Slashdot Mirror
Ballmer, Gates on Microsoft's Future
RoadFever writes: "At the Microsoft shareholders meeting, CEO Ballmer acknowledged they may have a popularity bug. "We understand, based upon the fact that our industry didn't rally to support us, that we need to change the way we interact and relate to our industry," Ballmer said.
There's a summary article in the Seattle Times and more stuff on the Microsoft investor relations page.
Will words translate to action? Well, the company might want to start by toning down the habit of taking credit for every innovation: "Really, the reason you see open source there at all is because we came in and said there should be a platform that's identical with millions and millions of machines," Gates said." The question-and-answer session near the end of the meeting has the most juicy quotes.
So wat he's saying is that the mass adoption of their inflexible software has driven people to create open products that will meet their needs, or am I misinterpreting him ? ;)
"Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity" -Alvy Ray Smith
Like they haven't already killed off a lot of competitors, knifed in the back a lot of partners, and set their sights on other industries, which BTW could be customers of partners and competitors? The problem with being an 357.142851428 Kg. gorilla is, you can sit anywhere you like, but after you've done so, who's willing to be their friend and stick their neck out for you? Even some things PR can't fix.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
He's right on that. A local radio station has been running the following spoof of an XP commercial every morning:
(Madonna music in background)
Q: With XP, can I burn CD's?
A: Yes, you can.
Q: Can I send email?
A: Yes, you can.
Q: Can I create an internet virus?
A: Yes, you can.
Q: Can I download female-on-female animal porn?
A: Yes, you can.
Q: Can I install XP myself without help?
A: Not f***in' likely!
Forget all the anti-trust stuff and "we don't play well with other" crap for a minute. In terms of "investment relations" what MS needs to do is pay out a god damn dividend. They're sitting on a pile of cash, and the days of constant double digit growth are behind them. They are going to have to face up to the fact that they are a grown, mature company and their stock price is going to act accordingly.
That's what's driving their licensing debacle, BSA audits, etc. They've hit the wall in terms of market penitration on the desktop, they never achieved the "slam dunk/home run" domination of the server market they thought they would (not to mention where they do dominate there-- small print, file, web servers they've got linux/BSD nipping at their heels) and the X-box is going to put a hit on revenues for the next few years even if its a runaway success. Other than Web Sevices, which at best are a few years away, they have no room for massive growth.
So, if the stockprice ain't going up all that much they better start paying out on all that cash they're sitting on, or some investers are going to be none too happy.
(then again, I'm a code jockey, what the f**k do I know about finance)
Gates said: "Really, the reason you see open source there at all is because we came in and said there should be a platform that's identical with millions and millions of machines"
No, the reason you see open source is because people want the ability to customize code to their own personal needs without having to license said code from a monolithic company known for overcharging. Mr. Gates needs get rid of the god complex. Open source has nothing to do with identical desktops and everything to do with control of the code. This statement is just more overgrandizing and makes him look even more out of touch with the industry than he already is.
Electronic Frontier Foundation for online civil rights information
A: Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!
Q: Uh, never mind... please stop dancing around, Mr. Ballmer, and for god's sake, man, use some fuckin' anti-perspirant!
Surely he means popularity "feature"!
"Second, we know we need to continue to focus in on our relationship with our customers. This is an area where we need to be ever vigilant. Certainly, as Bill talked about, we have opportunities for improvement in security, in virus protection, in the way we license and sell our products, and the reminders on that are always in front of us." --Steve Ballmer
I think this pretty much sums up a lot of what is wrong with Microsoft:
1) Security
2) The way they license and sell products.
At least they are realizing that market opinion is starting to go against them, and are trying to change this. I don't love Microsoft, but if they started to change their licensing tactics, I would be more inclined to buy their products.
The PC platform that Gates is touting was created by IBM, not Microsoft. Sure, Microsoft software was running on all of them but what made it appealing was the low costs of the hardware which came about by IBM's rather loose licensing policies. It took a very long time for the PC to become vaguely usable, but it remained cheap and ubiquitous which is why it eventually came to dominate.
But Microsoft's position in that domination was, at best, an accident. They were in the right place at the right time and did a good job of screwing IBM. Credit to them for that, but not much else.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
If you were to distill the -essence- of what was said (especially on women on the Board and in the company), you'd end up with exactly nothing. Sure, they may be concerned about this, or feel strongly about that. I'll allow for that possibility. But feelings don't equate to action. They're just feelings, the same as "happy" and "sad".
Even the sweeping apparently-grandiose statements made wrt "Open Source" and "Free Software" really reduce to nil. Sure, they may have been a factor in the popularity of "Open Source". But there are probably as many coders inspired by a rainbow, or a fascinating geological formation.
In short, I have to give credit for an amazing non-statement, which said exactly nothing and offered nothing. However, the credit has a value of $0.00.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Yes, the Q&A was quite revealing. I think the open source question appeared to be basically ignored, politely.
