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Ballmer Sends Wakeup Call to Staff
Puneet writes "An MSNBC article outlines details of how the world's biggest software company seems to be facing a technology gap. Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer of Microsoft, sent a memo across the company basically saying that with no immediate breakthroughs in technology coming, and with the Linux computer operating system and a batch of other open-source programs biting at its heels, Microsoft will have to do a better job of persuading customers it has something they need.
. Microsoft must "improve business consistency" so that customers are not hit with unexpected - and unwanted - changes. Also covered by Forbes but in lesser detail."
Microsoft will have to do a better job of persuading customers it has something they need
sounds like a few tobacco companies I know....
"get 'em hooked young, then they'll never stop!"
I'm sure if Microsoft could nicotine to a product, they would.
Mike
Much like Fox News. If you say it often enough, people will start to believe it.
Woo! Look at my Pulitzer!
...all of a sudden that iLoo isn't looking like such a bad idea...
Apparently their attempts to "improve business consistency" are nothing more than them patenting the very process (not the idea) of improving business processes by way of sending out company-wide memos. By this they hope to force other companies who wish to improve their own processes to pay a license fee to them. Dirty business, if you ask me.
If Microsoft emails keep leaking like this, it is about time they came up with a "Trustworthy employee" program before the "trustworthy computing" initiative.
.ACMD setaloiv siht gnidaeR
Microsoft must ÃâÅ"improve business consistencyÃâ so that customers are not hit with unexpected Ãââ and unwanted Ãââ changes.
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I assert that my comment is only my opinion, not that of any employer, past, present or future.
The new licensing is part of MS's 'Make Sure People Stop Using Our Stuff' strategy.
This strategy will, it is hoped, cut costs by up to 100%.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
I guess Steve Ballmer was right when he said that the open-source movement stifles innovation. I mean now Microsoft has to spend all that money telling us their products are great instead of coming up with the next Clippy.
"I'm tired of all this 'Aren't humanity great' bullshit. We're a virus with shoes" - Bill Hicks
Microsoft must âoeimprove business consistencyâ
The best way to improve "business consistency" is to stop upgrading your Microsoft products. Just keep them the same.
--Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
Better
Net
Accountability
Throughput
2
Keynesian
Equity
Efficiency.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
Ballmer is well known for blowing a lot of hot air, so it's often hard to know What Exactly He's Really Saying.
From this I know you are incorrect.He's the most lucid and clear guy I've ever seen. He even repeats it just in case you don't understand.
.ACMD setaloiv siht gnidaeR
"...with no immediate breakthroughs in technology coming..."
Translation: We've run out of other people's ideas to steal.
Ruby on Rails Screencast
Thanks. I'm still trying to 'beat the Slashdot game'. So far I have the pro-microsoft Insightful post, the anti-Macintosh Insightful post and the anti-Linux Interesting post. I'm still working on the +5 Troll post, then I would have collected them all.
...school sales literally kept [Apple] afloat while the IBM PC ate their lunches (...)
:P
What do you mean? They had swimming on their schedule or something?
I agree. I would guess that the average man in the street has first and foremost on his mind to get the hell outta the street...
Any sufficiently well-organized Government is indistinguishable from bullshit.
Longhorn will come when we think itâ(TM)s really ready.
Ehhh, isn't that the line for Duke Nukem (waiting) Forever? Trade secret infringment?
nothing more than about a 90MHz Pentium with 2GB of disk
You want to run OpenOffice.org (or current KDE or Gnome) on a 90Mhz pentium . That would be a good school distro. Start the computer when the child enters kindergarten, it will be up and ready sometime around graduation.
It's probably even money that they'll bow to internal pressure to get something out, sort of like a WinME for XP or something, a stop gap to make people buy something.
Otherwise, all those people who paid extra to be in the guarenteed update program will be upset, because it will become obvious that they are not getting very much for their money.
That's kind of the delema that they've painted themselves into. We will ship no software before it's time. But we've already taken people's money so that they can get implied promised upgrades.
Our father, who art in Redmond
Microsoft be they name
Thy monopoly come, thy will be done
throughout the earth as it is in the US.
Give us this day, our daily license activation key
And forgive us our bug reports
as we forgive our system crashes
And lead us not into competition
But deliver us from innovation
For thine is the Control, and the Power and the Greed
Forever. Amen.
Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!
I think the best idea would be for a brand new suite that integrates everything in 1 from microsoft! We can call it Microsfot Bob XP!!! :)
No I didnt spell check this post...
