Slashdot Mirror
Break Microsoft Up
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Tom Worstall writes in Forbes that the only way to get around the entrenched culture that has made Microsoft a graveyard for the kind of big ideas that have inspired companies like Apple, Google, and Amazon is to split the company up so as to remove conflicts between new and old products. With Ballmer's departure, instead of finding someone new to run the company, bring in experts to handle the legal side and find suitable CEOs for the new companies. 'The underlying problem for Microsoft is that the computing market has rapidly left behind the company's basic strategy of controlling the machines that people use with operating-system software,' says Erik Sherman. 'The combination of mobile devices that broke Microsoft's grip on the client end, and cloud computing that didn't necessarily need the company in data centers, shattered this form of control.' Anyone can see how easily you could split off the gaming folks, business division, retail stores, and hardware division says John Dvorak. Each entity would have agreements in place for long-term supply of software and services. 'This sort of shake up would ferret out all the empire builders and allow for new and more creative structures to emerge. And since everyone will have to be in a semi-startup mode, the dead wood will be eliminated by actual hard work.'"
With pleasure!
classic old-school, google gets praise for the chromecast, for having an OS, for being in mobile, being in search, being in social networks.. and that's all good. Apple ditto.. but not acceptable for MS. Microsoft needs a good shaking but there are some strong elements in there that need to be supported and accelerated. They have as much right to push for the unified vision as anyone
yeah .. bring it on.
Schumpeter's gale, Creative destruction, is brewing a cup of economic karma for msft. If only we could get one going for RIAA and MPAA.
I think the problem is that their unified vision is anything but unified. Hell, they can't even make up their minds about what Windows 8 is supposed to be.
One of the most successful companies of all time, which is still doing billions in business, and everyone can't wait to tell them how they are fucking it up...
Why don't all these brilliant analysts go make billions if they are so smart?
Where is Tuppe666 to tell us how lololMicrosoft yayGoogle!
An old DoJ decision ruled that Microsoft was to be split. They fight it back, and it never occurs, so Microsoft wins... now it loses.
That's just karma in its face.
Well, while Windows Mobile used to be the best option for a smartphone out there, and shows that MS were at least trying to be in that market a long time ago.. the fact remains that they haven't come up with anything good on their own for a long time. They try to muscle their way in on everything, rather than making people want their devices. Look at all that shit with the Xbone. Xbox Live had started turning a profit, but they weren't happy with that, and kept trying to push ways to squeeze even more money out of their subscribers. If they focused on creating good products that people love, rather than thinking "how can we take a piece of this emerging market?", they'd be a lot better off.
which is totally what she said
How come it makes sense to split up MS, but banks and other financial companies that are huge and have a real impact on the economy can't be split up?
fuck your unified vision.
Those others are succesfull and buzzing with creative energy. Microsoft has a long-standing corporate culture, crativity does not seem to be working. Also Microsoft is really big, they have a game console, OS, all the other software and they make hardware with stores to support. On the other hand, something like a console requires such massive investments, only very few very big companies can have a successful console.
It's really a question of if they can make a Windows that provides new/more value to the software market, then they could increase PC sales and justify their existence.
FTFA :- "Anyone can see how easily you could split off the gaming folks, business division, retail stores, and hardware division says John Dvorak."
Agreed. Each of those areas could be self-contained, if it isn't already.
"Each entity would have agreements in place for long-term supply of software and services. 'This sort of shake up would ferret out all the empire builders and allow for new and more creative structures to emerge."
Why? There will always be empire builders. And why would "new and more creative structures" emerge? If the existing divisions are lagely self-contained, what stops that now? I have witnessed companies down-sizing and splitting up - management become obsessed with it as an end in itself, like "well we shut down that department, what can we shut down next?". They stop thinking about the product. "Creative" groups are the first up against the wall.
On a much smaller scale, I saw a company of about 30 people reduced to about 5 because the new owner, a devout Thatcherite, just thought "The smaller the better". It ended up with the craftsman in the workshop keep having to stop making stuff to go and answer the phone; that was not efficient.
As long as the only other OS (talking PC, not Mac bullshit...) out there is Linux.
Aka they will be strong as ever, forever... unleast Google save us with Chrome OS.
=(
it's kinda like quoting bill o'reilly.
The knee jerk reaction would be to call such a reorganization a failure. It wouldn't necessarily be one. If a breakup worked as intended with each unit succeeding it could be a model that apple and google might be day follow.
I can't see any successful big ideas which have come out of Google in the last 5 years. The last good big idea was probably Android in 2007 and even that emerged partly from an acquisition. Apple's last good big idea was again in 2007.
They should focus on their core competency: software. Expand existing business-oriented product-lines to iOS, Android, and Linux, in addition to Windows. There-in lies the revenue. Trying to compete with entrenched hardware manufacturers like Sony and Samsung is a loser's game.
Floating in the black seas of infinity without a paddle.
Is this the same genius at Forbes who actually suggested that Microsoft sell off Xbox a few months back?
I don't think anybody is saying Microsoft shouldn't be allowed to continue as a single entity with their current strategy. They're saying it's not proving to be a very good strategy, and that the entity known as Microsoft might be more profitable if it was broken into several things.
See, Apple and Google seem to be able to execute on their strategies. But Microsoft is so concerned about cutting into sales off Office or their desktop OSes that some of their other offerings aren't doing so well.
Yes, but has it been working for them? Because, arguably, the Windows Phone and the Windows tablets aren't selling overly well, Windows 8 itself is proving a little lackluster, and Microsoft has generally been stuck doing "me too" for years.
So, either they need to start making different decisions (like allowing one division to do stuff that isn't dictated by another), start dropping products which are underperforming ... or split into multiple divisions so that they can be separate businesses and actually try to thrive.
But I think it's hard to not come to the conclusion that something about how Microsoft is doing their strategy is causing some of their products to be selling terribly.
The "lose money on everything but make it up on volume" works when you're a hugely rich company, but it's still a terrible strategy.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
No one recognized the Year of Linux having come and possibly passed, because it was in the pocket, not the desktop.
Back in 1999, this breakup may have been a good idea, comply with the Court monopolistic findings and make 2 much more agile companies.
But what is the point now? The techscape is very different and Microsoft's woes is mostly the result of internal bureacracy that built up complying with that now obsolete order. Get rid of the bureaucracy, not split the company. At worst, it goes to court and I find it very hard that MS will lose.
What MS needs is leadership that's more adventurous than "Look! Me too!" and backed by MS's considerable but ever slowly dwindling resources. In the last 15 years, all they added for themselves on top of the OS and Office was Xbox. The problem long term for MS is that the desktop is now old hat and it has no share in mobile. On top of that, for most users, Operating Systems will be given ever less importance to the end user. Already, I have friends who do their Quickbooks and Intuit taxes online with just a browser. Something they couldn't do 15 years back. They use one of the free office softwares and edit pics with another free program that's better than 90% of the pay programs. Their OS at this point couldn't matter less and that's how they like it. All that matters is their data and being able to manipulate it. 15 years ago, it was unfathomable to get on in the world with anything but Windows. Now you can get along with minimum 3 OSes.
MS's OS (and it's wealth) comes at considerable cost to others. License fees ratchet up every so often and what now. If other industries/companies can do away with a cost, they will. And that means eventually dumping Microsoft. Especially when this expensive commodity can be replaced for free. With Chromebook, this is creeping in. 15 years ago, this was unfathomable and crap like Lindows was a joke from a 3rd tier company no one heard of. Because Ballmer was right - it's about the applications, stupid. Developers and all that.
Ironically, that's exactly what MS now lacks in the mobile arena. They lost at their own game. They're suffering the same problem Linux had on the desktop - marketshare. With the Microsoft Zune, they skated to where the puck was, not where it was going. Taste that, friends, because that's just sweet. Now that OS agnostic world is on the horizon, Windows becoming a niche among professionals and gamers but no longer synonymous with computing, or even desktop computing.
Who knew? The Year of Linux on the Desktop will probably come when the OS couldn't matter one bit anymore and for that very reason.
they haven't come up with anything good on their own for a long time
I'd say that they at least deserved credit for Kinect. While it was obviously released in response to the unforeseen success of the original Wii and its novel control methods, the fact remains that it went beyond being just a "me too" product and was genuinely innovative in its own right.
That said, it was arguably the exception rather than the rule, probably because it came from the XBox division and wasn't a threat to the entrenched interests and politics of the main Windows and Office divisions that have crushed so much potential innovation within MS.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Windows Mobile the best option? Eeep!
Waiting for an amusing sig.
The only thing that ever made Microsoft great was its ability to leverage its core OS into new markets. Sure that isn't working lately, but if you take that away, what have they got left? Not a lot.
The underlying problem for Microsoft is that the computing market has rapidly left behind the company's basic strategy of controlling the machines that people use with operating-system software
In what alternate reality? The computing market here in the real world has wholeheartedly embraced that strategy. Windows and Mac on the desktop/laptops, every game console's proprietary OS, iOS and even Android is heading in that direction in the portable space. Linux is still mostly free of it, but then Linux is a blip in "the computing market" in this context.
