I've had 3 career phases: BMS, DMS, AMS, Before Microsoft, During Microsoft, and After Microsoft.
I remember how cool things were back in the good old PHP/VAX/Microdata/CPM days before Windows fucked everything up. Then I suffered with every enterprise who had adopted all things Microsoft. Now that people feel we actually have choices again, I don't ever want to look back. Any wonder I feel like a kid again?
Agreed, I actually left working as a systems administrator entirely back in 2002, and I already had a policy to not directly touch windows systems. The blowback and bullshit from dealing with things that even have to interface with them was ridiculous and frustrating as hell, and they were everywhere so it was impossible to just ignore that. I moved to software development for the web after a sabbatical trying to figure out if I even wanted to stay in the industry at all after the hell that was dealing with that ecosystem.
I most definitely DO NOT want that back, a neutered microsoft steered by a geriatric scatterbrain happily tending his ancient cash cows is fine by me. Google are plenty good enough to take the juggernaut role Microsoft used to occupy, and they have the added plus of not fucking up my corner of existence while they're at it.
Ballmer may not be the best visionary, product person, or have a good nose for the market.
But I really don't think MS could do anything to compete with the Internet era, and its results would likely be extremely similar with Gates in charge.
Also... let's not be revisionist. Gates was there long enough into the Internet era for us to know what he thought/how he responded. His attitude and approach was quite similar, and in some ways worse.
He was much less complicit to web standards on both the client and server sides.
These days, MS's intranet products retain this approach (Sharepoint), but its Internet ones are really good citizens and saying all the right things (Azure, PHP friendliness. Silverlight is old-school, but still less borg-y than stuff released in Gates-era).
It's only that we have absolutely no reason to use the MS web-stack, and (rightfully)have trust issues that explains their lack of popularity.
So yeah... Ballmer is a dork. But MS's gradual demise is a natural effect of the Innovator's Dilemma and the Internet.
And I think a lot of people misunderstand the Innovator's Dilemma, even Clayton to some extent. I've heard people say things like, "We should eat our lunch before someone else does". The problem is that starting lunch too early can result in you losing your core business too quickly.
For example, if MS is making $15B a year in client products right now. And over time, against Google and such, that number will drop $1B/year until it hits $3B. Or they could accelerate that drop, such that it drops $3B per year, but they can generate $1B dollars per year by eating their lunch.
While it may be "fashionable" to be the cutting edge company generate $1B/year on some cool technology. It's actually prudent to fight against the new technology as the incumbent for as long as you can. And try to find totally new markets, rather than eating your own lunch.
The problem is that when you fight against the new technology, you mis-educate your own people. Ideally, Gates would have liked to denigrate the web and promote desktop apps to the outside world while pounding a completely opposite pro-web message into his own stuck-on-the-desktop developers. Unfortunately, with a company as big as Microsoft, it's impossible to keep the two messages separate.
Undercutting your own existing, successful business with a new business better prepared to go into the future.
Specifically, think about Office. MS could have released a web-version of these at a price-point that competed with other web office stacks. Doing so would have put them in position to succeed in the Internet world, but it would have gutted their Office profits in the process.
Given their cost structures are set up around those profits, no sane business person will make that decision. Hense, the dilema: you can see you are going to die to companies who change the rules, you know what you would need to do solve that, but the economics of doing that would mean anybody who really tried would be out on their ear.
I agree completely. Speaking of Clayton christensen I wonder what his thoughts are on Internet related businesses.
I am a firm believer in his be patient for growth not for profit. Yet most really big online companies went for growth before profit yet manages at least partly to still be in business.
I have my own theories but wonder if anyone knows where he stands on companies like FB, YouTube, google (who didn't really make money before later in the game. Is there a need to revise his theories?
Questions to Jobs were firstly about Apple and secondly about Google; with questions about Microsoft almost always having a historical "back in the day" feel about it.
Questions to Ballmer were largely about Apple and Google.
