Slashdot Mirror
Pondering the Future of a Re-Org'd Microsoft
puddingebola writes "This story from Forbes touches on Steve Ballmer's announcement that Microsoft will reorganize. From the article, 'Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer appears to be planning a major reorganization. His apparent objective is to help the company move toward becoming a "devices and services company," as presented in the company's annual shareholder letter last October.' What follows is an analysis of the current state of Microsoft's current ventures: shrinking PC sales, Nokia management calling for a change of course, Office 360 lagging, a $1 Billion investment in Nook, the losses on Xbox. Once again, if Microsoft starts to lose the revenue of Windows and Office, how long does the boat float? And what of the suggestion, on the verge of another update in the Xbox console, that Microsoft should sell the Xbox division?"
What is "Office 360" is that Microsoft office for the X-Box? Sounds like input would be pretty slow.
First they'll drop the software, then they'll drop the devices, and then they'll be IBM 2.0. How ironic.
You know what's going to happen: reorg == lots of people getting canned. You'll probably see a lot of the jobs moved overseas because Microsoft can't get qualified people here in the States and the H1-B limits are inhibiting growth.
If the future isn't PCs, and Microsoft are sucking at phones and tablets, the only non-PC platform they have with any success is the Xbox. I wouldn't get rid of that if I was them...
How about just stopping the crappy product releases? Windows 8 is a joke, the Xbox 360 is over engineered, your server product make me laugh because Linux can do everything for free and better. When will Microsoft wake up the fact they release crap, users are getting fed up with it. They're losing market share because finally the average user is noticing that better, cheaper and more reliable software and hardware exist. The key to Microsoft becoming successful is to just reboot itself and start turning out high quality products.
Brilliant move! De-emphasize the divisions that bring in the big bucks *and* have a unique advantage over competitors for legacy reasons, while placing even more emphasis on the divisions that lose money and have mediocre market share.
Seriously, this move by Ballmer is about the direct opposite of what a business in transition should do. I wonder how much longer before the stockholders finally kick him out.
To a first approximation, Microsoft *is* Windows and Office. That's what keeps everyone locked in. That's what brings in the big volume licenses. Cede that, and the rest of the edifice collapses entirely. Ballmer might not like it, but Microsoft is a software company and lives or dies on desktop software. The truth is that they have to transition to a more mature company model, paying dividends and making a lot fewer splashes. They aren't ever going to be hip and cool and revolutionary. And their customers don't want them to be.
[Steve Ballmer's] objective is to help the company move toward becoming a "devices and services company,"
Maybe he can deliver me a chair?
Ballmer: "Guys, MS will live its biggest reorganization ever: I resign."
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
to wait until the sw business is actually in the ditch before burying it?
besides - they're not going to be making the devices - they're going to be writing sw for them. it's not like they're going to be a soc company.
their "services" are pretty much all sw. what makes their devices theirs is just sw too.
the only reorg ms needs is to ditch ballmer(and couple of other guys like whoever is responsible for bringing zune legacy to FUCKING DESKTOP FJAySDJFiasOJF IaSD FPOVaO PFAAAAAAAAAARGGGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DIE WITH FIRE!!!!!!!!!!!!.
ok, fun fact: metro shit both on and off the phones is all legacy from zune. obviously that has been such a huge success that's the way to go!
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Wake me when this re-org involves a future without Balmer. That man needs to go.
Hell, even bring Gates back to the helm.
As a naive individual with little to no business knowledge or training, could somebody please explain how Steve Ballmer is still CEO of Microsoft?
What knowledge is the board of directors privy to that the entire rest of the world isn't that has kept him employed for so long?
I *must* be overlooking something to explain how somebody could so completely mismanage Microsoft to the point of irrelevancy and still work there.
Bearing in mind the IT Market is constantly shifting if they carry on the way they have then they are pinning their hopes on Intel/AMD bringing out the next range of processors at 30Ghz. Its not likely to happen. They never capitalised properly on the mobile space although they have a long history with Mobile Phone OS's. No doubt whatever they do they'll keep up their long history of pissing on the hand that feeds them :(
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
This article did not discuss the reorganization plans. Instead it whined and complained about Microsoft's poor sales performance.
Nobody would ever buy the Xbox division because nobody is going to buy the new Xbox. It's such an utter disaster, they might as well just sell their Xbox line to Sony for $0 because that's what they're effectively doing. They're handing them 100% of their profits and killing the product line. Who the hell is going to buy a device that spies on you with a camera and mic 24/7 even when it's turned off, records your apparent moods, doesn't play movies when too many people are in the room, doesn't play used games easily, and doesn't offer anything of value over the previous Xbox. I guarantee you it won't sell more than 1 million units ever.
What MS needs to do is cancel Windows 8.1, make 8.1 or 9 not suck, and release it. Then concentrate on a separate mobile OS or just say fuck it and develop office 2013 for Android and iOS. That'll make them some money.
Office 360... so they're building in 5 days of planned outages per year now?
with Microsoft is because he was lucky enough to have known Bill Gates and Paul Allen
Right, and the board must feel that if they get rid of the 'original team' facet, the stock price will suffer. It's incredibly short sighted - in the long run the founders are dead, so they have to do it sometime unless they're planning to have Bill Gates's head in a jar run the company. But public companies rarely do 'long-term'.
