In business school the first thing they teach you about CEOs is: it is the CEO’s job to increase the shareholder value of the company. Since taking the position Ballmer has decreased shareholder value, as reflected by stock price, by -56.63%. That. Is. Not. Good . . . Microsoft should be searching for a new CEO right now.
I can take the job.
well… off course you could;) if Ballmer was capable to get this position and roll it for so long… anyone with IQ>1 can (with some of his comments i was even wondering if it wouldn’t be better if next MS CEO would be corpse, wouldn’t do any good, but at least wouldn’t tank the company either), as long as expected success rate and business vision doesn’t change with end of his days.
…Is the best description of Microsoft ever. Too bad no one that needs to listen to it will ever do anything about what’s been said.
Microsoft has just been ‘good enough’ for a long time now and just recently their financials have started crossing paths with Apple for the first time in history. Not good. Reminds me of the Titanic.
It’s sort of ironic that their business has started tanking just as their flagship products have started to become middlingly good.
Microsoft is tanking? Really? The death of MS has been predicted almost as many times as the death of Apple, and neither has come to pass.
“Whatever has start will have end some day!” MS wont die so soon so easily… however in the tech world things are so dynamic, ex: look at Nokia, all though it is still no 1 in mobile market we know it’s counting it’s days. If MS deal doesn’t strike well by end of year then we all will be able to predict what is going to happen with Nokia. The growing threat from Google, Apple, HP is not anymore easy for MS in the OS market. We are also seeing little bit of panic in Intel, due to ARM becoming more and more preferred platform. All I’m saying anything can happen and it doesn’t take too long to change in tech world!
Edited 2011-05-13 09:44 UTC
Nokia’s situation is exactly like Microsoft’s in that while still making money and being a dominant player in the market, they have been losing the hype game for some years now. Yes, they should be doing better, but the chatter surrounding them suggests they’re bleeding money, which isn’t actually the case.
not quite. Windows IS a successful product.
Symbian, not quite.
You need Windows. That’s the difference. They’re not going anywhere.
The XBOX market is also pretty damn good, by the way.
Bad news more and more businesses are finding about 80 percent of there desktop space does not Need Windows or MS Office. Symbian most likely be gone in a few years.
Windows Phone OS’s most likely will be gone as well.
While it’s true that many people don’t need Windows (they never did, but they still used it), your comment looks more like wishful thinking than anything else.
Google and other larger companies are truly getting to less than 20 percent desktop space using Windows.
Really its a start of hard time ahead for MS.
I too believe that MS is far from dead.
However, as I others pointed out, I do -not- need Windows, nor do my employer.
The only reason I -use- Windows (VM’s) is to port my software to Windows (but even this is slowly being replaced by a combination of mingw and wine – both neatly packaged by Fedora)
– Gilboa
People don’t need Windows, Linux, MacOS, Symbian, etc etc.
People do want something though and it’s Windows hand over, time and time again.
Don’t worry though, 2012 will be the Year of the Linux Desktop.
Speak for yourself; I’ve not needed windows for a number of years now. And I’m certainly not alone.
People need an OS. That OS doesn’t always need to be Windows.
People doesn’t need an OS. People need software for various tasks, from leisure and entertaining to make a living.
Last time I’ve checked, all important software ran on Windows, not on Linux or Mac Os X.
I was in the “hurd” of MS haters for several years myself. Actually I still think that Os X and Linux are better in some ways compared to Windows Xp, but now its 2011 and we have Windows 7 and I find it to be much better.
Also, the software I use for living (MS Visual Studio) doesn’t run on Os X or Linux. Neither does the software I code. Yes, you can make a living as a programmer if you code for Os X or Linux, but how many jobs are there? Besides, I grow to enjoy technologies like .NET and WPF which makes a pleasure coding anything from desktop apps and phone apps to websites. To add on top of that, .NET programmers tend to be payed better.
The software I use in my free time, mainly Photoshop, Lotro and Rift, do not run on other oses, either. And I have yet to find a software running on other oses and making a better job than its main windows competitor.
I was an Os enthusiast, I’ve tried tons of other oses, and ran some for years (Linux, Os X), but now I don’t see any benefit from running another OS.
Of course, if you use a computer just for web, mail, facebook, skype and twitter, you can use Os. If you need / want stuff to be done, you have to use Windows.
Sorry for the long post, but there was so much personal bias sold as impartial fact that I really did need to address each point you made and highlight the inaccuracies in your opinions.
Aside Ableton which I use for music, I’ve not found any Windows software that there wasn’t a Linux counterpart.
So much so, I can count on 1 hand the number of instances I’ve needed Windows in the last 5 years (and all of those were because I was dealing with professional audio gear – so well outside the realm of any normal usage).
This is one of those “each to their own†moments. Personally I can’t stand Win 7 (the last MS OS I enjoyed using was Win 2000 – everything else since has annoyed me). However I know plenty of people who love Windows 7. It’s all horses of courses as some might say.
No, but there’s at least a dozen other IDEs that do run on Linux and OS X. Eclipse, QT Creator, Xcode and Netbeans, to name but 4 highly popular environments.
Well that’s really your problem rather than the short comings of Linux or OS X as Linux alone better supports more languages than Windows does.
