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Major Microsoft Re-Organization
Robert Scoble writes "Microsoft is unveiling a major reorganization today to help get Vista out the door. Some of the major changes include the appointing of three new officers to the three major divisions. The Microsoft Platform Products & Services Division will be led by Kevin Johnson and Jim Allchin as co-presidents; Jeff Raikes has been named president of the Microsoft Business Division; and Robbie Bach has been named as president of Microsoft Entertainment & Devices Division. In addition, the company said Ray Ozzie will expand his role as chief technical officer by assuming responsibility for helping drive its software-based services strategy and execution across all three divisions."
And wikipedia reported it before MS put it on the wire service.
There is some poor wording in the article, this actually appears to be 4 less business units over all, not 3 additional ones. There used to be seven.
How apt, because I'm struggling to see through the Microsoft PR to see what Vista really is.
_ 2005.asp
If you don't really know what Vista is, you should take care to not comment too much on its feature set like you do later on.
Anyway, here's some known so far non-cut features:
http://winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_preview
Suggested reading for Microsoft Management:
1 835959/103-6695899-7729413?v=glance
The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, by Fred Brooks. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/020
You've got a project at risk, scheduling and production issues, so the fix is to re-organize and add executive and middle-management incentives, as in:
If they meet incentive goals, the 120 or so vice-presidents will receive an eye-popping $1 million in salary a year, and general managers, the next level down, will get $350,000 to $550,000, according to a high-ranking source. But the rest of the staff is paid at market rates. -- Business Week
Granted, this upcoming train wreck will provide a certain amount of entertainment, but it will be pretty unpleasant to work through. Over a year of Death March time so your boss can get the Big Bucks. Eccch.
Infosys and Microsoft aren't in the same business. Outsourcer vs sw mfg.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
There are plenty of people still using Windows 98 and having a good time. Lord knows how they keep malware off their machine but they do it.
Speaking as someone who's still using Win98, it's actually quite easy -- keeping malware off my machine is why I haven't upgraded, and don't plan to. Simply don't use Internet Explorer, and don't use Outlook Express. Everything else just takes care of itself. 98 isn't like XP, where every service opens ports to the Internet at large.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
If this reorg. helps Ray Ozzie get control over the technical direction, that might make a big difference. Ray Ozzie (the technical mind behind Lotus Notes and Groove) is a true visionary. Probably no one knows more about the potential for SOA-based applications running over client/server and peer-to-peer networks.
...
Things could get interesting
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
You are correct. I'm not going to compare the last five years, since the economy had just taken a downturn and Apple's stock plummeted about five years, but if you look at the last two years, you see Apple doing amazingly well compared to Microsoft. Of course, in this time period Apple has released at least one new version of their operating system and sold lots of iPods, while Microsoft is currently between OS releases. Also, this isn't quite accurate because Microsoft has given its investors billions in dividends (Apple hasn't given out a dividend in a decade). I imagine Microsoft investors are envious of Apple's stock growth, even with the dividend.
Microsoft, no matter if we think it is taking a good route or bad, has remained relatively static in the market these last few years. Unlike Apple, it hasn't neared its all time high in a few years.
Andrew