Apple and Google are just far more relevant. What are you gonna do? Ask Ballmer about Kin and Xbox?
My favorite quote: "I wish Microsoft had their evil genius back."
Bill Gates is an amazing man in so many ways. He may have had an evil edge in business, but that ruthlessness is what brought him success. It would have been neglectful to his shareholders to act in any other way.
Now he works full time spending his fortune on making the world a better place. Truly a great man.
> Now he works full time spending his fortune on making the world a better place. Truly a great man.
Remember, he amassed his fortune through monopolistic practices that valued control and subjugation of competition over product innovation and creation of value.
Is it possible to both be a notable philanthropist and also not engage in business practices that perhaps run counter to the generous philosophy of philanthropism?
"he amassed his fortune through monopolistic practices "
Big fucking deal, welcome to business. Jobs/Apple would/is doing the same thing every chance they have. When Jobs starts to spend his billions for charity (yes Steve you will be obligated some day) are we going to complain because he threw his weight around ala MS in the industries Apple dominated? No, we'll hopefully be able to thank him for his huge gift to humanity just like we should be doing to Gates right now. I'm sorry but whether or not Flash is allowed on the iPhone doesn't mean a a whole lot in the grand scheme of things.
When you're saving lives around the world by the millions suddenly what browser shipped with your OS back in the 90's looks like a whole lot less important.
This is the kind of reasoning that rationalizes all sorts of terrible behaviour after the fact. If saving lives around the world is that important, instead of stealing his fortune through illegal business practices, Gates should have simply established his foundation back in the day and told people that by choosing Windows they were helping to save lives.
p.s. Apple has been investigated for improper options grants. That is a far cry from breaking monopoly rules.
What Apple is doing with their App store policies is far worse than packaging IE with windows or using proprietary .doc format by default for word files.
It would be hard for Apple to reach market shares as great as MS, if they do you will see them hit equally hard for breaking monopoly rules.
The thing people forget is that Apple is not a monopoly in the smartphone market, not by a long shot. Hence you cannot apply the same anti-competitive reasoning. Sure, what they do sucks for the people who have adopted their platform (both users and developers), but it's not anti-competitive (if it was, Android would be dead in the water). If you want an analogy, Apple's pissing in their own walled garden which is surrounded by a nice big open field (Android). You are always free to leave the garden through the big open gate (well, excepting the contract termination fees, but those aren't due to Apple). In contrast, Microsoft was equivalent to a feudal lord who owns the right of commerce over the local market (MSDOS) and comes by and destroys your little shop (Dr. DOS). OK, that last analogy is a little strained.
>It would be hard for Apple to reach market shares as great as MS, if they do you will see them hit equally hard for breaking monopoly rules.
By which you mean, not at all (US government dropped the ball on the case against Microsoft)..
EU didn't. Microsoft had to add the stupid browser select screen. Support odf in Office. And do a lot more documentation work on all their API that few people outside Microsoft use. Plus the fines. And while Microsoft was dealing saving its arse err... Windows and Office, they dropped the ball in the online and mobile markets
The two aren't really related. It's not like Microsoft was Walmart, coming into towns and destroying mom and pop drugstores that had been in business 50 years and whose owners were barely making it. Microsoft engaged in business practices and tried to drive their competitors out of business. This isn't 'evil', it's just business. And they did some illegal things, but that's also not 'evil', and they also got caught and paid the price, both with their reputation and in the penalties that were assessed.
Contrast that with the philanthropic work that the Gates Foundation has done and it's not. Even. Close. To call him 'evil' is just ignorant.
Walmart: "coming into towns and destroying mom and pop drugstores" = evil
but
Microsoft: "tried to drive their competitors out of business" = not evil
?
"Is it possible to both be a notable philanthropist and also not engage in business practices that perhaps run counter to the generous philosophy of philanthropism?"
It seems common among the extremely wealthy, actually. I live in a city where the names Carnegie and Mellon are plastered over all kinds of public resources.
