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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
To back up this new push to promote a more customer-friendly Microsoft, Ballmer promised that the company would âoeincrease our advertising budget significantly for all our audiences.â
This pretty much sums it up.
An equal headline and probably more accurate one would be "MS launches new media campaign to portray company as customer-friendly".
All marketing, no real changes.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
...all of a sudden that iLoo isn't looking like such a bad idea...
If Microsoft emails keep leaking like this, it is about time they came up with a "Trustworthy employee" program before the "trustworthy computing" initiative.
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More than anything, Microsoft has really hurt itself through it's new licensing plan -- and this with a competitor who offers an initial software cost of zero. That defies market logic -- to raise your prices when faced by a seemingly lower cost competitor. It almost forces the hands of IT engineers (who already face much tighter budgets) to consider open source solutions instead of Microsoft when they need an implementation of, say, an extra file and print server to hold all of the new graphics files generated by the marketing department.
At the end of the day, it is money that makes the corporation go 'round. And, if I can offer my management and users a better solution that costs less money, it is in my absolute best interests to do so.
First he identifies a problem - Microsoft has no new and innovative ideas for improving their products.
Then he comes up with the perfect solution - "improve business consistency!" The best way we can serve our customers is by not introducing any new and innovative ideas to improve our products!
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Knowing the "mess" they're in and fixing it has always been one of their strong suits. When they released Windows 3.x and found lukewarm support by WordPerfect and Lotus, they admitted it and took a course of action to correct it. When they realized they were too late in jumping on the Internet bandwagon, they admitted it and started development on a browser to compete with Netscape. Now, they realize that they are falling behind in the security and "features people need" area and will most certainly strive to correct the situation. So, don't just sit back, point your finger, and laugh; take a good look within the open source world and see what needs fixing.
I think it's odd the article doesn't mention apple. Sure GNU/Linux is the most immediate server threat, but apple is more likely to threaten the desktop. Also, no mention of software solutions threat (IBM, etc).
-t
http://unmoldable.com W:"No one of consequence" I:"I must know" W:"Get used to disappointment"
Note particularly:
1980: Bell Labs finally shows interest in BSD Unix
-and-
1991: 05Oct: linux 0.02, first mention of directory-name 'linux' on netnews
"Longhorn will come when we think itâ(TM)s really ready.
you have to wonder whether he thinks some of the changes are too extreme and possibly of little value to the user.
__
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First, Microsoft should dump all money losing divisions. As I'm sure everyone here has heard, Microsoft's OSes and Office products generate over 80% profits, which the company uses to fund losers such as WebTV, MSN, the Xbox, etc.
By dumping those loses, Microsoft could drastically drop prices AND continue making the same profits. I'd be a win-win situation.
Second, drop product activation. No one likes being treated like a criminal. And as I've written here before, product activation does NOT stop real piracy, i.e., piracy for profit. The ISO for XP Professional was readily available and instructions for installing SP1 were easy to follow via tweaktown.com's instructions. Simply put, pirates were still able to copy and sell XP Pro without ANY impediment.
The real purpose of product activation is to stop friends and family from sharing copies. If Microsoft's software was lower in price, (see my first point) people would simply buy their own copy.
Third, stop the egregious software assurance type deals that only serve to piss off your customers. If you really want Linux to fail, stop giving your customers a reason to use it!
Fourth, stop with those outrageous deals to stop Linux. You know the ones, when India, China, or Germany wants to switch to open source, Microsoft bends over backwards to give practically free software. This totally pisses off customers paying way too much via software the draconian deals imposed in my third point. Secondly, it gives them an incentive to look into switching to Linux.
Fifth, stop using the BSA police to force deals. When public schools canâ(TM)t afford your software, donâ(TM)t send the police force a deal. When I didnâ(TM)t buy a GM car, they were kind enough NOT to send the police to check out my garage. We expect the same courtesy from Microsoft!
Sixth, I could go on and on and on. But since my boss expects me to work for money, Iâ(TM)ll quit here and let others post some suggestions.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
The issue for Microsoft is that to keep their stock prices high, they've got to show continually rising sales.
.NET - next big thing....
But they're not going to convince anyone to switch to MS product at this point...everybody already runs a MS OS or MS Office, so there's no growth there. The market has matured.
The server market has slow turnover, and growth will come slowly there (if at all).
I see them doing two things:
1) Putting license key schemes in place on their OS's, this will get a marginal revenue increase by eliminating the bulk of casual piracy for the OS
2) I imagine the same thing will happen with MS Office soon
3) Hope to god the console business takes off...
4) Come up with a DRM scheme and convince the record companies and users its a good thing. Unfortunately, they don't have a good reputation as a strategic partner.
5)
6) Palladium - next big thing....
I mean, Ballmer's right, there's nothing there that will mean a big revenue increase for MS; its just a lot of nibble around the edges.
Frankly, MS would have been better off splitting into an application company and an OS company; each individual company would be forced to innovate and take chances. But as they are now, MS is a very very conservative company, and that's not going to lead them to any big breakthroughs.