In the meantime, get your re-org boots on, Microsofties.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Microsoft can't get qualified people here in the States and the H1-B limits are inhibiting growth.
Microsoft can't get qualified people willing to work for sub-par wages here in the States.
H1-B limits are explicitly in place to prevent the dilution of the skilled labor market. We have the people, but they want paid a fair wage. MS and the like want the labor but don't want to pay for it when they can get it from India for cheaper. BUT Indian quality is shit, so they want to bring them here, hire them, drive the "prevailing wage" down a percentage point at a time, and then when the prevailing wage is sufficiently low in a few years they'll be able to hire low cost high skilled American labor.
It's basically the same concept as negging a girl into dating you.
So long, Microsoft. Wonder who we'll be getting our OS from shortly after you go bankrupt?
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Reorgs are rarely the result of or for the benefit of external factors and market pressures. Reorgs exist for two key reasons: inertia and political infighting. Inertia is when senior management gives up on trying to fix unfixable problems and resorts to throwing all the moving pieces in the air and hoping something works. Political infighting is self evident - just turf wars and stepping all over each other for personal gain. First the senior managers try to push specific underlings out of their jobs - and we've seen that already. The leaderless orgs are war-booty for whomever's left. The great think about reorgs is that they're addictive. Companies can avoid them for years but the first time they do one it's like crack. They can't stop and every year or two there will be another and another as the company becomes increasingly paranoid, inward focused, inefficient and floundering.
To all the MS haters out there this is a good thing it signals the beginning of the end of MS. Wouldn't even shock me if Mao Tse Bill is dragged back in.
Should be him retiring and leaving the company. He's mismanaged Microsoft badly ever since Bill Gates left.
> "Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmerappears to be planning a major reorganization"
I'm going to guess he's going to reorganize everyone except the guy who decided on "let others innovate then play me too-ism" as a business model.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
This guy clearly has no idea what he is talking about. First of all, the new XBox was announced on May 21, not launched. Secondly, yes mobile gaming is increasing due to the popularity of smartphones and tablets, but true gamers aren't going to be flocking to play a new Call of Duty on their smartphone. The next generation of consoles may not sell as well as the last generation of consoles, but that doesn't mean that the new XBox is doomed. If anything, it's possible that Microsoft may be able to gain ground in the console market since the Wii U is doing so poorly.
Microsoft has clearly stated that Skype will be heavily integrated into the new XBox and this will be their attempt to gain traction in that market. I imagine if it gains the traction they're hoping for, then expanding a PC version of Kinect with Skype functionality would certainly be possible, especially due to the network effect and Microsoft has already stated their intention on doing exactly that.
There are very few companies that can claim margins of 60% on their core products. And 15% margins aren't terribly bad.
Speak for yourself! The only group of people that might like a near-monopoly in software platforms are software developers since it would require porting their software to fewer platforms, but as a consumer I absolutely want choice and not a "near-monopoly".
Look, I'm not trying to say that the future looks completely positive for Microsoft. They are certainly facing their share of steep, uphill battles and they've done everything possible to put themselves in that position. But things are far from settled in the computing market and despite the fact that they face increasing competition, they're not completely out of the game yet. The upcoming Haswell processors from Intel will allow tablets running a full version of Windows to compete better against ARM-based tablets that run alternative OSes with apps of limited functionality. And an increase in tablet sales with Windows 8 could spur more interest in smartphones with Windows Phone 8 due to their similarities. Sure, that's a lot of "ifs" and I'm certainly no fan of Microsoft, but I don't think they're as screwed as this article is making them out to be.
We have a paid relationship with a Linux OS vendor. When we find problems we file bugs into their system, and they generally *do* get addressed. Not always as fast as we'd like or in the exact way that we'd like, but they do get attention.
VB6 migration path to VB.net: Fuck you. Recode.
Winforms to Web: Fuck you. Recode.
Silverlight to WPF: Fuck you. Recode.
WPF to anything:Take a guess.
Microsoft Office interface: Fuck you. Retrain.
Windows interface: Fuck you. Retrain.
Old Windows phone: Fuck you.
New Windows phone: Maybe we'll let your app on our store, and by the way. Fuck you.
Why anybody, at this point, would invest *any* time in any windows language or platform is beyone me. Think Android. Think iOS.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
If he really wants to help M$.
I don't think IBM should take your insults lying down. IBM knew when to shift. They may not be high-profile in the PC world anymore, but they've certainly spun off their product lines to companies that could handle them. Meanwhile, IBM themselves haven't exactly disappeared. A quick cut-and-paste from Wikipedia: "In 2012, Fortune ranked IBM the #2 largest U.S. firm in terms of number of employees (433,362),[7] the #4 largest in terms of market capitalization,[8] the #9 most profitable,[9] and the #19 largest firm in terms of revenue.[10] Globally, the company was ranked the #31 largest in terms of revenue by Forbes for 2011.[11][12] Other rankings for 2011/2012 include #1 company for leaders (Fortune), #1 green company worldwide (Newsweek), #2 best global brand (Interbrand), #2 most respected company (Barron's), #5 most admired company (Fortune), and #18 most innovative company (Fast Company).[13]"
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
I just had to post this one.
