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Ballmer Speaks on His Solo Act
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "In his first one-on-one interview since Bill Gates's retirement announcement, Steve Ballmer tells the Wall Street Journal he is bullish on Microsoft's investments in online services, and he dismisses as 'random malarkey' the idea that Microsoft is having trouble hiring and keeping the kind of brilliant employees that have always been the company's competitive weapon. Here's Ballmer on Gates's departure: 'As co-leaders of the business, I could allow Bill to be the full-time champion of innovation. And [now] with me really being the guy who's here every day running the place, I must be the champion of innovation.' And on competing with Google: 'We're going to compete. We're going to be in the online business. We are going to have a core around online. We're going to be excellent. That, I would tell people, to count on...'"
Apparently this is as close to admission that they're not presently excellent as we can hope for.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
I thought he spoke about His Solo Monkey Dance Act!
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
I must be the champion of innovation
Isn't that spelt
I must wait for someone to do something clever and then rip it off
Summation 2
The Lone Ballmer toure plans to play 30 venues in 90 days, with 3 nights at each. It will feature such classics as "Developers, Devolpers" along with new hits such as "I'm Gonna Fucking Kill $FOO", a scale model of Stonehenge built from office chairs and Ballmer himself dressed in Andre the Giant's classic leotard.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
We're going to compete. We're going to be in the online business. We are going to have a core around online. We're going to be excellent.
(howard dean voice) YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGGGGGHHH
Come on guys, don't be so rude!
He will take all his developers ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drLO_LG0W9w ) and he will what he says.
By most accounts, Mr. Ballmer is little more than a boorish yahoo who happened to be in the right place at the right time. This interview does nothing to dispel such an impression.
I could allow Bill to be the full-time champion of innovation. And [now] with me really being the guy who's here every day running the place, I must be the champion of innovation.
When Bill was being the "innovative" guy, they generally resorted to copying existing products or entering markets that others had already proven to be successful. Is Steve saying that his approach to "innovation" is a step behind even that?
This guy's the limit!
Steve Ballmer, from TFA: "When did China get great? China didn't get great under Mao Zedong. China got great under -- in the recent years -- probably got great under Deng Xiaoping."
I'm skating on the edge of Godwin, but... it's kind of scary when the head of an organization such as Microsoft cites a totalitarian government as an example of greatness.
Now that Gates is leaving, will we be replacing the classic "We are Microsoft, you will be assimilated" logo for Microsoft stories? Would we have a Borg Ballmer? A Chair-Throwing Ballmer? Just a M$ in large font?
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
That's where they're going to get their money.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
What, pray tell, is the point of these interviews with people eager to sell shiH^H^H^stuff and raise stock prices?
Does he shoot Greedo first?
I would be a bit worried about Microsoft now that Bill is leaving. I would be worried that a 'geek' has left the innovation chair and is now being turned over to a businessman. That's pretty dangerous, not because he *is* a businessman, but because he is no technological visonary, ie. Steve Jobs.
We're all hypocrites. We all have hidden parts, it's the contrast between them that make us more a hypocrite than others
he dismisses as 'random malarkey' the idea that Microsoft is having trouble hiring and keeping the kind of brilliant employees that have always been the company's competitive weapon.
"That's random malarkey! Who needs brilliant employees when we have chairs as our new competitive weapon.", Ballmer responded.
He is seriously one of the most egotistical people in corporate America. Somebody needs to take him down a peg. Someone like Steve Jobs or Linus Torovalds is just the person. He has this unshaking conviction that his products are the best and can't be convinced otherwise. Once upon a time this was true, but now it hurts them because they refuse to learn from their users, competitors (no, this does not mean steal, at least not intrinsically), and the changing times. Oh well, it simply hurts him, nobody more.
Crap. This does hurt other people. In fact, everybody. Damn. Well...
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
With a picture of a chair.
Task Mangler
Yeah, I think we can all agree that orderly, predictable malarky is much preferable.
This space intentionally left (almost) blank.
Am I the only one that thinks Bill Gates is getting out of the business before Google embarrasses them so that He can blame the company's failure on Ballmer? Think about it. Under Bill Gates Microsoft is a multi-national; multi-billion dollar business. Under Ballmer they get pummeled by Google and Mozilla. Thus, Gates preserves his image as a brilliant mind and doesn't expose himself for being nothing more than a lucky, opportunistic, proprietor hack.
