Satya Nadella Named Microsoft CEO

Nerval's Lobster writes "As widely expected after last week's rumors, Satya Nadella has been named the new CEO of Microsoft. Nadella is Microsoft's third CEO, after co-founder Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. He's been with the company for more than twenty years, eventually becoming executive vice president of its Cloud and Enterprise division; Nadella and his team were responsible for the creation of 'Cloud OS,' the platform that powers Microsoft's large-scale cloud services such as SkyDrive, Azure, and Office 365. Under his guidance, Microsoft's revenue from cloud services has grown by several billion dollars over the past few years. In his email to employees, Nadella said that he was 'humbled' by his appointment, and that he had asked Bill Gates to act as a close adviser in the months and years ahead." He devoted much of the rest of the email "to explaining his philosophy of technology, and how that will ultimately influence his leadership. 'The opportunity ahead will require us to reimagine a lot of what we have done in the past for a mobile and cloud-first world, and do new things,' he added. 'We are the only ones who can harness the power of software and deliver it through devices and services that truly empower every individual and every organization.' A lot of tech companies would disagree the assertion that Microsoft is the 'only' company capable of merging hardware and software into forms that businesses and consumers find appealing, but Nadella must do his best to reassert his company's position as a technology leader. Nadella indicated near the end of his email that he would follow through on the 'One Microsoft' strategy formulated under Ballmer, which includes a massive reorganization currently underway." Reader rjmarvin notes that "Nadella will take over as CEO immediately, allowing Steve Ballmer to retire early," and reader SmartAboutThings says that "John Thompson, a lead independent director for the Board of Directors, will take over the role of Chairman of the Board of Directors that Gates held."

Comments

NOOOOOOOOO

[Anonymous Coward]

We need Elop, not Nadella!

Elop NOW!

Re:NOOOOOOOOO

[hcs_$reboot]

Your post was almost relevant, if at least you'd explain why Elop is better (?)

Re:NOOOOOOOOO

[Anonymous Coward]

Because he would sink the ship, as he did with Nokia.

Re:NOOOOOOOOO

[Anonymous Coward]

Well for starters he has a male name.

Re:NOOOOOOOOO

[Penguinisto]

We need Elop, not Nadella!

No worries - Elop will still be well rewarded for his efforts. Expect a new VP in MSFT soon.

(I only wish this were a conspiracy theory...)

Re:NOOOOOOOOO

[d33tah]

Agreed. For one, I hoped that Microsoft was took over by a woman, which could mean that finally someone who cares about the look-and-feel is in control of the company. By the way, he's Indian, so it looks like it's a normal name there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:NOOOOOOOOO

[isorox]

Agreed. For one, I hoped that Microsoft was took over by a woman, which could mean that finally someone who cares about the look-and-feel is in control of the company. By the way, he's Indian, so it looks like it's a normal name there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

And people complain management is never outsourced

Re:NOOOOOOOOO

[LifesABeach]

I'm thinking of those products created at, not purchased by, Microsoft. I'm trying to think a India's business, or cultural contrabutions to humanity in general; in the last 3,500 years. It's a perfect match; bravo board of directors of microsoft.

Re:NOOOOOOOOO

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

When do we discover Ballmer's previously undisclosed leukemia/cancer/critical illness?

Re:NOOOOOOOOO

[morgauxo]

Well, we already knew he has a mental illness.

Re:NOOOOOOOOO

[Tough Love]

Because he would sink the ship, as he did with Nokia.

I suspect the Nadella-Gates team will do almost as well. Can hardly wait for this one actually, can't wait for Billg to show the world what kind of genius he actually is. You know what? Top interns love being humiliated, this will do wonders attracting them versus mundane opportunities like Google, Facebook or Twitter.

Re:NOOOOOOOOO

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't believe that the parent was modded down. He should be modded +5 Funny.

If Elop had become CEO of Microsoft it would have been sooo hilarious, the guy who wrecked Nokia receiving his reward, and proceeding to destroy everything that Ballmer worked for (selling of the mobile division, Xbox, and the other miscellaneous non-core departments of Microsoft), and hopefully managing to wreck Microsoft as well.

Re:NOOOOOOOOO

[Teresita]

Agreed. For one, I hoped that Microsoft was took over by a woman, which could mean that finally someone who cares about the look-and-feel is in control of the company

Because everyone knows us'uns womenfolk are all touchy-feely. That's the ticket. Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer just would not stop and ask for directions.

Re:NOOOOOOOOO

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I think Mahatma Ghandi was a pretty inspirational Indian. For more on india: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India
I'm having a little more trouble with MS.... GW Basic maybe?

Re:NOOOOOOOOO

[cusco]

Wow, so much stupid in such a short post. I'm impressed.

Re: NOOOOOOOOO

[Anonymous Coward]

Bout time they bury themselves. MS = more crap & system shutdowns

Re:NOOOOOOOOO

[LifesABeach]

That's one!

Re:NOOOOOOOOO

[TheSeatOfMyPants]

If you're going by old stereotypes, why not a gay guy? After all, they're chock full of girly traits...

Yes, I'm being facetious, because the female geeks I've known had the same range of interest/ability in aesthetics or fashion as our male counterparts.

Your post reminds me of an incident in Radio Shack a couple of years ago... I was in my usual loose unisex t-shirt, jeans & ponytail (no makeup/jewelry), and hung out comparing circuitboard components before grabbing a soldering iron stand. When I paid, even though he'd been watching me part of the time, the manager/clerk asked with an amused condescending tone, "making jewelry?" When I answered cheerfully, "nope, learning to replace bad parts on PCBs" he was visibly dumbfounded. I guess he was so focused on his idea of what women are like that it didn't occur to him that we might not match it...

Re:NOOOOOOOOO

[sharknado]

Are you making fun of his stutter? https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:NOOOOOOOOO

[RaceProUK]

I'm trying to think a India's business, or cultural contrabutions to humanity in general; in the last 3,500 years

There's the decimal system, which is used by at least 6* people.

*This estimate might be off by a factor of 1,000,000,000.

Re:NOOOOOOOOO

[paulatz]

I'm trying to think a India's business, or cultural contrabutions (sic) to humanity in general;

ZERO!

Like, literally, the number zero. Half of the binary digits where invented in India. The other half in Africa.

Re:NOOOOOOOOO

[LifesABeach]

Sorry, the number zero was an created 3700 years ago, and not in India.

Re:NOOOOOOOOO

[LifesABeach]

Sorry, the decimal system was being used in other places than India over 3000 years ago.