" . . . and with the Linux computer operating system and a batch of other open-source programs biting at its heels, Microsoft will have to do a better job of persuading customers it has something they need."
"I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid. You're afraid of us. You're afraid of change. I don't know the future. I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how it's going to begin. I'm going to hang up this phone, and then I'm going to show these people what you don't want them to see. I'm going to show them a world....without you. A world without rules and controls. Without borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible. Where we go from there, is a choice I leave to you."
"We've bought up all the good companies and stifled all other innovation; we're screwed unless we can come up with something original on our own!" -- "And no, buying Red Hat isn't an option!"
Good security is based upon reality and common sense. Common sense is a function of having common knowledge.
I need to sue SlashDot for all the Hot Coffee I spilt on myself laughing!!!
HenryJamesFeltus.com
I'm waiting for the day Microsoft jumps on the BSD bandwagon. They'll have an avatar for each of the Daemons in the system. The first dark one you see will be Charon the boatman, who takes your credit card info in exchange for passage to the underworld.
During operation, you will interface with Cthulu the resource manager. (Hell the task manager seems to consume averything available already.)
The messenger system will be the Roman god Rumor.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Our father, who art in Redmond
Microsoft be they name
Thy monopoly come, thy will be done
throughout the earth as it is in the US.
Give us this day, our daily license activation key
And forgive us our bug reports
as we forgive our system crashes
And lead us not into competition
But deliver us from innovation
For thine is the Control, and the Power and the Greed
Forever. Amen.
Okay. I am the source. I wrote this last year.
Copyright 2002 Danny Brewer
Use allowed under the Open Content license. How's that?
Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!
With dumbed down Linux distros it's simple to change the kernel and play around with the different GUIs.
"As the market for server technologies continues to diversify it is more important than ever that people with MCSE certification expand their knowledge base. Configuring and administering BSD and Linux servers and interoperating with the Microsoft server platform are skills no sef-respecting IT person should be without."
"Although we have a wide base of users now there is no guarantee that our market penetration will continue to expand, especially as more and more trend-setters in the enterprise sector awaken to the advantages of Open Source, Open Standards, and free alternatives to our overdesigned proprietary solutions."
He continued, "It may surprise you to know that at Microsoft we have many departments running Linux, BSD, and other Unix platforms on a day-to-day basis. Many of our programmers contribute to Open Source projects in their personal time. Historically we have discouraged this kind of activity, but we have had a culture shift in Redmond - an "Enlightenment" if you will. We have come to understand that communication between manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, support, and customers is the essential thing, and we can no longer narrowly focus on market dominance for its own sake."
"You may recall the embarassing flap over Open Source in Peru in which a local politician upbraided one of our representatives but good. We were essentially handed our hat on that one. At the time I was upset, Bill was upset; even Stuart Allchin - who normally shows no emotion at all - was clearly bothered by the incident. That politician, a Mister Villanueva, was the David to our Goliath, and it was a wake up call for us. Since then more and more governing bodies - from Germany to Italy to local, municipal, and state governments here in the United States - are mandating Open Source and Open Standards to meet their essential fiduciary responsibilities. We can't ignore the realities, and we have to face facts. Our software is slow to evolve and slow to recover when flaws are found. Security flaws aren't found as often or fixed as quickly as they could be. Open Source has a lot of lessons for our industry."
"We've been asked many times, by a large share of our user base, to open our software's source code and make it available so that they can customize it to their needs or address the flaws I mentioned. Up to now we've been very reserved about this. It goes back as far as Bill's open letter, where he defended his right to make a little money from programming. That was a big step, and in many ways it was the birth of Microsoft. That same ethos has guided our relationship with our partners and developers. Our partners expect to make money on our Windows platform, whether desktop or server, and they have been more than willing to give something back for the privilege. These partnerships are a continuous exchange of knowledge and innovation. Take a look in the back room of any respectable enterprise and you'll find the evidence. Thousands upon thousands of MSDN disks have been provided to developers over the years. Trillions of lines of source code have been provided to document our APIs and frameworks. The evidence can be weighed in tons."
"Where am I going with this? I'm not really sure. The culture of Microsoft has been sick for a long time. The problems we experience are endemic, and too numerous to list. Recent audits uncovered over twenty development projects and five whole departments we didn't even know existed. Obviously the reforms we need are deep. I hope we'll continue this dialogue for the sake of the whole information ecosystem."
"Normally I would take questions at this point, but I've run a little long and I'm late for my dance lesson."
-- thinkyhead software and media
...unexpected - and unwanted - changes You mean like the return of Microsoft Bob?