Having talked to and read many Microsoft's comments/feelings about the company's future, almost universally there is an impression that for Microsoft to get back to a healthy growing company Balmer needs to go - yesterday if possible.
I get the impression that most people up in Redmond have accepted the fact that Microsoft is going to shrink with the increasing tidal wave of open source/Linux/OpenOffice/OpenDocument use taking place across the computing world. They want to get it over with and move on and find Microsoft's new place in the computing world.
They want Balmer gone and everyone else that is sympathetic to him. They want a complete house cleaning at Microsoft from top to bottom clearing out the massive amount of dead wood that has accumulated over the past decade there.
They want to see fiascos like the Xbox project and all the other marketplace failures terminated.
They want to show the world they can compete on product quality and make Microsoft a respected company in the computing world.
May sound funny to people who consider Microsoft products garbage, but I can see how someone working there would have this attitude these days given the history of the company.
Your phrasing is just as valid.
I talk about stuff.
'And [now] with me really being the guy who's here every day running the place, I must be the champion of innovation.'
QED
Developers Developers Developers Developers!
Badass Resumes
First, Microsoft itself prefers to use Google: http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/06/22/02
Then, Microsoft "warns google away": http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/16/20432
After that, they change their mind and are going to allow competitive search: http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/19/21
And now, they are going to
What's going to be next?
I don't about you, but my check book isn't that big
http://www.asti-usa.com
I heard before that MS employees almost never get a raise though, as compared to how often people with similar jobs do. So it's not necessarily how much they make that is an issue, but how much their pay continues to raise in relation to the economy.
"if only i had known i would have been a locksmith." -albert einstein
Bill Gates, champion of innovation? And Microsoft's competitive advantage is its brilliant employees? (Not to knock their employees, but somehow I don't think that's their real competitive, or shall we say, anti-competitive advantage.)
Favourite quote "There are very few areas where, except for Microsoft Bob, we haven't succeeded or where we're [still] telling you we are going to succeed" .NET, which continues to languish behind Java as a development platform, and where most of the strategy has never been developed, I can't think of single counter example.
Well apart from the Xbox division, which continues to haemorrhage money, MP3 players, where you're yet to make any serious impression, search, where Google and Yahoo continue to dominate, packaged enterprise applications, where SAP and Oracle dominate, Business Intelligence, where BusinessObjects, Cognos and SAS continue to dominate, and
Actually the tanks didn't roll over him. They stopped for about 30 minutes. The Unknown Rebel then disappeared into the crowd and no-one knows who he is or what happened to him.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man
I'll probably be modded down for this...
Why does Microsoft think that they have to compete with Google? M$ makes its money off of office and windoes, while google does searches. Sure, if google gets a good office product out there then M$ should worry about it, but I don't see google competing with windows.
-WolvesOfTheNight
Steve Ballmer tells the Wall Street Journal he is bullish on Microsoft's investments in online services, and he dismisses as 'random malarkey' the idea that Microsoft is having trouble hiring and keeping the kind of brilliant employees that have always been the company's competitive weapon.
In other words, Steve Ballmer tells his shareholders exactly what he thinks they want to hear. Or what he wants them to hear so that they keep buying stock. Kind of like how our builders told us 9 months ago that our townhouse will be ready in 3 months.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
Am I the only one reminded of The Brillant Paula Bean
I'm scared of numbers that can't be written as a fraction. It's an irrational fear.
They talk about some specific thing they personally want to do.
BIll Gates didn't say "I want to make innovative software," he said he wanted a computer on every desk and Microsoft software in that computer.
Edwin Land didn't say "I want to develop innovative imaging-related products for the consumer and technical markets," he said "Marketing is what you do when your product is no good" and "The bottom line is in heaven."
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Meh. I don't dabble in blue sky. I use Linux on my desktop. And barely use the konsole.
Linux IS ready for the desktop, and now awaits only adoption.
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No chairs were hurt during the taping of this interview.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
First a major chair throwing discussion on the PHP thread and now some serious front page Ballmer action. This is a sign from god about my million dollar idea
posted earlier this morning on the PHP developer thread. If a third sign appears,
I will seek immediate venture capital and donate half of the proceeds to revitalize the slashdot comment system.
music lover since 1969
Balmy said: "And [now] with me really being the guy who's here every day running the place, I must be the champion of innovation."
He doesn't know what innovation is or what makes a person an innovator! I think he is confusing "Champion of innovation" with "Chief Executive Officer".