When I read this article the random quote at the bottom of the page was:
"The solution of this problem is trivial and is left as an exercise for the reader."
Almost perfect irony!
Can't get qualified folks?
Are you high? H1-Bs are limited to prevent a total free fall of developers wages.
I left out some quotes and the "tongue in cheek" tag.
What usually happens with re-orgs of companies in MS' state is that they fire the (more than qualified) Americans and go overseas and hire folks there to do the same job for much less - hopefully at the same quality.
The CEO will then make the excuse for PR reasons that they had to do that because they couldn't get "qualified" people here in the States when in truth they had plenty of qualified people but they just wanted to lower costs and subsequently show some (short term) growth on the bottom line.
What MS really needs to do concentrate on its strengths - corporate IT infrastructure and CIS type of things. Leave the consumer stuff to Apple and the other guys.
But that's just me and I'm not in charge because I don't have the connections.
your server product make me laugh because Linux can do everything for free and better.
"For free"? Hah! Not hardly. The fact that some linux distros (but not all) are distributed free of charge hardly makes installing linux in a business free of charge. You seem to have neglected the cost of hardware, installation, training, support, application software, integration with existing systems, and data migration just to start. While there are plenty of cases where linux is the better option financially there are NO cases where it is genuinely free. (as in beer)
As for better, that depends entirely on your specific needs. Linux is the better choice in some cases but it isn't hard to come up with specific cases where Microsoft products are the more sensible choice. At our company linux would provide essentially no cost advantage over Windows for what we do. I'm an accountant and I assure you that there is very little in the way of linux based accounting software and what little there is is largely pretty poor. If you are running a website or some heavy database work then linux is frequently a great choice but it demonstrably cannot do "everything for free and better".
Wally has it right.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
MS got addicted to their cash cow near-monopolies. If they split up into multiple companies, then each part has to compete on its own and will have to find ways to survive without milk from the Cash Cow. They may flounder at first, but eventually will become competitive again. There's probably no shortcut.
Rehabilitation from addiction can be painful.
Table-ized A.I.
Is this Microsoft's jumping the shark moment?
Whenever I hear of a large software company suddenly saying they're now a devices and services company, I have to wonder if they have a good grasp on what's happening.
They keep thinking they're going to move everything to the cloud and subscriptions, but I'm not sure if their customers actually want that from them.
One does have to wonder if they're not just trying to figure out what to do next to stay relevant in some segments -- but you have to be sure to not destroy the main revenue streams you already have.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I don't think IBM should take your insults lying down. IBM knew when to shift. They may not be high-profile in the PC world anymore, but they've certainly spun off their product lines to companies that could handle them. Meanwhile, IBM themselves haven't exactly disappeared.
That is because IBM has always been about being in businesses that are higher margin and where they can use their breadth and depth of talent, IP, etc. to their advantage. Once the PC market became a commodity they moved on. Big iron is much harder to commoditize and they can sell services around it that use the computing power as business tools. Even as they spin off some businesses they buy others, such as Monday (PwC Consulting) that fit within their services model.
MS has always been, first and foremost, a software company. Services always seemed as an afterthought and focused on their software rather than providing business solutions.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
IBM is one of the rare companies who reinvented themselves and eventually thrived again. It rarely happens such that it's a marvel and probably the best real-world lesson for any tech company trying to do the same.
Apple is sometimes described as a company that came back from the brink, but for the most part still do what they always did: upper-middle-end computer-driven consumer hardware. IBM went from mostly hardware to mostly services.
Table-ized A.I.
I hate to recommend vulgar posts, but gestatl'n'pepper has got it right.
Microsoft is a company that is really left with no main strengths other than their legacy and branding except for the Xbox. The Xbox is Microsoft's only remaining trademark and product that people associate with cutting edge and (well, somewhat?) quality. People don't like subscription based software, heck most people don't like subscription based anything if they have a choice between paying a flat fee and using it in perpetuity or paying a subscription and renewing that monthly/yearly with an understanding that eventually the product will cease.
There are very few things that can really be done to make a PC operating system "better" aside from "under the hood" tweaks. Yeah, we can make them faster, we can make a better file system, we can create a more stable kernel, etc. but these are minor updates and for most people it doesn't justify paying $100 for minor things. Same with an office suite. If your old version is working fine, why upgrade? Really, aside from the Ribbon interface there's not a whole heck of a lot that has changed in Office since Office 2003 or even Office XP.
And most of Microsoft's hardware has quite frankly, sucked. Remember the RRoD that plagued the 360? Microsoft is still profitable and still can tread water, but they aren't and don't look like they can have a repeat of their "boom" years in the 1990s.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
MSFT stock is up, and the company is making more profits than ever. For all the arm-chair predictions of certain doom, the people that count are rallying behind the company.