I'm not saying that Microsoft's not screwed, but I question the credentials of an "expert" who says, essentially, "The reason <big oil company> is in so much trouble is because they refuse to adopt the new standard of cheap, safe, readily-available cold fusion."
The moment someone uses John Dvorak to support an argument, I stop taking them seriously.
The Kinect was a great piece of kit, but in its next iteration, it went right back to "How can we use this to monetize our customers?" Turning into a spying platform to serve targeted ads did nothing but turn people off buying the latest.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
Microsoft being broken up would break the things they have that are working. So their cloud/application linkage in azure would be broken up.
The area where the disaster has taken place is in Windows. By making 8 - they've irrepairably damaged 7, and 8.1 doesn't fix it. The cloud area they worked on has been destructive of on premise IT, which is dumb. You don't need that damage.
If you really kill windows, you're in very deep trouble on the server and application sides, and it requires a full rework.
Although at present Azure works and their cloud works, its so dependant on end user windows machines that they are no in a very deep hole. And Ballmer going I think echo's this.
Its a shame, because frankly there is some damn good stuff in the stable, and its inter operations work at a level nothing else does. Break up doesn't help that at all in any way.
We`re all equal
1. an office unit, it will be a monopoly but it could port to other platforms and make more money ? Microsoft turned it into a monopoly by levering its OS-dominance 2. an exchange-active directory unit, it will be a monopoly but it could port to other platforms and make more money ? Microsoft turned it into a monopoly by levering its OS-dominance 3..an OS division, it will become a "nearly" monopoly ? 4. a database division, it could port to other platforms and make more money ? 5. a games division, it will soon die, its not profitable ? After all games never managed to become a monopoly, because Microsoft did not have another product it could leverage.
Imagine if the Apple Mac department had blocked the iPhone and/or iPad because it could eat into the Mac market share (which I'm sure it did). I guess Apple would by far not be as profitable as it is now.
Well, they bought the Kinect ... so if the extent of Microsoft's 'innovation' is technology they buy, then yes. But in terms of a single really ground breaking piece of technology Microsoft developed in-house, it's much harder to think of recent examples.
Yes, the Kinect is a pretty good system, but let's not lose sight of the fact that it was purchased technology. All this means is Microsoft is still rich enough and occasionally observant enough to pick up technology other people have created.
In terms of their own creation of products from scratch -- I don't think their recent track record is all that impressive. Sure, they've got bazillions of dollars and can keep buying stuff, but as an innovative technology company goes, they've proven a little stagnant recently. Their tablets, phones, Windows 8 ... none of those are doing anywhere near as well as a company the size of Microsoft would expect, and Microsoft s bordering on being a bit player in the mobile market.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
It's inevitable.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
. . . back in 1992-1993, all the analysts were screaming that IBM needed to break up.
What Microsoft needs, is a Lou Gerstner, not a breakup.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
so they can come in have a os that can run of most of the systems running 7 and 8 right now as well maybe some of the systems still on XP.
Also that can let mac os X run on real server hardware.
Where is Tuppe666 to tell us how lololMicrosoft yayGoogle!
Why would I do that? You would have to be living in a hole not to see that Google is coming from a successful multiple product launch; Positive numbers for Chome OS and Docs...and it looks like they have cracked TV first while replacing Airplay. Microsoft have had nothing but bad news since SurfaceRT was announced a failure...Balmer kicked out (Bill Why?)....A gaggle of articles like this one of how to fix Microsoft failure in everything but Windows/Office and their replaced services even though it has a monopoly in Desktop Applications. In fact these articles are about Microsoft being unfixable in its current state.
The bottom line is Ironically they should probably focus on actual products and services rather than attack cowedly from behind a thin veil of secrecy in Scroogled. :)
Here, you dropped this 'was'. I found it down the back of the sofa you were just chilling on.
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
Nope.
The problem is that there's people running Microsoft who still think the way to sell more Windows 8 isn't to listen to customers and fix Windows 8's problems, it's to make (eg.) the next release of Direct3D Windows-8-only thereby "forcing" people to upgrade (LOL!)
No sig today...
I think the problem is that their unified vision is anything but unified. Hell, they can't even make up their minds about what Windows 8 is supposed to be.
By contrast, their development and cloud products are getting more synced up as each month passes. Their work on Azure is probably the best example of MS unifying a bunch of teams to a common goal.
I think breaking up Microsoft would be for the better.... and the same with Apple, Google, and a whole bunch of other megacorporations. At some point that "unified vision" becomes a straightjacket preventing the various divisions from innovating and responding to the market, and all three of those are past that.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
I probably was at one time. Before iOS and Android came along, there wasn't much in the way of smart phones. The first gen iPhone didn't come out until 2007, and Windows mobile had been released since 2000. There really wasn't much out in the smartphone market at that time. Their problem was their failure to innovate and stay current. Similar to IE6. Most people forget that when IE6 came out, it was a really good browser. The problem is that they didn't change it for 10 years, even when there was clear evidence that it was being left behind by better competition.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Sorry - but that is not 100% correct. Being a former MS employee, they were working in their research division on Project Natal in the 90's, which became the backbone of the Kinect. I saw it at many research fairs at the Redmond campus.
oh..... the guy that said "IBM may even be bought by Unisys or maybe Microsoft." on 2002.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,367800,00.asp
they seem to have their hands in too many cookie jars and unable to focus on anything lately
Imagine if the Apple Mac department had blocked the iPhone and/or iPad because it could eat into the Mac market share (which I'm sure it did). I guess Apple would by far not be as profitable as it is now.
The iPhone is indeed killing iPod sales. The iPad is destroying all growth in Mac sales. And Apple is quite happy with that. Steve Jobs himself said (and I'm quite sure he quoted someone else) that "if you don't cannibalise your products, someone else will".
I agree that they need to prune and focus.. and I absolutely hate how they make up the worst names for all there products and services (Windows RT anyone?) which only adds to the confusion about their offerings.. but what SHOULD be one of Microsoft's big advantages is that they have *all* the pieces of the puzzle.
If they could ever just work together and integrate them all they literally have most of everyday computing covered with their products. The potential for easy sharing of data across platforms and form factors as well as ease of setting up solutions is huge.
From developer tools to the desktop, server, tablet, phone and cloud they have all the pieces. They should be whupping the competition with the inherent flexibility and ability to get things done when all those platforms are under one roof.
I have no idea why they have stayed with their knife in the back culture so long but they need to change it.
they seem to have their hands in too many cookie jars and unable to focus on anything lately
The whole point of why we are taking about breaking up Microsoft...Something Gates Lied under oath to protect against, is because Google *succeeded* in those very some of those very sectors that Microsoft failed so spectacularly in.
The reality is I suspect part of Googles success has been because it had been attacked from so many sides. Competition has made Google successful...Years without it, with a sudden need to, is how Microsoft got here.
Personally I think Google should think about taking on Amazon.
Its slightly off topic, but Google unlike Microsoft has been willing to kill off unsuccessful projects, and start again, rather than Microsoft's Double Down approach which only works if your a Monopoly, not the challenger.
iOS (iPad and iPhone) is the walled garden.
Mac runs any FOSS applications you want, so yes Mac is great for free and open software users.
I used Linux exclusively for many years. When I was given a Mac Pro with 32 GB of RAM, two $400 graphics cards, etc. I decided to try it out. In 18 months of use, I've not found any OSS applications that don't run nicely on the Mac.
Well, while Windows Mobile used to be the best option for a smartphone out there
Okay, seriously, what are you on and are you sharing?
I had a Windows Mobile (5) phone back in undergrad. That phone didn't even last me 6 months. The battery life wouldn't even last 8 hours, on idle. Every time I started an application, I had to make sure to go to Task Manager to kill it, otherwise it would sit in the background and slowly suck the life out of my phone. If I didn't, my phone would be dead by lunch. Now, you may think I was solving NP-complete problems but no, I'm talking about one, maybe two applications. Even worse was the fact that it couldn't multitask at all, at least not without crashing every 10 minutes or so. Call quality was abysmal, the user interface was horrid and couldn't be customized (Remember, papa Ballmer knows whats best), and doing anything on the phone was a total chore. As for the model, it was some HTC from T-Mobile. Worst $250 I spent, and that was after signing on for another 2 years.
Praise for chromecast among whom? I think the corporate media really pushed the thing to where it got initial traction, but it appears that the development community is turning against it with the lockdown on unauthorized streaming content.
so they can come in have a os that can run of most of the systems running 7 and 8 right now as well maybe some of the systems still on XP.
Also that can let mac os X run on real server hardware.
It would be lovely to see Apple seriously challenge Microsoft when they are weak in Computers, but it looks like they are willing to squander any advantage they have *again*, right now mac sales are dropping, and making computers into electronic devices might bleed more cash from your current customers, but it is clearly a losing strategy.