I'm leaving now while I still can.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Is it just me, or does every Ballmer interview feel like it's seething with aggression? I always find them hard to read.
It's almost like he's attempting to use aggression to disguise the fact there is no real content in what he is saying.
'We're going to compete. We're going to be in the online business. We are going to have a core around online. We're going to be excellent. That, I would tell people, to count on...'
Well, that's great and all Mr Ballmer, do you care to expand on why you believe this or shall I just sheepishly agree in case you start flinging furniture?
Compare to Google, who have announced doubling profits, accessible search, live traffic maps, and an open source repository in just the last week.
No trees were harmed in the posting of this message. However, a great number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.
I didn't RTFA or RTFSummany. Or RTFD. I opened this page, did a good old ctrl-F: 9 chair instances, already.
"...We are going to have a core around online..."
What the hell does this mean? If the core is the center, how can a core be "around" anything... jeez, never mind.
sig has been sent away for a few small repairs...
and he dismisses as 'random malarkey' the idea that Microsoft is having trouble hiring and keeping the kind of brilliant employees that have always been the company's competitive weapon.
Um, no. The company's "competitive weapon" doesn't have anything to do with the alleged "brilliance" of its employees, save for the number of inventive ways that the security of its products has been compromised. The company's "competitive weapon" quite simply, is its monopolistic, anti-competitive behavior.
Thank you! WSJ has a long and consistent history with not only NOT being able to predict what's best for economic survival, but an almost 100% fallibility rate at predicting what's BAD for economic thriving, i.e., their classic, "Henry Ford's new fangled idea of paying his production line workers enough money to buy his products will destroy the American economy!"
It is high time to replace Bill the Borg with Ballmer the King Kong, no?
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
Mindless cheerleading.
I have observed that once an organizations reaches a certain size that CEO's, unless they are buying something, selling something or laying people off, are not much more than cheerleaders. Taking thousands of people and getting them to go in one direction is very hard, like steering a frieghter. It takes time. Usually years. Often on a scal of decades.
The quickest ways to change an organization that large is just to fire people and then rehire. Spin off under performing divisions, sell them or just shut them down. MS seems incapable of doing that. Doing that was what helped turn IBM around in the 90's.
Beyond that CEOs don't have alot of impact. They are often just cheerleaders.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
For how many years have Microsoft been touting this line, that they are going to revolutionise the online world? For the life of me, I can't think of one Microsoft online service that has caused even a murmur never mind a wave of avid followers. Unless you count IE and WMF vulnerabilities as having a "core around online."
I'm sorry, but the more interviews I watch and read with Ballmer the more I think that guy is a complete idiot. I think he truly is the dumbest successful person I've *EVER* seen. He talks with the vocabulary of a high school drop out. "{W}e're one of the highest payers in our industry." Payers?!?! WTF! Moron.
"Not only are we going to kill Google, we're going to kill Adobe and IBM and Red Hat and Sybase and Oracle! We're going to kill Yahoo and SalesForce.com and eBay! And we're going to kill RealNetworks and AOL and Sony and Nintendo! And then we're going to Washington, D.C. to throw chairs in the White House! Yeeeeeaaaaaah! Developers developers developers!!!"
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
Also "I would tell people..." Watch for flying chairs
500 dollar reward for tip(s) leading to the arrest of the person(s) who stole my sig.
Microsoft does not innovate in technology. They innovate in the way they take down other companies, in the way they exploit other people's work, and in the way they screw their customers.
>> having trouble hiring and keeping the kind of brilliant employees that have always been the company's competitive weapon.
The problem is that Microsoft, like many companies, hire good engineers then don't give them enough freedom or listen to their ideas. Consequently, the good engineers get disillusioned and leave and only the bad engineers stay around. Thats one of the reasons why most Microsoft software is a piece of sh1t.
Hotmail still sucks.
I want steve to join me in some angry punk band called "The Developers" we'd have some classics like "developers" and "advertisers" have you seen how emotional he gets about those subjects, and how angry he looks after he's shouting developers, and how he gets the crowd going? I'd hope his dance http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KVlEmYZjw0 would catch on
A flying chair would be a good start.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Just in the interest of fairness, I would like to add that Howard Dean was the victim of mass media character assassination. The media didn't cover him all that much until there was something off-color he did. In the 4 days following that scream--which was influenced by the fact that a)he'd just lost the first leg of the primaries, and b)he had a freaking cold--they aired that single clip of him approximately 633 times.
That's about 600 times more times than they've ever aired George Bush calling whats-his-face an asshole over a live mic.