Lots actually (In fact more than Windows, if you take PHP into account). In fact I’m living proof of this having spent only a small fraction of the professional life developing for Windows (and that’s not for avoiding such jobs either)
Again, that’s entirely personal preference and somewhat irrelevant when comparing platforms.
That’s not really true though is it
. Check the rates Oracle consultants get or COBAL developers in the financial sector.
I hadn’t heard of the last 2 but Photoshop does. However again your making the point that because one name brand doesn’t run on one platform, there isn’t a competing piece of software that does.
Apache > IIS
OpenSSH > Windows Telnet Services
Firefox / Chromium / Opera / Safari > Internet Explorer
Logic > Cubase (granted this one is more personal preference)
Kwrite > Windows Notepad
Linux / OS X terminals > Windows CMD prompt
Bash shell scripting / Perl > WSH / Powershell
ESXi > anything on offer on Windows
ZFS > Drive Extender
FreeNAS > Windows Home Server
…and don’t even get me started on the shit that is “Windows Updateâ€.
I’m not about to say that Linux nor OS X is better than Windows or visa versa. But to say that Windows does everything better is more than just a little biased don’t you think?
So don’t. Nobody is forcing you. That’s the beauty of free choice
For me, Windows was the “another OS†that I never boot into. So I got rid of it. That was my choice just as the above was yours.
Rubbish. That’s complete and utter rubbish. I’m happy for differences in personal preference, but please don’t start spreading your bias as fact.
Edited 2011-05-13 16:17 UTC
> > If you need / want stuff to be done, you have to
> > use Windows.
> please don’t start spreading […]
You are right, for example I don’t use Windows to work.
Good Sir, seeing and telling the truth as it is doesn’t make me biased, does it?
There are hundreds of software which doesn’t have a Linux or Os X counterpart. And no, software like Gimp and Open Office aren’t alternatives when you need quality, productivity and interoperability.
Nobody forces Windows 7 upon you, Good Sir. Your employer might, but I bet s/he is one of those cool guys/gals who advocates, promotes and uses Free and Open Source Software.
You can’t use any of those wonderful pieces of software to develop WPF apps or ASP.NET, Good Sir. Prior to switching to .NET and WPF I was developing desktop apps using MFC. Couldn’t use QT Creator and Xcode for that. Before that I was developing mobile games. Guess what platform they have chosen.
Which of the most used languages does Linux support better? You make me curious. Even almost all crappy scripting languages can be used on Windows. Perl, Python, Ruby, PHP, SH, Lua, UnrealScript all work on Windows.
Truth is, Good Sir, that most PHP programmers do their work on Windows. Jobs for Windows coders or using Windows as a dev platform (ASp.NET, other web programming, Windows Phone, Xbox) are plenty and much more than for other platforms.
Do not trust me, go to http://www.dice.com/ and see for yourself.
It’s very relevant when you have to make a living from it, trust me. No one likes to do borring tasks and no one likes to reinvent the wheel and no one likes to do a task in 10 hours when he can do it in an hour on other platform.
Good Sir, I wasn’t talking about niches and exotic things. I was talking about mainstream. If I wanted to be borred to death, I would have learned COBOL and make more cash.
However if desktop apps and website will begin to bore me, I can refresh my Directx and OpenGL knowledge and get a slightly better income.
Again, you do not need to trust me, you can go to http://www.payscale.com and see for yourself.
Apache runs on Windows, too. And why most of the Top 500 Fortune companies use IIS? Because is Apache better?
You can use SSH on windows too. However you have plenty of other means to administrate a Windows server at distance.
There are many scripting engines on Windows, BASH included. However there aren’t many scripting maniacs on Windows because there’s no need.
Firefox, Chrome and Opera were developed primarily for Windows. Chrome may be the best browser for now, FF and Opera used to be better than old IE, but now IE9 is certainly not worse than FF, Opera or Safari.
You make me laugh when you compare Kwrite with Notepad. You can compare the fugly Gedit with Notepad or you can compare Kwrite to Wordpad. Wordpad wins.
Srsly? I have to lurk moar. Why is a Linux or Os X terminal better than cmd? I guess you compare the terminal software itself, not the underlying OS commands.
Quote: “VMware ESX and VMware ESXi are bare-metal embedded Hypervisors that are VMware’s enterprise software hypervisors for servers that run directly on server hardware without requiring an additional underlying operating system.”
ZFS is a file system.
Why would be FreeNAS better than Windows Server 8? Besides going El Cheapo.
FYI, LOTRO and Rift are mmorpgs. That expands in massively multiplayer onlyne role playing games, that’s a kind of games.
I wasn’t saying that Windows does averything better. When it comes to desktops – and about that I was talking – it does most of the things better. When it comes to servers it does some things better while it does some things worse.
Nobody is forcing Windows 7 upon you either, Good Sir.
Again, telling the truth isn’t bias, is it? The numbers speak for themselves and the vast majority of home users and busnesses who use Windows doesn’t use Windows just to throw their money away and from inertia. They did find something valuable in it.
Yuou seem to fail badly at making any point, Good Sir. While I admire your stance as a shiny knight on a white horse wrestling with the big, bad, ugly dragon from Redmond, I came to the conclusion that you haven’t proved anything.
Telling that “If you need / want stuff to be done, you have to use Windows” is not true, what do you want to be told?
Your comments weren’t the truth though – a point which I had already proved.