They are equal to IBM in 1975.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
The article says that Ballmer plans to "increase our advertising budget significantly for all our audiences". Does anyone else see that as treating the symptom rather than the disease? The point of the article was that Microsoft doesn't seem to have anything to persuade people to buy its products, so instead of INNOVATING, they're going to "persuade" people that they need Microsoft. The problem isn't that people don't need Microsoft, the problem is that Microsoft isn't creating anything new and exciting in the computer world... and increasing the advertising budget by all the money in Fort Knox isn't going to change that.
"It's better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it." ~ Christian Slater, True Romance
There are several important differences between how
Sorry, I haven't seen a failure of .NET. I'm just curious where you're looking. I work for the US Army Corps of Engineers, and we use the heck out of .NET and everyone loves it. There is some Java development here, too, but most of our new stuff is in C# (which is, of course, essentially a Microsoft-ized Java).
.NET on a regular basis. Personally, I think it's great.
I haven't heard any complaints from people who use
I've had more people thank me profusely when I've handed them a copy of Open Office, just because they didn't have to shell out big bucks for the MS product. They didn't even know an alternative was available.
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.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Apple may be marginalized, but they're the ones on the consumer end who keep building the bridges Microsoft has to walk across. No new technology coming forward? Apple built their own with the iPod. They were late to the game with iTunes, granted, but iPhoto, iMovie and iDVD are still leaps and bounds ahead of any competition in terms of ease-of-use.
The "digital hub" strategy they're embracing is working very well for Apple. The only problem, natch, is that digital camcorders (and camcorders and DVD burners) are still too expensive to be casually embraced by most consumers. But then, prices are getting lower all the time -- simple digital cameras under $100 are easy to come by, and used iPods can be found on eBay for as low as $100-$150. Apple knows that people are doing less and less with their personal computers but more and more with the other "computers" around them, and constantly works on ways to tie those peripherals to Apple's hardware and software.
What Microsoft ought to be throwing it's money towards, then, is building easy-to-use consumer software that consumers actually *want* to use, not because they're gimmicky but because they're easy to understand. Media Player is a good start. Their video editor needs much work, and integrating it with the ever-cheaper DVD burners and VideoCD writers could only help them.
Then let's try some new ideas, just to see if they take off. Skip the Tablet PC thing; build a cheap (like $50-$60) e-book reader that people can actually afford and will want to own, then get the magazine and newspaper publishers to sign on. Try to really integrate webcams and IM. A Flash-format animation creator for under $50 so people can make their own cartoons. They don't have to give this stuff away with the OS, if they make it cheap enough to buy separately. (I'm keen on that $50 price point, which is the most your average consumer will spend on non-profit-making software.)
Microsoft is, IMO, so bent on keeping the business markets that they've all but neglected their consumer market. Aside from some pretty colors, self-customizing menus and Apple-chasing software hacks, they've not done anything new for the home market since Windows 95 was released. It's good for them to spend time building tools that developers and managers want to have, but it helps their image immensely to add the stuff home users would want to have -- even if they don't make as much profit from it.
Joe Sixpack has one feature that Microsoft doesn't want to exploit: he's cheap. Sure, he'll plunk down $50.00 for a game (repeatedly) but when you ask him to fork over $279 for Office (which sounds a lot like "work") he's more likely to take a second look before shelling out that kind of dough.
Throw in the added whining 10-year-old "but Dad, I need Word for my schoolwork, teacher says" and you've got additional friction.
I see a big void out there waiting for the Open Office crowd to step in: offering "Schoolwork CDs." It worked very well for Apple in the 80s; school sales literally kept them afloat while the IBM PC ate their lunches in the business world. Picture a schoolful of kids, all needing (yes, needing) an MSWord-compatible word processor for their home computers for their schoolwork. Now picture the local PTA volunteers burning 300 copies of "Open Office for Windows for Schools" with SIMPLE installers, and offering them to parents gratis. Would they still fork over $179 for "Office XP for Students and Teachers" if free disks are lying on a table at the exits? Or would they start seeing Open Source as a viable alternative to All Things Microsoft?
And for those parents who can't afford the latest equipment, a Linux For Schools distro could be put together that specializes in offering only the stuff people need for schoolwork: Open Office, Mozilla, etc. No check boxes for servers, no configurations other than a time zone. For that matter, a "Configure Your Own Linux For Schools Distro" distro could be put together for the PTA crowd. It would allow the novice to input the schools name, a few bitmaps of the school logo at various resolutions, time zone, etc., and produce an ISO ready for handing out at the meetings. It could even print a disc sleeve that lists minimum computer required. That would need to be nothing more than about a 90MHz Pentium with 2GB of disk that can be had for about $20.00 from a junk trader. Hell, the PTAs invovled could probably get old PCs donated from the more "technologically current" families that they could preinstall and offer to the less affluent students or schools. I know I have a basement full of ancient PCs that aren't improving with age.
Damn. I'm thinking this sounds pretty good...