Apple could license their OS, Hell they could buy Dell, they just don't care about computers any more.
Praise for chromecast among whom? I think the corporate media really pushed the thing to where it got initial traction, but it appears that the development community is turning against it with the lockdown on unauthorized streaming content. I got a Rikomagic TV stick, also for $35, runs Android, can't be locked down. Chromecast doesn't interest me.
A new company name: Microsoft Mobile.
The EASIEST WAY to fix Windows 8 is to add it to their SPLA licensing program - that fucking simple.
Just Win 8 (not Win7), and let the DaaS market / Internal IT run with it for their employees.
Their entire premise of "winning" the desktop war was to get it in front of as many people as possible - with smart phones destroying that, they should be leveraging Win 8 running in a VM and being presented to the user via some phone app / RDP / Citrix / whatever.
It wont matter that Timmy just bought some shiny new iPad, when his daily usage of the iPad consists of opening some app that lets him access his work / home desktop remotely 10 hours a day.
So the basic argument is that if Microsoft hadn't appealed in 2000 and had just abided by Judge Jackson's ruling, they wouldn't be in the mess they are in today?
So the company's no better off for all that extra legal wrangling, but in the meantime a lot of lawyers and investors made a mint.
But the bigger issue is why it took them so long to realise they needed to get onto tablets, why they wouldn't or couldn't make any concession to existing desktop users, why their recent history is so littered with failed products and what were all the inter divisional battles that formed the backdrop to that.
They should focus on their core competency: software. Expand existing business-oriented product-lines
Except Microsoft software is worse than the opposition, and more expensive. When they had a monopoly those things didn't matter, and still don't if your locked into their products. A major problem is Business was more important that the consumer market, now its the reverse, Microsoft desperately needs proper consumer products.
I would have said "yes" about 8 years ago.. but when a technology company is on the rocks, the last thing it needs is to be broken up..
Breaking up a company is typical Wall Street drivel..( Carl Icahn, etc). It serves only the "green-mailer", and not the company, its customers, or its employees.
I challenge the Slashdot community to show me one failing technology company after being broken up, is more successful today..
Mergers and acquisitions make things more successful.
As per the article, "split the company up so as to remove conflicts between new and old products". So we will have, Microsoft XP, Inc., Microsoft Vista, Inc., Microsoft 7, Inc., Microsoft 8, Inc., etc.? What is wrong with letting the company ruin itself, just the same way they grew up?
Yup. It seems to me that Microsoft still has the idea lodged in their collective heads that they're in a position to say, "Fuck you if you don't like our product. You have to buy it anyway." Unfortunately, they are still kind of in that position, but their position is increasingly tenuous.
In terms of their own creation of products from scratch
That's a pretty high bar you've set. It seems like for you, to qualify as an innovation you have to single handedly build every component within the device at the company internally from first principles (aka "scratch"). The Kinect was as much an innovation as the iPod... it was an evolution of technology, built on existing technology but packaged in a way that brought widespread consumer adoption.
Can you point to any device from any company that is built fully in-house from scratch? Just looking at the companies listed by TFA as innovative, I can't think of one. Amazon's Kindle Fire? Built on top of Android and chasing the sucess of the iPad. Google's Android? Bought. Google's self driving car? They bought the talent from the DARPA challenges. Google Glass? Under the same principles you will not call the Kinect innovative Google Glass is not innovative - built on the technology others have created. What about the original iPad? Every piece of functioning technolgoy within was purchased from another company. So maybe the OS is all in-house.... but iOS is based on OSX which is based on BSD, so I guess they call short of your bar as well.
Sorry, ALL technology today is built off the technology others have created. The Kinect used Primesense's sensor to create an innovative gaming device the same way the iPad used someone elses's touch screen technology to create an innovative tablet. Give credit where it is due.
When did it become the norm to use some obscure definition without bothering to define it first (or ever in this case)?
Microsoft has been trying to cash in on software *usage* ever since the ads in Active Desktop, circa 1998. They've never veered from that path. MS has gradually acclimated their customers to a restrictive product that is locked to a single piece of hardware. The clear plan with Windows 8 is to convert their millions of existing Windows customers into subscription cloud customers by herding them through the narrow gate of Metro, like so many cattle on their way to slaughter. The failure is not in their clarity of vision but rather in the execution. Microsoft always seem to depend on exploiting their monopoly to increase profits, to the extent that they neglect the product itself. (Who wants to live in the Microsoft cloud, after all? It has nothing to offer.) Their second failing, if it could be called that, is that they don't have a charismatic Steve "P.T.Barnum" Jobs character to head up the marketing. Their advertising is confusing, at best. (Remember the soccer mom in the stuffed butterfly suit? What the...?)
Hell no, Split GOOGLE!!! They are the true evil in the world.
Unless you paired some of the unprofitable divisions with the profitable ones, things like Bing and the Surface would die immediately. While I'm sure that many Slashdot fans would cheer about that, it's probably not the best outcome for Microsoft.
Why? I don't think the article is about splitting them in terms of money, more in terms of *influence*. That said What is wrong with letting unsuccessful products die? Why Double Down instead of try something new?
You need to provide more argument than attacking the slashdot community as justification.
How would a split be handled to the 'satisfaction' of existing investors?
This would require a significant shakeup in the Board and Upper Management just to get the ball rolling.
Once that happened you would see a lot of turbulence in the market.
I don't see how this ends well for anyone except (potentially) consumers.
Why did it take them 15-20 years to get it out of the research labs?!!?
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Start off TFS with an 83-word sentence and only four punctuation marks (including the full-stop at the end)? Great journalism!
(mod me down for trolling)
I posted this very same idea on /. last year.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Hmmm, 1st quarter, 2nd quarter, 3rd quarter, 4th quarter
I come here for the love
Upgrade to Windows 7, Ubuntu, Android, or iOS. Excellent.
Looks like someone is shorting Microsoft stock. :)
I think that's on the back of their business cards, in very small print.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
It should have been fine this iteration. The required fixes aren't major* and there was no shortage of people telling them what's wrong with it.
* Mostly just to add a start button and optional boot-to-desktop (for all those desktop machines, duh!)
No sig today...
Hey its AMAZING to see so many people in the tech press that know exactly how to run microsoft. I thought that CEO of this kind of giant company were pretty difficult to find. Its a relief to see that there are plenty of candidate for the position ...
Seriously, in a perfect world, I would force such people to open a successfull bakery before being granted the right to send 'advises' to entrepreneurs or company bosses.
Companies buy others to get good technology to integrate all the time. Apple has bought several mapping, chip design, mapping and other companies over the years. What Google is very noted for has been bought, including YouTube, the advertising, Motorola and Android. At least five acquisitions make up Google Maps, same for Google+.
But the point isn't just buying something, it's integrating it into your product line to make something better. Microsoft did this with Kinect. Microsoft utterly failed with Danger, an attempt to quickly leverage into the mobile market.
How would this help? All you'd end up with is all these independent companies doing their own thing and interoperability being a big challenge. One of Apple's primary advantages is their impressive level of integration, that they're in control of every single aspect of their business from the hardware, to the OS, to app development. Google doesn't have that level of integration but they do, like Apple, have a cohesive corporate culture that is generally working towards a unified end.
How breaking a company into fragments going to improve cooperation? So if there's an excessively competitive mentality there now how exactly is this supposed to improve when you've got people working at separate companies that could easily turn into direct competitors. It's inevitable that in time these businesses would offer overlapping services, negating the need to continue cooperation.
Really, what Microsoft needs is strong leadership that identifies the problems of the existing culture and dumps all the stupid policies that caused them. I don't think most people relished the idea of working in that environment, as evidenced by the churn and loss of good people. If the mandate comes down, however, fostering cooperation and teamwork wouldn't employees feel a burden lifted from their shoulders?
I do think they'd have to really push it hard and embrace this approach. Anyone who can't give up the old ways, most likely those entrenched in middle management will probably have to be cut loose. Their continued presence will be poisonous.
One of Apple's primary advantages is their impressive level of integration, that they're in control of every single aspect of their business from the hardware,to the OS, to app development
They tried that the result was the Surface. Surface didn't sell. The whole reason they are here is they copied Apple. Apple have their own problems.
It's not the business structure, it's the stakeholders that hold Microsoft back. There are too many people holding too much stock and not wanting to rock the boat so they can unload it or keep getting it.
What I would pursue first is spending some of that cash hoard to eliminate the existing employee stakeholders by cashing out their stakes. Make it lucrative enough that you'd have to be daft to want to keep the stock.
Go further by restructuring bonus plans and other incentives so that there is less incentive to block innovation or another division undermining your cash cow. Allow for some incentives for Office division people even if Office sales slow but more heavily incent Office sales/use on 'other' platforms.
Essentially the company has to remove disincentives to innovation and prevent people living off the fat of the land (Office, Windows) from blocking innovation brought forth that might challenge their stakes.