Funny that because I’ve been using OpenOffice and Gimp professionally for years and have coped fine. Most of the tools available in Excel that people miss from OpenOffice Calc are tools which are abused in Excel anyway (ie when people try to use a spreadsheet as a database) and I’ve found that Calc’s CSV tools are actually much better than Excels (again, this is having to use both in a professional capacity.
As for word processing, all of my CVs, invoices (from when I was a freelance consultant) and so on have been composed in OpenOffice and I’ve never run into a problem. In fact OpenOffice also has better PDF exporting tools than MS office.
I will grant you that Gimp isn’t perfect, but neither of use are professional designers so the tools that Gimp does offer is more than capable for the majority of people. And those that are professional designers would more likely by using Photoshop on OS X anyway – so your point about Windows doesn’t even stand here.
In fact as both Photoshop and MS Office are available for OS X, it’s a incredibly short-sighted example to make given you’re supposed to be undermining the compatibility of non-Windows platforms!
Actually they are.
Again, if you want to limit yourself to platform dependant code, then that’s your choice. But that doesn’t change the fact that Linux better supports more languages than Windows does.
Yeah, but Linux supports them better. Which part of “better” do you not understand?
Now you’re moving goal posts. The development is for non-windows platforms. The fact that the ASCII can be written up on any text editor on any OS is irrelevant. You simply stated that most jobs were for Windows dev and I proved that point wrong.
There’s massively more PHP developers than ASP.NET.
There’s also massively more Android and iOS developers than Windows Phone.
And finally there’s also more Nintendo Wii developers than XBox 360.
In short, you have no idea what you’re talking about.
I don’t need to check a job site as I was job hunting only 2 months ago. Even in the UK (which is more MS-orientated than most European countries) there was no shortage of Linux and OS X dev jobs.
Oh that’s right. When you lose an argument you redefine the parameters of the topic. You claimed Windows developers were paid better than non-Windows developers. I named but two examples off the top of my head that proved you wrong. End of discussion.
That’s just a petty retort.
OpenGL is cross platform you realise.
Yeah, but nobody with any sense does this.
Apache is better – hence it being the most widely used web server by a country mile.
Also, lets see some proof about the Top 500 Fortune companies having IIS web-servers instead of *nix + Apache.
Yeah, but most are crap and none are shipped with the OS.
So again, my point proved you wrong.
Just as there are plenty of other means to administrate a Linux server at a distance. It was just one example of many that proved your silly point wrong.
There is a need to script on Windows. If there wasn’t, then MS wouldn’t have created Powershell. Do you even have any idea what you’re talking about?
But they’re not the default browsers on any Windows installs where as they are on Linux installs.
However you’ve conveniently ignored Safari, which also proved your point wrong.
Why, it’s a valid point.
How is Gedit any worse than Notepad. They’re both just the same.
Also, Wordpad is a wordprocessor (albeit a cut down one). It’s not a text editor. So your comparison is completely wrong.
OK then, Konsole + BASH > CMD.
ESXi is basically just VMware running on bare-metal Linux. Hence my point.
I know. I’ve ran it for years.
My point is ZFS’s use of storage pools is far better than Driver Extenders. In fact Driver Extender was so shit that MS ditched it themselves.
Windows Home Server is not the same as Windows Server 8. Seriously, how do you not know this stuff?
Ahh I see. Well Windows is better for games. I’ve always said this and always recommended Windows to gamers.
….continued below due to character limit
Actually that’s exactly what you said.
Thank you for reitterating my point as if I hadn’t already made it *rollseyes*
again, I easily debunked half the “truths” you claimed.
The vast majorety of homes run Windows do so because that’s what came with the PC / laptop they bought.
As for businesses, I’ve made rants on here in the past about how frequently project managers and steering boards make IT decisions about their computer infrastructure without ever consulting any IT professionals. The reason I left my last job was because I was sick to death of idiots having buying into sales-peoples shit and then expecting their IT staff to pick up the pieces when the inevitable complete systems failure happened. At least now, I have some say in the direction the company takes.
Seriously!? You HAVE to be trolling now!
I’ve given balanced and objective comments in reply to your narrow-minded shit. I may not like Windows, but I’m not out to persuade overs not to use it. I’d rather people use what they’re more comfortable with than moan to me that x, y or z doesn’t work.
And I have come to the conclusion that you are either so narrow-minded that you refuse to listen to an objective opinion, or simply just stupid.
Either way, you’ve done your up-most to redefine the parameters for all the arguments you’ve been proven wrong on; and those you couldn’t twist, you just ignored. Well hooray for pointless internet debates. *rolleyes*
I too have only one specific application for which there is no Linux version: Spotify. There does exist a preview version, but it for example doesn’t support playback of local files at all :/
The more limiting factors for me are that all the good games are for Windows, and that not all of my hardware works under Linux.
I’ll just address one point that’ll blow your mind: you can command better rates for contracts at Microsoft for their non-MS platform development, should you have that experience, compared to a typical MS technology.
Oh, and this will also blow your mind: when working with non-MS technology, they don’t require you to use an MS OS to do your work in that non-MS technology. It may seem strange, but it’s true!
I’d like to see a much better non-anecdotal statement that backs up your assertion about Linux/OSX jobs being paid less than .NET jobs. Ultimately, for the best pay, being able to bounce between multiple platforms often gets you that purple squirrel pay.