John
Microsoft will have to do a better job of persuading customers it has something they need
How can you be this smart and this delusional at the same time? You want to make Linux functionally irrelevant as a business OS? Here are some **REAL** ideas off the top of my head:
1) Abandon Palladium. We really don't want to use our PCs to watch movies - we have $50 DVD players for that -- see #3. 'Nuff said.
2) For that matter, your EULAs are WAY THE F___ OUT OF CONTROL. "Hmmm, it sure is an important OS security patch, but damned if I'm gonna install it because it sez right here that doing so gives MS the right to control my PC." I don't care what you *intend*, that's what it sez. If you want to control what's on my PC and what I can do with it, then you buy it for me, Mkay?
3) Quit stalking your customers like a collections company. Abolish Open Licensing 6.0 and this *STUPID* software-by-subscription idea of yours. (If you want me to re-buy your software every year, those annual subscription fees are going to have to be lower -- a **LOT** **F___'IN** **LOWER**. Office '95 was good enough for me.
4) Admit that your security problems are a direct result of your insistance in violating the #1 rule of software design: YOU NEVER MIX CODE AND DATA TOGETHER. You have specifically engineered every product you sell to be scriptable. STOP IT! Remove the OS-level scripting capabilities from your products and provide patches to your current customers to do the same on previous versions.
5) You guys are acting like the software engineering divisions at HP! Stop trying to improve things that don't need improving and realize that the only perfection is simplicity. Go out and play some golf, maybe take some dancing lessons.
Sure, I like Linux, but I also like Windows. My problem is that even though I have already given you my hard-earned money many times over, I feel like you've nailed a bulls-eye on my back and handed out shotguns to all your beer-swilling pals.
I am exploring alternatives because sticking with you is like being a hostage (as in gun-to-the-head) in a car speeding down a desert highway. If I jump out, it'll hurt, but once I stop rolling, get up, brush myself off and walk back to town, I'll be in control again.
Wow, not-so-ironically, it **really** **is** much more about 'freedom' than 'free'-dom.
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
"...with no immediate breakthroughs in technology coming..."
Translation: We've run out of other people's ideas to steal.
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i think joe sixpack isn't the problem
all they do is using their computer for surfing web and writing letters
the problem is the user between geek and sixpack
he wants to do things himself say install a printer, software, install new graphic card drivers maybe even replace his graphic card
but he has no deeper knowledge of the system
for this user linux is to complex to do such tasks (in sufficient time)
it is the point where windows has the biggest advantage to linux
stop supporting microsoft with pirating their software!!!!!
"...companies have turned to Linux and other open-source software programs, seeing them as cheap but adequate alternatives."
I'd amend this to say companies find that Linux and Friends aren't just "cheap but adequate." Instead, we find on the server side that they are cheap, rock solid, effective, and simple. In my opinion, Microsoft does do many things well. But MS continues to believe that "featurization" is what companies want, and that corporate types will see additional features as being worth additional time, trouble, and money. What MS might finally be seeing is that more feature-laden, more trouble-prone, and more expensive is NOT what we're looking for. Open Source code should serve as a model for Microsoft, at least in the back office, because it's written by geeks, for geeks. And, obviously, it works.
It's only funny until someone gets hurt. Then, it's hilarious.
...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?
" . . . 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."
You seem to have a couple things confused. I could be mistaken, but it looks that way.
;)
Taking forever to choose a platform for graphics and sound isn't a product of compatibility, it's a product of choice. I know that's a foreign concept to a lot of computer users, so I'll explain. You see, in an efficient marketplace, there are generally several competitors, all who have their respective strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes, it will take a customer more than half a second(!!) to decide, based on these strengths and weaknesses, which is fine, because in that way, mulitple products(now, this is the important part now) can co-exist because not every customer has the same requirements. To put this in a less abstract way, look at your grocers juice aisle, at the orange juice. Odds are, there might be Sun Rype, Dole, Minute Maid and Sunkist, all in the same aisle. They don't stock them all because it's the idealistic thing to do, they do it because some people have different goals and different desires.(My personal favourite is Sun Rype, because the rest taste like orange peels).
As for the installer, last time I checked, Linux was not Red Hat. Mandrake, for instance, has an installation from scratch that puts the Windows 2k or XP installations to shame in terms of allowing the beginner to install the product without knowing a thing, yet allowing experts to delve into details.
I wouldn't really argue that Linux is technically superior in every way to Windows, as there are a few features which I think windows does better than the Linux platforms I've seen(and I doubt that will change until the 2.6 kernel is released and bundled into new distributions), but you haven't given an example otherwise. The lack of choice on the Windows platform and the fact that you don't think the installer is simple enough are not technical reasons Windows would be superior to Linux. They're pet peeves at best, and massive misinterpetations of what exactly "Linux" is at worst.
Great idea using the old "I'll probably get modded down for saying this" bluff. Gets 'em every time. Weakminded fools. Though I'll probably be modded to hell for saying that.
It's been a long time.
I need to sue SlashDot for all the Hot Coffee I spilt on myself laughing!!!
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