Sorry to break it to you Slashdot, but for the people here that have predicted the glorious end to the evil empire, such as TFA submitter (who amusingly can't even get the product-names right; what does that say about quality of analysis?) are way off the mark. Investors disagree with you - http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-no-longer-the-windows-company-does-wall-street-agree-7000015573/?s_cid=e589&ttag=e589
Now this is a hugely unpopular opinion which anti-MS geeks don't like being confronted with so I expect to be censored/buried by "-1 Overrated" anytime now. Good times! :)
throw new NoSignatureException();
Because http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-no-longer-the-windows-company-does-wall-street-agree-7000015573/?s_cid=e589&ttag=e589
throw new NoSignatureException();
Every study of "IT worker shortage" shows its malarkey. Yes, there are spot shortages for specific in-demand skills, but we need those in order for those in low-demand areas to find openings despite having different experience.
If you only ship in "exact fit" overseas people for the latest trends/fads, then citizens in obsolete specialties trying to change specialties will be left to rot away.
Table-ized A.I.
Why isn't the real MS story of the decade, the total melt-down of the Xbox division, getting coverage here yet? It has now been confirmed by industry insiders with a long record of leaking 100% accurate information about Microsoft that Microsoft CANNOT manufacture the chip at the heart of the Xbox One in commercial quantities.
Those with technical understanding know that Microsoft has opted for a PS2 like approach to its new console design, by using a massive chunk of specialised memory that sits on the same substrate as the main APU (CPU and GPU combination). This form of design is slow (yes, external GDDR5 RAM chips, as used by the PS4, are actually much faster), extremely expensive, requires special coding to use the memory block, and has massive engineering issues.
The later problem has proven to be Microsoft's Achilles heal. AMD (the company that designed the key hardware in both the XBone and PS4) had no experience with form of memory, so Microsoft has used another company to design this memory chip, and bodged a dedicated memory interface to communicate with this chip on the APU. For Microsoft and AMD, this technology is untried and untested. The end result has been incredible problems getting the APU to talk to the RAM block at desired clock speeds.
Simply put, the RAM chip fails to work reliably with the APU, and Microsoft doesn't know how to fix the issue. Engineers at Microsoft are proposing various dire solutions.
1) Clock down the entire console from 1.2 GHz to 900 MHz. The idea here is that communication with the RAM chip becomes much more reliable at the lower clock speed, but this is somewhat unproven, and would result in the XBone being far less than HALF as powerful as the PS4.
2) Disable the RAM chip, and use external DDR3 only. This would work, and lower the performance of the console only a little (in reality, the ESRAM chip concept is a bad joke), but the fallout from the negative publicity would destroy the reputation of the console.
3) Cancel the launch of the XBone, and redesign for a 2014 release. Every sane voice in Microsoft supports this idea, of course. Delaying would allow Microsoft to go for a design at least as good as the PS4, still using AMD technology but on the improved chip processes being mature at the end of 2013.
The entire R+D focus of the XBox One was providing the NSA with continuous spying via the microphone array, infra-red and ordinary hi definition cameras, and depth sensors contained within the Kinect block. 95% of Microsoft's time and money went into this side of the project, with the gaming/GPU aspect of the new console getting only the remaining 5%. Remember, the XBone's Kinect system uses a dedicated TWO CPU cores (from the 8 available), its own always running OS, and 3GB of the external DDR3 RAM pool. The XBone is ALWAYS pestering the user to 'calibrate' the Kinect (so it sees the entire room the entire time), and the XBone refuses to function if any of the Kinect sensors are disabled in any way. The Kinect system is tracking users even when the user is playing a AAA game that has no Kinect functionality during most gameplay.
The XBone takes full face photographs of each new person who enters the room, and also notes the times with which each person stays in the room, storing this information as encrypted data on the HDD, and uploading this data when the XBone is connected to the Internet. On remote command, the XBone can transmit encrypted streams of real-time data captured by the Kinect cameras and microphone array to any stated Internet server.
It is no surprise that Ballmer's pride in having daily contact with Obama's office and his NSA contacts led to a complete loss of focus on the important aspects of the XBox One project. We should all be grateful that the ultimate Orwellian project is falling flat on its face.
The division has only begun having profits in the last several years but not consistently. The division has been a historical overall money loss for MS since the Xbox was launched. Windows and Office and Server are the ones that have had more stable profits.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
They should throw all their resources into marketing MS Paint.
Dark Reflection
It's worth remembering that IBM still gets a significant share of its profits from mainframes. It's not the "growth Growth GROWTH" that CEOs chase blindly through the maze, but as a cash cow it allowed IBM to survive a few wrong turns before stumbling onto services as the next big thing.
There's a lesson there for Microsoft, I think.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Microsoft still has a good business - servicing business desktops. That's not going away, because business needs to get work done. The problem Microsoft has is that Windows 7 is pretty good. It does what it's supposed to do, doesn't crash much, and doesn't take too much attention. There is no reason for businesses to "upgrade" to Windows 8.
Business desktops are now a business like heavy trucks. Companies buy and use lots of heavy trucks. They use them for their useful life, then buy new ones. Building heavy trucks is a profitable, successful, and important industry. But nobody trades in a heavy truck on a new model because the new model is slightly better.
The tablet industry is fighting to keep prices up. They're not going to succeed. You can get a basic Android tablet for under $70 on Amazon or WalMart, and for $30 in Shenzhen. Apple is still charging as much as $800, but market share has declined from 60% a year ago to 40% now and Apple is feeling pricing pressure. Microsoft isn't going to make much money in tablets.
