Does anyone else feel like Microsoft hasn't actually done anything in over a decade? OK well .. except with the Xbox lineage. It seems like in every other part of the business they've made a bunch of dumb purchases, epic-failed in all areas - including their previous core competency of the consumer OS space - and brought in this Steve Jobs-esque clone CEO guy who is gagging to be seen as doing something while offering precisely zero believable direction.
It must be hard for them seeing all the areas die for them at once: Bing, Exchange, Hotmail, Office, Windows, XBox, mobile, embedded...
Satya Nadella's only been CEO for 6 months. You can't effect major changes in a major multinational corporation overnight, especially not until you've had sufficient opportunity to come up with a good direction for that change. If anything, I would consider that a promising and reasoned approach, as opposed to announcing a layoff of 18,000 people within the first month of his appointment.
Steve Jobs did not invent innovation or style and he certainly didn't patent them, so there's no need to claim anyone else with a hint of competence or ambition is just some cheap knock-off. If you raise his pedestal any higher you'll only spend your own life living in the shadow.
My point was it's a sinking ship, this guy is too little too late and yet to prove any efficacy. I think you misinterpreted the Jobs mention... I'm not a fan of the original, and frankly find the similarities with other tech presentations highly amusing. Skivvies. Round glasses. Slightly wasted, career-corporate bearing. Ease with which non-words of utter boardroom befuddlement spill out of their mouths. And so on...
I think I get your point on the Jobs mention, that you weren't dismissing him as a wannabe-Jobs so much as the culture and manner Jobs most prominently embodies. That's pretty fair, I think.
I think it's still much too early to count Microsoft out, they've still got a whole lot of runway ahead of them before they run out, and cutting such a huge part of their work force could just buy them even more runway, enough to get their bearings and recover. I think it would be pretty interesting to see a post-Microsoft tech world, but I can't imagine that happening until a worthy successor dethrones them, rather than simply fading away.
I think it's still much too early to count Microsoft out, they've still got a whole lot of runway ahead of them
The name will surely live on in some offering or other, but the dynasty has already faded.
it would be pretty interesting to see a post-Microsoft tech world, but I can't imagine that happening until a worthy successor dethrones them, rather than simply fading away.
With regards to the primary three product lines: the OS and the office suite, plus the corollary server solutions, Ubuntu + Redhat seem to be pretty effective at stealing former Microsoft clients, particularly governments. Hell, even Amazon's getting in on the act with EC2 sales to the CIA.
That's fairly strong evidence on its own, but in addition the world has shifted away from desktop and Microsoft's strongest position against this is essentially office work requiring a keyboard and XBox/gaming rigs. SteamOS is going to add further challenge to the console space, and encourage development in a cross-platform direction, and we've already seen open and largely interoperable source office solutions proven at scale.
If you had to point at a successor, I believe it's the Linux world in general, but from the consumer's perspective Ubuntu.
It must be hard for them seeing all the areas die for them at once: Bing, Exchange, Hotmail, Office, Windows, XBox, mobile, embedded...