Re:NOOOOOOOOO

[LifesABeach]

Brian, think a little more of the magnitude of this post; the logic is quantitative.

Re:NOOOOOOOOO

[cusco]

Oops, I took it the exact opposite way, as sarcasm. Never mind then.

Re:NOOOOOOOOO

[paulatz]

Sorry, the number zero was an created 3700 years ago, and not in India.

Sorry, but you're wrong, racist, and fat.

Re:NOOOOOOOOO

[isorox]

Sorry, the decimal system was being used in other places than India over 3000 years ago.

And india is hardly a great use of numbers -- paying 10,00,000 rather than 1,000,000 rupees for something. Non standard and confusing.

Re:NOOOOOOOOO

[isorox]

Sorry, the number zero was an created 3700 years ago, and not in India.

Sorry, but you're wrong, racist, and fat.

"By 1740 BCE the Egyptians had a symbol for zero in accounting texts. The symbol nfr, meaning beautiful, was also used to indicate the base level in drawings of tombs and pyramids and distances were measured relative to the base line as being above or below this line." - wikipedia

So Egypt 3,700 years ago.

"The concept of zero as a number and not merely a symbol or an empty space for separation is attributed to India, where, by the 9th century AD, practical calculations were carried out using zero, which was treated like any other number, even in case of division"

So India 1,100 years ago

Re:NOOOOOOOOO

[paulatz]

If you think that zero is Egyptian, than why not claim it is prehistorical? Indeed the first cave men already had the concept of nothing, zero wife, zero food but zero lions in sight. The Egyptian zero is "just" a reference on a distance scale; it marks the transition from zero meaning "nothing" to zero meaning "the reference"; great stuff but not yet there.

The digit zero, used in positional notation, is indeed Indian, as you correctly but partially quoted later. It is a fundamental advancement as it makes algebraic computation dramatically easier. Its actually what allows the transition from geometry-based mathematics, like in ancient Greece, to algebra-based mathematics, like in the Arabic world during the middle ages. And then all the way down to the Turing machine, which performs a minimal set of read/save and algebraic operation necessary to solve any decidable problem.

Re:NOOOOOOOOO

[mcswell]

FWIW, the Mayans (or perhaps the Olmecs before them) independently invented a zero as a place holder in their base 20 system. The earliest recorded use of this is (I believe) about 36 BC, which may make it older than the (East!) Indian zero-as-a-placeholder.

Re:NOOOOOOOOO

[mcswell]

And that's why Yahoo's email is such a hit. Like this: http://www.webpronews.com/even...

Office 365

[tripleevenfall]

Well, after being responsible for Office 365, what could possibly go wrong?

Re:Office 365

[EvilSS]

So what's wrong with Office 365? I know lots of small-mid sized businesses that love it. Even for individuals, if you are going to use Office products is a decent way to go, especially if you have multiple PCs.

Re:Office 365

[Anonymous Coward]

But it makes sense. Microsoft is full of Indian "techs" who know nothing more than how to read off of a checklist. It's fitting that the new CEO should be someone along those lines.

Re:Office 365

[Anonymous Coward]

At the best nothing, but at the worst it could take your firstborn.

Re:Office 365

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole concept of running a text processor on a remote server when you have a super computer from 20 years ago inside your pocket is just so stupid it prompts for decapitation. Also well deserved slavery.

Re:Office 365

[EvilSS]

The whole concept of running a text processor on a remote server when you have a super computer from 20 years ago inside your pocket is just so stupid it prompts for decapitation. Also well deserved slavery.

WTF are you talking about? Office 365 is subscription office for individuals (with other perks like some cloud storage and Skype credits) as well as hosted server products for businesses. You get the full Office suite, the same binaries you get if you buy the boxed version. They have been playing around with a web based version to allow editing when you are on the road or on a guest PC, but that is not the focus of the product at all.

Re:Office 365

[gstoddart]

So what's wrong with Office 365?

Because storing your private/confidential information in a cloud is a stupid idea, because you don't really have control over your data.

Anything you store in Microsoft's cloud is subject to the PATRIOT Act and can be demanded with a secret warrant.

And, as much as Microsoft likes to talk about Scroogling, you can bet your ass they are doing the exact same thing, and if they say otherwise they're lying to you.

Lots of people love heroin too, that doesn't make it good for you.

Re:Office 365

[BasilBrush]

Because storing your private/confidential information in a cloud is a stupid idea, because you don't really have control over your data.

In a lot of cases, yes. That doesn't mean that this particular implementation of a cloud office system is a poor one, nor reflect badly on it's exec, who was doing the job asked.

Re:Office 365

[Sockatume]

They'll release another product that protects them from being "squeezed out" by Google's growing cloud computing services? Oh no, what a terrible business that would be. Better they keep putting out $500 Office suites that everyone has realised they don't need to own.

Re:Office 365

[EvilSS]

If you are an individual, just don't store it on Skydrive (or whatever it's called now). It's not mandatory for you to do so with 365. If you are a business, well, that same PATRIOT act (or other similar act from whatever country you reside in, as the NSA leaks have shown most countries are very "cooperative") will allow them to come to your datacenter and demand the same data. Again, you don't have to store the data on MS servers if you are just using Office products and not also hosting with them for email, CRM, etc.

Re:Office 365

[Anonymous Coward]

As EvilSS pointed out, Office 365 runs locally, just like every other version of Office has... likewise, you don't HAVE to store your data in the cloud, that is 100% optional... yes, IIRC, by default it will try and store stuff in SkyDrive, but you can change that at any time. You're tinfoil hat argument, which may indeed have some merit generally, doesn't hold (all of it's) water WRT this product... until they make SkyDrive 100% compulsory, it's not much different than it's ever been and your concerns aren't really valid.

Look, I've got my beefs with Microsoft same as everyone, and some of them are pretty big... but Office 365 is actually one of the BETTER thing they've done... I wasn't sold on the subscription model at first, but you know, $99/yr for the latest-and-greatest version on 5 PCs, which covers my whole family and my laptop (not to mention the ability to move licenses around very easily and the ability to temporarily run it somewhere else if needed) isn't a bad deal at all as it turns out.

Re:Office 365

[Anonymous Coward]

So, by your logic, Penicillin is bad. I'm allergic to it, therefore it is bad for everyone. QED.

I don't use that product nor do I know anyone that does, but it hasn't failed yet so someone must be using it. Just because YOU don't like (won't use) something doesn't necessarily make it a bust.