The issue of women execs was also something you could tell they weren't going to address, which is very strange, in that most of Bill Gates foundation work has focussed on educating women and providing contraceptive measures for women in third-world countries.
As to China, this again was something that didn't seem to be that interesting to the execs.
Very disappointing responses, overall. One related news item in the Seattle P-I business section today noted that many MSFT employees have picked up their purchases of stock recently.
Does this mean we're nearing the bottom of the market, or that they know something we don't?
-
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
In answer to the question of why MSFT doesn't pay a "g**d damn dividend", it's pretty simple.
Look, MSFT is a shell company, one that permits Bill and Paul and a few other major shareholders to buy other companies. By maximizing the capital growth and having no dividends, they reduce their effective tax rate to 8 to 10 percent. Then they sell off a few shares and pay the 5 year capital gains tax on them, or sell the high purchase shares and keep the low purchase shares, thus getting a capital loss.
That's why there's no dividend.
Until MSFT becomes more like GE, where no single shareholder owns more than 20 percent of the stock, this will never change.
This is their way of avoiding taxes. People like me buy a mix of stocks - some dividend and some non-dividend - we use the non-dividend stock to go long on capital gains and thus reduce our tax hit (realized income) and use the dividends from the other stock (or bonds, PERQs, SPARQs, money market) to provide enough cash flow for expenses.
Thus we pay less tax than the working poor do. My realized income is very small. And so is Bill's and Paul's.
Unless you change the tax system, we'll keep doing things like that. There is no incentive to realize earned income, under the current system.
-
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Gates also took some credit for the genesis of open-source software. He said Microsoft made it possible by standardizing
computers: "Really, the reason you see open source there at all is because we came in and said there should be a platform that's
identical with millions and millions of machines," he said.
Well Bill, you're right. You are the reason for open-source software. Just not for the reasons you think you are.
Dick.
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
This is so funny. These guys really don't get it at all, do they? Dangerous for them.
In the pre-software vision is that there would be no jobs in the software industry, there would be no testers, no engineers, no taxes paid, or anything of that notion.
Well Bill, all of those things can still exist under an open source model, but it's a different model to yours. Can't you see that?
If there's a key learning for us, we can't have free software,
So, Steve, you're saying you're older and wiser than IBM? Than HP? Than Compaq, Sun, Dell, Intel and all the other companies that are contributing to the Open Source community and releaseing code under the GPL? I think not. They get it, you don't.
It's still in the early phases, but we are massively mobilizing to try to stimulate communities, support communities, and really, if you will, borrow one from their playbook.
Can anyone point me to any evidence of this? Really? I've honestly tried to find it. Are there disussion boards where developers can openly discuss Microsoft technologies, and MS engineers will chip in with comments? I've looked for that, couldn't find it.
The clock is ticking Steve, Bill. Let me spell it out for you: YOU DON'T GET IT! If you don't get it soon, you're going to slowly die. Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.
"MR. BALLMER: I just want to add one thing, echo what Bill said, but encourage you to go to our web site. If there's a key learning for us, we can't have free software, it's kind of inconsistent with the goals of most people in the room. We recognize it, it probably doesn't fit in most of these people's mind's eye, so we're not going to embrace that."
It's quite simple really. They tell shareholders what they want to hear and their shareholders don't want to hear about free software.. Yet! I've said it a hundred times: the free software revolution is in its infancy. When the 'critical mass' of OSS code base is reached, which is inevitable, Microsoft is going to have to innovate or die. Free and proprietary software are not complementary and they will not peacefully co-exist for much longer.
Microsoft has had a significant hand in creating a common PC platform, and their biggest "contribution" came first.
That contribution? Convincing IBM to license PC-DOS on a non-exclusive basis. That left Microsoft free to sell MS-DOS to clone makers.
With the same OS available, only the BIOS needed cloning in order to produce IBM compatible machines.
No noble intentions, but a very powerful coup.
we came in and said there should be a platform that's identical with millions and millions of machines, and the bios of that should be open to everybody to use
I kind of see what BG is saying here, that the free software movement couldn't have taken off without open, commodity hardware. This is wrong. The free software movement, as it came out of RMS and the MIT AI lab was a direct response to proprietary, closed hardware and software. The free software movement grew out of the tradition of open access to software and tools on very non-standard mini computer hardware.
In the early 80s when the FSF was founded, it was not clear yet that the IBM PC would be such a dominant force in the computing world. Commodity home machines aren't even mentioned in RMS's initial announcement. In fact, he is talking about replacing the system on very expensive, practically custom built machines, which were only found in universities and big businesses.
Sure, the pervasiveness of computing has been a major boost for free software, but this is a base rate issue (i.e., there are x free software users out of n*x computer users).
Take a gander at this excerpt: (emphasis added)
Sounds like ol' Billy has seen his doom coming, and it's the GPL!
