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Microsoft's Lost Decade
theodp writes "Newsweek's Daniel Lyons (that's Fake Steve to you) explains why Steve Ballmer is no Bill Gates, arguing that what most hurt Microsoft was BillG's decision to step down as CEO in January 2000: 'Gates was a software geek. He understood technology. Ballmer is a business guy.' And the problem with putting non-techies in charge of tech companies, concludes Lyons, is that they have blind spots. So while Microsoft's revenues nearly tripled from $23B to $58B on Ballmer's watch, says Lyons, the company became bureaucratic and lumbering, slowing down while the rest of the world — including Google, Apple and Amazon — sped up."
Since when? As far as I know, he never developed anything, instead relying on others to do the work and then leveraging that work towards profitability (example: DOS).
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
How much further along would server side be if Microsoft had truly worked with the Java community instead of going it's own way with .Net?
To be honest I'd take .NET over the piece of slow shit that Java is over any day. And .NET supports a lot more languages than just Java, which I'm not really a fan either.
How much better would cellphones be if Microsoft had not bought, and slowly strangled, Danger?
I doubt Danger has had really any effect on Mobile world. And actually Windows Mobile is a lot more open than the other alternatives that there have been, in DRM sense and who can develop for them and how (tho finally we got Android aswell)
A company makes $1.2 BILLION a month in net profit, and it's a failure with a lost decade? And people wonder why techies usually suck as CEOs...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
How far back has the software industry been set back by Microsoft?
How much further along would server side be if Microsoft had truly worked with the Java community instead of going it's own way with .Net?
How much better would cellphones be if Microsoft had not bought, and slowly strangled, Danger?
How much further along would so many areas be if Microsoft had not bought up so many experts and stuffed them in an R&D group with almost no real world output, instead of having them work on practical technologies that made it to market?
Would the HD video market have been as fragmented as it was without Microsoft pushing HD-DVD long past the point it was obviously dead just so they would get licensing revenue from the menu system?
If Microsoft the company has lost a decade, it is Karma - for the world and our industry has lost so much more at their hands.
.NET is way better than Java in many respects. In fact, now Java is implementing many features of the new C# version. And I thought competition led to better things and a single language led to stagnation?
Danger is that big of a deal? huh?
R&D with no pressure to create real world output can give freedom to academics instead of always concentrating on the almighty dollar returns.
They were pushing HDDVD how exactly? By paying people to use it? They didn't even include a HDDVD drive by default with the XBOX like Sony did with the PS3.
If Microsoft didn't help make computers standardized and way cheap, we would still be running $3000 computers, especially if IBM or Apple was at the helm. There might not be even Intel today.
This space for rent.
How far back has the software industry been set back by Microsoft?
Not one inch.
The "software industry" by definition produces for a market.
It doesn't exist to advance technology for its own sake, but to meet the needs of its customers.
Microsoft dominates in the office space because it understands the office worker and the office as a working environment.
The tech is secondary. This is something the geek can find really hard to understand.
How much further along would so many areas be if Microsoft had not bought up so many experts and stuffed them in an R&D group with almost no real world output, instead of having them work on practical technologies that made it to market?
Microsoft is one of the few companies its size spending serious money on basic research. We need more of them, and we need them badly.