I would also put $5 billion into an OS skunkworks (off-site, own facility, full source code, etc) to reinvent the "Windows" OS totally. I would make lack of binary compatibility with Windows and OS-wide integration of virtualization mandatory. I think they could make something interesting.
Apple is taking according to some figures 45% of all profits in the computer hardware market. With Dell and HP profits in that segment dropping,
Even if that is true you are ignoring the fact that both Intel and Microsoft comfortably sit on 70% Gross margins. Kind of the point here, and ignoring success from Chrome OS. Apple is failing in the computer market too with drops in sales. Interestingly Chrome OS selling well, Maybe Microsoft is not keeping Google in check.
And I saw people using those cameras in the auto industry circa 2001. They were considering it as a way to determine what type of person or object was in the passenger seat in order to meet new regs about what airbags have to do in various situations. The cameras were designed and produced by an outside company, which I'm sure is the case with Microsoft since they don't do chip design.
its no acceptable for Microsoft because everything MS has done is in reaction to someone else doing it first, successfully.
MS wasn't in search ... until Google became successful.
Virtualisation... not until VMWare showed us how.
Mobile - canned at MS, until Apple popped up.
Cloud - well, first Amazon, *then* Microsoft.
I could go on, Microsoft is like an attention-deficit bully who simply wants to muscle in and take whatever it is you have.
This is the reason no-one cares too much about the MS offerings, people only go for them because it has the MS branding and they'd buy a polished turd (hmm, sharepoint) if it had the MD branding on it.
So the point of breaking MS up is to allow the little divisions the opportunity to do something good and new and innovative instead of simply trying to make products that are solely there to make you buy another Windows licence.
replacing Airplay.
Bwhahahahaha.
Try streaming a game. Or a local movie or song. From your phone. Or your computer.
Moron.
Chromecast
Company not doing well? Are you a bad manager? then break it UP. unless you did that all ready then CONSOLIDATE.
The don't need to be broken up, they need a driver. Ballmer has been asleep at the wheel. He is clueless about how to create products consumers want, he has no style, and he won't listen to people who do.
The moment he help up a brown product and used the word 'squirt' he should have been fired.
I could, literally, do a better job then he has. I would wager I could double the stock price in 2 years.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The Kinect is great at what it does, but it's pretty much worthless as a gaming input device.
>"if you don't cannibalise your products, someone else will".
This is something MS doesn't get. It's fine if people buy XP instead of Vista. They are stilling paying you. What sucks is when they decide Vista is unacceptable and an OS that is stuck in maintenance is unacceptable, so they buy Macs or jump ship to RHEL or something. Then you've lost a customer. Heck, even if they are staying on XP and not buying your new OSes, they are still MS customers, and the possibility exists that they may buy your other products. Once they go to Linux/OSx, it's a lot harder to sell them things.
It's not about the OS anymore. And applications that are tied to an unpopular OS will eventually be left behind, which spells difficulty with a Microsoft applications division. Just the act of creating hardship for the users, which had worked so well in the past, is now only helping the competition. If Apple has a sheltered garden, Microsoft had a prison camp. But they can't keep the gate closed anymore.
Windows 8's biggest competition is Windows 7. This illustrates a fundamental problem with the business plan.
Perhaps the best strategy would be for a hypothetical OS division to adopt "OS as an application", and work on easily enabling legacy applications running on today's platforms, and recognize that this is only an interim business solution. There has been a lot of work in this area, but it tends to be something only geeks can do. Make something that my mom could install on a non-Windows box and run her old copy of Office, and you'd really have something. This will eventually happen anyway; rather than get soundly beaten, and have the OS division be a millstone around the other products' necks, Microsoft might as well participate.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Or you could understand windows 8?
There is no need for a start button becasue the desktop IS the start button.
What it needs is better Conveyance and Continuity.
Don't know what I am talking about? then STFU about UI.
Don't forget everyone told MS what was wrong when the changed from Dos 2 to 3, and again when they went from 4 to 5*. 3.11 to 95. AND when they changed from 2000 to XP, and so on.
*yes there where peopel writting about the mistakxe completely ignoring what a pile of crap DOS 4 was.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Praise for chromecast among whom? I think the corporate media really pushed the thing to where it got initial traction, but it appears that the development community is turning against it with the lockdown on unauthorized streaming content.
From Google "We’re excited to bring more content to Chromecast and would like to support all types of apps, including those for local content. It's still early days for the Google Cast SDK, which we just released in developer preview for early development and testing only. We expect that the SDK will continue to change before we launch out of developer preview, and want to provide a great experience for users and developers before making the SDK and additional apps more broadly available."
http://www.muktware.com/5860/confirmed-chromecast-will-be-able-play-local-content-go-ahead-and-order-yours
Its on the front page of Slashdot...I find it a little peculiar you have not read it.
the problem for Microsoft is that many people are no longer willing to pay for operating system software. All of the mobile OS's are free. You can download Linux for free. If you buy a Mac the OS is included...and you get a disk with a real copy of the OS and no crapware included.
Personally, I have always felt that if you buy a computer the operating system should be included at no extra charge. What good is it without an OS? It's like buying a car without an engine.
The iPhone is indeed killing iPod sales. The iPad is destroying all growth in Mac sales. And Apple is quite happy with that. Steve Jobs himself said (and I'm quite sure he quoted someone else) that "if you don't cannibalise your products, someone else will".
The smartphone killed iPod sales. Price and competition is destroying the growth of iPhone; IPad and Mac Sales. Apple has its own problems right now with profits down; Market share down; Brand Value Down; Sales Down.
We will see what will happen on the 10th hopefully we will an example of Apple cannibalising its own products with a cheaper iPhone.
The same situation happened in Vista where people were complaining it wasn't enterprise ready, that it used too much memory etc. Microsoft responding with a release which was essentially more of the same but which addressed the issues. The refinements were enough to turn a hated version into one of the most popular versions ever.
Personally I use Windows 8 on a home laptop and it's not a bad OS. It's very fast, very stable. It's major annoyance is that fucking metro and the lack of concession to desktop users with large monitors, keyboards and mice. These are not insurmountable problems to solve, but MS have to knuckle down and do it. The 8.1 release, offers some improvements but I think it'll take version 9 for things to improve enough to remove most of the gripes.
Natal team could not figure out gesture technology. Could get IR to work to be hands free. And they worked on in for well over a decade, so real genius there~
anyways, they bought it from primesense, who developed it on 2005.
I speculate that project Natal was failure, and they through the name at this new products so they didn't have to tell the stock holders Natal wasn't going anywhere.
which is very Ballmer.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
There is a start button for all intents and purposes. Go to the lower left corner. Click. What people want is the incredibly awful and clunky but very familiar start menu back. Because change is hard even if it fundamentally improves workflow.
I will say that having a gesture enabled touchpad or touchscreen makes Windows 8 a whole lot better though.
"Windows Mobile used to be the best option for a smartphone"
It never was. Both Symbian and Blackberry were far better and more popular.
They only need to first create the universe.
ALl the hard ware and parts of the Kinect that make it the Kinect where bought.
the iPod was built in house. Yes, it was a clever assembly of things, most of which already existed. But it was design in house. MS bought all the key Kinect tech after years of failing to be able to do it themselves.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The moment he help up a brown product and used the word 'squirt' he should have been fired.
Maybe he should have been fired for killing PlaysForSure
Maybe he should have been fired for saying 'The most common format of music on an iPod is "stolen"'
Maybe he should have been fired for holding up that device 2 years after the iPod has the mp3 market
He was Fired for pushing the stupid Zune interface onto everything.
The fact that it was Brown and had an unfortunately named feature is irrelevant.
I'm out of mod points or I would mod you up. One of the truest things I've seen on slashdot in a long time. Too many people are ignorant of how technology development actually works.
First off, you can still play ANY media. One developer can't use one method thatw asn't even official in an unreleased API.
Just use file://blargh
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Only one of their products- Ad Sense- makes over 90% their revenues. Maps, mail, cars, android, glasses etc dont pull their own weight.
The Kinect was as much an innovation as the iPod... it was an evolution of technology, built on existing technology but packaged in a way that brought widespread consumer adoption.
If you want to use this as an example of why the iPod is not innovative, then you're doing well. If you want to use this as an example of why Kinect is supposed to be innovative, you've just missed the mark by a mile. Kinect was a complete technology even before they bought it; all they did was package it to work well with the 360. That's not an inconsiderable feat, but it's not innovation.
ALL technology today is built off the technology others have created.
Again, if you're arguing that very little actual innovation takes place, you will see a great deal of agreement.
The Kinect used Primesense's sensor to create an innovative gaming device the same way the iPad used someone elses's touch screen technology to create an innovative tablet.