Side note: money is also bad since people are killed over it. So, logically, you should rid yourself of it. Post on /. when and where plz.

Re:Office 365

[0123456]

Better they keep putting out $500 Office suites that everyone has realised they don't need to own.

Yeah, because renting them for $50 a month makes much more sense.

Re:Office 365

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole concept of running a text processor on a remote server when you have a super computer from 20 years ago inside your pocket is just so stupid it prompts for decapitation. Also well deserved slavery.

WTF are you talking about? Office 365 is subscription office for individuals (with other perks like some cloud storage and Skype credits) as well as hosted server products for businesses.

Spoken like a true shill. In that you completely blew off the GP's point about the entire concept of running a text processor on a remote server being patently absurd and instead just drove straight on forward with the marketing spiel. Well-done, EvilSS! Your bonus will be signed by Mr. Nadella himself this month!

Re:Office 365

[gmuslera]

If you put that data in microsoft remote servers, in microsoft private formats, accessible for you when and how microsoft decides, and that shares it with whoever it consideres necessary or at least profitable, why you keep calling it your data?

Re:Office 365

[Anonymous Coward]

So what's wrong with Office 365?

It's not available on February 29 on leap years?

Re:Office 365

[Sockatume]

I'd rather not buy Office at all and use Google Docs, but I'm sure MS is happy to take $50 from me now and again when a project demands something more sophisticated. The alternative is that I stop giving them any money altogether, and while that'd be great for me, I doubt MS particularly wants to get behind that.

Re:Office 365

[mozumder]

Anything you store in Microsoft's cloud is subject to the PATRIOT Act and can be demanded with a secret warrant.

This is not a concern for enterprise corporations, which is the target audience for Cloud services.

If a corporation is doing illegal activities, they have much larger problems than privacy rights.

Re:Office 365

[DarthVain]

OK before you even start kicking the cloud.

Talk about the idea of storing your information in a propitiatory format using a subscription based software that you do not own.

"Oh your millions of documents are all in our closed source format now? It would be a shame of our subscription service quadrupled in price... Then again the stand alone versions are even more expensive... That's OK however, you will only have to pay us monthly... for forever."

Once you get by that stupid part, then you can go on to the stupid part about cloud based services... Also note that 99.99% of all those services are hosted in the USA where the NSA and every other government agency will be helping themselves to all your private data for whatever purposes they deem fit,

SO yeah, very quickly 3 good reasons never to use, and that is before you even look at the actual price, software features, etc...

Re:Office 365

[dnaumov]

So what's wrong with Office 365?

Because storing your private/confidential information in a cloud is a stupid idea, because you don't really have control over your data.

Anything you store in Microsoft's cloud is subject to the PATRIOT Act and can be demanded with a secret warrant.

So how about, use Office 365, but.... don't use the cloud features? Shocking idea, I know!

Re:Office 365

[EvilSS]

The whole concept of running a text processor on a remote server when you have a super computer from 20 years ago inside your pocket is just so stupid it prompts for decapitation. Also well deserved slavery.

WTF are you talking about? Office 365 is subscription office for individuals (with other perks like some cloud storage and Skype credits) as well as hosted server products for businesses.

Spoken like a true shill. In that you completely blew off the GP's point about the entire concept of running a text processor on a remote server being patently absurd and instead just drove straight on forward with the marketing spiel. Well-done, EvilSS! Your bonus will be signed by Mr. Nadella himself this month!

And again I find myself asking: WTF are you talking about? In what way does "running a text processor on a remote server" have ANYTHING to do with Office 365?

Re:Office 365

[EvilSS]

So what's wrong with Office 365?

It's not available on February 29 on leap years?

Touché

Re:Office 365

[Jason Levine]

Because storing your private/confidential information in a cloud is a stupid idea, because you don't really have control over your data.

Not to get off-track, but this is exactly why I'm opposed to the Bill Gates Foundation-backed InBloom. They are taking data from students (including names, addresses, medical information, test scores, etc) and uploading it to an Amazon Cloud Server for schools to access. Because "the cloud" has never been hacked and companies never sell access to valuable data to third parties, right? (And, no, you're not allowed to opt your child out of the InBloom data upload. Parents have been told we have no say in the matter.)

Re:Office 365

[spire3661]

The idea of paying a subscription for word processing is stupid.

Re:Office 365

[Anonymous Psychopath]

OK before you even start kicking the cloud.

Talk about the idea of storing your information in a propitiatory format using a subscription based software that you do not own.

"Oh your millions of documents are all in our closed source format now? It would be a shame of our subscription service quadrupled in price... Then again the stand alone versions are even more expensive... That's OK however, you will only have to pay us monthly... for forever."

Once you get by that stupid part, then you can go on to the stupid part about cloud based services... Also note that 99.99% of all those services are hosted in the USA where the NSA and every other government agency will be helping themselves to all your private data for whatever purposes they deem fit,

SO yeah, very quickly 3 good reasons never to use, and that is before you even look at the actual price, software features, etc...

You never "own" software unless you are the one who created it. You just own a right to use it according to whatever agreement you made with the creator. The quasi-legal wiretapping issues exist regardless of the location of the data. The physical location of the bits and documents is largely irrelevant. Proprietary formats could be an issue, but isn't in any practical sense.

Re:Office 365

[jkrise]

I'm sure MS is happy to take $50 from me now and again when a project demands something more sophisticated

Why are you concerned about MS being happy? If what you truly need is MS Office; get a copy and install it on your Windows PC and keep it. These days; PCs last atleast 8+ years. You can keep using your sophisticated piece of Office for a fraction of the subscription price.

Re:Office 365

[EvilSS]

The idea of paying a subscription for word processing is stupid.

That depends. Assuming you are going to pay for an Office suite vs use open source or free products, it can make very good financial sense for some people. If you need licenses for more than one machine and/or you like to upgrade often, then the 365 subscription can be a less expensive option. Yes, if you stop paying you can't keep the software but again, but that is something you need to consider before buying.

For example, I use 365 for Office Professional Plus and Visio. I have it installed on 4 PCs at the moment. I pay 12/mo for Office and 13/mo for Visio Pro. I use both of these for my job (Consultant). I use the business version ($12 vs $9/mo) because I use PowerPivot quite a bit. So, Office Pro is $399 per machine (Pro, not Pro Plus, which is not available retail). That's $1,596 for all four machines. Visio Pro is $589, so $2,356 total. It would take 133 months and 181 months respectively on 365 before I go into the red on rent vs buy. Now, with 365 I get all of the updates during that time, while I would have to purchase additional upgrades if I buy the software outright. I also don't have to deal with re-activating my software as I move from machine to machine. I just deauthorize it in my account settings and it free's up the license from that machine.