This says that only Windows can do real work. I’m sure you don’t mean to say that out loud, where everyone can hear you and crinkle their brows at you in puzzlement or worse. Right?
I mean, you can’t possibly be stating that graphics artists, who primarily use Mac OS/X, don’t need / want things to be done? Scientists depending on supercomputers, which overwhelmingly run Linux, don’t need / want things to be done? Mechanical and chemical engineers, who predominantly use Unix or Linux-based CAD/CAM systems, don’t need / want things to get done? Pixar,which renders its movies on Linux systems, don’t need / want things to get done?
I could go on, but perhaps you get my point. I realize that at the moment you prefer Windows, and have selected some tools that only run on that OS. I’m happy that you like your system, and am glad you have a choice.
But it would be incredibly naive to then assert that OS/X and Linux and Unix and other more specialized operating systems are only good for browsing the web.
So I’m sure you didn’t mean to say that. Right?
Didn’t the Wall Street just switch to Linux too some time ago?
The NY Stock Exchange runs on Red Hat; London Stock Exchange runs on Suse, I believe.
While the trade press was busy discussing why Linux wasn’t taking over the desktop, Linux quietly took over the rest of the world. I wonder what’s left for the penguin to conquer now? 😀
I suppose one cannot argue with the fact that Windows is the best general purpose OS out there. Other OSes may prove to be better in the more expert related scenarios.
I think Windows has the broadest spectrum of tasks which can be performed “pretty well”.
Actually, I think most computer professionals would argue that you have that exactly backwards for most (but not all) values of “best” and “general purpose OS”.
Let me walk you through it. Sorry, I’m a teacher by avocation, and sometimes I just can’t help myself. 😉
First, the definitions:
For “best” let’s pick four from hundreds of criteria – contributes to lowest market entry cost, provides greatest potential for differentiation, most scalable, and greatest market penetration.
For “general purpose OS” let’s say a kernel that can be used across a broad spectrum of the computing marketplace – fuzzy, but I think close enough.
For “Windows” we’ll use the NT kernel, and for “Linux” the Linux kernel.
Now, let’s compare Windows to Linux on those terms.
For market entry cost, Linux has the advantage of skipping the legal negotiating with Microsoft for a custom license, no one-time or per unit royalty payments, and for having the complete source code available for modification and rebuild optimized for a new market thus avoiding shims and work-arounds. Windows has Microsoft’s famed developer support organization behind it (for a price), but using them under non-disclosure runs the risk of Microsoft stealing your market out from under you as they have so famously in the past. If your product is based largely on providing a general purpose desktop computer running a specific package available only on Windows, of course, Windows is a no-brainer – but that market is thoroughly saturated, and with such a low barrier to entry you would run a high risk of being overrun by a larger competitor able to negotiate a sweetheart deal with Microsoft. For entry cost to most viable markets, then, I would argue that Linux gets you there cheaper and more safely, and is thus “best”. Note the number of innovative products launching with Linux today as corroborating evidence.
For greatest potential for differentiation, it’s not even close. Linux permits you to do anything with the code, while Windows comes with a long list of constraints to be negotiated. Linux does require those who distribute modified kernels to make the source available; if we were considering BSD, it would probably be “best” of three by this criteria, but Linux is clearly “better” than Windows in this context. Again, you’ll probably notice much more differentiation with Linux and BSD products than Windows products – tablets would be a golden case study, for example.
For most scalable, it is again not even close. Linux powers a plurality of the smartphones in the world, over 90% of the supercomputers in the world, and everything in-between. It scales to a USB-size complete computer, watches, even pellets in paint. It’s scalability is legendary. For practical use, Windows scales only from netbooks and tablets to enterprise servers. (Windows Phone 7 has a different kernel, of course, though much of the development infrastructure is shared.) In scalability, Linux has proven itself “best” by a clear margin.
It’s in market penetration that you probably consider Windows “best”, but here it’s more tricky. Windows was ruled a desktop monopoly in the 1998, and that hasn’t changed much – together, OS/X and Linux and “others” hold less that 10% installed base and at most 15% of each quarter’s market (sales) share. In servers, Windows has the best revenue stream, but holds installed base roughly equivalent to Linux. But in virtually every other market segment of significance, Linux has “better” market penetration than Windows. Perhaps this is why Microsoft’s market cap has famously halved during Mr. Ballmer’s tenure – Microsoft’s revenue stream is still desktop / server Windows, Office, and debris.
My suspicion is that your remarkably broad claim really meant “Windows has more desktop applications than any other OS” or “commercial Windows desktop applications have more income potential than any other OS”. I would agree with both of those statements. Deep down, I suspect you meant “It’s best for me”, and I couldn’t argue with that, either, though it’s not a very useful assertion for everyone else. I would also agree that “Microsoft provides world-class support for desktop and server application developers” – it may or may not be “best”, but it’s excellent.
But Windows isn’t “best” by most other definitions of “best”, and it’s far less general purpose than many of its competitors, as a broad look at the market will attest.
I’m sorry, it appears I was misunderstood. Best general purpose from the end-user perspective, that’s what I meant.
A user can browse the web, use office stuff, playing games – all in an overall good experience on the same OS.
As for some of your other points, once you have the source code it’s obvious that you can do whatever you want with it.
But I think that’s a poor solution. A system should be built extensible, and from my personal experience, having used both platforms for quite some time, windows is more extensible. Just so that we’re clear, I’m referring to it at the desktop level. The kernels both have extensibility points.