The iPad also was not innovative, it was just good. And the Kinect is not innovative, it's just better than other similar things which came before, like the Eye Toy.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Formerly, it was the only platform on which you could develop and deploy your own applications with a reasonable development system and without begging anyone for permission. There was Palm, but it was gutless. Not too long ago I sold a WM phone with a 600 MHz processor OC'd to 1 GHz and bought an Android phone. Presumably the buyer had an investment in wince software. And right now I am uploading my HTC Raphael software archive to Copy because someone on XDA-Developers just got an AT&T Fuze (same kind of phone I sold, actually) and is looking for ROMs and whatnot. Lucky for them I don't like to delete anything
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Microsoft has a Sudan Peoples Liberation Army licensing program for the Department of Aging and Adult Services? I had no clue!
Our kinnect broke and no one missed it. It totally sucked balls compared to the Wii motion sensor.
It's at a 3rd of what it was 4 years ago.
https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE:MS
and people aren't pleased with SOny, but at least Sony is responding to their issues.
Here is why people are having issues with MS:
"So why did the market freak out? The biggest reason was that Microsoft booked a $900 million charge for “inventory adjustments” for its Surface tablets. In plain English, Microsoft admitted that its heavily-promoted tablet is selling poorly. And that’s an ominous sign for the Redmond firm’s long-term prospects. Tablets and smartphones are the future of computing, and Microsoft is falling farther and farther behind the market leaders, Apple and Google."
So there venture into the direct tech is going is failing.
and then(and this is classic Ballmer):
"But Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer shouldn’t be too depressed. Microsoft probably won’t lead the next generation of high-tech innovation. But history suggests that Windows and Office, its existing cash cows, will continue generating profits for years to come."
That is not what you want a CEO of a tech company to say. MS should OWN the tablet market and cloud computing, but Ballemr surrounds himself with idiots, and management is pact full of people who won't make a decision, or take a risk.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/07/24/microsoft-is-doomed-but-first-its-going-to-make-a-ton-of-money/
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Nobody is denying them the ability to push for a unified vision. The market just isn't buying it. This isn't a punishment people are imposing, they think it's the way to let the good assets really fly highly. And it also happens to be an easy way to kill the bad assets.
Does Xbox need to be part of MS to succeed? If so why? If not, could it really dominate Nintendo and Sony on its own?
How about bing? If they lived and died by their own revenues, would they get more hungry?
The idea a lot of people have is that MS simply does too much, not that they don't have a unified vision but they have that vision, a giant legacy and a lot of cruft.
CEO as of 2000 not 98.
" but their desktop software market is still near its peak using every honest measure such as those numbers that you wanted people to look at."
and that's the problem. IT's not going up and surpassing it's peak.
http://royal.pingdom.com/2010/04/09/the-money-made-by-microsoft-apple-and-google-1985-until-today/
Company value is about growth, and not only is MS not growing, it's failing to expand into new and emerging markets.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The start menu wasn't 'incredibly awful' until they broke it in Windows 7. Then they said 'no-one uses the start menu, so let's get rid of it'.
The only thing they need to do to fix Windows 8 is remove the GUI and put back the one from Windows 7, preferably with the Windows XP start menu.
I can tell you're not in marketing. (Or maybe you're in the marketing division of Microsoft...your attitude is precisely ht problem they have)
The web is full of people not buying Windows 8 because they heard there's no start button. They want a start button? Microsoft should give it to them.
After you get the machine in their hands they can discover the new way of doing things and decide if they like it or not. The point is not to put any obstacles before the first step.
No sig today...
Only one of their products- Ad Sense- makes over 90% their revenues. Maps, mail, cars, android, glasses etc dont pull their own weight.
Google have lots of products :) The fact that most of them generate their revenues through advertising. That is the business model not product. That is ignoring the fact that Google is diversifying quickly.
The problem is that there's people running Microsoft who still think the way to sell more Windows 8 isn't to listen to customers and fix Windows 8's problems,
There's a reason for this.
The root of the problem is that Microsoft believes in a zero-sum game, namely that:
"Empowering the customer results in Microsoft losing power."
This is a very common attitude in the publishing industry. They would rather lose their customers than lose their grip on power.
This is the driving philosophy that explains so much of what's going on in the industry:
* DRM -- Screw paying customers for the sake of retaining power over them
* Artificial limitations -- Hurt the customer so that products don't cannibalize each other
* Metro -- Badly inconvenience the customer for the sake of some dubious strategic marketing theories
* Locked-down RT bootloader -- Make the hardware less valuable simply to prevent a few Android installs
The list goes on and on.
Big creative ideas are a privilege, not a prerogative. And they usually come about in startups, not in large corporations. If they occur in large corporations then the people who thought of them leave and do startups.
The major problem is that it keeps dumping you into "Metro" mode while you're trying to use desktop programs.
Getting back from metro mode to desktop mode takes some effort, and it's a constant annoyance.
No sig today...
OK, let me clarify ... because clearly you feel the need to be pedantic.
What unique combination of technologies to produce something novel and groundbreaking has MS developed over the last 10 years?
They couldn't make their own motion controller work, so they bought one and integrated that with XBox, but they didn't build it. The Zune was a "me too" product which apparently 'squirted' and nobody bought. Their tablets and phones, just more "me too" and the market doesn't seem interested. Tabbed browsing, Firefox had that before MS. I'm told at one point they made decent keyboards and mice -- but not what I'd call innovative.
Other than that, I don't believe Microsoft has 'innovated' much of anything in years. And in a lot of cases, they've done a piss poor job of copying what other people created.
I'm not saying you need to create every single piece of technology from scratch without relying on anything before. I'm saying they haven't strung together existing bits of technology to create anything which is novel or innovative in a very long time.
If Microsoft is reduced to making copies of other products, resting on their laurels and collecting revenue from Office and OS upgrades and not making new and interesting things ... then Microsoft despite all of this money on R&D is either pissing it away, or the management are incapable of taking it to the product stage and have anybody buy it.
Sorry, but Microsoft has become everything they used to criticize IBM for being -- too large to adapt, too rigid in their thinking, and missing out on what it is people are looking for in some of these newer technologies.
By rights with their resources and spending on R&D Microsoft should be putting out reams of cool stuff. Instead they've given us tablets and phones nobody wants, Windows 8 and not a whole lot else.
Microsoft may not be in trouble now, but long-term if they're not capable of making anything new and interesting ... they could be really screwed, because gone are the days where they could just trot out an OS every few years and an update to Office and make shit tons of money. You only have to look at their market share in tablets and phones to realize that.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
That seems high. I think Apple has only sold about 500 million iOS devices, so it's failing miserably.
These are the figures for IDC for Tablets http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24253413 dropiing to 30% vs Android 63% and Smartphones http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24253413 which drops to 13% vs Androids 80% I'd say failing, maybe 10th September things will get interesting again.
Kinect was a complete technology even before they bought it
No it was not. Primesense had a sensor and some algorithms in a consumer and developer unfriendly package. The sensor wasn't a new idea -- structured light has been around for decades The algorithms weren't a new -- the CV algorithms to process the data have been around for decades. Microsoft took these ideas and went the last mile of making it a reality for consumers and developers, which obviously is not easy since no one had done it before.
Microsoft buying the Primesense sensor and using it in their product is equivalent to Apple buying a multi-touch screen and using it in the iPhone. But no one is saying the iPhone wasn't an innovation.
Again, if you're arguing that very little actual innovation takes place, you will see a great deal of agreement.
No, I'm arguing that innovation is almost never the sudden development of a new and radical technology from scratch, but almost always the application or combination of existing technology in new ways. Even look at the Internet, the greatest innovation of our generation, It didn't happen over night, built by one company or entity from scratch; it was an evolution of technologies over 20 or so years.
[T]he Kinect is not innovative, it's just better than other similar things which came before
Really? Something comes out which is better than everything before it and that's not an innovation? What exactly is *your* idea of an innovation. You've told us plenty about what isn't an innovation, but I don't really see any indication from you about what *is* an innovation.
and Dvorak's, ten fucking years ago
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
Really? Something comes out which is better than everything before it and that's not an innovation?
Microsoft didn't do the innovating part. They did the packaging. I hear that Microsoft is spending some money on actual innovation in biotech, though. that makes sense given Gates is massively personally invested in Big Pharma.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Right so the iPod was a clever assembly of things and designed in house, but the Kinect was bought outright, slapped with a MS sticker, and sold to consumers. Sorry, Microsoft bought the sensors for the kinect just as Apple bought the multi-touch screen for the iPhone. It's a sensor, nothing more. Same as any gyroscope. They only reason you think it's a "key technology" is because you never saw it before the kinect, but the technology and theory behind the kinect's sensor is old and nothing special. It's just never been used in a mass market application. No, the innovation of the kinect is not the sensor but the whole package. If you can't see how the iPod and Kinect are the same in that regard, your blinders are on.
