Ballmer: 'We'll catch Google'

An anonymous reader writes "Steve Ballmer was all about honesty when briefing partners in Sydney yesterday. Microsoft CEO's confessed the software giant's .Net strategy has come to a standstill, says he's accepted SQL Server's shortcomings and vowed to keep fighting search giant Google."

Comments

Microsoft is now irrelevent

[AKAImBatman]

"Take for instance the Siebel database. Now I've never used that interface. But I'd love to go to it and say 'who is the account manager for the Commonwealth Bank of Australia?'," Ballmer told the partners.

I can say one thing for sure. He's DEFINITELY never used the Siebel interface! ;-)

This article honestly sounds like Ballmer was getting a bit beat up by Microsoft's partners and shareholders. They've basically gotten him to admit that .NET is .NOT, Microsoft can't even search its own desktop (Quote: "It's important for people who search a corporate network,"), and that SQL Server development has ground to a halt (ceding victory to Oracle). He then goes on to make a set of pathetic promises ("In the next six months, we'll catch Google in terms of relevancy," and, 'This may be addressed in the next release [of SQL Server] in 18 months, Ballmer said, but conceded he "really didn't know",' and, "Government has really been pushing for stronger interoperability. We can't support open source, but we can support interoperability,") and say that Microsoft will never give up the fight.

I'm sorry, but Ballmer has effectively admitted that Microsoft is now irrelevent. He's trying to grip at pavement by muttering about interop and standards compliance. This is an amazingly similar situation to the introduction of Netscape Navigator. Microsoft almost missed the boat then, but managed to throw enough resources, money, and outright theft behind capturing the browser market. Microsoft's best attempts today only come out as a pathetic whimper. No super-search engine, no desktop search, nothing. If Ballmer was smart, he'd get his boys to activate the existing Databasse File System in NTFS, then use it to push Google and Apple away from the Desktop. Once solid in that area, they should tie it into their online search engine, thus using their desktop monopoly against their competitors.

On the bright side, I am quite glad that Microsoft isn't that good anymore. At the very least, they have to watch where they step with the justice department looking over their shoulders. :-)

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[C. Mattix]

No. He isn't admitting that MS is irrelevent. He is admiting that MS is losing in places, hence has competition, hence is not a monopoly. MS NEEDS to look like they are losing a bit, because when they were winning everything (in the eyes of many people) they were getting attacked.

Saying things like that are a calculated gamble, words like that can send stock prices down, so there has to be a reason for it. "Honesty" aside, it is business.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Dukael_Mikakis]

Not quite irrelevant.

Perhaps not right now on the forefront, but if there's any company that can quickly push themselves into relevancy it would be Google and then Microsoft. Even Oracle with all of their megalomaniacal acquisitions can't quite push themselves into the application software market.

I'm not an MS fan by any measure but keep in mind they still dominate the OS market and even if our user environment can eventually be run by web apps, we'll still need an OS to get there. (Though many workplaces don't bother to upgrade their Windows versions with new releases)

While here Ballmer doesn't seem to be convincing anybody of MS's relevance, I wouldn't underestimate MS. They've shown that they can be moderately relevant in many markets if they throw enough cash at their project (and cash they do have). The X-Box, for example.

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[Kineticabstract]

Heh.

According to Google, Peter Ulm is the Microsoft account manager for Commonwealth Bank.

http://www.google.com/search?biw=1272&hl=en&q=micr osoft+who+is+the+account+manager+for+the+Commonwea lth+Bank+of+Australia&btnG=Google+Search/

Google knows all. Who needs a M$ solution?

Re:Microsoft is now irrelevent

[hey!]

Ballmer may really believe that Longhorn is going to take the world by storm, but my gut feeling is that Microsoft is doomed to irrelevency

The way it was doomed to irrelevancy becuse the Internet was going to become the platform?

Longhorn will be more of the same, with no acknowlegement of the paradigm shifts Apple is pushing onto the desktop and Google is pushing into Internet apps

Microsoft is a weird schizo kind of company. In its core business, it destroy all rivals because it is not tech driven -- it's driven by pragmatism. Competitors waste time money and effort trying to steal Microsoft's cash cow, but the barn is so well managed that they can only look at it from the outside, actually from a trailer park in the next county, where their perpetual motion driven milking machines are doomed to decay into rust.

On the other hand, Microsoft has plenty of Rube Goldberg plans of its own, for things like music subscription services and the like, that are totally tech driven and completely people unsaavy. And they have money to spend on these things. It's like they've corralled all those dangerous geek impulses in a safe area well removed from the barn. It's dreadfully inefficent to spend your time on these things, but sustained compound growth covers a multitude of sins.

That's all in the past though. The thing though that may doom them is coping with maturity. The change they need is not technological, it's cultural. There is no prospect of tech adoption driven growth like they had in the 80s and 90s, where customers needed desktop systems literally by the truckload, and MS could provide software which while never particularly good, was good enough and the cheapest way to equip entire corporate divisions at a time.

(1) It is precisely becuase MS was NOT innovative that customers turned to them. Peple had a big transformation to manage, didn't want anything fancy or expensive to get in the way, and tolerated all kinds of technical, aesthetic and cultural deficiencies along the way. In this situation, it was the rate of technological adoption that mattered more than anything else. Finesse was not required or particularly appreciated.

(2)That problem is obsolete, so MS's corporate culture is obsolete. Notice Google's motto. Bad boys with attitude aren't wanted or admired by MS's customer base.