As far as ruthlessness, he's certainly not out of line with the early 20th century industrialist-philanthropists, though probably fewer people died because of Microsoft practices than industry strike-breaking and labor conditions.
Exactly, like Capone killing half of chicago to amass his fortune, then giving it away to aww-so-poor orphan kids (the same kids he killed their parents) to clean his face from blood stains?
Safari is pushing the Web forward, and IE is still to this day holding the web back.
It's not that IE is preinstalled that's the issue, it's that after IE beat Netscape (by being awesome) it was stagnant for years, and lack of standards support has caused developers tons of headaches over the years.
Safari, on the other hand, has excellent standards support, thanks to WebKit.
From watching that I got the feeling that you could ask Ballmer about his thoughts on (for instance) the steel refining industry and receive a remarkably similar stream of business pseudo-speak.
My thoughts exactly -- and spending time at MS, that is the MS lingo, at all levels. I think the janitorial staff only speaks in business pseudo-speak.
Given the introduction, I expected to see Ballmer saying something outright idiotic. I didn't see it. He merely said that whether it's a tablet or a laptop or a desktop, it's still a personal computer. Fair point. Perhaps he used the word productivity to mean creative activities? Maybe someone could take issue with that? Sure, go ahead. I wouldn't work for Ballmer either, but this video is not why.
"Right now we [Microsoft] are selling millions and millions and millions of phones per year, Apple is selling 0 phones per year. In 6 months they [Apple] will have, by far, the most expensive phone in the market place."
"He merely said that whether it's a tablet or a laptop or a desktop, it's still a personal computer. Fair point."
If the best reaction you can muster from a question such as the one posed to Ballmer is "fair point", then the speaker hasn't said anything of any significance or depth.
Contrast that with Steve Jobs' answers, and the difference couldn't be more clear. Either Jobs is far more skilled at veiling his true intentions, or he's a lot more introspective. Personally, I enjoyed listening to Steve Jobs' answers a lot more than I did Steve Balmer's. Ballmer just sounds a lot more like your typical corporate "talking head".
Why? I've only used an iPad a couple of times and I didn't find it very easy to type on, especially if you need numbers, brackets, a dash etc. Maybe it's something you have to get used to. Or maybe you have to get one of the keyboard docks (http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC533LL/A), but that's not very portable.
Don't get me wrong though, I totally agree that it was a cheap shot at the iPad. Although I can't imagine using the iPad to get things done, it seems pretty good for consuming content though.
I think part of the problem is that Ballmer doesn't have a deep technical background. And unlike Jobs, he doesn't have a world class sense of design to point him in the right direction.
For someone who espouses grand principles (Rework), David is taking the low road with his petulant ad hominum attacks. Calling Ballmer's stage presence uncool is a little disingenuous when it's clear that Ballmer was just being himself and trying to get his lethargic team pumped up. Before casting too many more stones, David should reread his mentor Kathy Sierra's post about how unhappy people drag down the level of discourse.
Never mind the fact that the author didn't select the video of Jobs waving his hands about why their phones don't work, or that in this video he was well spoken but still didn't answer the questions as asked. What is the point of this?
you could pay me to work for Microsoft, or Apple, or whomever(within reason)if the price was right...
Sure Steve Ballmer doesnt seem to be all that successful as MS' CEO. They are still very profitable, make some great products and have some really smart people there. I would argue its probably middle managers and bureaucracy that is the bulk of their problem. I suppose a more charismatic leader would probably try to fix that though.
Regardless of whether you want him back or not, the truth remains that Gates was, and is, a visionary.
Would I prefer seeing him back at MS or in his current role?
Without a question, I would like to see him use his fortune to address bigger and more pressing problems like poverty, disease, and malnutrition.
I have no qualms about his 'evil genius' side - he ran a business, a wildly successful one at that, and I think you can fairly attribute the widespread use of PCs to Microsoft (I'm a Mac). But the world could make better use of a visionary, compassionate, and generous (isn't that ironic how his current role contrasts with his past business image?) person like him.