OK, but again you’re missing the rather important point that “best” depends on what the end user is trying to accomplish. Let’s try this – Windows is the best desktop operating system for people who want to run Windows applications.
Gnu / Linux is far more extensible than Windows, btw, but both are adequate for most end users in that regard, so it’s a moot point.
There are a lot of interesting jobs that pay better and don’t require Windows. You, personally, are a person that requires Windows for work. There are millions that don’t use PS, neither need it. There are millions that would not know the difference between Windows and Linux.
As for mobile app developers, their preffered OS of choice is MacOSX because you build both iOS and Android apps. There are not many established mobile app developers that are excited about WP7, yet.
i so wish that you and your thinking would be “people”. but parent was right. me and you liking alternative does not constitute as everyone.
windows is still product that is needed by many and i don’t see MS tanking unless they simply can’t figure out that ONLY all their newer businesses tank. but if they do figure that out, you can simply expect them as lean and mean machine again focused on their strength.
That’s the point. If you are successful making and selling cars, that doesn’t make you good at making and selling fridges.
MS should stick to what they know to do better: software.
If they can’t sleep without competing in search engine area or music players or console stations or whatever, they ONLY good thing they can do is to make another company which is physically separated and not under the same umbrella as main company. Roll some cash and buy some talents in that particular field.
Doing this will prevent using IE or Office developers to work on Zune or Bing, will prevent Windows GUI designers to work on zune or bing, and also will prevent zune and bing guys to work on Windows or Visual Studio.
Right now it’s a mess. They are putting people together from various teams and make them work on some other projects. People should work on what they know best.
I never once even implied that we were the majority. I just said everyone needs an OS but that OS does not need to be Windows.
Sure, some people (perhaps even the majority of people) might need or prefer Windows over the alternatives. But that’s not everyone either.
I’ve also said I couldn’t see MS tanking in even the next 20 years.
I think you’ve got me completely wrong in this thread
For what do I need Windows again? You’ll have to remind me – it’s been such a long and happy time since…
Perhaps you do not need Windows, but many people do need Windows whether you do or not. People need Windows because Windows runs X, where X is a program that the person needs to run. Often X is Office, which runs on Windows and Mac, but works best on Windows. X might be a game like Starcraft 2 or whatever the cool kids are playing now. In any case there is enough applications out there that run on Windows or run best on Windows to keep the franchise alive for a long long time. So Microsoft will not die any time soon. But because of the Web and Google and Linux and Mac OS X and iPhone people need Windows less than they used to. That is why Microsoft is not doing as well financially as they were 5 years ago.
%s/need/want/g
O0oh YEAH! it is a good feeling to actually OWN the computer you assembled, without some freak colored toy OS telling you that it is not possible to rename YOUR video file while playing it. Duh.
Tanking? AFAIK, their profits for Q1 2011 were among the highest ever. Some people seem to think that since the only way of making money they know of is horse racing, making money is also a horse race. Now Microsoft is starting losing to Apple, so it’s time to take her to the glue factory. Unfortunately, many of these morons are journalists.
Under a university drop-out software and strategy hacker, the company amassed a monopoly. Under a business school graduate, it’s steadily declined. hm….
Nokia’s CEO might be interested.
So… Replace one baboon without a vision with another? They even look alike.
This is just another nobody lecturing self-made billionaires on how to run their companies.
Sure MS could create a Skype clone – but it would take years and wouldn’t have any brand recognition.
I would place my money on MS surviving another 20 years over Apple any day. Jobs has always bet the farm on a few products. MS sticks to low risk diversity at the expense of growth.
What happens to Apple’s share price in 2-3 years years when unlocked $50 WP7 smartphones and $100 Android tablets are sold in supermarkets? How long before every second company has an online app and music store? I guess even Ebay and Facebook will have one soon.
Will people still buy expensive Macs when they can do much faster media editing on cheap server farms or via a cloud-based service?
The success of Apple has always been due to cult marketing hype by sycophants in the media. Mundane products that have been around for years suddenly become absolutely amazing once they have the Apple brand applied. Star Trek had tablet computers way back in the 1960s FFS.
Apple blatantly copied the designs of 1960s German toasters to become the style leader. Online music stores and MP3 players were around long before Apple got into the business.
“Microsoft” is already a much bigger household brand than “Skype”.
I think it’s the other way round.
Apple have quite a number of profitable products (from their laptops to software (iTunes, Garage Band, etc) to phones to portable music players, and so on).
MS, until the recently, wasn’t making a profit on their games consoles. WP7 is under performing and their old mobile OS is already obsolete tech. Zune isn’t selling. MS is basically staking their whole company on a few flagship products: Windows, Office, SQL Server.
So long as iPhones and iPods still sell, iTunes will still generate Apple revinue. Such is life with a walled garden.
Yes because clouds are NOT faster for professional media editing. For one, you’d have to upload your high quality media to the cloud before you could start. Given that most high-end systems cope with media editing just fine already, there’s no need to switch to server farms except for a few niche industries. However those that do need server farms already use Linux server farms (eg movie render farms) so that point is moot.
As for the switch to Windows, many media professionals prefer OS X because the tools are (in their opinion) better / more productive in OS X than Windows. eg Logic (pro audio production suite) compared with Cubase.