Moving into "social" would be a big mistake for Microsoft. Nobody is making money in "social". Zynga just laid off a quarter of their workforce. Facebook traffic and revenue peaked a year ago. (Facebook is now increasing ad density to increase revenue per user. That worked for Myspace, right?) Everybody else is doing worse.
Microsoft just has to realize that its job is to service business, and do it better. Windows 8 is not helping. What business might go for is a much more secure OS.
That's been my preference, for years now.
You forget licensing of bogus parents to Android device manufacturers. ..
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
IBM also has endless longterm govt. contracts to keep it in the black.
Free means you don't pay anything for it.
Speaking as an certified accountant, you cannot possibly come up with a situation where you can install linux in a business for zero cost. You might not pay to acquire the operating system software but you will pay for support, training, installation, administration, hardware, application software, data migration, and more. It might cost less but it will never cost nothing. The moment you have a single employee do any work on it you immediately will incur cost.
If you want to make the argument that linux often is more cost effective please do. It is a credible argument which is easily supported by facts. Claiming that linux is free of any cost however is utter nonsense and easily shown to be false.
* Declining PC sales - Windows 8 stinks so bad, many people are waiting out the storm. Some stores have a larger return pile because of Win8 than they do new, unopened machines.
* Xbox - If M$ would stop acting like a complete tyrant, maybe people would consider the Xbox again.
* Office 360 - Not only did M$ come late to the party, they're under-dressed.
* Windows Phone. No further comment on this debacle.
* Each revision of M$ Office gets harder to use and more obscure
* Nook - Again, late to the party
Whoever is driving Micro$oft is clearly off their rocker. It seems to me that Micro$oft doesn't improve products, they change things just for the sake of changing them, nullifying users' years of built of experience within single release revisions. Customers should not have to relearn how to do everyday tasks with every release. Especially with the latest app revolution and open source on their heels.
Apple is sometimes described as a company that came back from the brink, but for the most part still do what they always did: upper-middle-end computer-driven consumer hardware. IBM went from mostly hardware to mostly services.
I'd disagree - I think Apple did essentially re-invent itself when it switched from Apple Computer to Apple back in '07.
It realized it's future was mobile devices, and despite it's massively profitable iPod franchise, effectively cannibalized it completely with the touch-based offerings, iPhone and iPad. Prior to this change Apple was a Mac/iPod company, afterwards it was the iPhone company (and still is).
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Well yes I agree with you there but when I say I laugh at Windows on the server its because in my company it has almost no use, the only one thing is runs is an outdated fob control system that we have on some of the doors. For that I have a VM with a copy of 95 running. Everything else, the 30+ servers are all Linux host based, of course some of those are on VMware.
It always amazes me how many people actually think that the Xbox is a highly profitable endeavor for Microsoft. While it has turned profitable recently, the Entertainment & Devices Division (where XBox is accounted for) is only mildly profitable. Nowhere near the profit rate of Microsoft's enterprise and desktop cash-cows. It is a stretch to call the Xbox a fiscal "success", at best one could now say it is not "money-losing". It is highly unlikely that Microsoft could expand the revenues and margins of EDD into a company-sustaining business.
That is because the division includes Windows Phone which isn't making much profit right now, not to mention $250 million of cash payments to Nokia every quarter cutting into the profit.
Even with that, they still make a tidy profit.
The EDD reported revenue of $2.53 billion, a 56 percent increase over the $1.61 billion reported during the same period last year. The company also cited a "video game deferral" of $380 million – an advance on the launch of Halo 4, according to Gamasutra – effectively lowering revenues to $2.15 billion. Even so, the EDD racked up an operating income of $342 million, Xbox Live subscriptions rose, however, as did Xbox Live revenue. Specifically, Xbox Live membership grew 18 percent and now totals 46 million members.
So when people say the Xbox is highly profitable, they're right. And EDD would do very well on it's own, even with Windows Phone, with a profit of $342 million just in one quarter. Only on Slashdot does someone think a hypothetical company that makes >1billion profit in a year is not "sustaining".
This space for rent.
You know that's just a stupid thing to say. Free means free which means you don't pay anything for it.
And you WILL pay something for it. You might not pay a license fee but you will incur plenty of other costs. Curious that you think a fact is a stupid thing to say...
It still doesn't mean that Linux isn't free. It is because it costs nothing to acquitre.
Ok, Mr. Pedantic. If you want to get picky then say what you actually mean. Yes you can get a software license for linux for free. You cannot however actually use linux for free so it is a distinction without a difference. Often linux is a more economic choice. Sometimes it isn't. Pointing out that the license fees are lower is interesting but of minor importance. No accountant is going to be swayed by your unwillingness to consider all the relevant costs in the equation.
(full disclosure: I am a certified accountant specializing in cost accounting)
I surmise that, as the Governor in Blazing Saddles, Ballmer might be trying for a "Harumph!!!" moment, i.e. "reorganize to fudge.
I do not see how or why reorganizing should improve MS business model. a good "coming out" about why it was wrong to force win 8 down everybody's throat should be more valuable.
"If a boss demands loyalty, give him integrity. But if he demands integrity, give him loyalty." (John Boyd, 1927-1997)
Once the PC market became a commodity they moved on.
