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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 much father ahead is the software industry because of Microsoft?
Regardless of how it got there, having a mass market platform to develop against surely made many projects feasible that would otherwise have cost too much for niche markets.
Java is a tragic missed opportunity. A great idea but too slow in practice until other options had already surpassed it.
Buying up experts and stuffing them into R&D is always hit and miss. Generally you'll take a lot of misses to get the one big hit though. It takes time and even with the recession Microsoft is still spending over 9 billion on R&D this year.. one of the biggest R&D budgets in the world. This is the sort of company that is thinking long term instead of short term. That is rare these days and it is most likely the reason why they will be strong for decades to come.
I can honestly say that I don't think anyone cared much that Microsoft was backing HD-DVD. I have to agree though that two competing but very similar standards on something as insignificant as storage media at this point in our digital lives is a complete waste of time.
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.
Bill Gates does not understand technology. Just because he managed to make MS soar to the top of today's computer world (face it people, we hate it but they are the de facto standard for whatever they touch) doesn't mean he had the vision to predict what to do when. To be precise, he had that vision once. Exactly once. When IBM was too lazy to come up with an OS for what they considered a niche product, not worthy of wasting a lot of resources into. And even then I dare question whether he had a vision or whether he just saw an opportunity for a quick buck that expanded into something much, much bigger.
Basically you could just as well say, he just had a truckload of luck.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Gates wasn't anywhere near as technically oriented as most people think. He liked to consider himself a programmer, but in reality he was the ubermench of the suits, and in fact took the entire shorthair/bean counter/suit concept to its' ultimate logical conclusion, hence becoming a billionaire in the process.
Microsoft's bottom line hasn't benefitted from Gates leaving, because money (and/or control) were what he was primarily about.
However, despite the fact that I know that the Ubuntu Denial demographic won't like this opinion, there has been a noticeable correlation between the time when Bill became less active and ultimately retired, and the timeframe in which Windows has finally started to mature and become truly stable.
Ubuntu users/fans, the single biggest favour that you can do for yourselves at this stage in the game, is to recognise the honest truth, that Ubuntu has been schooled by Windows 7.
Ubuntu's single biggest problem right now, is the degree of continual denial that is being exhibited by its' users and advocates. The system has a lot of problems...and continuing to resist the idea that it does, and simply abuse anyone who tries to offer feedback, is not going to help the system improve.
The old talking points about stability at least, with Windows, are getting to the point where they are no longer true; although the security ones might still be.
I'm tempted to go back into the old routine here of citing specific issues, but whenever I do, I just get abuse in response; so I'm not going to do that again until I see some evidence that the denial has subsided. Shuttleworth himself glossing over problems and just engaging in spin whenever he is interviewed, also really isn't helping matters either.