for a sliver of Facebook, 1.6%. Microsoft’s investment gave Facebook an implied value of $15 billion.”
WOW! And Mr. Ballmer majored in math. I am indeed humbled.
http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/09/fritz-lanman-microsoft-tried-to-acquire-facebook/
dang, is it just me or is it kinda fun to take your new phone out without snide remarks from apple/android folks or to have all the kids on the block want xbox and kinect...is this what you guys felt like 15 yrs ago?
>>Note the sort of people who've performed at the SoHo Apple store - acts like Sonic Youth.
<<
You know how I know you're a troll?
Because Miley Cyrus has also performed at the Apple Store.
I swear this site has become useless because of people like you.
>>fact remains that Apple releases a product and customers line up round the block to buy.<<
Yet they're being lapped by Android. Oddly, there are no lines of people at stores waiting for new Android handsets. How odd.
Troll.
What is so retarded about buying Facebook? Three years on its valuation has tripled while MSFT is down over 20%.
The 1.6% deal was more than a small stake in the company. It gave us an ad deal and built inroads for Bing & Office integration.
More crumbling MS culture - an entire division moves from offices to cubes.
In February, MSN's 600 Puget Sound FTEs will move to the space vacated by bankrupt Eddie Bauer in Lincoln Square.
Ted Cahall - new MSN VP - made an appalling job of defending this decision at today's All Hands at the Westin.
One day prior to the meeting, our self-titled "Online Media Executive" (as Cahall repeatedly told us in his intro) sent a mail telling us of the planned move, the stated rationale of cubes, or "open space" as it was called, is to foster collaboration.
Following an apparent barrage of "feedback", a second mail told us the problem was, in fact that "OSD has run out of space", and that there was nothing he could do about it.
The Q&A session at the All Hands was rather lively. I feel sure that Mr. Cahall's decicision to berate questioners and/or trivialize their questions did not help. For example:
Q: "Offices have been a Microsoft tradition for decades... what about attrition?"
A: "Those who believe its their inalienable right to an office can go work on campus [with an office] on some crappy back-end server tool while we work on cool stuff".
Q: "Why am I hearing this for the first time at this meeting?"
A: "Perhaps you should read your mail." (The questioner's team did not get the mail)
Naivete? Arrogance? Incompetence?
This change was sprung upon a whole division with a complete lack of inclusion or discussion with those that will be affected. (I assume that Cahall and his directs will retain offices). This truly reinforces the perception that MSN's leadership team could care less about their employees so long as their scorecards are green.
Of course, I've made the assumption that the intent was positice. If, however, Cahall's remit is to wind down MSN engineering, then I'd have to eat crow, and admit that he's made a great start.
True story
My friend was executed last week at the Parking lot in one of the Microsoft buildings early Tuesday morning. Seven bullets to the head. He is with us - no more.
Here is what you get if your boss has a friend that needs a job:
Pre-execution stage - lower 10%.
The first bullet was cold, an email came out "Dear is no longer with us", did I really press send ? recall! recall! oh shit. What a way to learn you're no longer here.
The second "we're sorry but hand us the badge, we'll send you your stuff and please don't call us"
The third, "did we forget to mention? Things change no severance..."
The fourth "oh sorry again but no unemployment benefits because that is what it is"
The fifth, “my dear friend here, is going to take your place, only until we find someone, hmmm, you know what never mind, let’s just make it permanent” - ops, did I say that out loud ? I hope no one noticed the email.
The Six “Na… FTEs have a 6 month cooling period before they can come back in…”
The Seven bullet: You mean to say “it's Christmas ? Your wife isn't working? A kid just started in college ?”, hmmm. Interesting.
Be scared, be very scared.
The Irish are coming the Irish are coming..
"More crumbling MS culture - an entire division moves from offices to cubes."
Cry me a river. MSN is a joke. Enjoy your cube.
iPad - nope, still a gimmick. Apple is intent on taking computing out of computers and treating 3rd party developers like crap. But you'll put up with it so long as there is a paycheck? Grow a pair.
If MS wants the revenue, they need to stop relying on OEMs to produce the hardware. OEMs have only proven that they only care about reaching the bargain bin. They have no ability to create compelling hardware. MS needs to start making hardware.
Ballmer still needs to go, but not before that waste of space called LisaB.
Because Miley Cyrus has also performed at the Apple Store.
It's called execution, troll! MS does it in a parking lot in the freeking cold and she sings only 5 songs. For Apple, she sings inside a state of the art theater in the store for an intimate crowd and made available on iTunes. The exclusive, iTunes Live From London show will be performed and recorded at Apple's state-of-the-art theatre at the Apple Store on Regent Street.
Cahall sounds like another real winner.
The cube thing can work really well if you're isolated in a space with others who are working on the same project as you are and you need to collaborate a lot, AND there are quiet places for you to go when you need to work without distraction.
From personal experience today, if you're in a cube area with a variety of different teams working on only passably related areas of the product, you hear a lot of noise that doesn't help you get your job done better and doesn't help those other teams do their jobs better. It can slow productivity by 50% or more, by keeping you out of the "flow" state, needed for things like functional spec design, figuring out what a piece of code is doing (no, no one still with a badge knows what it does), or coding a complex algorithm accurately.
Don't suggest earphones. Not everyone can concentrate with music or an audio book playing in the background.
Adding insult to injury: after being laid off in 2009 it took me a while to get back on track but I did and decided move on. Given that I had started at ms back in 2000 I still had some options that I held on to since they were not expiring until 2012 (fully vested). During the layoff process HR did not mention once the fact that upon termination I'd have 3 months to sell my options or I would lose them. Obviously I didn't remember this piece of email from 2000 that stated just that. After asking Smith Barney and benefits at microsoft I was told that they're gone. The price at the time was 21$, so it was a pretty good difference considering where it is now, I would not have become a millionaire but still it was some extra cash that I might need in setting up a small business I've been working on for the last six months. This really left a bitter taste in my mouth, suing probably is not a good idea as I'd have to pay legal fees, but I wonder if there's anyone else out there who had the same issue?
True story -- My friend was executed last week at the Parking lot in one of the Microsoft buildings
Mr. Moderator,
How about doing a little moderating? Why didn't this bit of fluff end up on the cutting room floor?
The signal-to-noise ratio in this blog has dropped significantly over the last few months, and at the present rate it won't be long until there's no value left in reading the postings. That would be really unfortunate.
There's no need to hasten the decay by turning this forum into some kind of hallucinogenic sophomore poetry jam.
Please.
@This blog has become just a depressing place instead of what it was 4-5 years ago, a great site with a lot of insight from people who actually work here at Microsoft.
That's the atmosphere of the company >> depressing.
somebody is writing good is an employee and the rest not, why?
Friz Lanman said these words to get exposure. The full story is as follows:
Microsoft indeed wanted to buy Facebook, but came up with a $10B evaluation. Mark wanted $15B. This $5B is what a terrible mistake Mr. Ballmer did based on Friz Lanman and his boss Charles Songhurst (Charlie as he is known). I told them several times that the option value of Facebook is way more than $5B.
So eventually Microsoft and Facebook worked out a formula. In $240M, the folks at Microsoft thought they are paying $160 M for facebook and $80 M for ad deal. On Facebook side, Mark could portray that Facebook is worth $15B.
Indeed Mark wanted to sell more of Facebook at $15B valuation. But Microsoft wanted to buy it only at $10B valuation plus $80 Million for the ad deal. Proof? Check out the news articles of that time. Mark immediately after portraying Facebook at $15B valuation, he started find other buyers and immediately sold a few more percentage of it at $15B. Mark was willing to sell those few percentages and more to Microsoft, as he eventually did. The truth is even those other deals were not at $15B valuation. A part of those sale was giving up a board seat.
I think Friz did not lie. The $15B figure was not reported by him. He gave a wrong impression though. He gave the impression as Mark was not willing to sell Facebook. The truth is that Mark was not willing to sell Facebook, even a small fraction of it at lower valuation than $15B. He saw the option value of Facebook, which Mr. Ballmer, Charlie, and Friz did not see. If Microsoft offers to buy Facebook at $50B, Mark will decline it. But if you pay the right premium which any acquition has, he will sell it. If you interact with him, he is a sharp business man. $10B plus premium of another $5B would have closed the deal 3 years ago. Much better than a Yahoo offer.
In February, MSN's 600 Puget Sound FTEs will move to the space vacated by bankrupt Eddie Bauer in Lincoln Square.
MSN is the new PSS.
I swear this site has become useless because of people like you.
Pot, kettle.
At the cost of sounding like a broken record... those hopeful of inclusive decision making should wake up and get in touch with the reality... Microsoft is not a democracy...
the Royalty (top execs) own the company, the Patricians (typically Ivy league MBAs) run it for them, the Cronies thrive by licking the Patrician or Royal butt. Cronies aspire to Patrician status and often get it. the rest of us the 'worker class' can reach L65 if we're lucky. only the worker class are laid off while patricians and cronies just shift roles often leaving a trail of failures and duds. Its the same as any other company.
In replying to the YAWN comment on Google Chrome OS....Well please do certainly by all means....we will keep marching ahead and change the world....TYPICAL MSFT ARROGANCE....ha.ha.ha.ha.ha
Re: Cahall
Naivete? Arrogance? Incompetence?
Spineless corporate reptile. Portals stopped being cool in the 90's. Working for AOL will keep you frozen in a timewarp I guess.
Following an apparent barrage of "feedback", a second mail told us the problem was, in fact that "OSD has run out of space", and that there was nothing he could do about it.
Similar tales from E&D. People complain about E&D getting new buildings, but are unaware that they're packed with cubes.