They really didn't cover the fact that every time the country made a decision and then later realized they were wrong, Howard Dean had been waiting for them. They attacked him because his wife wasn't doing publicity with him, but chose to continue her practice at home (she's a family doctor) and RAISE THEIR 16-YEAR OLD SON.
Really, I'm not sure what values we value here in America (yes I do), but we seem to kill off any chance we have of having a human president by demonizing family-oriented life choices and displays of exhuberance.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
Anonymous Coward: They want to see fiascos like the Xbox project and all the other marketplace failures terminated.
Anonymous Coward: The Xbox is almost a certainty to get the axe
The X-Box is their most innovative "rip-off" since at least Active Directory. They've sold 5 million units, and they think that, with Sony's delay in transitioning to the Cell processor, they can sell 15 million more in the next year. The gross revenues for the XBox alone are pretty much equal to [or even exceed] the gross revenues of Novell and Red Hat COMBINED.
Have you ever watched a boy [or even grown men, with professional degrees, like MDs, JDs, PhDs, etc] playing a video game? The stuff is utterly addictive. M$FT giving up the video game market would be like RJ Reynolds or Philip Morris giving up the cigarette market - it's a guaranteed revenue stream from now until the end of time.
In fact, in twenty or thirty years, I can see the various state Attorneys General suing M$FT, just like they sued the tobacco companies, in a massive class action law suit, on behalf of all those l00s3rs who wasted their lives away on that nonsense.
The XBox division might be bleeding red ink right now, but good grief, long term it has the potential to be phenomenally lucrative.
I'll put it this way:
GNU / Linux / KDE has no more in the way of problems than Windows XP, and has a similar featureset. Hence, it is ready to be competitive on the desktop target.
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I think the real reason Ballmer is still around is that he's nucking futs. Jumping around like Axl Rose onstage screaming his fool head off, I'd keep the guy around too if for no other reason than he makes everybody perk up. Yes, give me an ass-kissing psychopath over a dedicated coder to run a software company any day.
For those who haven't seen Salesman Balmer in his younger days...
Looks like a used car salesman. Clearly the guy is out of his depth, Gates made a mistake in passing the company to him.
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
...the business geek retired and left the company in the hands of the frat house human mascot? ;P
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
You don't dabble in blue sky... yet say linux is rady for the desktop. heh.
I think you probably have it mixed up - Linux will be ready for the desktop *when* there is a good degree of cross-spectrum adoption.
No, I meant that, in meritorious terms in comparison to the most commonly available desktop OS (ie: windows), GNU/Linux with KDE is comparable if not better in some aspects. As such, it's ready for use in the home desktop.
When cross-spectrum adoption kicks in, it'll be ready for business desktop use.
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Sure, all the serious work in science, engineering, medicine, business etc has been done on Apple machines, not on those "piece of junk with no practical serious application" PCs.
They certainly weren't done on an 8088-based IBM PC, either. x86 has proven it has legs (and then some) but the architecture has always been a kludge. The only things that hae kept it alive are the bottomless R&D budget provided by the huge customer base already pot-committed to the platform due to their vested interest in maintaning backward-compatibility, and the open-spec nature of the hardware platform.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
...let Steve Ballmer be the one who introduces Zune to the world at a huge media kickoff.
Signed,
An Apple shareholder
"They certainly weren't done on an 8088-based IBM PC, either."
They certainly were. According to your website you were born in 1975 which means you were about 6 years old when the PC came out. It's not surprising that you don't have a lot of insight into the early days of the PC. In any case,
Please ignore the sentence fragment at the end. I got interrupted and thought I'd deleted it before submitting.
You know, Ballmer denies problems and spreads stupid propaganda. The Stalingrad method of empires, a clear sign of fading market trust.
He does not really talk about business or technology visions.
His new vision is to challenge iPod by a low cost player that is pushed into the market.
He buys new market shares by selling unprofitable products.
No new cash cow. And the power of the old cows is fading. I expect KDE4 to be more intresting than VISTA.
Actually, it's "I'm Gonna Fucking Kill %Foo%"
Does Ballmer running MS solo give anyone else the mental image of the monkey left in charge of the Hurdy Gurdy?
e s/The-Hurdy-Gurdy-Snooze_jpg.htm
http://shopping.animazing.com/gallery/merriam/pag
For those that don't know what the hell I'm babbling about. };-)
The U.S. really needs an English to Wisdom dictionary.