Anyone who was choosing between the two companies before September 1990 would come out ahead (now, 20 years later) by choosing Microsoft stock. Anyone choosing in 1991 or after would come out ahead by choosing Apple stock. Or more simply: anyone who caught Microsoft stock in the mid-80s and rode it through the end of the 90s won big, and likewise for anyone who caught Apple stock circa 2001–2003 and is holding it now.
To be honest though, I don’t think the linear comparison over that whole time period is an especially informative chart though. The logarithmic one is better (replace "linear" with "logarithmic" in that link), with a much more meaningful slope.
Basically what we see is Microsoft stock went absolutely crazy between 1986 and 2000, doubling 9 times over that period (an utterly ridiculous sustained average doubling time of about a year and a half). Since 2000, Microsoft stock has dropped by half, mostly a drop during the year 2000 and stagnation since.
By contrast, Apple stock roughly stagnated between 1988 and 1993, and then, worse, dropped to between a quarter and a third of that value by its rock bottom point in 1997. After Jobs returned, between 1997 and 2001 Apple caught a big upswing and then a big downswing, the up presumably aligned with the colorful iMacs/iBooks and so forth, and the drop presumably due to some combination of broader economic forces and slowdown/uncertainty to do with the OS X transition, etc. Apple stock has been going nuts since the beginning of 2003, doubling 5 times (!) in the last 7 years.
Yes, but we're comparing executives, not companies. Jobs returned to Apple in 1996. Ballmer became CEO of Microsoft in 2000. It's relevant to compare the stock performance under their tenure.
Yeah, I was just responding to a post. What you say must be put in context though. Sure, without Jobs there would be no modern Apple - it's a fact, let alone current growth. However, considering microsoft during and after late 90's you must take into account there was this thing called dot-com bubble. Take a look at Cisco for example, during the same period (late 90's) http://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&...
I think they were the first company in history worth a trillion dollars if I remember correctly.
edit: or it was a talk about it being the first big T company, can't remember correctly, it was a crazy time with madness like DOW 36,000 and fantasies like that.
I don't know much about Ballmer, but I think the comparison of the interviews was not quite fair. They were completely different types of questions. Ballmer got a bla bla question and answered in the same vein. Jobs got a specific question that had been posed just shortly before all over the news, so there was plenty of time to think about it.
Do you guys feel what I'm feeling? I'm feeling a general lack of mindshare on new development and new technology coming out of Microsoft. Linux, Mac, and Droid is where it's at -- where developers are flocking because of the cheaper costs, better direction without getting screwed over, stronger security, wider community base, and more innovation. It's coming to a point where you see more non-Microsoft platform developers than Microsoft platform developers. And Windows is popup and virus city.
[Edit. I previously ID'd a specific condition. While I stick by my observation, and would comfortably say the same thing in a hallway conversation, it's probably not cool to say it in a public forum.
I'm in no way important or a shareholder in any company involved in this discussion. But a commenter below got me thinking. HN is a widely-read, influential place. I don't want my passing observation to be responsible for anybody's pain.]
Hey, just a quick tip- it's probably best not to suggest specific diseases or suggest such a thing about notable figures (especially those whose health has an effect on their share prices).
It's better also if you can spell their names properly; "multiple sclerosis", a disease of the nervous system, isn't specifically describable as a neurological issue, however does cause many.
It's also just as likely that he was tired after having to travel and then appear on stage to talk about his competitors.
I'm trying to think how i can edit the comment, while preserving my main point (that there was something distinct there, but it seemed less like drunk/under the influence, and more like ________).
Not me.
I've had 3 career phases: BMS, DMS, AMS, Before Microsoft, During Microsoft, and After Microsoft.
I remember how cool things were back in the good old PHP/VAX/Microdata/CPM days before Windows fucked everything up. Then I suffered with every enterprise who had adopted all things Microsoft. Now that people feel we actually have choices again, I don't ever want to look back. Any wonder I feel like a kid again?