... Except for those in charge.
A good question for your VP would be "Will you be in a cubicle?"
The answer would likely be "No", with a rationale such as "My position requires a degree of privacy that cannot be achieved in a cubicle." (Not to mention that every VP I've met holds at least 1 (if not several) conference rooms permanently reserved entirely for themselves.)
I'm never sure whether those who attempt to "sell" unpleasant news as a positive truly believe everyone else is a moron, or if they simply don't care.
If you claim that cubes are superior, fine. Don't make excuses to put yourself in an office. Use a cube, and use that reserved conference room when you need that critical privacy.
The same person is better off simply stating "Look, we don't have much space, we can pack people in tighter and cheaper in cubes or compressed workspaces. I realize it isn't everyone's preference, but it's an unavoidable business reality that isn't likely to change any time soon."
What's up with all the _very_ senior, DE, GM level people going to IEB?
The entire leadership from the erstwhile "Oslo"(except for BradLo of course) has moved there now!
---
I ended my 15 year career at Microsoft working close to Oslo. The "music" died for me, the day most of CSD got hauled over to EBC to watch some demo by Wahbe or Sharpe; the high point was a resizeable a clock written in XAML (or possibly D - or was it M?) and this was demonstrating our prowess in online transaction processing systems? At the time I thought "WTF?". I later tried to explain to our Partner-level boss that CICS could now do web services. He didn't want to know about it. There were some extremely smart people there (eg Clemens S, Don B) but a LOT of people playing indulgent, self-satisfied games without a clue about how software is used in the real world. End result, BizTalk is still MSFT's answer for SOA and ESB; and MSFT still doesn't have a transaction processing monitor worth the name - long after Jim Gray tried to get momentum for MTS (which became COM+, which then became an evolutionary dead-end).
The good news for disillusioned Softies ... I left in 2009 and I'm now working in an exciting job with a software vendor which writes good enterprise software that customers buy, use and love. There is life after Microsoft!!
http://macsmind.com/wordpress/2010/12/02/class-action-suit-against-microsoft-to-be-filed-this-week/
I hope it is not true, but it reminds me of the steps and lies during the Vista fiasco. I know we don't want to encourage people to adopt Macs, but seriously, how about converting them. The group was under pressure to launch the product by 2010, and launch a half baked product (way to meet your CBI). Nice.
I don't support bashing a particular nationality, but the stories about Indians are more true than some of us are comfortable with. Example anecdote: I found a nasty regression in a pretty important component. I looked into it, only to discover that the dev team responsible for that component are all L59s from India who six months ago were residing halfway around the world.
I think the above product team needs to be more carefully monitored. The problem wasn't only the person making the checkin but the lack of software engineering evident in this incident:
1. Why was a level 59 checking in to a critical system component?
2. Why was the change not reviewed?
3. Why was this not detected before submission by a checkin system?
4. Why wasn't this caught by the next day's tests?
5. How did you "find it"?
6. Was the problem related to poorly written code that is difficult to maintain and modify?
I mean I'd love to bash other nationalities (being caucasian myself) but in the case described in this post I see more problems in the team's software engineering processes and staff management procedures.
Now that Steve Balmer is diversifying his investments more what is to prevent him from using his influence to tank an effort at Microsoft that might interfere with one of his other interests? He seems more interested in buying basketball teams then running the company.
Guess Ballmer has won against Google. The stock has been flat now for more than 3 years. And going by the recent news about salary increases, and attrition troubles, GOOG looks to be placed exactly where MSFT was in year 2000. Funny how things work out - after all the money spent on OSD, it is competitors like Facebook that are going to eat GOOG's lunch.
I ended my 15 year career at Microsoft working close to Oslo. The "music" died for me, the day most of CSD got hauled over to EBC to watch some demo by Wahbe or Sharpe; the high point was a resizeable a clock written in XAML (or possibly D - or was it M?) and this was demonstrating our prowess in online transaction processing systems?
Sounds like you lack a firm grasp of Oslo project deliverables. The above post is a childish over-simplification of some Oslo project functionality (i.e. it definitely wasn't all about OLTP - that term is also very 90s)
>>It's called execution, troll! MS does it in a parking lot in the freeking cold and she sings only 5 songs. For Apple, she sings inside a state of the art theater in the store for an intimate crowd and made available on iTunes. The exclusive, iTunes Live From London show will be performed and recorded at Apple's state-of-the-art theatre at the Apple Store on Regent Street.
<<
Well then for f**s sake SAY THAT. Re-read your original post and tell me what it is you were implying.
Think!
"WOW! And Mr. Ballmer majored in math. I am indeed humbled."
More humble is good. Less stupid would be even better. Current valuation estimates for FB are $60b+. The "experts" who all said SB overpaid now look pretty foolish.
"More crumbling MS culture - an entire division moves from offices to cubes."
>>Cry me a river. MSN is a joke. Enjoy your cube.
OP here. Yes, we are a bit or a joke, aren't we. We should probably coout our blessings and be thankful that its inside at least!
OSD is not out of space. Its out of cash that its prepared to spend on MSN. Presenting the change as an aid to collaboration was amateurish and transparently obvious spin.
Needless to say, L2s (managers of managers) on up will not be in cubes. Bing - I'm guessing - will not be in cubes.
iPad - nope, still a gimmick. Apple is intent on taking computing out of computers and treating 3rd party developers like crap. But you'll put up with it so long as there is a paycheck? Grow a pair.
Treating 3rd party developers like crap by giving them access to a distribution system that lets 100M+ users painlessly download/buy their apps and can make them millions of dollars in a matter of weeks? If that's being treated like crap, then, more crap please!
We now have over 2 years of data about which apps Apple will accept and reject. If you don't want Apple to "treat you like crap" then don't make apps that are likely to be rejected.
And if you're really that broken up that your bikini app didn't allow you to retire early, I don't think you're going to get much sympathy from me or anybody else.
During the layoff process HR did not mention once the fact that upon termination I'd have 3 months to sell my options or I would lose them. ... This really left a bitter taste in my mouth, suing probably is not a good idea as I'd have to pay legal fees, but I wonder if there's anyone else out there who had the same issue?
How did you get a job in the tech industry without understanding the entire point of stock options, i.e., they are an incentive to keep you at the company. When you leave, they disappear. Why would you expect to be able to exercise them even one day after leaving the company, much less 3+ months later? It would be hilarious if you tried to sue.
"It kills me that OS X is so much better than Windows in so many fundamental ways, and Microsoft doesn't even seem to be trying to catch up."
Like?
"The only disaster lately launched was Kin, other then all good guys..."
Well, except for any semblance of a compelling tablet story, of course.
iPad - nope, still a gimmick.
Once again, with feeling:
BoxTone Mobile Management Surveys Show Enterprise iPad Adoption Accelerating
Heaviest Adoption of iPad in the Enterprise Coming from Financial Services, Technology and Healthcare Industries
If MS wants the revenue, they need to stop relying on OEMs to produce the hardware. OEMs have only proven that they only care about reaching the bargain bin. They have no ability to create compelling hardware. MS needs to start making hardware.
From what I can see, MS first needs to re-learn how to create compelling software.
Trying to use Windows 7 on a tablet shows that while it may be a touch-screen OS, it is not a tablet OS - and there is a difference
iPad - nope, still a gimmick. Apple is intent on taking computing out of computers and treating 3rd party developers like crap. But you'll put up with it so long as there is a paycheck? Grow a pair.
So you prefer computing to be hard, buggy and non-intuitive?
Everybody wants to take the computing out of computers. That's why we don't develop in binary using wired connections. The last thirty years has been about removing the user from the nuts and bolts. That you fail to see this is telling.
Microsoft people *should* be upset that Apple is running rings around them in a space that Microsoft entered a decade ago. Don't blame Apple though, as the quoted poster. Apple are selling millions of iPads to meet a demand that was there all along.
At least the Windows Phone team seems to finally get it.
If Ballmer stays, MS is doomed. If Ballmer goes, MS is doomed.
Seems that the MS recruiters are struggling to get candidates. MS is not a top choice anymore. So less qualified people are being interviewed.
Sounds like you lack a firm grasp of Oslo project deliverables. The above post is a childish over
Sounds like you lack a firm grasp of what customers want to buy. Yes, OLTP is a 90s-sounding term. And when I talk about "OLTP" in presentations to customers - ie, big, enterprise customers, banks, govt departments and major corporations - they sit up and take notice. And then buy the software my current employer sells (I'm not a sales guy, but I do get hauled in to do talks). Oslo had zero impact on the world of transaction processing, software engineering, or distributed applications. I liked D a lot; and liked the overall Oslo vision. But I saw the flawed execution and detachment from reality. And, dude ... Oslo went *nowhere*. It contributed nothing to Computer Science as an academic discipline, or to Microsoft as a commercial undertaking.
BTW pardon me for simplifying in a short forum comment. If you want duelling 20,00 word essays on Oslo, well we could do that ...
I had a biz flight today and Mini, here's a random data point for you: iPads were in full effect for email and work docs on the plane given the space constraints... seriously, I was the only person using a laptop -- my two seatmates were on iPads, as were the majority of other business travelers I spotted.
The form factor is ideal for flights.
Unclear why you're discounting it as a legitimate contender -- maybe it's time for some personal soul-searching and a rethinking of how much MS kool-aid you've actually consumed.
>>"It kills me that OS X is so much better than Windows in so many fundamental ways, and Microsoft doesn't even seem to be trying to catch up."
>>>Like?
Let's see...
Great dev tools OOTB?
- an awesome Terminal (monospaced fonts have leading and kerning even!)