Re:Office 365

[fahrbot-bot]

Better they keep putting out $500 Office suites that everyone has realised they don't need to own.

Or sell it for way less than $500. I paid way (way) less for Lotus SmartSuite back in 2002 and *still* find it much easier to use than Office with all the features I need. I like using Word Pro (and its predecessor Ami Pro) a whole lot more than I have ever liked using Word. Approach is much, much easier to use than Access. Even less expensive are {Open,Libre}Office -- free.

There's no reason, except greed, for Office to cost $500 (or more).

Re:Office 365

[DarthVain]

You don't "own" software, but you do own a legal copy. That you can use. Locally. Subscription based software you don't even own that. You are allowed to use it for the given term, and once that is up, or your don't pay, then you don't even have that.

Last time I looked at any sort of contract or licencing agreement with anything, it is usually phrased in such a way as to let the corporate owner to do whatever it wants to do with little recourse to the consumer. Like changing the terms of the agreement at any time, usually with a provisions of "notification" which might include posting the notice of change to some obscure area of a webpage you have no idea to check. Even if you do notice, usually your only recourse is to stop using the service, and then you may face penalties anyway.

Anyway subscription based service using formats that you can only use that service in the future is intrinsically a very stupid idea. About the only perspective it makes a little sense is in a large corporate environment you don't have to manage individual licences or group licences, and if it is all cloudy and online, local deployment... maybe. All of that at the expense of what I have already mentioned.

That said many or most large corporate type applications already do this via versioning that isn't eventually compatible with earlier versions or "maintenance" fees, or mandatory support fees. Of course at least those are measured annually, or over several years, not on a monthly subscription.

Of course this discussion starts moving in the realm of open software and the like which is the other side of the coin.

Re:Office 365

[AaronW]

I curse Office 365 almost daily. We switched over to it for our email. Their email services are extremely slow and frequently I cannot access it via IMAP since Microsoft's IMAP implementation is broken. I frequently get authentication errors. Last week I couldn't even send email for a day for the same reason, authentication errors. This has been going on for many months and people have been reporting this problem for almost a year.

It seems that Microsoft tries to limit the number of IMAP connections, which fundamentally breaks the protocol. The problem is made worse if you have more than one computer connected via IMAP. In my case I have my home computer, work computer and my phone connecting.

Their mail service is also extremely slow and for some reason forces my mail client (Thunderbird) to have to redownload all of the email to reindex it which often takes a week or so since it is so slow.

Their filtering support is also weak with no way to filter on mailing list ID. I had to give up subscribing to the Linux Kernel Mailing List because that totally broke things. It could not keep up at all.

The web interface absolutely sucks as well.

Few people on my floor use the Outlook client since most of us run Linux on our desktops.

Our sales and marketing had to drop Sharepoint and switched over to Google Drive because it was so bad.

Some of our engineers (myself included) have resorted to just setting up Microsoft's services to just forward all of our emails elsewhere (i.e. Google) in order to reliably access our email.

-Aaron

Re:Office 365

[Anonymous Coward]

> Because storing your private/confidential information in a cloud is a stupid idea, because you don't really have control over your data

Many organizations lack the wherewithal or resources to internally host their data with the sort of reliability and security Microsoft can. For them, outsourcing that portion of their operation so they can focus on their core business makes sense.

>Anything you store in Microsoft's cloud is subject to the PATRIOT Act

As is anything you store locally.

Re:Office 365

[Spicerun]

"...but you know, $99/yr for the latest-and-greatest version on 5 PCs, which covers my whole family and my laptop (not to mention the ability to move licenses around very easily and the ability to temporarily run it somewhere else if needed) isn't a bad deal at all as it turns out."

It is a bad deal when compared to LibreOffice that doesn't have a limit on number of PCs, and doesn't require a subscription/year amount of money. Their updates are available anytime you want, too.

Re:Office 365

[Anonymous Coward]

Not if you don't live in the USA. Also its harder to issue 1000's of orders to individuals/companies than 1 to a big company

Re:Office 365

[EvilSS]

Well sure, but if you are going to choose to use MS Office, it's a way better deal if you are going to use it on multiple machines.

Re:Office 365

[Anonymous Coward]

What else ... Well, they could move all operations to India. Or has that already happened ? I will never buy anything MS as of today because of this. He is not qualified to head MS.

Re:Office 365

[thunderbird32]

But he's factually incorrect, that's the point. It doesn't run off of a remote server, it installs to your local machine just like the older versions of Office. It CAN stream from a server during install, but once it's actually installed on your machine it runs locally. I'm assuming it does occasionally check in to insure that it's a legitimate copy, but other than that it's the same as the boxed copies of 2010. I'm not a huge Office fan, and it has plenty of legitimate flaws but it makes no sense to complain about things that aren't true.

Re:Office 365

[Anonymous Coward]

Once you get by that stupid part, then you can go on to the stupid part about cloud based services... Also note that 99.99% of all those services are hosted in the USA where the NSA and every other government agency will be helping themselves to all your private data for whatever purposes they deem fit,

But I thought they were empowering users? You mean they are lying?

They are just lining their own pockets and taking advantage of everyone else? Say it ain't so!

Re:Office 365

[mjwx]

The idea of paying a subscription for word processing is stupid.

That depends. Assuming you are going to pay for an Office suite vs use open source or free products, it can make very good financial sense for some people. If you need licenses for more than one machine and/or you like to upgrade often, then the 365 subscription can be a less expensive option. Yes, if you stop paying you can't keep the software but again, but that is something you need to consider before buying.

For example, I use 365 for Office Professional Plus and Visio. I have it installed on 4 PCs at the moment. I pay 12/mo for Office and 13/mo for Visio Pro. I use both of these for my job (Consultant). I use the business version ($12 vs $9/mo) because I use PowerPivot quite a bit. So, Office Pro is $399 per machine (Pro, not Pro Plus, which is not available retail). That's $1,596 for all four machines. Visio Pro is $589, so $2,356 total. It would take 133 months and 181 months respectively on 365 before I go into the red on rent vs buy. Now, with 365 I get all of the updates during that time, while I would have to purchase additional upgrades if I buy the software outright. I also don't have to deal with re-activating my software as I move from machine to machine. I just deauthorize it in my account settings and it free's up the license from that machine.