No, not exactly. IBM flailed around in the commodity PC market for quite some time before finally exiting. Remember the PS/2 and PS/1? (What ever happened to the PS/0 anyway?) They tried for a long time to push massively overpriced junk in a market full of inexpensive "clones", even attempting to take over the market with proprietary junk like the MCA bus interface, thinking somehow that everyone would give up on the clones and run back to IBM and their high prices. Eventually, they moved their manufacturing to Lenovo in China, but still kept selling PCs and laptops with their name on them, well into the 2000s, until they sold that division to Lenovo (who got to keep using the IBM name for 5 years afterwards as part of the deal). For a very long time, they were the gold standard for business laptops with their Thinkpad line though their PCs weren't anything special after they finally gave up on the PS/2-type strategies and made industry-standard PCs like everyone else.
So no, they didn't "move on" when the PC market became a commodity; it took them a very long time to wake up and smell the coffee, and even then it took them a while before they finally sold off that business unit.
What are all you Slashdot dickheads going to do in 20 years time when MS are still going strong?
The end of MSFT is near... Near as in 5 years, will be a shell of itself
IBM is one of the rare companies who reinvented themselves and eventually thrived again. It rarely happens such that it's a marvel and probably the best real-world lesson for any tech company trying to do the same.
Yep, it's extremely rare. Most companies, once things change too much for them or they screw up one too many times, are simply doomed, though with many their inertia may be so great it takes a long time for them to finally kick the bucket. Look at Borders books and Circuit City for example. AOL is another one, though they're an example of huge inertia, and they're still around, just in a zombified form and a tiny fraction of their former size.
Personally, I'd rather see MS become the next Circuit City, not the next IBM.
What is that? It sounds like some kind of joint venture between Microsoft and the Church of Scientology.
I can see it now:
Free Personality Tests (Mac personality, Linux, or PC personality)
Auditing your computer to rid it of malware
Steve Ballmer jumping up and down on Oprah's sofa while chanting "developers, developers..."
Windows 8, now with integrated OT Level 8!
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
Linux is free period. It's just a fact. Like the sun is bright.
Only because you chose to pay for support, you now proclaim "but but but for support I still have to pay"
Choose to pay? It's not a choice if you actually want to use it in any non-trivial way. You will have to pay for internal staff or external service providers but you will pay something for support either way. The only relevant question is whether the overall cost is cheaper than the alternatives. Often it is but the cost is NEVER zero.
Furthermore support is not remotely the only cost. Administration, training, installation, application software, data migration, integration with existing systems, etc. All those costs normally are much more than the software license. Linux is free in much the same way that your subsidized smartphone is free. You're going to pay for it, the cost just isn't in the initial acquisition of the equipment.
Once the PC market became a commodity they moved on.
So no, they didn't "move on" when the PC market became a commodity; it took them a very long time to wake up and smell the coffee, and even then it took them a while before they finally sold off that business unit.
I didn't mean to imply they did so immediately; as you pointed out they tried to differentiate themselves, with little success beyond the thinkPads, to be abel to command a premium. Eventually they simply exited the market when it became they could not get premium pricing. But that is my main point - IBM shifted its focus to areas where they can extract a premium; existing the PC market is just one example of how and when they do that.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Speaking as an certified accountant, you cannot possibly come up with a situation where you can install linux in a business for zero cost.
You ignored my argument: then you cannot even call $100 lying on the pavement "free" since it will cost you time (i.e. money) to bend down and pick it up.
Therefore you are not using the commonly used definition of the word "free".
You couls day "Linux costs nothing to acquire", but then again we have a perfectly good word for that: free.
The moment you have a single employee do any work on it you immediately will incur cost.
Doesn't change anything: Linux itself is free. Using it might cost money (no shit!).
Claiming that linux is free of any cost however is utter nonsense and easily shown to be false.
Seriously, this is not what any normal human speaking english means by free.
If you give something to someone "for free" you know like a present, they will not assume that it has zero lifetime cost, unless they are a very special kind of fool.
Just imagine that:
A: Hey look I got this I pad as a present. I love free stuff!
B: it's not free.
A: yes it is I didn't pay for it.
B: No, it's not free.
A: WTF?
B: you have to pay for the electricity to charge it. You spend more in gas in your car driving the extra weight around. Hence not free.
A: fffffffffffuuuuuuuuuu
B: [dies after having a copy of the complete OED land on his head]
Linux is free in any normal definition of the word.
If we use your definition, then nothing ever is free, and free becomes an entirely pointless word since it can be applied to nothing.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
all MS needs to do to save windows 8 is Modern Mix and start 8 to be build into the base os.
I honestly read that as "Minecraft." Bored now.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Microsoft has twelve different divisions that make over $1 billion. Azure is the latest addition to that club. Also, just because PC sales are slowing doesn't mean Windows 8 sales are slowing. All those existing machines out there run Windows 8 just fine and people are upgrading. In fact Windows 8 breathes new life into legacy hardware. Windows is doing just fine.
Or there's gotta be a joke about 'throwing' them...
More seriously, what does this mean to the Windows & Office teams, which is still the core of MS's business?
Big signal for the more talented and ambitious of them to jump ship, either internally or externally....