- DTrace static probes
- screen (love reattaching detached sessions)
- vim, less, awk, sort, uniq, grep
- xmllint!!!!!
- PHP 5.3, Python, 64-bit JDK (did I mention I have a humble Mac mini with 2GB RAM - no need for 64bit but got it anyway - woo hoo!), Grand Central Dispatch
- ssh/sftp client and server
Fantastic user experience for non-devs?
- iPhoto - ever seen an iPhoto slideshow with a Pixar movie soundtrack? Hoo yeah!
- GarageBand - what's that funky music playing?
- Notes - so cool, I don't have to save my documents
- HTML widgets on all browsers that make even the most basic, unstyled web pages (no CSS) a joy to use
- antialiasing done right
- effortless surfing of CIFS/SMB shares
- absolutely no need to install drivers when I plug in an Android handset for USB tethering
- absolutely no need to install printer drivers
- an easy-to-use firewall app
- ColorSync
- Preview (including print to PDF OOTB)
- Cover Flow! Yeah!
- Expose! Yeah!
- The most awesome black and white wallpapers on any desktop. Best viewed on an iMac 27".
- Low sticker shock for a Snow Leopard licence
But to be fair, Windows has:
- Consolas (the best dev font out there)
- WMC
- WinDbg
- the best Silverlight platform out there
- C# (love the getter/setter)
- NTFS
- Safe Mode
Windows is also the leading Java dev platform out there. NetBeans and Eclipse has the largest dev marketshare on Windows.
>>In replying to the YAWN comment on Google Chrome OS....Well please do certainly by all means....we will keep marching ahead and change the world....TYPICAL MSFT ARROGANCE....ha.ha.ha.ha.ha
<<
Is it arrogance when even former Google engineers think the product is DOA?
http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/14/gmail-creator-paul-buchheit-chrome-os-will-perish-or-merge-with-android/
Don't act like Google hasn't been churning out turd after turd recently.
Oh poor Microsoft, is confused and does not know which way to look……up or down or right or left. There's competition just about every direction, from Apple to Google to HP’s Web OS to vmware to Oracle to Face book. Microsoft management is confused and doesn’t know the path it needs to take to sustain continued growth and profitability.
Microsoft has only itself to blame. All the remaining Microsoft employees are the dishonest employees who have played dirtiest politics to get honest and highly productive employees ousted and eliminated. Eliminated by the politics of sheer shameless deceit.
So what does Microsoft expect now with these remaining employees....dirty politics is in their blood, what now remains now is a horrible environment where dirty politics rules, where medieval age brutal and cruel law prevails, where no one trusts the other, where hardworking employees are still eliminated literally by the virtue of summary judgments....just like in an uncivilized society.
WHERE DOES ALL THIS LEAD MICROSOFT….IT ONLY LEADS TO ZERO INNOVATION.
MICROSOFT HAS ITSELF SHOT IN ITS FOOT.
SHAME…SHAME ON MICROSOFT MANAGEMENT FOR HAVING LAID OFF HONEST, HARD WORKING, HIGH PERFORMING, AND HIGHLY PRODUCTIVE EMPLOYEES.
More humble is good. Less stupid would be even better. Current valuation estimates for FB are $60b+. The "experts" who all said SB overpaid now look pretty foolish.
Speaking of stupid, why would anyone value FB at $60B? A company that at a stretch has revenues of $1.2B in 2010?! While all these so-called social-media experts are fucking with the minds of marketing people, they seem to forget Myspace. You know a social media network run as a business not on someone else's dime like FB that has been an unmitigated disaster for News Corp. Bit like OSD come to think of it.
Not that any commercial argument no matter how cogent would stand in the way of SteveB doing a poor deal. Remember Yahoo? I'd put Facebook in the same category. If you want further proof think of aQuantive, another $6B down the toilet. Meanwhile people being let go left and right so Steve can play the big man to Wall Street.
Trying to use Windows 7 on a tablet shows that while it may be a touch-screen OS, it is not a tablet OS - and there is a difference
There was no automated test for this scenario and the handful of actual testers in some far off location or rat-holed in a "contractor bay" didn't know it was supposed to behave differently and didn't care. Microsoft gets what it pays for.
Not impress with new hires.
I work my butt out but I am at a lower level and salary than new hires. Doing interviews now, can't wait to leave.
But you'll put up with it so long as there is a paycheck?
Not the op here. But doesn't that sound like most MS employees?
If selling iOS apps helped us through the Great Recession with spouse getting laid off etc, more power to us!
"It kills me that OS X is so much better than Windows in so many fundamental ways, and Microsoft doesn't even seem to be trying to catch up."
Like?
I could write a novel about this. The best way for people to understand is to use OS X for a non-trivial amount of time, i.e., don't just swipe the cursor across the dock at Best Buy. Almost every OS-related operation is simpler and easier to do on a Mac (change the screen resolution, unmount a USB drive, etc.) and almost every OS operation is smoother and faster (booting, logging in, resuming from sleep, connecting to Wifi, pairing with a Bluetooth device, etc.).
But I would say the most important difference is with the "app model" in OS X. The vast majority of programs are "bundles" (they look like files but are actually directories). There's no such thing as "installing" them--you simply copy the bundle to wherever you want, or delete it if you don't want the app anymore. You double click a program to run it, it shows up in the dock, and when you're done, you quit it.
This means even novice OS X users have complete control over what's running on their system at any given time (it all shows up in the dock) and managing which programs are "installed" is as simple as copying or deleting some files.
Contrast this to Windows, where basically every program has an "installer" which is an involved process with a wizard that requires you to enter the admin password and then does god-knows-what like installing itself to run at startup (usually to harass you about updates when you least expect/desire it), installing background processes or services that suck up memory and compute time (and have annoying system tray icons), or more intrusive things like installing browser toolbars or shell extensions.
In my experience the main problem people have with their Windows PCs is that they get overrun by a bunch of software (startup programs, system tray icons, etc.), the users aren't sure which software is necessary, and even if they knew, the UI to manage the software requires you to be a Windows ninja. Even the Add/Remove Programs control panel has become too daunting for the average person.
This simply doesn't happen to Mac users. If you buy a Mac and use it for 5 years straight, it will still boot and run just as fast as when you first bought it, and the user never has to give it a second thought.
Can we PLEASE get a new CEO? How does Ballmer keep his job, REALLY?
Fortune - Microsoft’s Big New Strategy Is Shunned By Apple
Dec. 14 2010
By NATHAN VARDI
This is the story of two guys named Steve. They have very different ideas about how to run a massive technology company.
Steve Ballmer, chief executive of Microsoft, appears to think that buying back stock will be the answer to his company’s problems. Microsoft repurchased more stock in the third quarter of calendar 2010 than any other company in the nation, according to data pulled from Thomson Reuters via FactSet Research Systems.
In the calendar year’s third quarter, Microsoft repurchased 163 million of its shares, spending $4 billion to do so, according to its financial statements. To get a sense of what Ballmer is up to, in the same period a year earlier, Microsoft purchased 58 million shares for $1.4 billion. Ballmer still has $19.7 billion of buyback capacity remaining under his board’s approved $40 billion repurchase program.
Can Ballmer rescue Microsoft’s shares by buying them? Microsoft’s stock is down 10% in 2010. The S&P 500 is up 10%. With its recent stock buying frenzy, Microsoft has now repurchased some $10 billion of stock so far this year, spending more on share repurchases than any other company in America except International Business Machines and Wal-Mart. If recent trends continue, Ballmer may end up buying back more stock in 2010 than even those two companies. Ballmer clearly doesn’t believe that reinvesting the cash his company is generating or buying a strategic company with it makes as much sense as simply buying the shares of Microsoft, even though that hasn’t been a good idea for anyone in years.
So far in 2010, Sam Palmisano has led the nation’s stock buyback parade, getting IBM to repurchase $11.8 billion of stock. Other big tech companies like Cisco Systems and Hewlett-Packard are among the nation’s top stock repurchasers. So it might seem like Ballmer is in good company since so many big shot tech CEOs are doing it.
But there is one notable and perhaps telling exception to the buyback trend that has swept corporate America, a CEO who has resisted stock buybacks despite pressure from Wall Street and the fact that he now has $51 billion in cash on his corporate balance sheet: Steve Jobs. His company’s stock is up by 50% this year and its market capitalization is now some $60 billion greater than Microsoft’s stock valuation. Apple doesn’t have any buyback capacity because Jobs hasn’t bothered to ask his board of directors for some.
Steve Ballmer is among the nation’s biggest embracers of the stock buyback strategy. Steve Jobs appears to want nothing to do with it. Which Steve are you betting on?
"If Ballmer stays, MS is doomed. If Ballmer goes, MS is doomed."
And whether it fails or not you'll still be a useless troll. So it all evens out.
Back to the cloud for a sec. If my data is in the cloud, and the meat of my apps are in the cloud, why would I (the average business / consumer user) need a full-featured computer?
Because when the cloud goes offline, your iPad, iPhone/WP7/Android smartphone, or other cloud-enabled toy becomes a shiny and very expensive brick. That is the dirty little secret of clod computing that the snake oil salesmen won't talk about.
Why might this happen? Let's see:
1) Simple f--- up, a la GMail's history of frequent outages or the Danger Sidekick outage.
2) It's not financially worthwhile to support your service anymore. Ever wonder how many older services are staffed only by skeleton crews keeping things running on a wing and a prayer? The answer might shock you.
3) It's not technically feasible to support your service anymore.
4) One of the things that needed to support your service becomes unsupported, making it impossible for your service to remain running.