In terms of their consumer products, I agree with you. However consumers have always bought into style and PR*. My girlfriend (for example) buys phones that look “cute” despite having a horrid UI. Apple have always been good at creating a pretty GUI with pretty hardware and then hyping it perfectly. So it’s no surprising that consumers buy into Apple.
* Well, those and often price too.
Indeed they have.
As opposed to us two nobodies telling other nobodies what they may or may not write?
I don’t think that was the real issue. The real issue here is the price. $8.5 BILLION is an awful lot of money for something that has yet to turn a profit.
You yourself said the magic words above: brand recognition. Apple doesn’t participate in the race to the bottom. The more the makers of el cheapo tablets gouge each others’ margins, the more people get turned off when the apps from the Facebook store don’t work on the eBay tablet, the better for Apple.
I do agree that Microsoft will still be around in 20 years time. After all there still is an IBM. Of sorts.
What makes you think Apple will not be part of that? Google “North Carolina data center”.
Yes, and Star Wars had faster-than-light spaceships back in 1978. The first guys to get a working one on the market are still going to make a killing. That really is the lamest argument in the history of OSNews, dude.
The German toaster designer doesn’t mind. In fact, he is an admirer: http://t.co/AICcQ72
Yes, and nobody used them. I wonder why?
Ten years into the new century, and MS still can’t earn more than half of their income from anything but Windows and Office (these account for ~54% of MS annual revenue).
It just goes to show how hard it is to compete with a monopoly. Even the other parts of MS can’t compete with the Windows/Office monopoly!
So now MS is desperately trying to buy their way into new markets with their monopoly money — eg, Skype, the Nokia deal.
It’s tough having to compete for a change!
Coca-cola has been profitable for 115 years making flavoured sugar water.
But they have a cherry flavoured version 😀 And there is Diet/Zero, so not only sugar water 😀
No, it’s not. Share value is an extremely narrow, short term, and often misleading criteria on which to value a CEO.
To all the armchair critics, I recommend reading a couple of posts from Ben Horowitz (of Andreessen-Horowitz venture capital firm) about how they go about valuing a CEO. They’re written in an accessible language and will help you understand more about the factors at play:
http://bhorowitz.com/2010/05/30/how-andreessen-horowitz-evaluates-c…
http://bhorowitz.com/2010/04/28/why-we-prefer-founding-ceos/
From one of those posts:
It’s debatable whether Ballmer can be considered a “founding CEO” in Horowitz’s acceptance ie. capable of breaking new ground in technology. But that doesn’t make him a bad CEO. Strictly from a shareholder point of view, Ballmer is doing an excellent job, by optimizing Microsoft processes and adapting as best as possible to the shifting technological landscape. Simply put, he’s holding the fort.
A side note: the linked article calls the Skype aquisition “the final nail” in the coffin. It may be exactly the contrary, a sign that Ballmer has figured a new product cycles, or that he’s listening to the right people (disclaimer: Horowitz is the recipient of the $8.5B):
http://bhorowitz.com/2011/05/10/microsoft-buys-skype/
It’s understandable that shareholders want the kind of revolutionary jump in profits that Google or Apple are demostrating. But it would come with huge risks, any technological breakthrough is an insane bet in the beginning. Some of them don’t work out. Are shareholders willing to take those risks, or do they prefer Microsoft share price to trot steadily along with NASDAQ for another decade?
Since Ballmer is still CEO, I think we already have our answer. The only way Ballmer will be replaced is if someone were to get share majority and turn the company around by force. Likely? I think not:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/mh?s=MSFT+Major+Holders
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=msft
(To put figures in perspective: there’s 8.43B outstanding MSFT shares, 7.44B in float, of which the largest holder, Bill Gates, has 580M ie. ~6.88%, and they’re spread among ~1800 institutions, none of which have more than 3.6% individually. Microsoft is a very “public” company, very much its own animal. Good luck to anybody attempting to force a CEO and strategy change on it.)
Actually it is the only criteria to value a CEO of a publicly traded corporation.
Welcome to the wonderful world of corporate stock market capitalism.
Say a CEO makes the share value (or margins) of his company inflate artificially (for the short term, of course). In doing so, he sacrifices important assets and damages the company’s prospects for the long term. Is that a good CEO? Is that what Ballmer should do?
PS: Please add arguments to your statements and/or links to resources that do that. I’ve done my research and documented my point above; where’s yours? Alternatively, if you have better credentials than Horowitz and your opinion alone is valuable on its own, please provide them.
Quoting a guy who reaped the benefits of buying a piece of a company valued at $2.5B and turned around and sold it for $8.5B two and a half years later as an expert on evaluating CEOs? OK, I can buy that. Sort of. As long as you’re talking about the CEO who was running the company prior to the initial purchase.
However, when you are using that to justify declaring the chump who PAID $8.5B for a company worth only $2.5B two and a half years earlier as a good CEO? Not so much. Doubly so when the company for sale is just barely breaking even. Triply so when the chump has has a long string of failed acquisitions over the previous decade.
What they don’t teach in CEO schools (because it’s an untold lesson) is that Capitalism, at one point, needs to disrupt value to be able to create more value. That makes Capitalism an inferior production system but a few key figures can make profits out of disruption as well.
Shares value could not raise indefinitely, as it is obvious. If Apple shares weren’t valued as toilet paper in mid 90s, Apple couldn’t have grown the way it did. And, at one point, Apple shares must collapse to start over again.