MS does have many problems. Internally I think a lot of their issues can be best illustrated with what happened with the Courier. Remember that project? That was as best as I can remember the last product that MS was involved with that generated serious buzz around it. When those demo videos were released people were generally very excited about the project and its potential. We are talking Apple levels of interest. Mind you this was happening around the time the iPad was just being announced, and had MS actually delivered the Courier as demoed, it would have eaten Apple’s lunch! It was not a tablet. It was actually a very useful tool that had tremendous potential for all walks of life. Students especially, having the ability to actually be a useful “digital” note taking device. However, it seems the project was killed because BG was concerned that it did not have an email client. There may be some truth to this, but actually I think the real reason was that it was too much of a departure from Windows, Office, and the way MS does things. It didn’t look like Windows, didn’t operate like Windows, and didn’t have Windows in the title. I think this scared BG more than the lack of an email client, which let’s be realistic would be EASY to implement. Microsoft fear of change, fear of anything not Windows caused it to cancel one of their most innovative projects ever, and lead to departure of one of their more exciting managers. .Net, but still they could have allowed it. Sure the machine is not powerful enough to run Photoshop, or CAD, but it would be perfectly fine running PuTTY, or a IM client, maybe a JavaScript/HTML editor? Paired with a much more reasonable price, it could have been a great companion device for many people. Some Win32 programs could have been re-written in .Net so allow c
Now we have Windows 8, and this illustrates the other side of Microsoft’s problems. They just are not seen as cool or innovative in the public sector. While not as radical as the Courier, Windows 8 was a significant departure from how Windows works, and while true it is not perfect, it is not, a horrendous attempt either. People just do not like change. I have used Win8 on my desktops since it was in Beta, and it is great. I hardly ever see the Metro Start Screen, as I have my most used programs docked on my taskbar on the desktop. You know, kinda like OSX works as well. The new WinKey + X shortcuts are a Godsend, as I can get to important screens much faster than I could in Windows 7, and dare I say, Windows 8 is much more keyboard friendly as it is way easier to launch programs without touching the mouse. (Press WinKey, start typing name of program, hit enter when it finds it) Hands never have to leave the keyboard. I know command line junkies can appreciate that!
If using a touchscreen, sure the desktop mode sucks, but that is why you have the “metro” apps for. And in that mode it is no different than an iPad or Android tablet. Oh and unlike iPad, you can print to just about any printer ever made without having it support some special AirPrint feature.
Now ask yourself, if Apple introduced a touchscreen laptop with a Touch Mode and a desktop mode, people would fall over themselves in praising how innovative and brilliant the machine is! You know deep down this would happen. Apple put WiFi standard on their laptops and it was viewed as a revelation from the heavens by the acolytes!! MS tires something new and it gets utterly decimated for lack of imagination, innovation, or whatever. So everyone, many without every really trying it, thinks all Win8 devices are complete and utter crap!
But what about Windows RT, you ask? Right, it was a bit of a mess, but only because they feared the desktop on that device, instead of embracing it. How much more useful would it have been if MS allowed 3rd party desktop programs to be written for it? They could have mandated that all programs have to be written in
Of course. Technology and the marketplace always change faster than does corporate culture.
MS is still operating under a set of assumptions that increasingly is invalid. number one with a big fat bullet point is "We're a monopoly". While they still have a great deal of lock-in thanks largely to the inability or unwillingness of alternatives to challenge them (I'm looking at you Google and the OSS "community", in particular), their actions are also pushing people to adopt ANY alternative, even really crappy ones, like Android, simply because they offer an escape from long boot times, virus infestations, overly complex systems for what customers want, etc.
MS has made an insane amount of money by exploiting their market position, but they've painted themselves into a corner. They have to either continue their death spiral or make a very significant change to their corporate culture. They'll make the change. The only question is how much pain they'll have to endure before they're willing to do what's needed.
In an ideal world I think Linux might have won the desktop if MS was split by now? Who knows.
But if we had Visual Studio and Office for Linux things would be radically different. With MFC and .NET winforms and COM all these proprietary Windows apps could be recompiled to run on MacOSX and Linux easily. Many win32 apps we all depend on would be on other platforms as a result too even if you are not a developer writing your own stuff.
I am not a big fan of Java and it would be nice to use .NET and ASP.net on Apache too and have an answer from the hackish PHP. Windows Server would not be as popular understandably.
It is possible without infighting within MS that Metro could have come out for the Windows phone as early as 2007 and could have been neck and neck with Google and Android.
But this universe never happened so who knows. At this point who cares. The desktop is dying anyway and it would be futile as any changes would take many years for these to be decoupled from each other and by then the tablets will ahve keyboards and monitor hookups complete with a functional office replacement and the need for visual studio will not matter as all the cool apss will be made in goo, java, and objective C. c# wont matter unless Windows Phone has a radical upswing!
http://saveie6.com/
I doubt this will happen, but if Microsoft broke up with Windows and Internet Explorer getting put in separate companies, Internet Explorer would likely improve a lot.
It would likely be more standards compliant and make life easier web designers and web developers.
A win for everyone.
We'll get this same speculative non-article every day until Balmer steps down. Then we'll get the speculative non-articles about what his successor should do. It's not news, it's filler!
"Look at that subtle off-white coloring. The tasteful thickness of it. Oh, my God. It even has a watermark."
The Zune was a "me too" product which apparently 'squirted' and nobody bought. Their tablets and phones, just more "me too" and the market doesn't seem interested.
You seem to now be conflating "innovation" with "market success" which are completely different. You call Microsoft tablet's me too, but Microsoft has been in the tablet business longer than Apple and Google. They weren't market successes, but they were innovative in their own right and first of their kind. Even today Microsoft has the best handwriting recognition support of any tablet out there.
I'm not saying you need to create every single piece of technology from scratch without relying on anything before. I'm saying they haven't strung together existing bits of technology to create anything which is novel or innovative in a very long time.
If you're not saying that, then why did you say this: "They couldn't make their own motion controller work, so they bought one and integrated that with XBox, but they didn't build it."
The kinect is exactly an example of the kind of innovation you're looking for, but somehow it "doesn't count" in your eyes. Why?
Windows 8 was supposed to be the OS that forces you to buy their phones.
Also it was to unify the phone UI and desktop... Albeit bad execution.
Like Rush Limbuaugh getting dropped by Cumulus, it would have been better for the country and world if this happened back in 1999.
What the fuck are you reading?
Yeah, if you count 'other' at 40% of the market. And all Android.
I assume you are referring to Apples feeble Tablet Market share http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24253413 read the whole page; the first table they split by company...the second by OS.
Is that a 1990's style, proprietary approach to an competing API?
neither did copying Google. Microsoft has lost / invested $17B in Bing! (quoting Paul Thurrott)
http://winsupersite.com/
Having a search engine is not Googles business model.
Microsoft didn't do the innovating part. They did the packaging.
And what exactly was the innovating part? Again, you haven't told us what "innovating" is in your eyes. You've given plenty of negative examples, but no positive ones. In the case of the kinect, the "packaging" is not just taking a sensor and slapping a MS logo on it and calling it a day. Is that really all you think it was?
And Apple buys a chip company, Google buys map capability, Red hat buys its core business mind that nearly every opensource project, including the Linux kernel is innovating by integrating someone else's code.
Innovation is the end result, not the "how".
And the funny thing was, back when they were in a position to dictate things, they rarely did. Back in the 90's their products were the pinnacle of backwards compatibility. Later things like directx and IE worked across their hole product line. Heck I remember win32s, and attempt by MS to back-port parts of the win32 API to windows 3.1! The windows 2 progman existed in windows until windows 2003.
It typically takes 10 years for a non-trivial project to come out of the lab and become a product. In the Kinect case, fairly advanced computer vision algorithms had to be developed and made super-robust for it to work well. In addition it was viewed as a toy by management. It was only when the Nintendo Wii took off that Microsoft had to find something better.
I love how badly this strategy is backfiring. A lot of game developers have realized that OpenGL is a better choice than D3D, for the simple fact that if they use OpenGL, their work is easily portable between PS4, iOS, Android, OS X, Linux, and others, while with DirectX they're stuck with Windows and XBox.
By reading this you acknowledge that you have read it.
OK, you keep being an un-critical fanboi, and the rest of us will stand around and wonder when/if Microsoft will come out with something innovative.
Are you brave enough to put your money where your mouth is and go all-in on Microsoft stock? Or is there still a rational part of your brain thinking that might be a bad idea?
Unify them by making them totally separate functional modes. Interesting strategy, that's for sure.
Xbox Live could qualify I think.
I can't think of something similar to it that worked before hand. Yes, you could combine a half-dozen or so services and sort-of have something like it, but Xbox live was new, and it was innovative IMO.
Their mice were amazing (optical mouse with a scroll wheel was incredible when it was new), and they refined the idea of a scroll wheel and what it would do in house, though that was over a decade ago (as may be Xbox live).
I'd argue that ribbons could count too, but yuck.
Their impressive stuff I am starting to see come out (was it at SIGGRAPH that they presented their 3-d view of the statue of liberty from geotagged photos? that was incredible and is starting to make it to consumers I think I read).