5) The powers that be decide that having your service around is a political embarrassment and decide to kill it off. By the way, Kin Studio is being shut down on 1/31 if you haven't seen the news articles.
I'm tired of listening to various fools inside MS and out, none of whom have ever worked on a network service, mindlessly hailing the cloud as the next big thing. Anybody with half a brain realizes it's just dumb terminals over a wireless Internet connection. Welcome back to the mainframe era.
MS has lost it's way... and without a change in both leadership and how it deals with it's employees it's heading for an IBM style wake-up call.
They've forgotten that their cash cows - Windows and Office - can from consumers "sneaking" them into enterprises.
Now both Windows and Office are getting fatter and slower as they try to push new features into the product that don't actually make people more productive but look great on an enterprise sales slide.
Sharepoint and SQL have some good offerings (again, both a long way from their consumer / departmental origins).
Ironically Azure - the new Enterprise goodness - shows a lot of promise but the pricing and management models are so screwed even if the technology evolves significantly there's no clear story for an ISV to build on it or a startup / small business to develop against it vs a VPS/Hyper-V instance at a fraction of the price.
They have made a good consumer connection with Kinect and a good attempt - but possibly too little, too late - with Windows Phone (too late to market, too few devices/carriers, too many incomplete features) and a very confusing UI story around Silverlight, HTML5 and whatever Windows 8 will require so it's hard for ISVs to raise much care factor.
iPad is the new consumer wedge. How many enterprises are finding them turning up connecting to Exchange servers and Sharepoint? How many are in use at Microsoft on a daily basis I wonder... thousands, or tens of thousands? And we have nothing. Windows 7 is too much of a resource hog to run for more than a couple of hours away from a mains cable (despite SteveB waving a tablet at CES last year and looks like he'll do the same coming soon... but where are these miracle devices?) ... both options (wait for Windows8 or port Phone7) are 12-18 months away, and anyway without finger friendly apps are doomed to failure anyway. ChromeOS will only succeed if there is full offline sync capabilities, but coupled with Google Apps is offering a strong challenge, as is Android.
Couple that with a totally screwed review system where a significant amount of down-grading occured leaving (it appears) more than 10% of people in the 10% bucket discovering that it's the fast-track to unemployment and most groups have instituted a "we won't interview 10%ers" so there isn't even an escape route from a bad manager or dysfunctional group.
Couple that with effective pay cuts at a time where the CEO gets a million dollar bonus and we watch Google, Apple and Facebook steal our crown ... is it any wonder the real creative thinking is going into exit strategies not new products?!
This company is run by Lawyers and accountants and it really sucks having to deal with them for any and every thing. I so wish it were run by technocrats or businessmen...
7% growth next year? Guess we know why Stevie started selling his shares now. More layoffs coming...
If Ballmer wants MS in good shape before stepping down but under his leadership the company continues to deteriorate, does that mean he'll never leave?
Time to buy more AAPL and GOOG.
MS is not a top choice anymore. So less qualified people are being interviewed.
Apparently the big throbbing brains from top universities haven't been doing it for the company so why not give the common folk a chance at getting the company back on track.
@ Seems that the MS recruiters are struggling to get candidates.
Do you have any data to support this statement? Even something anecdotal? If not, then what's your purpose in posting it?
Anyone can make annonymous, unsupported claims.
MS not even in the top 50 Glass Door sites, yet Facebook, Apple, Google are... and even insurance companies are!
I got the W7 phone, loving it
Now that you have had the W7 phone for almost a month, what's your impression now? Would love to know.
>we will keep marching ahead and change the world.
Yep, catch the Google Wave everyone! Ohh, wait, bad reference. I think arrogance is in assuming every product you release is OMG amazing and 'world changing', as a wise man once said 'One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important.'
>Sounds like you lack a firm grasp of Oslo project deliverables. The above post is a childish over-simplification of some Oslo project functionality
Ahhh, yes everyone who thinks the entire thing was a waste of time and money is just too stupid to get it, good response. I for one have seen FAR too many demos at Microsoft where I immediately thought 'neat, but who is demanding this technology exactly?', inevitably the demoing teams went the way of Oslo. The world doesn't exist as a place for you to demonstrate how clever you are on some obscure problem that no one cares about, or architecting a pristine system that is actually unusable for anything at all.
In replying to the YAWN comment on Google Chrome OS....Well please do certainly by all means....we will keep marching ahead and change the world....TYPICAL MSFT ARROGANCE....ha.ha.ha.ha.ha
No, it's typical Google arrogance.
The Truth About Chrome OS: It's A Waste Of Time
At Google's Chrome OS unveiling last week, CEO Eric Schmidt explained that he never wanted to be in the browser or OS business, and repeatedly tried to talk cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin out of it
...
Google Will Kill Chrome OS Next Year, Predicts Gmail Creator Paul Buchheit
Gmail creator Paul Buchheit is putting Google's new Chrome OS on a deathwatch.
He writes on FriendFeed: "Prediction: ChromeOS will be killed next year (or "merged" with Android)." ...
While it sounds like a bold statement, he also adds, "I was thinking, 'is this too obvious to even state?', but then I see people taking ChromeOS seriously, and Google is even shipping devices for some reason."
...
Your own CEO does not want Chrome OS! Google is becoming Microsoft with Internet speed.
Ha.ha.ha.ha.ha.ha!
As a contractor for years, a blue badge seemed so appealing - until I worked in a very large content publishing team. All I have to say is what a bunch of morons...hundreds of them supposedly creating a website. A website that requires 200-300 heads and the engineering stinks? If this is the caliber that MS is hiring, I think that I can understand why the stock price has plummeted.
Oh come on...now this is ridiculous and clearly endemic of MSFT culture...what the hell is happening to our company?!!!!! http://jalopnik.com/5713901/microsoft-stole-footage-for-forza-4-game-trailer
My estimate for the number of Mini-Microsoft articles in 2011: 9
Chrome OS?
Pro: True cloud computing.
Con: Nowhere near enough security for your data - your data is too dependent on the data-holder of your data to not go out of business, to not have a server crash, to not decide to withhold service to you as happened to the Wikileaks websites, to not give all of your data to law-enforcement whether justified or not, to protect your data from criminal access, etc.
But to be fair to Chrome OS, these objections also apply to any Cloud Computing.
America's Cubicles Are Shrinking
http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/12/15/1411214/Americas-Cubicles-Are-Shrinking
I have the answer. Ballmer steps down. He focuses on bringing an NBA team to Seattle. Microsoft and its employees move on with an outside leader.
HTX shows our total force is almost back to 2009 pre-layoff levels but with 8k fewer bluebadges.
I've been in the field for many year...I've seen very bad leadership. Chris Weber resigning for making the moves on our partners. However he espoused "sales excellence" what a joke. He absolutely had zero integrity. KT...has turned the organization into an absolutely paranoid bunch of scorecard watchers. A big part if the problem is that every message Is sugar-coated upwards. Everyone is paranoid about describing the real situation. It wasn't until the CEO summit and the slt saw all the iPads that's when they panicked
New HR 5% reduction policy
Services and support signed up for a 5% reduction (firing) goal. This is new because it's a number of FTE that must be let go during the year. Managers having team meetings to explain the new policy. Let's rest of team know why coworkers will suddenly be gone. Puts lower performers on notice. Not clear if there is a PIP or anyway to recover. There is no severance.
would like more detail from those who have seen the HR policy.
I haven't been at Microsoft that long, but I'm amazed at the anger and maliciousness in the marketing and sales departments.
It's just plain bizarre. Meetings are often so full of hostility or arrogance that it's embarrassing. People rip each other up and down, and then make even worse comments about each other behind their back, misrepresent what they're doing, and trash other people's reputations to the Sr. Directors and GMs. It's all a little nuts. I'm starting to feel like I need to spend almost half of my time covering my back.
Is this just the way MS does business? I know some great folks on the technical side that seem solid (program managers, mainly). But I'm starting to think that on the business side, my values aren't compatible with Microsoft.
Does MS leadership care? Or do they think it's not a problem? Or is what I suspect, that this is just part of MS culture and values, and those behaviors are what MS thinks make for good business leadership.
I see it all around me, and I never see the GMs do anything to mitigate it. I just see them either accept it or even encourage it.
Hey Mini,
Over 1500 highly productive employees have been laid off using dreaded stealth practice and the most deceitful methods. This number is outside of the publicly announced layoffs. Many of these are still suffering and they really didn’t have to.
Microsoft has poorly executed this and there needs to be an investigation by higher management in to these layoffs and managers who have done this should be punished.
What good is a manager if they were incapable of improving a non performing employee…..assuming these employees were laid off because non their performance. So what is their role….just to lay them off?
If Microsoft didn’t want these they people then should have had the guts to announce this publicly, they haven’t…this is because they know what the repercussions would be. But the world is aware about it. And how did these layoffs help Microsoft, the world agrees that they haven’t.
Mini, you have a responsibility in ensuring that this message passes through to promote awareness to their sufferings. Please don't censor this message. Truth needs to prevail and it hasn’t so far.
Regards
An honest Microsoft well wisher
re: How did you get a job in the tech industry without understanding the entire point of stock options, i.e., they are an incentive to keep you at the company. When you leave, they disappear. Why would you expect to be able to exercise them even one day after leaving the company, much less 3+ months later? It would be hilarious if you tried to sue.
You're a moron. After options vest, they're yours to do whatever you want with them as long as you are with the company, but after termination you have 3 months to decide what to do with them. Plus if the company gets rid of you, the whole incentive to stay has nothing to do with it. It used to be part of the annual compensation before they introduced stock awards.