IBM only had a small division in the PC market, it was a side-venture. The outside PC-centric world may have seen only that but they were always much more diversified.
You ignored my argument: then you cannot even call $100 lying on the pavement "free" since it will cost you time (i.e. money) to bend down and pick it up.
I didn't ignore your argument. I told you your argument is flat out wrong. If you want to be specific about there being no charge to you for the license of certain distributions of linux then say that. Be specific. If you do not care to be specific then be prepared to have the flaws in your argument pointed out to you.
And yes your time to bend over and pick up that $100 bill does cost money at minimum as an opportunity cost. The cost might be small but it is not zero.
If we use your definition, then nothing ever is free, and free becomes an entirely pointless word since it can be applied to nothing.
Nothing is ever free. That would be correct. There is an opportunity cost to everything even if there is no other direct or indirect cost. The only question is who is paying and when. Haven't you ever heard the phrase there is no such thing as a free lunch?
Did IBM really reinvent itself, or just shrink some of it's cthulhu tentacles while expanding others?
Microsoft just never really diversified, it basically has only two tricks, Windows and Office. There are other things profitable for Microsoft but they're tied to those products (ie, Visual Studio, selling certificates, etc). MS has been obstinately resolute about Windows and because they've been a monopoly they've gotten flabby when it comes to competing. People know they're not so great at actual quality and are slow to make changes. They really need something to fall back on other than the self assured notion that everyone will always buy Windows.
In some ways Microsoft feels a bit like DEC back in the days when it declared Unix to be snake oil, in that they're blind to the actual competition. Microsoft wants to sell to the big mass market, the home users and such, but they've never made much headway there other than Windows and that market has always been very lukewarm to them. They're never going to be the media company that they think they can be. Meanwhile they do have a strong business presence but they've not been very competitive in that market at all, instead relying upon inertia in IT and reluctance to change platforms.
Why do you keep on spreading this nonsense?
There is no throat to grab even with Microsoft products. The EULA you sign explicitly forbids these things!
The Microsoft software is essentially unsupported as well. Sure, you get updates, just like in any Linux distribution.
If you don't believe me, pick your favorite bug, contact Microsoft and try to get it fixed.
All Microsoft used to do was reorg itself every couple of years back in the 90s and 00s. Those were their glory days of Windows 2000 and Visual C++. Maybe they need to get back to what works. I don't think they've had a reorg recently. Whatever the reorg did for their culture, it worked.
Microsoft is dying but they have so much money in the bank to burn through it will unfortunately be decades before they finally dissapear.
The iPhone is essentially a pocket computer with a nice GUI. Size doesn't really change anything.
Table-ized A.I.
So no, they didn't "move on" when the PC market became a commodity; it took them a very long time to wake up and smell the coffee, and even then it took them a while before they finally sold off that business unit.
To their credit, they moved far quicker and far better than any of their original competitors. Look at HP and Dell (or the companies they merged with) as an example of why IBM is a model for every company trying to divest from a core but dying business.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
These free men believe in open software and exist in vast numbers.
And will lead the software industry into a bloody religious jihad that will depopulate entire planets and result in the deaths of trillions, followed by a thousand years of enforced software patents under a giant open source worm.
Thankfully, the Bene Gesserit (Apple) will be around to pick up the shattered pieces of software humanity afterward. ...Stopped reading after Dune, did you?
I think MS has a few more "tricks" than just Windows and Office, namely Windows Server, Sharepoint, Exchange/Outlook, and maybe SQL Server. There's also Xbox. Yes, they're all tied to Windows and Office, but they're still all profitable from what I've heard. Exchange/Outlook in particular has been a must-have in many, many companies, as much as I hate to admit it.
Look at HP and Dell (or the companies they merged with) as an example of why IBM is a model for every company trying to divest from a core but dying business.
What's wrong with Dell? And why would they want to get away from selling PCs and laptops? It may not be quite as profitable as in the past when companies were upgrading every 2-3 years, but people still need laptops, servers, and desktop PCs, especially in the corporate sector, and frankly, I don't know what decent competition Dell has besides Lenovo (there's also HP, but I said "decent"), and maybe Samsung. HP may want to get away from this business, but not because it's "dying", but rather because they're so incompetent and have produced junk for so long that no one wants to buy from them any more.
I hope in the end they do become a successful device company. That means they will be able to continue supporting my 5-button scroll-wheel mouse, which I depend on greatly!
Thats the problem.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
.NET Framework, Windows Azure, IIS, Windows Server is what I deal with every day. While I admit Microsoft nowadays also releases buggy software, with some knowlege great things could be accomplished with these technologies. Talking about openness, the .NET community is great. The main alternative, hosted by Oracle nowadays, raised some concern recently too..
"In AN "real" corporate environment"
An? Why 'an'? Because YOU'RE AN AMERICAN, you cretin. How did I know that?
Why do you American cretins keep inserting random 'ans' where they aren't required?
Want to buy office 2013 and put it on a customers computer? Good freaking luck. Your required to bind it to your account. You can no longer just type in the code, and get their software working for them.
I have 3 copies sitting on my desk, not sure what I want to do with them, but for now I'll buy an older version of office, or tell people they will need to buy it themselves. I really really don't want to go through setting up a microsoft account for them, or getting the password to an existing one.