Uh huh.

I got Office Pro Plus for A$15 through work. If you're paying full retail prices for Office, you're doing it wrong. Also the full retail pro allows installation on three machines.

Re:Office 365

[EvilSS]

Uh huh. I got Office Pro Plus for A$15 through work. If you're paying full retail prices for Office, you're doing it wrong. Also the full retail pro allows installation on three machines.

That just means your company paid for it by having bought copies through their VL program. I'm an independent consultant without the benefits of having a company with SA or EA behind me. US retail box copies are one computer/one user. Even if that wasn't the case, at $399 it would still be over 33 months. As for Visio Pro, yea, try getting that for $15 via any legal program.

You may now transfer the software to another computer that belongs to you, but not more than one time every 90 days (except due to hardware failure, in which case you may transfer sooner). If you transfer the software to another computer, that other computer becomes the "licensed computer."

Re:Office 365

[RaceProUK]

So what's wrong with Office 365?

Because storing your private/confidential information in a cloud is a stupid idea, because you don't really have control over your data.

If only you had some form of local storage, maybe something round and inflexible that spins at high speed, then you could store your data outside the cloud.

I wouold argue

[geekoid]

that Steve Ballmer retiring now is not 'early'. About a decade late.

Re:I wouold argue

[EvilSS]

And you would not be wrong.

Re:I wouold argue

[BasilBrush]

Will Satya Nadella support developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers though?

Re:I wouold argue

[Anonymous Coward]

Will Satya Nadella support developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers though?

or vagina.

Re:I wouold argue

[Anonymous Coward]

Not directly, but through cocaine snorting.

Re:I wouold argue

[Anne_Nonymous]

He's not retiring; he has simply outsourced his chair-tossing to an Indian guy.

Re:I wouold argue

[Grishnakh]

I disagree; I think Ballmer should have been retained as CEO indefinitely.

If they really had to replace him, they should have picked whoever came up with the Microsoft Songsmith commercial.

Re:I wouold argue

[jkrise]

This is just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. The summary itself says it: " he had asked Bill Gates to act as a close adviser in the months and years ahead."
and
he would follow through on the 'One Microsoft' strategy formulated under Ballmer,

So put simply; he's gonna keep going down he same route as Ballmer; and Bill Gates will still run the company on a day to day basis.

Microsoft will continue to sink; but Gates and Ballmer would suddenly become 'good corporate citizens' and a poor, powerless, benami figurehead of Indian origin will get all the flak.

Nothing to see here, move along...wait! I think /. should have a H1B icon for Microsoft in future; that's the only thing of interest to us here.

Re:I wouold argue

[Anonymous Coward]

No, their motto switched to 'greasy screens, greasy screens, greasy screens' sometime in Q3 2012

Re:I wouold argue

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft will continue to sink

If this is sinking, what does success look like?
Most businesses would be ecstatically rapturous to be sinking like Microsoft is.

Re:I wouold argue

[jkrise]

If this is sinking, what does success look like?

This is indeed Sinking. Stinking Sinking with a capital S. If MS weren't sinking; why would they toss out the Chair - Man and get a new techy CEO who knows a bit or two?

Making money off old products by fleecing captive customers will not work forever; the dressing of the books will have to stop sooner than later.

Re:I wouold argue

[daem0n1x]

I thought he would be the next chair man...

Re:I wouold argue

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

They are doing well on the enterprise side, and not doing as well as they have historically on the consumer side. So their profits as a company are good. Their is a significant part of the company that is not doing well.

This is probably why they hired the guy that was in charge of the part of the company that was doing well.

Re:I wouold argue

[rsborg]

He's not retiring; he has simply outsourced his chair-tossing to an Indian guy.

Satya better get to juicing if chair tossing is on the job description.

Re:I wouold argue

[Tough Love]

If this is sinking, what does success look like?

Success looks like the Titanic not hitting an iceberg.

Re:I wouold argue

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, lovely racism there. Would you like some coffee with your douchery?

Re:I wouold argue

[Anonymous Coward]

I see nothing in that post that is at all racist. Perhaps it is you who is truly racist because you seem to imagine racism everywhere.

Doomed

[js3]

Hate Ballmer all you want but that dude knew how to make money.

Re:Doomed

[hodet]

just not for his shareholders.

Re:Doomed

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? Would you have done any worse starting from where he did? Chances are that a monkey, making random decisions, might have gotten similar results. The guy is nothing but a used car salesman.

Re:Doomed

[EvilSS]

No doubt, but he didn't know how to innovate or even keep up with new technologies and markets. Microsoft has been floundering for the past decade, riding the momentum they built up in the 80's and 90's but never successfully adding to it. Their strategy lately is almost monkey throwing darts. Let's try this! No, this! No, that!

At the same time they poisoned their own corporate environment and created a ton of churn in their lower ranks, bleeding young new talent to rivals and startups.

Re:Doomed

[Anonymous Coward]

Hate Ballmer all you want but that dude knew how to make money.

I would rather state that Microsoft was profitable, despite Ballmer was at the helm.

Re:Doomed

[hcs_$reboot]

The guy is nothing but a used car salesman

Actually, used software principles salesman. Close enough.

Re:Doomed

[UnknowingFool]

The reason that he's leaving is that the shareholders surmise that MS made money despite Ballmer not because of him. MS has two main sources of revenue and profit: Windows and Office. These were the same when he took over. Even then Windows is starting to decline. Windows Vista was hated and so is Win 8. They still made money because OEMs really have no choice.

Re:Doomed

[UnknownSoldier]

You are 100% bang on when you say " Let's try this! No, this! No, that! " -- Microsoft is running around like a chicken with its head cut off.

It is because MS doen't have a freaking clue about *good* User Interface or User Experience. To understand UI you need to understand TWO things:

1. S/N and
2. Flow.

Here is the perfect example of Microsoft being total fucktards: google: visual studio 2012 menu all caps

https://www.google.com/search?...

We use uppercase and lowercase in books to make it EASIER to read. Reading off a screen is already harder on the eyes why the hell would you make it even more so?!?! Oh, and let's get rid of those underlines so people can actually *see* and *learn* the hotkeys / keyboard accelerators. Let's dumb the UI down to full retard mode because how dare anyone suggest you can design a UI for novices and the power user!