WSDOT will start tolling 520 in march: http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Tolling/520tolling.htm
how soon before people are going to start whining about it? I can already hear it. Get over it, I wish they'd charge 10$ per trip for people driving to MS alone at 10 am.
The headline says it all:
http://www.businessinsider.com/windows-phone-7-is-toast-2010-12
Too little, too late. Doesn't solve ANYONE's problems. Don't have the app infrastructure to make it compelling.
It's a classic quicksand scenario. No buyers means no market, means no developer support to create a market, which means no reasons for people to buy.
SIGHHHHH...
Dec 21, 2010
"Microsoft is out with its first official sales number for the new Windows Phone 7 smartphones: 1.5 million in six weeks."
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/technologylive/post/2010/12/microsoft-reveals-windows-phone-7-sales-figures-/1
Well, anyone looked up Roz Ho lately? No longer a VP, so I guess there is SOME accountability, though far more people than her needed to be demoted/shown the door, but it's a start. Of course she is still a GM, she will probably be given some softball project which she will succeed at (or more properly, the team of people that actually do the real work will succeed at) and then she will quietly be re-promoted to VP I am sure, can't have the SLT admitting perhaps they had made a mistake with her previous title/responsibilities, she just needed a quick PIP. Wonder if she got a U / 10?
It is *absolutely true* that if science and engineering jobs paid better more of the best and brightest in the US would choose a career in them.
Executive giving campaign...
I saw a few posts about giving, I used to be a leadership giver every year until one year I received an email from my management directed to their 5-7 directs indicating that they needed 2 more people to become leadership givers in order it hit the curve. I was a leadership giver up until that email was sent out and I have not been since. I still give the same if not more money to charities now but it is a personal thing to me and I will not give while it is used by management as a metric. I would rather give twice as much to charity without Microsoft matching then to give any matching funds through Microsoft any more. Charity is for those whom need it and should not be for our GM and VP to meet their quota.
It seems in order to move up the company now it requires more communication and interpersonal skills than in the past. 10 years ago if you were a good coder, that was all it took to become a senior level but does not seem to be the case anymore. I do agree with this in a lot of ways because being able to communicate solve problems efficiently is important and should be rewarded. I am not sure how many lower level developers understand how important this will become as they move up the ladder.
How many SDE or SDE2 get frustrated of working with Senior developers whom don’t seem to know how to get a call stack, process dump or even logging for bugs? Going from SDE 2 to Senior developer is thought as a big jump but how many of you work with Senior developers whom you believe should not be?
An update for hubby who "resigned voluntarily" in August: No job yet. No leads yet. Unemployment Office is telling him it may be months before they decide on his eligibility (because he "resigned voluntarily" and because of backlogs in the system), yet he must continue making the required employer contacts every week.
He took a break from the counselor he had begun seeing before he lost his job (when the stress began destroying his health), and now is looking for another counselor. I got in contact with a woman in Redmond who does post-traumatic-birth therapy, in hopes that her husband, who works in the same office with her, might be able to work with my husband.
Her message to me: Yes, her husband has availabilities in his schedule, yes, he takes Premera, and he's quite familiar with the problem at hand, as he is currently working with "a number of people who have been forced out of Microsoft in traumatic ways". It isn't just my husband. It's lots of husbands, and fathers, and wives and mothers - and their families by extension. There must be a great many mental health professionals in the Puget Sound area now, trying to put an awful lot of broken people back together. What did those people do to deserve being broken? They were simply too old, stayed too long, or were "too weak" to handle chronic stress and the rigor of a constructive dismissal. If what I hear is accurate, it is a deliberate, systematic, pitiless, personal, and above all a widespread policy.
Let's don't pretend this is "just business". When that many people are broken and require that much repairing (conveniently no longer at the expense of the entity that broke them), it's not "business" anymore. It's not the job of any business to destroy people.
@Seems that the MS recruiters are struggling to get candidates.
i have no idea about it.
but one of my frnd joined a company in b'lore as he got a better offer than MS.
It seems in order to move up the company now it requires more communication and interpersonal skills than in the past. 10 years ago if you were a good coder, that was all it took to become a senior level but does not seem to be the case anymore. I do agree with this in a lot of ways because being able to communicate solve problems efficiently is important and should be rewarded. I am not sure how many lower level developers understand how important this will become as they move up the ladder.
This basically means instead of working, do more managing up and sideways. If everybody does this who does the real work and for how long? As you mentioned, it used to be much better before. Now you must schmooze and suck a$$ to get ahead in career.
"If Ballmer stays, MS is doomed. If Ballmer goes, MS is doomed."
And whether it fails or not you'll still be a useless troll. So it all evens out.
Well I admit I am not all that good looking - but troll, no. Ex-FTE, 10 years thru to 2009, L66.
What I was trying to say, if you had the wit to understand it, is that the damage is done. And I suspect it is irreversible, even with an enormous amount of pain, e.g. selling or closing unprofitable businesses and halving the workforce for starters. MS had the lead in smartphones and in tablets, arguably even web portals. Even with that lead, years in most cases, and more resources than any CEO could ever dream of, Ballmer has managed to squander a fortune on chasing fools' errands. The stock price says it all. Microsoft will lumber along for years, squirting out products but it is dying. Whether Ballmer stays or goes is irrelevant because the decline cannot be reversed.
An apt analogy is the fabled two-brained dinosaur. In theory one could shoot the beast thru the brain in its ass end, but it would take 5 minutes or so for the death-message to reach the other brain thru the slow nervous system. Microsoft's death started with the DOJ's forcing out Gates and installing monkey-boy in 2000. This was the brain in Microsoft's ass being blown out. Ever since then the floundering about, missed opportunities, wasted billions on "investments", obsession with dominating every market, turning employees into enemies etc. is just the creeping hand of death trying to tell the front-brain (if there really is one) to jump into the tar pit with the other fossils.
Does anyone know how many WP7 units have actually sold? I know the official line is 1.5mill but that is what has been shipped to the channel, not purchased by customers.
And is it just me that thinks it's funny you can buy a Polycom phone that supports Lync Server 2010 but WP7 does not support Lync? Or that there is no CRM mobile app that runs on it? Who makes these kinds of retarded decisions?
An earlier poster quoted an article which says in part "Steve Ballmer, chief executive of Microsoft, appears to think that buying back stock will be the answer to his company’s problems."
This is yet another example of SteveB's fundamental incompetence. Instead of spending $40bill on stock buybacks, why not spend $10bill a year for 4 years increasing the dividend by $1 to $1.64? This would be a yield of almost 6% annually, based on the last closing price of $28.07. I suspect lots of mutual funds would be driving up the price towards $40 as even at that level the return is 4.1%.
Because there are no visionaries left there, they simply cannot comprehend a computing paradigm that doesnt involve a start menu and 24" monitor with a mouse and keyboard.
Go away, Apple troll. Xbox, Zune, and Windows Phone 7 prove you wrong. Sorry, but when it comes to making considered assessments, you simply suck--just like most of your zombie brethren.
If what I hear is accurate, it is a deliberate, systematic, pitiless, personal, and above all a widespread policy.
Let's don't pretend this is "just business". When that many people are broken and require that much repairing (conveniently no longer at the expense of the entity that broke them), it's not "business" anymore. It's not the job of any business to destroy people.
Brian Kevin Turner here. Pitiless? Personal? Widespread policy? You betcha!
You have to understand that you are fundamentally correct. We don't CARE. Not one whit. Call me Sarah Palin in drag, but we just don't. And it is all business, all the time. See, back in the day, at Wal-Mart, we did not give a Shiite about the guy whose wife was sick but got in late 3 times in 300 days. He was fired. He did not make the bar. People are just cogs in the machine, and if they get 'destroyed' - ohh well. Too bad, so sad. Meanwhile, I make 10 million a year or more so I, too, do NOT care about broken people, how they get fixed, or who fixes them.
Thank you for all that you do.
As a contractor for years, a blue badge seemed so appealing
After options went away and the stock price sank, it's seemed much less appealing to me, not to mention the job security being no different than a CSG's today.
- until I worked in a very large content publishing team.
Say no more. If you were looking for some of the most beancounter-y people in all of Microsoft, you did well.
All I have to say is what a bunch of morons...hundreds of them supposedly creating a website. A website that requires 200-300 heads and the engineering stinks?
Well, ya have to have your proprietary toolset to write and publish the site, led by a fast talking "favorite" that they want to push to GM quickly and built, I will add, on technology for which MS is currently being sued. Then he needs his friends, because the climb can be lonely. Then ya need your support people to support the proprietary tools when they break, which they do often, and the ops team to run them. And your contractor managers to manage the people from the consulting firm to whom the actual work of creating the site was outsourced at a cost of tens of millions of dollars.
A year into the project, some of the contractors leaked the specs to full timers, having developed doubts that what they were hired to build could possibly work in the manner that the original specs called for. (Okay after all, because management just dropped necessary features from the specs, unwilling to admit that the project wasn't doable as designed, as that wouldn't have looked good for the future GM who spearheaded it!). That's easily 25 people right there, if not more. Why proprietary tools? Using what's out there already doesn't justify creating a GM under the existing MS metrics for success.
If this is the caliber that MS is hiring, I think that I can understand why the stock price has plummeted.
I turned down a job in content publishing because of this. In a world in which techies are dumbed down, e.g. a dev with 12 years of experience is required to implement unchanged a spec written by an ecology grad right out of school who was told "that's OK, you don't have to worry about whether the computer can do it, just design what you'd like to use, and we'll make it happen!", content publishing offers some of the worst examples at MS.
