The Microsoft High-Profile Exodus Continues

snydeq writes "Bing principal Scott Prevost is the latest of several high-profile exits from Microsoft in the wake of Bob Muglia's departure, causing some to question the long-term outlook for Redmond, InfoWorld reports. While the departures have spanned the company's business divisions, the concern centers square on the Microsoft core: 'Microsoft's numbers are looking good in the short term, but the future of core products remains unclear, and so far, Redmond's cloud and mobile strategies don't seem to be paying off.'"

Comments

Mayeb Not a Bad Thing?

[hduff]

Given how Microsoft has faltered in the marketplace, has failed to innovate and continues to misunderstand its customers, perhaps the old guys need to go.

Re:Mayeb Not a Bad Thing?

[h4rr4r]

Copying is not innovation. Releasing an AV to correct problems in your own OS is not innovation. They allow streaming? As opposed to what, denying it?

It is your computer slick.

Re:Mayeb Not a Bad Thing?

[Dr. Spork]

What's the most innovative product of 2010? The Kinect. It's not even a contest.

Microsoft can't be all things to all people

[hilldog]

I still don't get why Microsoft feels they need to be a player in every category? Why Bling, smart phones, mp3 players, games, cloud computing, tablets and all the rest? Why not be a focused company with the leading office suite? Or an innovate O/S? Yeah yeah I know the investors must be kept at bay like howling wolves at the corporate door but how many missteps can a company make before they and we realize they are just followers and no longer leaders?

Re:Microsoft can't be all things to all people

[oracleguy01]

I think part of Microsoft's problem is that in the Office and OS markets in particular, their biggest competitor is themselves. They've made their products good enough where people don't bother upgrading when the new version comes out.

They could intentionally break backwards compatibility with former products to try and get people to upgrade but that doesn't really work for them. Case and point: they ended up releasing the backwards compatibility add-on so Office 2003 could read and write the 2007/2010 file formats.

I doubt they will really give up trying to break into new markets, they have their huge install base of core products to fall back on. It isn't like they are hurting for cash.

Re:Vote of no-confidence?

[Sponge Bath]

Or it could be a case of the old guard being very wealthy and tired of the rat race. Past a certain point of wealth you should be concentrating on fulfilling some exotic desire and not being a product manager filling out paperwork.

Re:The person who needs to leave

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Everything old is new again. Some big companies get founded (or expanded way beyond their original size/scope) by famous entrepreneurs (Gates, the Watsons, Westinghouse, Ford(s), etc, etc.) and then are followed by nameless/faceless people who could never live up to the savvy or inspiration of the founders. Your post applies word-for-word to IBM in the late 70s; they'd lost all the big names and the big new innovations, the magic had just worn off, leaving only a whole lot of ugly underneath showing through. Microsoft will weather this. They'll go on to become just another large software company with uninspiring products, like any other - think Computer Associates. You don't criticize General Motors for not making Ferraris, why criticize Microsoft for not making OS X? Also, it's really kind of funny that Slashdot still uses the Bill Gates Borg icon for Microsoft, it hasn't been remotely true for years.

Apple (almost) went through this (voluntarily) once already with John Scully, it's about to happen again when Steve Jobs dies "suddenly". I expect a lot of "Apple loses their mojo" stories following that.

And before anyone says I'm some kind of Microsoft asrtoturfer, let me say that I'm a Gentoo-using Microsoft hater of long, long standing. I'm just saying that none of this should be surprising.