(3) A tech oriented make-over of MS based on innovation is a fantasy. An infantile fantasy: the kind that you're supposed to grow out of. They have a great business now, they just need to update it for the needs of 2005 instead of the needs of 1985.

(4) To do this, they need to become their customer's best friend, not the devil you know. People now have more time to be skeptical and demanding than they used to.

(5) Ambition is fine in a top dog manager, but it can't go naked. Gates's testy, irritable drive for world domination does not fit the bill, nor does Ballmer's outsized, sweaty antics. Somebody a bit more suave would be nice. Appointing a European might be a good move, not because Europeans are smarter than us, but because it would signal a new, outward looking perspective.

You can see good things and bad things about Ballmer's attitude here. You can't say they're not self-critical. The question is -- are they asking the right questions?

its not going to work

[bigwavejas]

Folks..

It's not gonna work. Why you ask???

Because he failed to fire off this attack at Google with the passion and ferociousness ROAR!!! (Look Ma I'm a Lion) of some of his past over-the-top WWF wrestler/ MS superhero assaults like Windows 1.0 release http://www.dataflo.net/~mpurintun/videos/microsoft _Ceo.wmv or (Get on your feet) http://www.danzfamily.com/videos/videos05/dancemon keyboy.mpeg I suggest he get back on track with some hardcore dancing and screaming, maybe a body suplex or two where he's GUARANTEED success!! ...or a brain explosion. (We can only pray for the latter.)

Peter Principle.

[jcr]

If there was ever a clear-cut example of someone in over his head, it's Ballmer. If he hadn't been BG's college buddy, he'd be running a Denny's restaurant somewhere.

-jcr

Catch Google?

[Mz6]

Dog: I'll catch my tail

Obligatory Bin Laden parallel

[Creosote]

"In the next six months, we'll catch Google in terms of relevancy". --Steve Balmer, 27 June 2005

"The U.S. military is 'sure' it will catch Osama bin Laden this year, perhaps within months, a spokesman declared Thursday". --Associated Press story, 30 January 2004

Fighting on too many fronts

[nurhussein]

Microsoft has SQL server, yet it's not a database company so it can't quite beat Oracle. Microsoft has MSN search, yet it's not a search company so it can't quite beat Google. Microsoft has .NET, and maybe that *is* their turf, creating software infrastructure, but now Ballmer says they it's a standstill. It may be one of the richest companies in the world, but jack of all trades is still the master of none. There was a time when they could push an inferior product because it was priced cheaper than the specialised stuff and it was "good enough", but that's changing too since now OSS is the cheapest software provider, and even if some of it doesn't have as much features as M$'s offerings (such as Openoffice vs. MS Office), it can be free/dirt cheap and still be "good enough".

So yes, M$ isn't going away, but it's not going to rule with absolute power either, and they're unhappy about the latter. Well, tough shit :)

Re:Google + Jabber + OS?

[Mr Pippin]

Hardly. It would take more than that to successfully dethrone MS from the Desktop. The following items (not all included, but important, none the less)

Unified Application Architecture
Application Interoperability
Legacy Application Support (Win32)
Desktop Office Software Solution
3rd Party Hardware Support
Game Publisher Support
Seamless platform transition ability for business users

All of these need to be at or above existing accepted Desktop standards before you can reasonably hope to unseat Microsoft.

Re:Peter Principle - Maybe

[Strudelkugel]

Your post was modded funny, but I think you point out a serious fact: Ballmer just isn't up to the job of being Microsoft CEO. That doesn't mean he isn't a smart individual, or very capable in some ways.

Think about Apple, Oracle, maybe even Linux development as managed by Torvalds - What would happen to any of these organizations/efforts without the people who were central to their creation and success? (We know what happened to Apple.) Getting back to the corporate example, as big as these organizations are, one person at the top can make a huge difference, for good or bad. Look what happened to DEC, Wang Labs, IBM, AT&T when the chief exec went pear-shaped.

It's also quite possible to go from bad or mediocre to good - Note Yahoo! before Terry Semel, GE before Jack Welch, Chrysler before Iaccoca. Of course /. is focused on technology, so the tendency is to believe the success or failure of a company is almost completely dependent on the quality of its product technology. I think it is much more dependent on the leadership of the company (like anything else, sports teams, politics, military, etc.) /.-ers post about the various OSS personalities, but discuss Microsoft and Apple almost exclusively in terms of their tech. Gates is a brilliant guy, Jobs is a brilliant guy. Ballmer was never the right choice as Microsoft CEO IMHO, but I don't know who is. I don't know who could replace Jobs, either. I'm sure there are people who would be great CEOs of both companies. I'm guessing Ballmer is on his way out. The big question - What will Microsoft do when it does have the right CEO?

Re:Ballmer hurts his own credibility

[lightknight]

Because Google is Netscape reincarnated. After you stop laughing, think about it.

With Netscape, it was essentially all about the web.

With Google, it is essentially all about the web.

Problem for MS is that if focus shifts from the OS to the web (Google will run on any OS), then they quickly become irrelevant. Companies will write web apps instead of regular apps. Ties loosen.

Google is starting to spread out into some of Netscape's old areas (server software). As long as they are ahead of MS, MS will see them as a viable threat.

You do remember that Netscapes whole goal was to move everything onto the web, and leave the user with (essentially) a thin client. That is why MS treated Netscape as such a dangerous competitor (and went ballistic). The same strategy MS is trying now, and the same strategy Google may succeed at.