Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft's Midlife Crisis
pillageplunder writes "This article from Businessweek covers the recent memo sent to all Microsoft employees by Steve Ballmer. Interesting tidbits through-out: how Microsoft will try to cut a Billion dollars in expenses, and its cost per employee is about $300K"
$300k per employee? I wonder how much of that is in weed.... could explain alot of things...
SysWear - Geek T-shirts (UK/Europe)
Perhaps Gates knew exactly when the right time to leave was :)
this article will be a troll fest. this post is a prime example. MICROSOFT SUCKS MICROSOFT SUCKS MICROSOFT SUCKS
i think steve ballmer reached his mid-life crisis long ago.
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
Dear Microsoft,
Welcome to the real world, where your stock does not grow 10,000% in a matter of a few years, and companies have to *gasp* cut costs, or perhaps even *bigger gasp* innovate, to keep their companies from falling flat on their face.
With much love(sorta),
The World
With $300K per employee and buck-saving concerns, they might as well migrate to Linux!
They can keep all thoses perks and crap.
It looks like the beginning of the end for the Redmond Gang.
Yes. If you use a geologic timescale.
immediately discontinue the "one dollar for each reported bug" program.
"Is this just useless, or is it expensive as well?"
Maybe if Ballmer wouldn't charge his dry cleaning to his expense account, they wouldn't be in such dire straights...
DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS!!!!
This space for rent
Now..now..play nice.
Everyone look at poor M$ in the corner, dying a slow death for the lack of another Billion in the bank.. Lets not let that happen..shall we..being the good neighbours we are..
So here is what I recommend.. The slashdot community will, painful as it is, will map out the various product lines of Microsoft with their perceived value, which needs to be truncated or snuffed out completely. Once we are all in agreement as to the total worth is a Billion, Cmdrtaco, the chosen representative, will submit said list to the powers that be (read: Balmy Balmer) for review and acceptance.
So get your thinking caps out, check your emotions , pay no heed to the thousands of M$ programmers who will obviously hate you for nixing their much loved products, let reason run rampant..and lets choose what Microsoft needs to put another Billion in the bank!
Rapid Nirvana
In other news, Microsoft is nearing the release of their two newest products: Microsoft Combover and Microsoft Penis Car
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
Why does somebody who has Windows 2000 need Windows XP?
Twice the eye candy, and its so much more powerful, you get to reboot twice as often.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
By switching to Linux and OpenOffice/KOffice on their desktops. Not their development or testing machines, but just their accountants, security team, and call centers.
Dang! Wait a sec...Windows and Office are free to them, so it only saves on the cost of anti-virus + downtime/patch maintenance, so that's probably only $50 per user or so.
Ok, ok, enough joking around. I hate to say it, but Microsoft needs to learn how to make a buck off of Linux. They could create their own distro and do their own API and app porting to it. For the same reason people love that OS X is built on *nix, people wouldn't mind a Windows built on it. The best of both worlds. Sign me up for that.
Thanks, you can have the podium back now.
-Patrick
"They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
Microsoft is dying.
Quick! Someone send Steve Ballmer a TCO study that shows how much money they will save if Microsoft migrates to Linux!!!
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
Well, that explains where the name "Longhorn" came from...
> Overlycompensated execs do tend to skew stats
-nod- As is often said, I and Bill Gates make an average of 2 billion a year, each.
25% Funny, 25% Insightful, 25% Informative, 25% Troll
So, when guys enter their midlife crisis they go out and buy a Porsche. Does that mean that Microsoft will go out and buy Porsche?
...The big thing is going to be Longhorn--that's why it's taking so long. WinFS, Avalon, whole new interface called Aero Glass, an entire .NET-based OS that replaces Win32, and so on...
I hear it's going ot come bundled with Duke Nukem Forever too.
...Rob
The American Dream isn't an SUV and a house in the suburbs; it's Don't Tread On Me.
...when they work nights and weekends patching wormed systems.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
rest assured that the race to innovate has just begun and we will pull ahead.
Hold the phone, did MS just admit they are behind at innovating?