Multiple people with 25-30 years in the biz, often as devs, joined content publishing to share their platform enthusiasm with MS customers after they lost their enthusiasm for spending their entire work week coding. Because the hiring bar went down in the mid 2000's, a lot of "English clerks" who are primarily struggling non-technical writers working on novels but needing a day job to pay bills were hired, because they'd work for the wages offered. When management saw the quality of their work, they said, uh oh, we'll have those PM's just out of school writing, and we'll use the writers as clerks to clean up the English and add formatting! So there are people who could outcode many of the dev newbies in the company, being paid senior wages to fix foreign English and do non-wysiwyg desktop publishing instead.
CP overall seems to contain 20% highly competent people with technical and writing skills. Another 70% are "process creators and followers", as content publishing has attracted a lot of managers who think that documenting process is a holy activity, and lots of less technically skilled people who are GREAT at following detailed manual lists of steps off a printed piece of paper. And then there are 10% evil and/or incompetent managers who whip on the other 90% as if it was a turn of the century piecework factory production line.
It's not the place to make a career unless your are a "process is god" person or a manager with personality issues looking for a safe place to be tolerated as long as you doggedly enforce process even to the detriment of results.
Microsoft Online has lost nearly $2 billion in the past year
Cash Cow Disease: The Cognitive Decline of Microsoft and Google
Let's don't pretend this is "just business". When that many people are broken and require that much repairing (conveniently no longer at the expense of the entity that broke them), it's not "business" anymore. It's not the job of any business to destroy people.
The people doing it may know other people consider it wrong but don't care, have no interest in caring and will only make an effort to fake caring if it gets them something they want.
Where do you think the phrase "just business" came from? Psychopaths as role models.
Snakes In Suits: When Psychopaths Go To Work
Researchers Paul Babiak and Robert Hare have long studied psychopaths. Hare, the author of Without Conscience, is a world-renowned expert on psychopathy, and Babiak is an industrial-organizational psychologist. Recently the two came together to study how psychopaths operate in corporations, and the results were surprising. They found that it's exactly the modern, open, more flexible corporate world, in which high risks can equal high profits, that attracts psychopaths. They may enter as rising stars and corporate saviors, but all too soon they're abusing the trust of colleagues, manipulating supervisors, and leaving the workplace in shambles.
It's just plain bizarre. Meetings are often so full of hostility or arrogance that it's embarrassing. People rip each other up and down, and then make even worse comments about each other behind their back, misrepresent what they're doing, and trash other people's reputations to the Sr. Directors and GMs. It's all a little nuts. I'm starting to feel like I need to spend almost half of my time covering my back.
Is this just the way MS does business? I know some great folks on the technical side that seem solid (program managers, mainly). But I'm starting to think that on the business side, my values aren't compatible with Microsoft.
Does MS leadership care?
Welcome to the forced ranking performance evaluation curve at Microsoft.
MS leadership set it up that way.
Steve Ballmer is a big fan. He thinks it is absolutely wonderful.
It's like 'Lord of the Flies' with money.
Enjoy.
Speaking of stupid, why would anyone value FB at $60B?
What I don't think alot of people realize about FB is that they are seeding the entire internet with hooks into the FB Connect service. Everytime you see a "like this" or "loging with FB connect" button you are seeing the tendrils of what will become the largest connected web service in history. Put another way, FB is creating basic infrastructure (like the plumbing to your house) for everyone to use. Right now they are giving it away for free to gain adoption and the growth rate is staggering. As soon as they decide to charge for the Connect services or monetize them in some way they are going to make an absolute fuck-ton of money on the scale of next Google.
Apparently the big throbbing brains from top universities haven't been doing it for the company so why not give the common folk a chance at getting the company back on track.
The Ivy League types feel less special when the common folk show up and nasty games ensue. It can't be them. They're special. It must be you, and go, you must.
Executive giving campaign...
I saw a few posts about giving, I used to be a leadership giver every year until one year I received an email from my management directed to their 5-7 directs indicating that they needed 2 more people to become leadership givers in order it hit the curve. I was a leadership giver up until that email was sent out and I have not been since. I still give the same if not more money to charities now but it is a personal thing to me and I will not give while it is used by management as a metric. I would rather give twice as much to charity without Microsoft matching then to give any matching funds through Microsoft any more. Charity is for those whom need it and should not be for our GM and VP to meet their quota.
That's assinine of you. Screw whatever curve there is and screw the politics of it, you're only hurting the charities you care about... not Microsoft.
Come on Mini. We're now up to a troll rate of over 50% of "MSFT" declared postings with ~20% disaffected and much of the remander being reactionary comments like mine. Perhaps 1 in 20 is from a real MSFT with insight. We need to figure out a way to filter.
The bigger farce is when a blogger references these comments as being from the MSFT community. (I was a college reporter back in the Paleolithic, tech blog jouralistic standards today are hard to figure out.)
How many SDE or SDE2 get frustrated of working with Senior developers whom don’t seem to know how to get a call stack, process dump or even logging for bugs?
Senior Engineers are not paid to debug some stupid stack traces, They are supposed to Design and Influence, and make an Impact. Now back to work, you lowly level 61.
I know a Partner Architect who thinks that it is below his Status to directly address anyone under level 64. He once sent an email to a Senior Engineer, asking him to tell a level 62 to change a command line flag from "-h" to "-help".
Have been working for Google and can say this is my house for ever..feel great to work with this giant..
Employee Retention Questionnaire
An update for hubby who "resigned voluntarily" in August: No job yet. No leads yet. Unemployment Office is telling him it may be months before they decide on his eligibility (because he "resigned voluntarily" and because of backlogs in the system), yet he must continue making the required employer contacts every week.
Come on, there are tons of hard working blue collar people out there who are being laid off and NEED unemployment because they never made enough to save money and otherwise they will likely go hungry and possibly homeless.
The idea that your white collar husband, who probably made 50-100% more than the median WA state household income and QUIT his cushy office job, deserves unemployment is insulting and an abuse of the system.
I'm sorry your husband seems to have very severe emotional problems, hopefully he can be treated medically with some kind of antidepressants or anti-anxiety drugs, but making your obscene sense of entitlement public isn't going to get you any sympathy.
Mini, why can't you give us the scoop on some real inside information on the direction of the company? I am sure like many of us, we are just wondering if 2011 will just be the status quo or something new is on the horizon. It is painful to me to see iPad sales picking up and we are just sitting on the sidelines. Maybe CES will give us more hype, but it has been over a year and there has been nothing compelling to compete yet.
clod computing
Oops, haha, Freudian typo there.
"Microsoft is out with its first official sales number for the new Windows Phone 7 smartphones: 1.5 million in six weeks."
Don't want to burst your bubble, but they have since clarified it to say shipped, not sold.
Filtering a lot of toxic posts to find the insightful nuggets. I miss the old MS too, but complaining and fear is no way to live folks. I go in every day and do my best...the stuff I love to do. If the day comes that this isn't enough, then it's time to move on anyway... I hope that day doesn't come, I shouldn't have to invent ways to prove my worth. That's screwed up. Give me clear goals and get out of my way.
Balmer has alway had a hard-on about attrition...even back in MGB days. I'm still pissed about the RIF and the people we axed for no good reason. MS could have weathered it out and pulled together, reposition people...instead we acted just like every other spineless big company looking at our bottom line. Balmer and Lisa B lost my respect with this debacle.
Make great products... built great technology...hire smart people and get out of their way. Teams don't gel and help each other when the bottom 5% have an axe hanging over them.
We invented the Cloud and with sheer persevearence, we are where we are today....on rock solid cloud technology platform.
MSFT kept resisting initially but when they saw the writing on the wall....they started saying....well, we actually already possess Azure Cloud technology. We just have to turn the switch to be on Cloud.
This is pure BS.
VMWARE, Google, Oracle, Amazon, Salesforce have strived hard for years together to get to where they are today, and for Microsoft to just to turn the switch and be merry on cloud is a far fetched fantasy.
ha.ha.ha.ha.ha.ha.ha.ha.ha.
Why are Ray Ozzie and especially Robbie Bach still on payroll so long after announcing they were 'retiring'?
the author of the article about OSD having $2 B loss in the last year and Steven Sinofski could help fix had not done his/her homework.
sinofski was given the charge of live search but he failed and left with 6 months recognizing the enormous challenge in google.
but what he did on those months were great. he put a cost discipline. prevented most of the promotions. engineers in bing would not have gotten 2 levels inflation under sinofski.
The idea that your white collar husband, who probably made 50-100% more than the median WA state household income and QUIT his cushy office job, deserves unemployment is insulting and an abuse of the system.
I would say you don't understand the system. Folks, including white collar folks, pay into the system so in the case they do end up without a job, they are able to sustain themselves and their family until such time they get a new job.
I would dare say the individual in this case, even if he does get some unemployment, has paid more into "the system" than he has/will ever take out.
Sounds like you lack a firm grasp of Oslo project deliverables.
"Oslo" and "deliverables" are words which don't really fit together. The Oslo leaders were the folks who didn't grasp deliverables ... In the end they didn't deliver anything.
Oslo and deliverables ... that's so funny!!
I've been using an iPad and a Cr48 (ChromeOS powered device) over the holidays. I've fired up my Windows7 machine exactly twice - to read IRM emails.
the iPad is a wonderful device for sitting on the couch, or in Starbucks and checking mail, twitter or playing games.
the Cr48 is a real eye-opener. I don't know if it's got a long life ahead of it, but it's amazing what they have done with a browser and low end laptop.... the only web app that annoys me so far... OWA Lite. Battery life is just amazing, and if they merge the concepts with Android to give us offline capabilities as well... then it's going to be a real challenge to the fat world of Windows.