I agree with your sentiment, but they aren't as dried up as you imply I'd think. It really is a lot of internal bullshit I suspect that is holding them back, and a failure to co-produce. When Bob failed, they were able to keep what they had going. When Longhorn failed, they went to ME and then XP. When it became obvious that Metro was going to suck, the old MS would of released Windows 7v2, slightly improved, with maybe a metro interface to allow phone apps to run on the desktop (I wouldn't mind if I had access to my android games via desktop), and tight integration, but a clearly separate OS.
Instead, someone decided that they would bet it all on stupid Windows 8 unification, nobody else is doing that, it would of been innovative if it wasn't a stupid idea, even Ubuntu with the edge is smart enough to have separate interfaces.
Microsoft under past leadership was smart enough to see stupid ideas, and then revise tried and true instead, and it worked. I assume this is where Balmer went wrong, not in failed and wasted resources, but in eating the dogfood and saying it was caviar. All he could see was the vision, not the reality of how stupid it could be (see ribbons, all the terrible in Vista, especially on release etc.).
If they focused on creating good products that people love, rather than thinking "how can we take a piece of this emerging market?", they'd be a lot better off.
Apple has been doing that for like, 20 years? It's a total failure until iPhone/iPad. And it's going to fail again after iPhone/iPad.
Besides Apple and companies like it never get any piece in server/enterprise market, where people don't make purchase based on love or likeness at all.
Again, no different from any open source project which is in beta for what, 10 yrs.
I'd say that they at least deserved credit for Kinect.
Why? They acquired the technology, not R&D'd it.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
Windows Mobile the best option? Eeep!
Yeah, when its only competitor was the Apple Netwon.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
If it was at 'research fairs in the 90s', it was pretty far along 15-20 years ago.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Microsoft undoubtedly has the one or the other good operating system, and the people at MS certainly did pave a way that led to a more computerized world/environment. As most on here might be aware of the origins of the old systems that initiated parts of this development, it can only be argued that MS has not managed, in all these years, to establish an operating system that can truly be relied on. Something that can safely be implemented in vital structures without having to think much of the consequences. You know, code that actually works ("indefinitely"), code that is hardened, code that doesn't require A LOT of "CONSTANT" patching. In fine, an OS users can depend on, no matter what. A working OS that is forward/backward compatible, may it be thru emulation or the likes, and not something that renders millions and millions of lines of code entirely obsolete/useless. An OS that has new enhancements implemented in due time, an OS that is workable. Meaning, to provide tools with those users are able to properly monitor/audit/customize/access/etc vital and essential parts/functions of the system. The reality looks different. What most of the IT world uses is a dumped down and limited OS, in so many ways. And what most of the IT world did choose to rely on is a "manufacturer" whose sole intention seems to be to sell more products. Microsoft, everything around the net is about invention, progress, knowledge, etc., for all of mankind. And do the people at MS know this already? How about they finally change course? How about they finally provide an OS clients can rely on for the next 50 years? And then leave it up to them whether they are willing to pay for "further development/new systems". What is ahead now is a "migration" from one MS OS to another MS OS. And this will most likely turn into an "information-technological" nightmare. I would have loved to say "Good work". And, what are "they" talking about? To break up Microsoft? Give me a break.
ThatIsOneOfTheBestIdeasThatIHaveHeardInALongLongTime
Howso? I don't see them in that position at all.
A person or business can set themselves up with the best of technology *without ever using a Microsoft product*...Can you name one significant area where that isn't true?
Sure, pre-Intel/Mac days for some database stuff a Windows machine is the only thing that made sense, but those days are long gone.
I think M$ is dead...watch closely and observe. This is what it looks like when a giant tech company fails.
Thank you Dave Raggett
The good:
Kinect, xBox, Microsoft's hardware is above average in quality too.
The OK, windows and Windows server, Office,
Also they have maintained a healthy, growing, and extremely diverse hardware and third party software environment.
(Unlike Apple and to a lesser extent Google with their respective closed 'gardens').
The bad
The monopolistic licensing and strong arm tactics that force many to buy M$ products, by limiting practical alternatives.
The ugly
Being so 'popular' that their main products became so popular that they became overwhelming first choice, to the extent that running a Windows installation of any sort requires both Antivirus (which is largely ineffective) and required computer-security expertise to keep free from malware.
I finally got so tired of M$ and their business tactics that I booted them out the door, though for business related compatibility I have 1 laptop and a VM capable of booting to M$ Doze.
Will Wintel see that they've made their world a monastic order for business only... ?
Will Intel actually spend the monster bucks to make a significantly better SOC than what ARM can turn out? If so can they persuade manufactures to produce a tablet or smartphone based on it? Could Wintel do the unexpected and claim the bottom end of the smart phone (soon to be the only cell phone market of significant size) market?
Can Intel and Microsoft be visionary enough to endure years of low margins to get back into a position of becoming a strong competitor?
What no one has mentioned is that Microsoft's business practices have poisoned the attitude of many to be sceptically resistant to ANY Microsoft product they can live without. Techs, geeks and Americans in particular seem to prefer a product from an underdog which is competitive. Microsoft's products few 'good' products Kinect was exceptional, xBox was/is competitive functionally, competitively priced 'it just works, (like TVs and non smart phones). Microsoft's mediocre products (M$ phone) fell flat.
As soon as M$ tried to strangle the users of xBox with it's odious new licensing restrictions, so typical of M$ business division, a howl was raised by the users they were removed and hopefully what ever lame brain thought them up, and those that approved them at the board level will be fired.
Hey M$ are you listening? There is a lesson here, are you getting it?
I wonder what Mark Shuttleworth would do at the helm of M$? Any journalist's in Britain want to tackle that story?
He clearly has the internal interest in the technology and the drive to compete. His personal wealth didn't cause him to 'retire' when he and any kids would be well off for a generation or two. And he made his money in the heart of the tech field like, say Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Ubuntu is doing pretty well, it's a reasonably good desktop and server product and he's seen that unless it can offer a mobile/table/smartphone product likely the older OS's will dry up and die in time. Not a bad mix for someone to have trying to steer a tech company out of the ditch.
Job's when he came back to Apple had to fire some 'dead wood' and mended fences with some who had left Apple and brought them back on board (for awhile) to get Apple back in the running. Who at M$ needs to go now that Balmer is leaving? How much will Bill and Balmer tamper with the post Balmer M$?
They own so much M$ stock they are major voices even if they vow to keep out of the way. Who would want to take that on?
Apple's main 'innovations' on the iPad was long battery life and modestly robust and flexible computing. The technology was from ARM and PDA's dating back to Palm and Handspring. Job's and Apple added the apple flare for a clean, pretty and usable package... and lots of mindshare.
My next smart phone may be from Google's sable, but Apple definitely accelerated the world in a new direction.
Yes, because Kinect took 0 R&D to develop. Guess Google deserves zero credit for Android too. amirite?
Unify them by making them totally separate functional modes. Interesting strategy, that's for sure.
Yes. Microsoft even screwed that up.
Metro apps should have been able to run in Windows on the desktop. Instead they split the OS into two glaringly incompatible modes, and forced users to keep switching between them.
Their problem was that no-one was going to buy a Microsoft tablet without apps, and no-one was going to write apps for a tablet with no market share. So they had to push that Metro crap onto desktop users to try to get people to write apps that could then run on tablets and phones.
Hugh Pickens writes...blah blah blah...
Who is Hugh Pickens? I ask only because for someone to suggest that this is what MS needs to do, would need a precedent for this to be suggested, where this person would have been apart of and seen the end result directly. This person would have had to have been in a previous situation with a similar company with similar situations and have seen the progress in order to turn around and suggest that fracturing a company into smaller parts is for the better. If you have proof that this works, then please put on the table. I have yet to hear of companies that got better when they fractured off into smaller pieces, if anything, it has been the reverse, merger after merger solidifies the companies overall hold on the market and offers stability towards unifying that all sub sections follow the same protocols and can lose the dead weight of needless duplication of processes.
I literally cannot be the only one who remembers the last time they tried to "break Microsoft up." Granted this time the reason is to improve the company and not to restrain it, but the song remains the same. Even if this does happen, within 5 years the Microsoft-zord will start to reform.
It would be better to just kill off Microsoft and Apple, let Google become the new Microsoft, and pave the way for the next Google and the next Apple so the next generation can say, "Microsoft? Is that like ?" and we can all facepalm in unison.
But users don't want to discover new ways of doing things unless forced/pushed into changing. And also, what the customer thinks he wants isn't always what he actually needs.
As an example, my mother has a lovely Macbook Pro which she refuses to learn the gestures for and sits browsing using Safari in maximised mode (she refuses to learn the fullscreen button too).
Also, if Apple had listened to its customers before they launched the iPad, they would have come out with an OS X powered tablet. That strategy didn't really work out for Microsoft either.
And finally, if customer wants were the most important thing, we'd all be riding super-fast horses right about now...