Take a good hard look at that rambling morass of a quote, and you see the strategy (and the enormous depth of self-delusion) that will be driving Microsoft forward. Free-as-in-Beer, Good! Free-as-in-Speech, Bad!
In Bill's world, Free Software is fine as a toy, an interim solution, and educational tool, but it takes a company to turn it into something useful! Nothing good ever comes out of the commons!
Except, of course, the "Microsoft Commons". Funny, when was the last time community work became part of Microsoft, except by force?
And gee, where have we seen this attitude before?
How about in the actions of every tin-pot political dictator who tried to buy off the goodwill of his oppressed subjects with free goodies! The barbarians are howling at the Gates, and Bill is offering Microsoft's shareholders bread and circuses!
Funny thing Bill, those dictators don't have much of a track record....
Stallman (for all his faults and foibles) is the Martin Luther of the information age, and bill is the Pope. Quick - who can name the Pope who was in service when Luther nailed his manifesto to the door of the cathedral?
Me neither.
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
I can see it now... Microsoft meets Slashdot... Microdot, news for sheep, stuff that we think matters
I am not your blowing wind, I am the lightning.
Repeat after me. MSTDs. Lets get it to catch on. Just imagine how pissed Bill will be.
It occurs to me that maybe he should run for public office. His debate skills are most impressive. But then he'd probably find some way to oust the Chancellor, hunt down all the Jedi, and disband the Imperial Senate. (Can't you just see Ballmer jumping up and down in Vader's outfit? Tee hee hee.)
Let me start out, really the reason that you see open source there at all is because we came in and said there should be a platform that's identical with millions and millions of machines,
This is laughably wrong. RMS made the GPL and the Free Software movement in the early 80s, when Gates was still piddling around with DOS and saying that 640K should be enough for anybody. The actual movement started even earlier; the concept of open source predated commercial software.
In fact, there's a very virtuous cycle where people do free things, some people find that adequate, sometimes companies will take that work and turn it into commercial products, those companies will hire people, pay taxes. And so you see the free software and the commercial software existing together. There is a particular approach that breaks the cycle called the GPL
Gates apparently doesn't know what a "cycle" is. A cycle, by definition, has to link back up again with its origins, in this case, free software. Microsoft breaks the cycle by incorporating open source code into, for example, its TCP/IP stack. The GPL restores the cycle by requiring developers to give their changes back to the community.
In the pre-software vision is that there would be no jobs in the software industry, there would be no testers, no engineers, no taxes paid, or anything of that notion.
Tell that to Red Hat.
Here's a telling quote from Ballmer:
If there's a key learning for us, we can't have free software, it's kind of inconsistent with the goals of most people in the room.
In other words, Microsoft is against freedom in software. Remember, we're talking free speech, not free beer. So all this stuff about "Freedom to Innovate" is nothing more than a thinly veiled apologetic for Microsoft's business practices.
I interpret what really happened in this other way:
l ash-results
BALLMER: After 20 years of backstabing, copying other's innovations, playing Mafia-games with IT companies, abusing our consumers and stealing children's bubblegum, we have gotten a slap on the wrist by the DoJ. Surely this means something.
GATES: If I might add a few words...
BALLMER:, Sure, Bill, go on.
GATES: Our impressive innovation Laboratories -MS-iLabs , (c) (R) - show that actualy being nice to customers can help selling our product...
AUDIENCE: (gasps, mutted comments of surprise, a few horror screams)
BALLMER: Be quiet back there! It is true! You can get the results in ExcelXP format at dubya-dubya-dubya-microsoft-dot-com-slash-ilabs-s
GATES: In fact, in a demo-test carried over at Poukeespie-upon-Avon (Yorkshire, UK) with a cautive population, we discovered that WindowsXP-SE was being bought by people that had no history of verbal-and-phisycal abuse by part of our marketing representatives.
SOMEONE IN THE AUDIENCE: Don't you think that having both legs not-broken could help? I mean, last year, in the ASF file that you showed us about training methods for Microsoft Certified Marketing Representatives , they were being trained in "MS-Leg-Breaking-As-A-Buying-Stimulous 101". Maybe we should change this module to "MS-**ARM-TWISTING**-As-A-Buying-Stimulous 101" instead of playing nice...
AUDIENCE: Yeah! yeah! that sounds more sensible!
GATES: Please! Calm down! I personally worked with the MS-iLabs environment definition and I can assure you that the results are true!
AUDIENCE: but... but.... We Want Blood! We Want Blood! We Want Blood!
CATS: All Your Base Are Belong To Us!
CATS: Make Your Time!
BILL: HAHAHAHA
BALMER: Take Off Every ZiggyXP!!!!
The things that bothers me the most from the minutes of this shareholder meeting? The fact that only 8.9% of Microsoft shares (how many shareholders is that?) agreed that Microsoft should avoid engaging in deals with the Chinese Government that would result in further human rights abuses by the Chinese Government.
The attitude at the meeting seemed to me to be that "as long as we make a buck, we don't care."