I stopped using my Phone7 (gave it to my kid) and went back to my old Android phone (it has a decent collection of apps and while the screen and general UI is okay it's not "delightful"). Metro on a slate might be nice, but if MS persist in trying to shoe-horn Big Windows into small devices then they're crippling the platform just so they can ship the org chart (Sinofsky seems willing to go there if it means he wins)
A slate device... without a finger friendly set of office apps (including Outlook) and without all day battery life: just a great example of why MS no longer get what their customers are actually asking for. CES will demonstrate just how far out of touch they have become.
Oh, and the Health Care, office politics, 10%ers being RIF'd ...sounds like the company I spent the last decade believing in has finally become IBM
Because when the cloud goes offline, your iPad, iPhone/WP7/Android smartphone, or other cloud-enabled toy becomes a shiny and very expensive brick. That is the dirty little secret of clod computing that the snake oil salesmen won't talk about.
O... kay. Not to rain on your ranty little parade, but you don't appear to understand what the 'cloud' is, nor what devices are using it.
The iDevices use very much fixed hardware services from Apple, plus your local WiFi point. No cloud there.
WP7 uses... well, the phone network. Not too sure, no experience on these phones, but I don't think they've anything to do with the cloud.
If the cloud dissipates, people will still use most of their devices unhindered. Unless by 'cloud' you meant 'Internet.'
Come on, there are tons of hard working blue collar people out there who are being laid off and NEED unemployment because they never made enough to save money and otherwise they will likely go hungry and possibly homeless.
If by this you mean to imply that white-collar people are not being laid off, or that white-collar people somehow don't work hard or deserve the money they make? Do you think perhaps that white-collar people can't wind up hungry and homeless? Pardon, your bias is showing. It hasn't happened to my family yet, thank God. But it's not out of the realm of possibility. It doesn't matter, either, whether you have a McMansion or a small house in a sleepy bedroom community - if you can't find work and you can't pay your mortgage, the bank will take it.
The idea that your white collar husband, who probably made 50-100% more than the median WA state household income and QUIT his cushy office job, deserves unemployment is insulting and an abuse of the system.
First, you don't know what he was making, so, bzzzt, strike one. Second, the relative value of income only makes sense when viewed in the context of the local standard of living, so bzzzt, strike two. And he only "quit" because his choice was "quit, or we fire you". Bzzzt. Strike 3.
He worked there for 21 years, and for 21 years, Microsoft paid into the Unemployment Insurance program on his behalf. He has as much right as anyone else whose employer has paid into the Unemployment Insurance program, to attempt to claim benefits. It's up to the State to determine whether he qualifies. With luck and persistence my husband will get a job before the State ever gets around to making a decision on his case. That would be the best outcome of all.
At some point, people use up their Unemployment Insurance and no longer qualify. After that, presumably, there is Welfare, but the two programs are not the same thing.
I'm sorry your husband seems to have very severe emotional problems, hopefully he can be treated medically with some kind of antidepressants or anti-anxiety drugs, but making your obscene sense of entitlement public isn't going to get you any sympathy.
Obscene? Only in your mind. Every other poster apparently got my point, and you missed it. The culture at Microsoft is broken. They could let people go without hurting them, but they apparently prefer to break them as part of the process of making them U10's. The fact that mental health professionals in this area are seeing lots of hurting, wounded ex-MSFT people is evidence of this. That is obscene. And unnecessary.
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2010/12/31/the-one-thing-to-know-about-microsoft.aspx
Keys to the takeaway
I don't mean to infer Microsoft is unwise to pursue areas like virtualization. The key takeaway here is that the investor who can accurately predict how well sales of Microsoft's Windows and Office hold up in the coming years will be better at predicting Microsoft's share price than one focusing on virtualization, gaming, or its online ambitions. Not only do Office and Windows contribute a considerable amount of profit, but the clouds around their future contribute to the discount seen in Microsoft's share price.
For all the litany of products Microsoft makes, being able to predict how well PC sales hold on in the coming years against Android and iOS-powered tablets and determining how long businesses keep shelling out for Office will measure almost the entire worth of Microsoft. If you feel like you've got a good handle on that prediction, 90% of the legwork of investing in Microsoft is complete.
Low sticker shock for a Snow Leopard licence
In Australia, a Win7 Ultimate 64-bit licence is priced at over $400 RRP. 64-bit OSX is $70. What gives?!
The idea that your white collar husband, who probably made 50-100% more than the median WA state household income and QUIT his cushy office job, deserves unemployment is insulting and an abuse of the system.
Talk to the hand. And then talk to us again when you are up against some masters of the constructive dismissal at Microsoft and have good reasons to stay such as requiring the health insurance for another year or two for a very sick child. It's soul-ripping. I have a worst enemy, and I don't even wish it on him.
Creating emotional problems in someone and then complaining that they have emotional problems but forgetting to mention in the same statement that they weren't there before you started abusing him is bogus as well. Abuse can't create emotional problems in someone who didn't have something wrong with them originally? Yes, it can and does every day.
OP, some of us know where you're coming from. I hope to all hell your husband gets his UI. Resigning makes it more difficult, as you've found out. I had been advised for more than a year by multiple lawyers and peers with more than my 15 years of experience in the professional world that resigning without a job offer in hand was the last thing I should do.
The class action filed some months ago might eventually be of some help, it sounds as if your husband might be in one of the categories it names, but it's likely years away.
Re: Windows Phone units sitting on resellers and carriers shelves.
I think a good number of these units are sitting around waiting for corporations to finish trials before they commit.
That's where we are, as much as it pains me to say it because I'd rather go with a phone with wider appeal to get the benefits of the developer ecosystem. iPhone is considered a bit too flash and luxe for a workaday phone. Android, not corporate enough. Yes that is the explanation from the directors, "not corporate enough". The desire is that Windows Phone will strike the balance between smartphone functionality, centralized control and, honestly, "not too sexy", and if it does, it'll become the new standard for us.
They're not totally against iPads. We're rolling those out, too. But the phones are expected to have much wider deployment, hence the requirement for "less luxe" so that no shareholder tries to make it into a governance issue.
When someone feels so threatened and insecure as to need to post a "ha.ha.ha.ha.ha.ha.ha.ha.ha." post then it's time to buy MSFT. I'll bet it hits 30 by 1/10.
I'm not saying that there aren't areas to criticize; I just value insight, critical thinking and rigid analysis over a disaffected 30 year old stuck at 16.
Microsoft selects the wrong %20 to lead the company most of the times for the last 4-5 years. That's why the company is lagging behind Apple and Google.
My estimate for the number of Mini-Microsoft articles in 2011: 9
I think that's too high. As of late, I'd put it at 4. Mini has a life now and is working on other stuff. On the one hand, good for Mini. On the other hand, Mini, you started this conversation; a conversation that lots of MSFT employees (forget the trolls and other morons, but actual employees) are eager to participate in. As employees, we look high and low for knowledge, insights, connections, and more (isn't intellectual curiosity a hallmark that would characterize the MSFT employee)? You've built up this huge thing that people follow, contribute to, and use to launch both thoughts and conversations. And suddenly you slide off into your other writing projects (or whatever it is that you are doing). I'm not trying to blast you here -- I honestly appreciate what you do. Truly, I do. But you can't give birth to something important and decide you don't want to be a parent. Visitation rights every third weekend of each month doesn't cut it. Get back in the game. You're needed.
Speaking of recuiting. We're getting two lousy new hires this weak. I was in the loop, the pool is very weak.
Most of the new hires in the last five years have been lousy.
On our way toward irrelevancies.....
The only way to solve this sickening Microsoft Malaise is to break up the company into at least three pieces and get rid of half of the partners.
Also, calling Guy Kawasaki to be the next CEO and all the SVP's plus Delbene need to go.
hoping that CES will show hints of a strong follow on to the success of Kinect and the early promise of Phone7 (or whatever it's called).
XBox, Media Center and Slates are all potentially things we could get an uplift from with the current consumer confidence in MS
Why am I scared we'll announce and Office plug-in and a tablet PC with 2hr battery life running Win7 Starter?
Steve Balmer is a GOD. For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be our shepherd; he will lead us to springs of living water. And Gates will wipe away every tear from our eyes."
And believe me, there won't be a dry eye in the house as Ballmer unwinds and reveals his strategy to make us great, ensuring all have access to essential 21st Century necessities, like WIndows Phone 7 and Kinect. Talk about divine. The Devil incarnate himself, Beelzebub-Jobs will spin his webs of intrigue offering false prizes like iPhone and iPad, and his hand-maiden Eric Schmidt who already sold his soul to Sun and Novell and hence is at best moderately believable, are each false prophets with little to commend them.
But Yea and verily my brethren, keep the faith. WP7 with its tiles and GUI is the WAY OF THE LORD.
I'd like to say that.. Microsoft rocks...If you know how to play 21 you would know that Google is sweating and Apple is effervescence.
Microsoft just needs to check the hirings..ensure they hire the good guys.. like you and me...
I love WP7, IE9, W7, O2010.
Focus...
I'm not sure how/why so many posters mentioned how the iPad could be a Windows killer in it's current format.
Well, here's the deal: Apple already has 90+% of the market for PCs over $1K. That's far and away the most profitable segment of the PC world. I wondered for years how Apple was going to crack the monopoly, and it turns out that the Mac Mini was as low as they could go on the price of a Mac without making unacceptable compromises.
Then, they brought out the iPad. Consider this carefully: every iPad they sell is a $400 to $600 PC that doesn't get sold. Apple couldn't play Microsoft's game in the low-end PC business, so they created and dominate a whole new game: the tablet machines that Microsoft tried and repeatedly failed to get any traction.