Microsoft will never understand that you need to take advantage of the strengths AND be aware of the weaknesses of the hardware to massage the Software + Hardware + User Experience. Microsoft has all the arrogance of Apple without understanding why Apple makes some of its changes. (Apple is by no means a saint, but they tend to have a more consistent User Experience.)

> they poisoned their own corporate environment

Yup! Stack Ranking has to be the dumbest move ever. As a company you want to motivate your employees; it is also import to not demotivate them.

Again, MS is clueless.

Re:Doomed

[kthreadd]

Which is the only thing a company should do.

Re:Doomed

[WhatHump]

Hasn't that been the strategy at most companies for the last decade? Other than a few sensations like Apple, most companies have been successful at slashing costs through outsourcing and downsizing, rather than spectacular innovations.

Re:Doomed

[EvilSS]

Hasn't that been the strategy at most companies for the last decade? Other than a few sensations like Apple, most companies have been successful at slashing costs through outsourcing and downsizing, rather than spectacular innovations.

I would say Apple and Google have both been innovating quite a bit, and they are Microsoft's two biggest rivals. Compared to them MS has been standing still.

Re:Doomed

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's not. A company is supposed to make good products/services.

Re:Doomed

[zorro-z]

I wouldn't say that "OEMs really have no choice." Rather, they *could* choose desktop linux rather than Windows, but have chosen not to do so. Frankly, I don't much blame them- I consider myself a linux fan, and even I'm fairly sure that my next desktop computer will run some version of Windows rather than any version of linux, at least as a primary OS (I'll definitely keep my roll-your-own linux NAS, and will probably dual-boot linux). Desktop linux is the monorail of computing- it's the future, always has been, and always will be.

And, it's the choice that OEMs have chosen not to make.

Re:Doomed

[Anonymous Coward]

Luckily, non-profit organizations take on society's other important tasks, such as protecting our freedom by creating and spreading viral software licenses.

Re:Doomed

[gbjbaanb]

no, a company is supposed to do what its owners want (the owners are the shareholders).

That most CEOs think the company belongs to them, and follow through with whatever crazy personal schemes they like is just a symptom of poor oversight from said shareholders, but that doesn't mean a company exists to do anything other than enrich its owners. Typically enriching owners is best done by making great products, but then many others do it by screwing the crap out of a locked-in customer base.

Think of that next time you open an old .doc file...

Re:Doomed

[StoneyMahoney]

Priority 1 - ensuring long-term economic security.
Priority 2 - everything else.

which is what the textbooks say, yet it's not what happens in reality. Hence the frequent economic slumps that Capitalist theory says shouldn't be periodic.

Re:Doomed

[UnknowingFool]

It's not just about choosing Linux over Windows. Linux on the desktop isn't really a viable option for consumers yet. It might not be ever. But the problem also is that the version of Windows too. I suspect that MS has priced Win 7 higher than Win 8 even though it is becoming apparent that consumers don't like it. Even then OEMs are starting to offer Win 7 even if it costs them more money as less profit is better than no profit.

Re:Doomed

[Pope]

No doubt, but he didn't know how to innovate or even keep up with new technologies and markets. Microsoft has been floundering for the past decade, riding the momentum they built up in the 80's and 90's but never successfully adding to it. Their strategy lately is almost monkey throwing darts. Let's try this! No, this! No, that!

At the same time they poisoned their own corporate environment and created a ton of churn in their lower ranks, bleeding young new talent to rivals and startups.

Lately? No, that's pretty much been their strategy SINCE the 80s. Enter into every market possible, promise that their solution will blow everyone else's away (see: FUD), and then maybe, just maybe, the 3rd version will work correctly.

Re:Doomed

[spire3661]

The guy was handed a total monopoly and LOST IT. But yeah, he knows how to make money.......

Re:Doomed

[spire3661]

Most of the time, if Apple locks you out of something, its for your own good. If Ms locks you out of something, in the OS, its because they expect you to pay more. Group/local policy being a HUGE offender.

Re:Doomed

[anjin-san 3]

Which is the only thing a company should do.

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of how business works. Making money is the ends, not the means. The only thing a company should do is make customers!

Re:Doomed

[TrancePhreak]

if Apple locks you out of something, its for your own good

Such bias, so kool-aid, very rose colored glasses

Re:Doomed

[Tough Love]

Microsoft has been floundering for the past decade, riding the momentum they built up in the 80's and 90's but never successfully adding to it.

And Microsoft's conception of "adding to it" is always "extend the Windows monopoly into new markets". Which is why they flushed $8 billion down the toilet trying to establish a console monopoly, and Sony just came back to own the segment this generation anyway so MSFT never will get its money back. And then Steam defected, so Microsoft is now in danger of losing control of the PC game franchise that it stupidly left to rot when it tried to dominate the console turf. Just Brilliant. The winners in this were couch potatoes who got cheap hardware, well not that cheap and kind of crappy, but a little bit cheaper than a PC. Oh, and maybe the games industry will return to health with the Microsoft monkey off its back.

Re:Doomed

[Anonymous Coward]

I think only Brothels & fertility clinics do that :)

Re:Doomed

[Anonymous Coward]

The guy was handed a total monopoly and LOST IT. But yeah, he knows how to make money.......

That's a pretty common outcome when you lack innovative abilities, get greedy and concentrate on rent seeking.

Re:Doomed

[inasity_rules]

I spent quite some time changing the Office 2012 menus back to normal text. Apparently it is easier with Visual Studio 2012(something in the registry), but I can't bring myself to take the time to move and every time I open it I feel like my eyes are on fire.... Still, .NET has some pretty cool stuff in it. And some pretty retarded stuff, but the workflow in developing for .NET is pretty good - whatever IDE you use.

Re:Doomed

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, for fuck's sake.

The ALL CAPS menu may not be your cup of tea, but it was a conscious design choice and it's uniform across most (if not all) of Microsoft's current product offerings. The ALL CAPS menu is present in Office, VS, bing.com, Zune, XBox, etc.

Explained:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2012/06/05/a-design-with-all-caps.aspx

Like it or not, it's a minor irritation at most (and one easily remedied) in one of the best IDEs on the planet. I'd argue that VS 2013 is the single best developer tool ever built but I know the anti-MS monkeys will come out of the woodwork touting Eclipse's cluttered design and clunky architecture as the next coming of Christ.

Just like the much-maligned Windows 8, which is actually a damn good operating system, you can get it back to "the way it used to be" with just a few minutes of tinkering ... which strikes me as being no different from my experiences with the vast majority of software and operating systems. Hell, I used to spend *weeks* tweaking Enlightenment or Window Maker to get things working the way I want, and I've never once been happy to open Eclipse.