The same way, Microsoft had more than 15 years of growing which reflected on shares value. Now shares collapsed and that game can start again.
The blame-CEO game is a handy explanation to justify something which is more than natural, not because CEOs but because current production system.
If I say: Apple and Google shares will collapse sooner or later, that would be a sure bet.
“If I say: Apple and Google shares will collapse sooner or later, that would be a sure bet.”
I’m pretty sure creative destruction is at the core of capitalism. It’s all the other systems that claim you can have stable institutions and businesses that never fail.
The essence of capitalism is dealing with failure.
That all said, most of the established tech companies should be boring old dividend paying stocks like Coco-Cola. They’ve established their market. They largely don’t because of ridiculous tax laws that tax dividends higher and corporate taxes that discourage bringing the money back.
“creative distruction”… that’s rather optimistic. 😉
The essence of that game is burning debt. You make debts, you use debt to get actual wealth, you transfer actual wealth to you via proxy, you don’t pay debt and promise your creditors you won’t do that again (never ever !) and start over.
That’s the essence of it 😉 And that works if you can steal from poor people while will turn into bloodshed if you rob your sibiling.
And about taxes, come on! 😉 Such companies don’t pay taxes at all and when they are required to do that, they file for bankruptcy 😉
No the essence of that game is that each institution (company) will always need to prove itself by showing it is serving its customers.
It is a ‘good’ thing that companies fail and collapse.
It means they are not serving their customers and their failure means someone else can come in and do that job.
This is far better than other systems which try and reform institutions as the self-interest and competence of those in the institution are always a barrier.
If Microsoft falls, it is a good thing.
If it reforms and does well, it is a good thing.
It it doesn’t reform and is protected by government somehow, then it is not a good thing.
I think the Board members should hold a meeting and one of them should stomp around shouting:
“Executives!”
“Executives!”
“Executives!”
“Executives!”
The job of a CEO is to run a company. It’s not about the shareholders! The stock value is a mean to an end, it’s not an end. The shareholders are parasites. They may have enough power to dictate their will in some situations but in the Microsoft case they don’t. Steve would be well advised to ignore them. Microsoft does have a well funded bank account, it does not need its shareholders. They are there to make some money on its back but they should shut the hell up and get a low profile.
Those who own the company are parasites?!? Geesh, you need to quit reading Marx and get out a little more. The USSR collapsed two decades ago – the “parasites” ate its lunch! 😀
Yes they are, they always were and they will be forever, USSR or not. You should get out a little more, read Marx and learn a thing or two.
80% don’t need Windows? You’re dreaming mate. Until Linux has got 100% interoperability with Office. Not just replacement programs but actual interop. Microsoft isn’t going anywhere. Anyone who works in IT should know that no product exists yet that can replace Microsoft. I work with a Linux machine, I still have to RDP into a Windows machine to edit Visio diagrams. There’s no Linux equivalent that handles .vsd files properly. There are literally thousands of packages that only exist on Windows and which don’t have functional equivalents on other platforms. Wine is not a solution to most of those programs either. It doesn’t tie into the OS enough to provide the things those programs need. Linux is becoming a great product, but it’s still a long way from toppling the Redmond behemoth. Personally I think Linux would do better to try to go after Apple first, before trying to take on Microsoft. Mac has usability over windows. Linux hasn’t got anything except source code access which most people don’t care about.
Personally I think Linux would do better to try to go after Apple first, before trying to take on Microsoft.
Thats what Ubuntu is trying to do.
Don’t come with that bullshit: Apple has more valuable shares and better profits margins while MS does not.
The truth is Apple shares are hyperinflated while the price of MS shares is slightly underestimated.
That’s because speculative activities and because many dumb bastards think of themselves as intelligent investors. While Apple shares can (and will at some point in the future) saw some drastic adjustments, MS shares have potential to grow because, unlike Apple, MS is a solid company.
Also, the bussiness model is different, MS is primarily a software company and its primary bussiness is selling software while Apple makes money from selling songs, MP3 players, phones, tablets and software made by others.
If you compare strictly the software businesses of the two, you see that MS is doing much, much better in that particular field.
That’s because, unlike Apple who relies on heavy “borrowing” of design ideas and heavy “borrowing” code from open source projects, MS does it with their own people. See how many software engineers work for MS and how many work for Apple. See how many software projects were developed by MS (starting from scratch, not from “borrowed” code) and how many by Apple. Do compare the complexity of MS software (orders of magnitude higher) and Apple software and finally, do compare the quality of the said software. I’m not sure how good Apple would come out from these comparisons.
Finally, Apple makes a lot of cash now because the world is filled with snobs and dumb people with money. If you are unsure of your sexuality, your physical attraction, your intellect and you see some sexy guy in a Hollywood film, who seems to attract lots of girls and is using an iPad or Mac Book, or if you read a column in magazine and the journalist seems to be smart and is praising some Apple product, what’s the first thing you do?
Idk if Ballmer was the best possible CEO for MS, but thanks God MS didn’t employed Steve Jobs as its CEO. Otherwise, MS would be the one selling crap products with the letter “i” in front.
I think that MS should concentrate on what they can do best and that is software. Instead of trying to compete with Sony (xbox), Apple (zune), Google (bing). If they come up with a killer os for phones and tablets, if they extend their software business in other directions, I think their profit margins will be much better.