Microsoft just fucked a bunch of independents from doing the right thing and buying their software, and installing it for customers. I'm sure they don't give a crap because they only care about MSP's or whatever, but I'm not big enough to mess with doing all that partner crap.
I think it's more a question of internal politics than actual business decisions. XBox is run differently than the rest of the organization, consequently it's the most likely target for spinoff. No one in the corporate bureaucracy could manage the group working on Halo, the MBA-class saw them as a bunch of undisciplined assholes who didn't take orders the way they were supposed to, so they spun off Bungie. Good decision for both parties. MS internal politics would have ruined the company if it had been allowed to take over.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
He's going to flush all the Gates detritus, those that have not already retired or been retired. He'll then boost his own cronies and may hire complacent developers who will fit into Ballmersoft or as I like to call it B$.
If you toady well you'll be well lubed with money and chicks.
When you go to replace your "outdated fob control system" you're going to be in for a shock. All the enterprise-class access control systems and almost all the enterprise-class security video systems run under Windows. If you're small company with only one or two offices you may be able to get along with S2 for access control and a Huawai or some other proprietary NVR I suppose, but if you need any sort of complex installation you're going to Windows, like it or not. Even Honeywell has discontinued their ancient Unix-based system, you're not going to find any quality security systems that aren't Widows-based. Yes, I am a physical security professional.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
There are cases where Windows is the right call and of course with something like a Fob access system I might have to run 1 Windows server but that doesn't mean I need to replace all my servers with Windows. Windows has a place but it's seldom at least as far as I need in my company.
In the last 5-6 years, desktop hardware has stabilized *a lot*, and Microsoft has done nothing to improve the bottom-line experience of it's product users, so there's been no real reason to upgrade (see the desperation with which many people cling to XP; Windows 7 is nicer but it's not really, truly better).
Microsoft, though, cannot see this. They - not the individuals, but the corporation - cannot see, are incapable of seeing, that their products are not remotely the best they *can be*.
Consider Outlook/Exchange. Corporations use Outlook not for it's mail services but for it's integration of key services. And people hate it with a passion. Microsoft have worked hard try and create the impression that PC is King and Microsoft are King of the PC, and frankly nobody actually wants Microsoft software.
It's like the odd-smelling creepy guy who comes with the movers; you'll let him in, you'll be polite, offer him a drink maybe, but you're not going to invite him back and, no, thanks, you really don't want to visit his parents.
People are turned off by MS products because they have to work with them, and that's enough to convince you to use something else at home.
Metro... Ok, I know, this is slashdot, people here have to hate on Metro. I actually had a Windows 7 Phone, and aside from the lack of apps after MS announced they were doing Win 8, I really enjoyed it. It was lean and mean, but unlike W8's UI, it was a back to basics approach. It wasn't about *removing* UI chrome, it was about starting over with the assumption E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G that gets displayed is an interaction hook/button. If you can see it, you can tap it or press it, and it will do something.
The apps that sucked on W7P were the apps that weren't raw Metro apps.
Again, MS couldn't see it, and W8 is a castrated b*****d version of it.
Unless Ballmer steps down in the next 6 months, this is it people - this is when Microsoft died :)
-- A change is as good as a reboot.
Your argument is idiotic - you're purely playing with semantics to win an argument with a meaningless show of brute logic.
Here, do it this way around. I'll take 500 servers running whatever flavor of Linux is popular this month* and 500 servers running Windows. Pay for licenses where necessary, and pay for corporate level support. How much have I spent at the end of year 1, year 2, year 3?
I don't know about your company, but in my company I know very well the answer is "the 500 Linux servers cost a hell of a lot more to run per year than the 500 Windows servers". Why? Because I sat in a meeting a few years ago where the Linux guys were crowing "free! free! free!" and then someone who actually understands business said great, but what's my annualized cost? And the numbers showed that, gee, the license cost (or lack thereof) mattered not at all when you looked at the support costs for the next three years. Linux was freaking expensive.
* There's another problem. Forget free. I've seen so many upper level managers get annoyed with the Linux geeks when they can't explain why the presentations keep on changing every year from Red Hat to Slackware to Ubuntu.
IBM's current focus is to sell services that it can no longer provide to companies willing to pay top dollar for the reputation that IBM once commanded. Then IBM will lay off the people who can actually DO the work that they are on the hook to deliver (set up automated backups and monitoring and disaster recovery solutions for data centers), hire people whose only other access to "high tech" jobs is telemarketing firms at low prices, and pocket the profits, counting on the fees for non-delivery being lower than the cost of actually doing the work.
Transformation my ass. Anyone with a lick of business experience knows that reorganization is how you hide your problems.
Office 360 is an unmitigated success according to recent reports. Google that. What Xbox losses? Just more FUD from the uninformed.
"Give me control of a nation's money supply, and I care not who makes its laws." --Rothschild in 1744
Casteism
The commercial success of the iPhone and growth of the mobile market allowed (or caused) Apple to be reinvented inasmuch as it has. Apple did not reinvent itself "consciously" or "a priori". They didn't "bet the company" on iPhone. They have "bet the company" in the past, but nobody called those reinventions because it was from one personal computer software architecture to another.