If MS weren't making changes, they'd be stagnant. Since they are making changes, they're pretentious assholes.

You can please the /. crowd, especially if you're MS ... but I think you'll find that the vast majority of developers, admins and power users who are *really* using Visual Studio and Windows 8.1 are quite happy with their shiny new tools.

Re:Doomed

[Nivag064]

Hmm...

A customised Mate Desktop Environment (http://mate-desktop.org) on Linux beats anything I've ever seen from Microsoft in turns of usability!

Re:Doomed

[UnknownSoldier]

> The ALL CAPS menu may not be your cup of tea, but it was a retarded conscious design choice

And that's why you posted your reply in ALL UPPERCASE 1980 Apple ][ style right?? Just to drive the point home since you completely missed it...

OH, FOR FUCK'S SAKE.

THE ALL CAPS MENU MAY NOT BE YOUR CUP OF TEA, BUT IT WAS A CONSCIOUS DESIGN CHOICE AND IT'S UNIFORM ACROSS MOST (IF NOT ALL) OF MICROSOFT'S CURRENT PRODUCT OFFERINGS. THE ALL CAPS MENU IS PRESENT IN OFFICE, VS, BING.COM, ZUNE, XBOX, ETC.

EXPLAINED:
HTTP://BLOGS.MSDN.COM/B/VISUALSTUDIO/ARCHIVE/2012/06/05/A-DESIGN-WITH-ALL-CAPS.ASPX

LIKE IT OR NOT, IT'S A MINOR IRRITATION AT MOST (AND ONE EASILY REMEDIED) IN ONE OF THE BEST IDEAS ON THE PLANET. I'D ARGUE THAT VS 2013 IS THE SINGLE BEST DEVELOPER TOOL EVER BUILT BUT I KNOW THE ANTI-MS MONKEYS WILL COME OUT OF THE WOODWORK TOUTING ECLIPSE'S CLUTTERED DESIGN AND CLUNKY ARCHITECTURE AS THE NEXT COMING OF CHRIST.

IF MS WEREN'T MAKING CHANGES, THEY'D BE STAGNANT. SINCE THEY ARE MAKING CHANGES, THEY'RE PRETENTIOUS ASSHOLES.

It is NOT about MS making changes, it is about them making retarded UI changes. Some of us actually grew up with computers BEFORE they had this "luxury" called lower case. You should try this thing that involves books called reading or should I say:

"YOU SHOULD TRY THIS THING THAT INVOLVES BOOKS CALLED READING."

--
"Only cowards censor"

Re:Doomed

[Anonymous Coward]

A private company is supposed to make good products/services.

A public company is supposed to make good profit for its stakeholders.

Re:Doomed

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Microsoft makes a LOT of money from it's servers and other enterprise products. I definitely think it was past time for Ballmer to go, but he deserves credit for his role MS's success in that area.

Wait wait wait.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Too late...I've lost interest

Any bets yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

How they will survive, once it's evident they aren't magicians that can turn up company quickly as profitable they once were?

Re:Any bets yet?

[EvilSS]

For an immediate uptick in profits they could just kill off unprofitable ventures that don't show any promise going forward. Microsoft makes mountains of money from OS, server (SQL, Exchange, etc), and Office products. That is not going to change anytime soon. Even with the downturn in PC buying their bread and butter is still their business products, and those lucrative enterprise agreements. Drop the crap that's not working, then start working on new products that actually make sense. They have plenty of working capital right now to make such a transition possible and without a ton of risk.

In other words ...

[gstoddart]

The opportunity ahead will require us to reimagine a lot of what we have done in the past for a mobile and cloud-first world, and do new things

In other words, Microsoft is going to proceed with a vision which may or may not be of interest to consumers, and once again tell us what we want instead of listening to us.

So now the same idiot who was in charge of XBox being an always on-line nuisance is going to ram this philosophy through the rest of the product lines.

They might find this to their detriment.

Re:In other words ...

[Anonymous Coward]

don't see Steve's Apple doing much listening either and they seems to have a dedicated following that are willing to pay almost anything for what ever Apple tell them they need

Re:In other words ...

[Sockatume]

Cloud services is one of the few parts of MS that is both making money and growing. I'd say that's a pretty strong signal about who their customers actually are, and what those customers actually want.

You want MS to be Sony, Nintendo, or Apple. Unfortunately the dream of that MS died when the skunk works team behind the original Xbox were squeezed out. Better they become a productive business company than continue as a half-assed consumer one.

Re:In other words ...

[BasilBrush]

In other words, Microsoft is going to proceed with a vision which may or may not be of interest to consumers, and once again tell us what we want instead of listening to us.

Consumers don't really know what they want in new technology until they are shown it. Microsoft's problem has not been making it's own product plans, but making bad product plans.

Re:In other words ...

[hcs_$reboot]

don't see Steve's Apple doing much listening either

Steve Jobs, also, told us what we want. The difference: he was right in what he chose to offer.

Re:In other words ...

[tero]

In other words, Microsoft is going to proceed with a vision which may or may not be of interest to consumers, and once again tell us what we want instead of listening to us.

To be honest, if I was the CEO I wouldn't listen to "us" either. Why should I? We (I guess the collective consumers and customers) have no idea what we actually want.

Except perhaps "cool free stuff" and at most "innovation" which doesn't really mean anything at all.

He's been heading one of the divisions that has made most money lately - fairly good choice I'd say...

Re:In other words ...

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words, Microsoft is going to proceed with a vision which may or may not be of interest to consumers, and once again tell us what we want instead of listening to us.

The trouble with this approach is that if you ask people what they want, they'll usually say they want the same things they already like, which really takes you nowhere when you're trying to innovate.

Did the Windows 95 Start Menu everyone seems to love nowadays (for some reason) come about because MS started asking people how they wanted their desktop to work?
Did we get the iPhone because Apple held a damn public focus group asking people how they wanted their phones to work?

If MS asked you lot what the hell it is you wanted, most of you would say "we just want Windows 7, booting as fast as Windows 8 does".
Sure, Microsoft mostly screwed up their approach to the whole touch / non-touch interface thing. But I sure hope that instead of "OMG WHAT HAVE WE DONE WE'RE SORRY HERE'S WINDOWS 7 NOW FASTER THAN EVER... ARE WE ALL GOOD NOW.... PLEASE?" they regroup, rethink Metro, and try again.