PS. For Apple fans, I’m not saying that Apple is bad and MS good or viceversa. I’m just saying that Apple is selling products of no real value with artistically inflated prices. While you can get some value from your money if you (or your company) buy something from MS.
Apple’s share price is not “hyperinflated”. Just because it is currently over $300/sh doesn’t mean a thing. Apple’s market capitalization at this time is $316 Billion dollars. It accurately reflects the health of the company regardless of how much each share costs.
Everyone is basically a snob. They just don’t care to admit it to themselves. http://bit.ly/kypbmW
Has nothing really to do with a company’s product. Bottom line is people buy what they want.
No truly successful company sells “crap products”. It just doesn’t work that way. Apple has been the most successful tech company in recent years with only just a few product offerings.
This I agree on. I’ve always thought Microsoft should concentrate on software.
You don’t need to be a “fan” of Apple to enjoy their products. It just has to work as advertised–and they do. That’s the value right there. Apple also takes VERY good care of their customers in their retail presence. You can’t really say with facts that you don’t get value from Apple. That’s just a rant based on industry jealousy.
You don’t need to be a “fan” of Apple to enjoy their products. It just has to work as advertised–and they do.
I had a look at some Android phones at the local Telstra shop today:
HTC Wildfire – AUD249
Samsung Galaxy 5 – AUD149
Huawei -AUD99
Guess what they all worked perfectly despite costing far less than an iPhone (AUD700-900). The only real difference between the Android phones was the screen size and the camera resolution.
The staff were friendly and helpful
The article is painfully flawed. A CEO is there to keep the company being profitable, not simply to inflate the share price. The value of stock options does not equate to real value. Look at Nortel as an example.
Microsoft is posting near record profits these days, they’re not in any danger.
Now that the Anti-Trust Oversight is about to end…
Then it’ll be *BACK TO BUSINESS AS USUAL*… tromping over all competition with a big stick and not having to worry about it.
Heck why should it worry, its only every had a slap on the patty for violating the Sherman Act.
Just wait, the tyrant Balmer will get his JuJu back again and Glory to the Stock Price Gods will be yet again obtained.
I read the article and what the writer fails to realise is that Microsoft is now a mature company, they’re now like IBM, Oracle, SAP and other mature companies. They aren’t going to grow at huge rates simply because the markets that they cater for have matured and thus the growth rate is simply going to follow the market.
As for what Microsoft is doing now, there was a plan around 5 or so years ago to diversify and guess what arm chair experts – diversifying a very large company takes time. People ignore the fact that when Apple was on the bones of its ass the first thing Steve Jobs did was to dramatically cut the company down to size then over the years gradually expanded it out again from its core business.
Microsoft is in the same situation be it with some missteps along the way and miss reading the market in that smart phones are not only targeted at the high end but it is now possible to get a Android powered phone for around NZ$200, which is the price of a mid range ‘basic’ phone not too long ago. Microsoft believed that the smart phones would remain a niche where as the down scaling of Android has show that when the price is right lots of people want to jump onboard and purchase one.
Fast forward to today and their online services division has finally got its act together – it is no longer trying to be everything to everyone; its not trying to create its own YouTube, it’s own wordpress, its own facebook etc. Microsoft has realised that they can make a profitable online service division without needing to rule the universe which is why they’ve decided to work with WordPress, buried the hatchit with YouTube and connecting Live and Facebook together. Skype is an example of whether one should spend hundreds of millions trying to build up a brand that may or may not catch on or just simply buy out a company with a winning formula and integrate it into the larger services on offer.
Regarding the future, it appears that Windows 8 and WP7 are feeding off each other in terms of the future direction of Windows – it took a giant book up the ass but Microsoft is responding. Microsoft is very much like Intel – anyone remember how long it took for Intel to finally turn the ship around after the P4 debacle? well, the same situation is happening with Microsoft – Windows 7 and Office 2010 is the first phase of a much larger response to what Apple is offering.
Btw, I am a Mac user but I also own a WP7 device as well – I want to see a strong competitor to Apple so that both Microsoft and Apple are kept on top of the game by putting out better products. For me I’m excited about Mac OS X Lion but I’m also equally as excited about Windows 8 as well if Microsoft continues developing Windows 8 the current direction.
One thing that makes a software company like Microsoft different from say a car company is that in bad times they are incredibly flexible and adaptive.
My toilet has an Arm Cortex A8 incorporated and it runs Tubuntu (short for toilet ubuntu). While the trade press was busy discussing why Linux wasn’t taking over the desktop, Linux quietly took over the rest of the world.
Don’t worry, 2012 will be the year of the Linux desktop.
I would have though the time to get rid of Ballmer was the failure of Vista. You spend about a decade developing and billions of dollars on the next addition of your flagship product. It is possibly the worst OS ever made (judged by the standards of the time) – it is universally hated (for good reason) and….
…you keep the person in charge of this debacle – odd
I wonder one thing though: why the fuck they spend a lot of cash and a lot of man hours there at Microsoft Research if they aren’t going to use almost nothing form what the research guys are coming with. I mean they had a lot of bright ideas, they’ve done a lot of work and for nothing.
Good F-ing question. I love open source, but the stuff microsoft research comes up with is awesome. They really need to figure out how to integrate that stuff with their existing product base in a compatible manner.