Also, I'm glad innovation is now measured in how many times you can patent someone else's idea. How many of microsoft's recent patents are actually "innovative"?
Cuz us moron zealots seem to think a monolithic kernel that cant adapt without being recompiled is a fabulous piece of technology.
All respect to Linus, but the linux kernel is a piece of shit w.r.t desktop systems.
When next years motherboards, chipsets, sound cards, etc, come out, windows users will buy them and install drivers. Linux users will be up all night reading howtos, putting half-assed patches against obscure kernel versions,e tc..
Fuck linux.
Microkernels are the way of the future.
This is pure gold, so if this shows up on store shelves you heard it here first.
Re make Microsoft Bob! Excpet don't give it the same name or tag on an "XP", that would be a give-away.
How about "Microsoft Ballm"
Your interface is a broken-down old house where Ballm (the monkey) helps you find your documents and applications.
You need Ballm's help anyway, because the house was built with non-standard building materials. So there are locks that take keys that only Ballm has that you can't get anywhere else. Also if you want to try and fix the house up, its got screws and other fasteners that take tools with odd-shaped bits that you can't buy anywhere. But luckily Ballm is there to "help" you upgrade you to fasteners that take new tools. Which Ballm will rent(license) to you, he is really strict about not trying to duplicate the tools though.
Will your belongings be safe in your home? You bet! Ballm left all sorts of holes in the walls so you can see anyone who wants to come in. So you don't have to be ever vigilant over your belongings, Ballm offers to help keep the holes safe too. He doesn't really watch every hole though, just waits until someone tries to come/peep in one of them then decides how long he'll wait until he patches up that hole.
The funny fickle Ballm!
hmmm, maybe I will go patent this concept. Surely there is nothing in existance such as this!
Microsoft could save a lot in licensing fees if they just switched to Linux and OpenOffice.
Often one department in a big company "charges" other departments for accounting purposes. Perhaps the additional cost is the inter-department cost of licensing only Microsoft software.
When will Windows be ready for the desktop?
cost per employee is about $300K -- come on Microsoft wake up. Realize that if you used Linux your cost/license expenses would decrease and the amount of time having to patch/protect things from bad virsuii and bugs would be less.
A decent Linux setup could probably save you $30K/year/employee..
You are forgetting the cost of the software licences for all that stuff they have installed. Most of that software will be from Redmond, but some will be from SCO (hey, they paid a lot for those licenses so someone must be using something).
Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.
Then both of you should go back on your meds.
Complexity is Easy. Simplicity is Hard.
It's OK though because "640K ought to be enough for anybody".
>>In the past 6 years I've worked on 2 projects that were halted, because the product we were creating was added in to Windows. It's hard to sell a product that duplicates what comes in the OS itself.
You write bugs for a living? How cool is that?
Paper towels!?
Three jobs ago I work for a VP for complained rather bitterly about the amount of toilet paper we were using. While making sure to look directly at the two women in the office (out of about 15 guys), he warned quite seriously that "theft or overuse" of toilet paper would cause him to restrict what was made available.
Was very glad to leave that place.
KS
My open letter to Steve Ballmer:
Dear Mr. Ballmer,
As a scientist and developer developer developer developer, I believe I can answer some of your concerns:
I can sincerely assure you that I, for one, have never considered older (or newer, for that matter) versions of Microsoft Office and Windows good enough. Not even once. You can stop worrying about that.
Now, no matter how much you believe your developers developers developers developers to innovate innovate innovate innovate, saying the above as a company which, in fact, has never contributed a single notable innovation to any computer-related field... Well... What can I say? You are not only doomed. You are already dead.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
So how are things in the Bangalore call center?
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
Very good. Thank you. We only think in Java here, and this is fine.
We are currently creating a critical banking application out of parts we're reusing from other customers products, and open source solutions. We decided to skip several key requirements because we don't understand why the users would need them, and implementing them would not allow us to meet our deadline.
The reused parts, don't exatly fit the remaining requirements, and thus we're modifying the requirments to fit the components.
Just as long as we get a good build on August 1 all will be well. Thank you.
Cheers.
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Not far from the truth over there.
wbs.
Huh?