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Bungled Mobile Bet Will Be Ballmer's Swan Song
snydeq writes "'If Windows 8 and the Surface tablet flop, you'll see a shareholder revolt that will send Steve Ballmer packing by this time next year,' writes InfoWorld's Bill Snyder. 'First it was the netbook, then it was the Ultrabook. Microsoft, Intel, and the PC makers keep looking for a way to convince buyers they don't need an iPad or Android tablet. Neither initiative gained much traction, so Microsoft bet big on Windows 8 and the Surface. ... Maybe we're wrong, and buyers will decide that the new OS and the Microsoft's first serious venture into hardware are what they want. It would be a huge boost for the industry if it happens, but I'm not optimistic. ... There's been a string of bad quarters, and the stock has been frozen for nine years. At some point — I think we're getting really close — investors are going to demand a shakeup. When they do, it's going to be good-bye, Ballmer."
It came with Windows 7 Starter though I've never actually used it. I upgraded the 1GB factory RAM to 2 GB. It runs Kubuntu like a dream, I replaced the factory HDD with an SSD and I have it booting Chromium from power button to login prompt in 26 seconds.
Why I really like it?
It fits in a small backpack. It's no problem carrying it when I bike, unlike a larger laptop, it's got awesome battery life and I've had two major bike crashes where I got pretty descent injuries (chainline failures at bad times, both of them) with the thing in my backpack and it's still working perfectly today. Best initial $250 I ever spent on a computer and the upgrades I put in were totally worth it.
I don't use it for much more than web browsing, it's not a work horse, but it does web browsing like a champ, and I have done some very minor Gimp edits and some other things on it too.
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The other thing is that I sort of sympathize with Ballmer. Sure, Windows 8 and Surface have flaws. Even when Microsoft does something right like the Kinect, we're upset that those open drivers aren't released on day one. And being a lowly software developer with zero stock in Microsoft (okay, I don't really track my 401k funds down to the stock), I sort of have to ask shareholders a big question: If you want to oust Ballmer over Windows 8 and Surface tablet, why didn't you simply sell all your shares and even short the stock when they debuted? I mean, hindsight is 20/20 and shareholders get to play this game where they read the SEC reports on these things, then they get to sit there watching and then if these products fail they basically go on a litigation witch hunt on whoever made these decisions. But if Windows 8 and the Surface tablet are huge hits? Well, you'll never hear a peep from those shareholders. They likely either quietly cash out or demand more growth (thus delaying pending litigation).
I can understand shareholders suing over actual gross negligence or actual shady accounting and misreporting to the SEC. But it should be the SEC who decides which company to sue over that. Look, if you've got shares in Microsoft and it's painfully obvious that Windows 8 and the Surface Tablet are gonna flop then what in the hell are you doing holding onto those shares? Microsoft should decide internally if it's Ballmer's time to go, not some shareholder with their eye on the prize and little knowledge of technology. I don't like to defend Ballmer and he very well may have conceived these things himself and pushed them through development and production -- but wouldn't the people on the inside know that it's time for him to step down after that?
I'm pretty sure what happened here was Ballmer said, "What's the best thing we got? Okay, we're going with that." If it was Steve Jobs style micromanaging that forced these products through and the board of directors has no clout against Ballmer then the shareholders might have a place here. I just don't see that right now.
Also I feel like there's a lot of potential explanations for this guy's complaints:
But the really telling number was in the Windows Division, with revenue of $3.24 billion, down a frightening 33 percent from the same period last year.
So Microsoft releases the first stable version of Windows 7 on February 22 of 2011 and a year later you're calling a 1/3 drop in Windows sales "frightening"? Perhaps they were just coming down from everyone's move to Windows 7? I mean you (hopefully) only need to buy that once for your machine.
This author claims to be "putting his neck on the line" with this prediction but all I see are a lot of questions that want you to believe what he's saying will happen without him ever actually saying that Microsoft's mobile will flop and Steve Ballmer will then be ousted. To back that up he goes on with further questions surrounding earnings reports. God I've wasted too much time on this post already considering how insipid the original article is.
My work here is dung.
Netbooks were started by ASUS and their peers as an 'appliance' laptop- They were Linux based and only cost a few hundred bucks. Microsoft didn't try to get into it until it was posing as a threat to Windows!
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At this point, I doubt if Microsoft's Board of Directors (who are chartered with looking out for shareholder interests) are any less to blame than Mr. Ballmer.
Maybe the shareholders should demand significant fresh blood in Microsoft's Board of Directors, since the BoD has allowed to continue, even fostered, the Ballmer problem far longer than they should have.
So Microsoft releases the first stable version of Windows 7 on February 22 of 2011 and a year later you're calling a 1/3 drop in Windows sales "frightening"? Perhaps they were just coming down from everyone's move to Windows 7? I mean you (hopefully) only need to buy that once for your machine.
When revenue in just about all divisions drop to near 2006 levels, you've got a problem.
http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-microsoft-income-by-segment-2012-10
Uh, we're also at the same levels were were in March of 2010 and March of 2011. Mind explaining why he wasn't ousted then? Or why you skipped those dates and went all the way back to 2006 before the recession? Yeah, everyone was riding high before the recession ... we know ...
understand that you're coming from a position of ignorance and frankly, it shows!
Windows may not be as good as the alternatives in many respects, but its not totally useless. It has a very capable shell - Powershell, you can install all manner of IDEs without the monstrosity that is visual studio (yeah, it has bloated a lot), but there's code:blocks, eclipse, qt's suite, intel's compiler even. It can display folders with preview pictures - in many different styles, like Large icons, medium or small icons, or tiles etc.
So... if you're going to give it a go, you have to give it a proper chance. Your post is like a Windows user installing Linux and complaining there's no way to map network drive letters.
Where's the bad performance? Anyone looked at the stock market? The tech sector OVERALL is at -22% since 2003 (9 years ago). MS is BEATING THE INDUSTRY, lol. Sure, APPLE is way up, but if you discount that one stock MS is actually pretty much the best performer around. I mean I'm sure you can find smaller plays that are of course MUCH MUCH better, or Apple, but I hardly think that the shareholders at MS have any big reason to complain currently. They MAY feel uneasy about the strategic direction of the company, but the notion that stock performance is going to get Balmer tossed is probably not even close to realistic. Truthfully stock holders don't generally think a lot about strategic considerations either, sadly. If they did a LOT of CEOs would be out of jobs...
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
Small new devices are 'cool' but that isn't where MS / Ballmer missed the point. They took Microsoft's flagship OS and optimized the whole user interface to work on 'cool' handheld devices where they don't have a serious foothold in the market. I know that they are salivating looking at Apple's App Store and Google's Play Store but they just thumbed their nose at everyone who uses the most entrenched desktop operating system in the world. It is a train wreck as a desktop UI and they are so obscenely blind that they didn't see it or just plain ignored it.
How many people with a tablet and a PC will sit down and use the tablet for word processing or an spreadsheet? This is the biggest opening for a competitor to jump into the desktop OS market I've ever seen. And for the people who think hand held toys like tablets "are a paradigm shift" then explain to me how that correlates with the number of dual or triple display setups that are being rolled out?
(Ask Oracle how the mas shift to thin computing is working for them!)
The boat has been missed. Let's see if they notice.