Backup not found: (A)bort (R)etry (P)anic
Well, while Windows Mobile used to be the best option for a smartphone out there
I don't think that was ever the case. From the inception of the PocketPC phones through Windows Mobile, there were always better options. Mostly Palm (though they ceded their market and eventually started putting WinMo on their Treos), but also RIM and some of Nokia's offerings.
Microsoft barely even had 20% of the smartphone market when Apple launched the iPhone. Who was the big player? Oh yeah, Nokia. Symbian was the #1 smartphone OS for a long time. And then, in 2011, Microsoft effectively acquired Nokia and smothered them with an Elop pillow... very belatedly accomplishing their goal of dethroning a smartphone leader.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Though I agree with your sentiment, it'd be nice if you used actual facts and even looked at the company ticker symbol. Morgan Stanley is not Microsoft. Now retry your arguments with out the wrong facts.
https://www.google.com/finance?cid=358464
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Start MENU. They need to add a Start Menu like the one in Windows 7. They added a Start "Button", and the graphic is that of an extended middle finger...
Instead of breaking up Microsoft, wouldn't it be easier to just shut everything down that wasn't Windows, Office, and Exchange?
Arguably, the Xbox could survive on its own, although not if burdened with the billions in losses it accumulated over the years before it turned a profit.
PS4 is x86 architecture with an AMD APU (7870 equivalent). So D3D SHOULD work for PS4 and Xbox One.
> they made decent keyboards and mice
When optical mice were first available they were Microsoft branded. This is because MS was approached by the manufacturer (before they started production) and MS bought the first 6 months production - all of it - to prevent Logitech getting any.
Really, break up Microsoft so they can be more like who exactly?
Microsoft has so many products and services it can easily survive for a long time, a-la IBM. Remember IBM, funny how no one is talking about them, yet they are second in value to Apple, and probably have the most employees.
Microsoft does have a choice to make, do they want to focus on service like IBM or focus on innovation like Google. But they can do either they choose. A generic "good" CEO can certainly take them down the IBM path.
Apple however has a very narrow focus. It well suited Job's hands on style, but without another Steve Job's they need to undergo a massive restructure or failure. Buy hey, keep thinking MS is doomed and sell all your shares now, I am always looking for a bargain.
Project Natal was not the kinect, the kinect was purchase, merged with natal and released as kinect. The kinect patents are still outside of MS.
"Zalevsky has more than 50 patents[4] in the field of optics including the Kinect [5] motion sensing and the Opto-Phone.[6]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeev_Zalevsky
> Primesense had a sensor and some algorithms in a consumer and developer unfriendly package.
Rare in the UK wrote the software.
Except the PS4 OS is heavily borrowed from FreeBSD and only includes OpenGL...
How did you equare x86 + AMD APU = Omg D3D?
I personally think the online subscription model is going to kill off a lot of these big companies. Who the fuck wants to pay $100/year for access to Office? Most people I know will switch to the free alternatives rather than pay for a license. They might be happy to buy a standalone license once every 5-10 years. But they'll never buy in every year. Most of these people prefer pirated software over the subscription stuff. I see bad times ahead for Adobe and Microsoft. Both want to crush piracy, both are trying to shakedown their customers for continuous money. It won't stand. The open source stuff is rapidly closing the gap, the biggest problem with Linux I'm hearing from people now is that Ubuntu/Gnome have gone crazy with the tablet UI bullshit rather than pushing a decent desktop. It's a damn shame too because Microsoft is falling into the same trap right now, and as long as Linux remains a good enough alternative heaps of people would be jumping across right now. People don't understand that the tablet market is a second market, it's a great place to get into but you have to treat it as a second product line. Touch and Desktop do not play nice together. The sooner people realise that the better. The way to survive in this new world is simple, maintain two versions of your apps, one with a touch UI and one with a desktop UI don't be a cheap ass and try to get away with one UI. Provide a cloud option if it's appropriate. Some things simply don't need a cloud option. Stuff like Photoshop being in the cloud is retarded, most people don't have enough bandwidth or stable internet access to use a product like that, the same goes for video editing applications. Apple has had a ton of success with this in the last couple of years because they correctly foresaw mobile/tablet as separate from Desktop. They have a common API that works on both platforms allowing tons of code reuse, but the UIs are separated, it helps that interface builder is perfectly designed for this allowing UI redesign without recompiling.
Brainfart after a 4 hour meeting. Don't ask.
xBone?
Why did it take them 15-20 years to get it out of the research labs?!!?
Microsoft's research labs don't produce anything.
I wish I was kidding but Microsoft Research is basically an ivory tower that cranks out academic papers and patents but is generally ignored by the rest of the company. Microsoft is mostly marketing driven and each division is isolationist, their products are ad-hoc based on existing trends. It really makes you wonder why they even bother with a Research division when they don't use it.
Just leave micorsoft alone. They are making money. They don't need to advertise. Every 18 months, they raise the rent. Every 5 years they come out with a warmed over version of what they released in 1997 (or was it 1994), whatever. They got a games division. They got a tablet division. They got a server division. They got a phone division. They got an office division. They got a license division. Everything they need to make another boatload of bux for the next 20 years is already in place. The people working there now only have to warm-over the products they already have and change the fonts and colors of the stuff, and make certain that the new version is incompatible with the old (the new can read the old, but saves in a 'new' format), so that everyone must upgrade! They didn't need to advertise and they made 20 billion bux last year. Shareholders are still getting returns. Employees are still getting paid. Founders are getting richer. Let it be, ignore everyone else, and keep making money.
Notice that Apple "sold" but Android "shipped." And the difference is important
No they are the same. Apple *ship* tablets as well. They argue that because they can guarantee a sale then ship=sale. The funniest thing though is this quarter was particularly disastrous for Apple they claim "reduction in channel inventory last quarter of 700,000 units versus a year-earlier build of 1.2 million units". *cough* not so much sold there, sounds like someone was channel stuffing :)
Bottom line is Apple sold means ship it always did. Better get used to the the new world order its not going to change any time soon.
Oh, you articulated my primary issue with Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 so well with a single line - "Metro -- Badly inconvenience the customer for the sake of some dubious strategic marketing theories"
In my role as a primary policy maker to many large global companies, I've outright dictated a complete ban of anything with Windows 8 and a refusal to allow it's connectivity to any network primarily because the user interface is so foul in every possible way and hinders efficiencies. Fortunately my emotional response was met with enthusiastic agreement by all directors, administrators, managers and practically everyone else so I don't seem like a dictator with an axe to grind and more like someone with common sense. Both are true.
Some admins even took this a step further and banned Windows 8 for BYOD connectivity as well... but I expect that will eventually be reversed when some executives try and connect their fancy convertible ultra-tablets. Hasn't happened yet.
Fact is: iPhone sales are growing. iPhone share of the phone market is growing. Mac share of the computer market is growing.
If you write *FACT* at the front you back it up with figures. iPhone share at the market is the lowest in years http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24257413 Last three quarters 21%,17%,13%. The mac sales are down -22% -2% -7% YonY over the last 3 quarters. Figures from Apples own published results http://investor.apple.com/results.cfm
I think the word you were looking for is Fiction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiction
So, what was better? At the time, Windows Mobile was pretty much the only option even though it sucked.
Microsoft is like Government. It cannot appreciate people/engineers who think out of the box.
Casteism
Yah, and it will run on one or two back versions of Microsoft OS's, you know the ones that generally maintain >50% of the market for years after a new one is released.
Some writers use de facto to mean that something isn't officially recognized. Assuming this meaning, Christian Smith's comment makes more sense: MS's monopoly is not (just) de facto, it is (also) de jure.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Not upgrading machines is one thing, banning them is another and I would not ban a OS just because of the UI.
MS was pretty generous and supported even Office 2010 under XP.
it's to make (eg.) the next release of Direct3D Windows-8-only thereby "forcing" people to upgrade (LOL!)
The old DirectX redists are dead since XP SP2. Even the Platform Update for Vista is different.
The biggest thing that would set Microsoft wise is to end legally its right to ship Windows as an OEM OS. Even if 85% of users make the decision to use it, make Nicrosoft spend the money to persuade people to ask to install it on their systems, otherwise users can find many alternative systems they could install and of those the most popular could be an available install option at purchase.
Like other aspects of market economics there is a five-finger discount for making an effort and being informed. You can install a good OS for next to nothing yourself.
Well, I've always hated Blackberries, and back then WinMo/Exchange was the only other option for push email. I also liked that it was easy to get new applications onto the phone and customise it. The interface wasn't great, so I was happy when the iPhone came along and inspired Android. I stuck with Windows Mobile until Android matured a little.
which is totally what she said
The creators had to leave the company to get their work recognised. That seems to be the normal way.
You don't have to be a successful automotive engineer or car designer to take one look at the Reliant Robin and see that someone somewhere, in more ways than one, fucked-up monumentally.
Fixed that for ye.
Place nail here >+
No doubt designed to perform wild stunts; I suspect to activate this hidden capability, one need merely attempt to use the steering wheel and the brakes at the same time. :p