Besides using it for web browsing and email, the iPad and the iPod are excellent devices for the kind of embedded machine applications that people have been using ultra-cheap windows machines for over the last couple of decades.
You can't install any software on it other than software that is on the iTunes Store. Do you want to put your internal company app on the iTunes store?
This is incorrect. Go check Apple's info on enterprise development for iPad.
Years prior to MS, I heard the old, "You all should consider your selves lucky you have jobs," when as a whole we were clamoring for more than a ~20% share of our billable rates at a consulting company.
Heh.. I remember someone trying that shit on me once, in front of most of his company's staff. I told him to go fuck himself, because I'd had three headhunter cold calls that week. I didn't come back after lunch that day, and within three months, he'd had 100% turnover of the engineers who were working for him at the time that I'd quit.
His company was out of business after a year and a half, and this was in the mid-90s, when there were so many clients hungry for contract developers that any moron could run a body shop.
HI,
Can you please do a post about Steve Ballmer's latest keynote speech at CES 2011??? It was horrible! what's going on up there in Redmond??
Thanks,
HS
As a 15 year vet of Microsoft, I actually think we have a great future.
* Kinect rocks
* Windows Phone 7 is on the mark, and we need to be patient. Everything that is being said about Windows Phone 7 being to late and having small marketshare was the same thing that was said about Xbox, and for that much Word, Excel, and Windows server.
* Office 365 - We have a HUGE winner here. We have a chance to really grow Office revenue and have a recurring revenue stream
What concerns me is some basic stuff. I just finished watching the CES keynote and it seems to me like there are some simple things that we could do that the press, consumers and analysts would love.
What is our strategy for home entertainment? Is it the Xbox? Media Center PC? Why do we have multiple media players? If it is Zune, then lets kill media center PC and Media player. Get rid of the teams and come up with a simple message. Why do I have Zune playlists that have content and can't see them in my media center PC?
How about working with some TV manufactures and allow them to build an "Xbox" into the TV. So you buy a tv and it has a slot for a disk and some plugs for devices like kinect and controllers.
Can we just buy Netflix?
The tablet thing seems so simple to me. Can we just take a small group of people, and build a large Icon/touch based dektop theme that we can put on existing windows 7. We could have shown it a CES and it would have been a huge splash.
Marketplace. Why don't we have a Windows 7 App marketplace that people can pay and add gagets to their desktop.
Overall I think we have some home runs. We have some great products and a great future. We just need to focus on a "Simpler" message.
More bullshit-just-in-dept-update:
Facebook earned $US355 million in net income in the first nine months of 2010 on revenue of $US1.2 billion, according to documents that Goldman Sachs is providing to clients.
Goldman began hand-delivering copies of the 101-page private placement memorandum for the Facebook offering to its wealthy customers a little after lunchtime Thursday in New York, according to a person who received a copy.
The Goldman customer said he received a separate six-page financial statement containing information on the social networking firm.
The document provides some of the most detailed financial information to come to light about Facebook, which Goldman recently valued at $US50 billion in a separate, $US450 million funding.
So Goldman Sachs, a tax-payer saved fiasco, is now telling the world at large that FB is worth 30x revenue and 120x gross profit? 2001 all over again.
I think there are too many managers and many levels of hierarchy at MSFT.
Having too many hierarchical levels and narrow spans of control is a common structural problem for organizations.
The result may be routine decisions that are made too high in the organization, which pulls higher-level executives away from important long-range strategic issues, and it limits the creativity and innovativeness of lower-level managers in solving problems.
@ Seems that the MS recruiters are struggling to get candidates.
"Do you have any data to support this statement? Even something anecdotal? If not, then what's your purpose in posting it?
Anyone can make annonymous, unsupported claims."
1. MSFT is making some chintzy offers lately, to experienced people - FACT. Probably $10,000 to $20,000 lower than decent offers would look.
2. Decreased use of signing bonuses (common for years, now low or more commonly nonexistant) are making the weak annual $ offers look worse.
3. Upfront stock grants are substantially smaller than the norm for this area.
4. Lack of courteousy by MSFT interviewers - Ex: interviewing across lunchtime, but not even getting food for the "recruit", not taking them out to dinner while in town, etc.
5. Notice of decrease in health benefits coming in 2013 not making any of this look a lot more valuable financially.
6. More notice that your bonus can be from "0% to __%" which would not be especially motivating when you go to do the math.
Young college grad C.S./I.S./EE type relatives are not interested in Microsoft as a potential employer, they take the "maybe later after I've done something else" approach that you heard from the Chelsea soccer player last year who, when asked if he might play in the U.S. someday, said, "Maybe when my career in Europe is over."
Heard straight from a recruiter that they were having trouble finding qualified candidates for an experienced role, and that several that looked possible had gone off the market while because we took too long. Same recruiter said they were not doing signing bonuses.
Actually saw job posted with "will not pay relocation" and that the employee candidates had to be local - means to candidates that the group doesn't have any money to spend.
The layoffs have changed the view of MSFT as somewhere to bring your career and have a good run. Now recruits are looking at a potential ding for the future. Crappy review system is well-advertised, weak to moderate bonuses are what people complain about here and elsewhere, and everything seems unstable if you are planning your future, or if you have people who rely on your income.
Appearance is that you can't just do good work and get ahead at MSFT, but that you have a second full or part-time job, managing your manager, and everyone above them. Last minute re-orgs, crazy crap like putting out the Kin phone and then dumping it, Ballmer dumping $2 billion in stock without mentioning whether or not he plans to buy an NBA team with it - it just doesn't look like a supergreat place to bring your career, but MSFT doesn't offer up enough upfront to bring you here or tie you to the place. We all know people who lost all their unvested stock (we all count on that as part of our future $$$, used to be so-called long-term compensation), and even when people do come, with no sign, low salary, low inbound stock grant - guess what? They keep on interviewing when other companies call, because there's nothing to keep them here.
Yes, there IS a problem attracting recruits. Maybe nontechnical folks with low expectations for pay (marketing, which seems to be the new future) will be happy with the offers surfacing at this point, but when people are accepting offers now, they don't look it as being long-term, just somewhere to land until the proverbial "better" gets here.
AND another stupid thing - too many recruiters for MSFT are not employees, they are v-, a-. How is that supposed to be encouraging, or be the best representation? Go take a look a the careers website - a lot of jobs look like a laundry list of work demands that no one could fulfill, or would even want to do.
If anyone needs any proof of my two-brain dinosaur analogy, surely the Ballmer/Sinofsky show at CES 2011 is enough. There is no man behind the curtain, but ARM will save us in 2012 with tablets! It is amazing that the Board continues to protect this buffoon. Please, for Christ's sake, send him off the old monkeys' home with a lifetime supply of peanuts.
WP7 is toast, there is no tablet strategy, and frankly nobody CARES!
MSFT has lost the plot with Windows on ARM. People don't like the iPad because it's ARM-based (which basically only affects battery life), they like it because it doesn't run Windows. All of a sudden regular people are realizing that they can do their computer stuff without getting bogged down with virus scanners and the registry and so forth.
From Mark Pilgrim's post today about his book, Dive into HTML5:
"6% of visitors used some version of Internet Explorer. That is not a typo. The site works fine in Internet Explorer — the site practices what it preaches, and the live examples use a variety of fallbacks for legacy browsers — so this is entirely due to the subject matter. Microsoft has completely lost the web development community."
http://diveintomark.org/archives/2011/01/09/dive-into-2010
WORST OF CES 2011: STEVEB's show.
WOW THIS IS CNN > MONEY'S
FRONTPAGE NEWS
SHAME SHAME.
THIS IS NOT STEVEB'S FAULT, IT'S THE FAULT OF ARROGANT AND INCOMPETENT MANAGERS WHO HAVE A MEGA EGO, WHO HAVE LAID OFF 1000's OF HIGH PERFORMING EMPLOYEES USING DIRTY POLITICS.
HA..HA..HA..HA..HA.......
To the poster of: An update for hubby who "resigned voluntarily" in August: No job yet. No leads yet. Unemployment...
This is business, period. Tell your hubby to get over it. Go take a trip somewhere nice and have fun. MS gave me a hard time, I quit. I'm very happy now. I only regret I did not quit MS earlier than I did.
If you quit/resign voluntarily you will not be able to collect unemployment, get over it. tell your hubby to go Find a job, there are plenty. I know of foreigners that have two jobs.
Does anyone know the rules around unemployment insurance? If I leave MS, go work a contract, but then get dumped out of the contract after a month, does my subsequent unemployment depend only on my record of earnings w/ the contract agency, or, do my years at MS still play into my unemployment account (bucket of $ available)?
THANKS.
Bob who?
An internal memo from Ballmer indicates Muglia was pushed aside in a disagreement over strategy.
The heads are rolling. Only it's the wrong one!
Muglia leaving. Roz Ho still there?
I'm sure it makes sense inside Ballmer's shiny head.
So Bob Muglia get fired for the second time. This time it does not even make sense.
Time to bail from sinking ship before it bails on you!
Arm deal will end Microsoft and Intel dominance
It's like 'Lord of the Flies' with money.
I'm nearly 4 years removed from my 10-years at MSFT and I have to say this post mirrors what I usually answer to the question people pose me when they ask about why I left Microsoft.
Another great president leaving the ship. If now is not the greatest time for Sinofsky to make a case in front of the board, i don't know when else.
mini.... Please comment/post on BobMu's departure. He's one of the few leaders who have succesfully built and grown a business in Microsoft... what does his departure mean for MSFT.
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