Re:In other words ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Apple DOES listen. Dedicated Apple users were demanding a powerful updated Mac Pro. The Mac Pro does not make as much money as phones and tablets but the hardcore Apple users (i.e. creative professionals) wanted a new Mac Pro for a long time and they got a very powerful and pretty reasonably priced one. So like the typical autistic dweeb you just don't "get it".

Re:In other words ...

[UnknowingFool]

I would also say their problem has been execution. Tablets and smartphones were done by MS long before Apple got into the markets. I had one of their WinMobile smartphones; it was just buggy and hard to use. Their tablets were little more than more expensive but foldable Windows laptops with touchscreens. It must really chide Ballmer that Apple not only moved into their markets later but overtook them in such a short time.

Re:In other words ...

[Anonymous Coward]

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
Henry Ford

Re:In other words ...

[0123456]

If MS asked you lot what the hell it is you wanted, most of you would say "we just want Windows 7, booting as fast as Windows 8 does".

Um, yes. Except Windows 7 already boots as fast as Window 8 if you use hibernate instead of powering down, like it does.

What would have been wrong with that? Exactly what 'innovation' has Window 8 brought that anyone actually wanted?

Re:In other words ...

[gbjbaanb]

Did the Windows 95 Start Menu everyone seems to love nowadays (for some reason) come about because MS started asking people how they wanted their desktop to work?

no, generally Microsoft brings things about by looking at successful products elsewhere and copying them. Badly.

Re:In other words ...

[Merk42]

...and GPs point is if they collectively listened to that kind of thing, we'd still be in DOS because OMG clicking on things is different AAAAHHH.

That is not to say that Windows 8 (metro/modern UI) is great, just that asking people what they want will always yield them asking for the same and not allow any room for innovation.

Re:In other words ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Steve Jobs told a certain kind of consumer what they wanted. The rest of us happily ignored it. Then Microsoft started trying to tell us the same things and we got pissed.

Re:In other words ...

[Anonymous Coward]

That is true.
The customer is always wrong.

Re:In other words ...

[0123456]

...and GPs point is if they collectively listened to that kind of thing, we'd still be in DOS because OMG clicking on things is different AAAAHHH.

1. I can't remember anyone saying 'Uh, Windows 3 sucks, DOS is so much better with all its arcane key combinations'.
2. Macs had been around for years, and everyone knew DOS was a clunker in comparison.

Who in their right mind wants to be forced to use a touch screen on a desktop PC with a keyboard and mouse?

Re:In other words ...

[tlhIngan]

I would also say their problem has been execution. Tablets and smartphones were done by MS long before Apple got into the markets. I had one of their WinMobile smartphones; it was just buggy and hard to use. Their tablets were little more than more expensive but foldable Windows laptops with touchscreens. It must really chide Ballmer that Apple not only moved into their markets later but overtook them in such a short time.

Basically what happened was Microsoft tried to take the same keyboard/mouse interface of Windows and shove it in a portable handheld form factor. Apple realized that the UIs must be different because interactions are different between a precise keyboard/mouse and an imprecise touchscreen - things that are easy with a mouse can be quite hard with a touchscreen (drags, for example), and vice versa.

Apple could've put OS X's UI on the iPad. They chose not to and went with a different UI because the two are different.

And the other mistake was confusing branding - Windows, Windows, Windows everywhere, people expect you can run Windows apps on handhelds, which you couldn't. Even if it was Windows CE on x86 - you couldn't run your regular full Windows app on that. And Microsoft did it again with Windows RT.

Apple decided to split it - Macintosh, and iPhone/iPad. One runs OSX, the other iPhoneOS/iOS. And Apple did get into a little confusion because the iPod Touch couldn't run iPod games. Enough so they killed iPod games.

Steve Jobs, also, told us what we want. The difference: he was right in what he chose to offer.

No, Jobs wasn't right. He has several notable flops (Mac G4 Cube, anyone?). And he did get lucky - the iPod was sold just at the point where portable music was moving from cassettes and CDs to MP3s. A bit of clever viral marketing in white earbuds and boom.

Heck, iTunes Music Store wasn't something people "didn't know they wanted" - Jobs knew people wanted it, and he worked hard to get it. It was the music industry that was reluctant (where else can you claim the tiny marketshare of the Mac was a huge advantage? Where else would being able to sell to a market of sub-5% of computer users be a huge selling point over making it available to 90+% of Windows users?).

Jobs was right in people wanted designed computers rather than beige boxes, hence the fruity Bondi-blue iMac that was a hit. It was simple (one box!), looked different (less ugly!) and artsy enough for people to make it fit in their living room décor.

Re:In other words ...

[Anonymous Psychopath]

Basically what happened was Microsoft tried to take the same keyboard/mouse interface of Windows and shove it in a portable handheld form factor. Apple realized that the UIs must be different because interactions are different between a precise keyboard/mouse and an imprecise touchscreen - things that are easy with a mouse can be quite hard with a touchscreen (drags, for example), and vice versa.

And then, failing to really understand the lesson, they took their new mobile interface and tried to cram it into a PC. Apple tried to do the same thing with Launchpad, which also failed. Consumers want to use their mobile devices differently than their PC devices.

The real lesson is this: if you want someone to perform a task in a completely different way than they've already learned, there needs to be a big reward behind it.

Re:In other words ...

[Merk42]

You're right, I don't recall anyone complaining on the Internet when Windows 3 was released in 1990...

Also, good job still missing the original point of "Windows 8 may not be better than Windows 7, but that doesn't mean nothing can be"

Re:In other words ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... The difference: he was right in what he chose to offer.

says who?

fuck apple and their shiny shiny shit.

Re:In other words ...

[Anonymous Coward]

A good quote to drop when you want to pretend your new thing is actually better than the old thing.

Re:In other words ...

[Your.Master]

Windows 8 is using a hybrid shutdown which isn't actually available in Windows 7. The kernel is hibernated, but userland is actually shut down, as is the hardware session. http://www.techrepublic.com/bl....

Re:In other words ...

[Anonymous Coward]

1. I can't remember anyone saying 'Uh, Windows 3 sucks, DOS is so much better with all its arcane key combinations'.

That wasn't the question. The question is whether anyone asked for Windows (or Mac OS) when all they had encountered were command-line OSes. The assertion is that they did not. They just wanted better DOS. Personally, I was moving between nonexistence and being a baby at the time, so I can't honestly claim to remember what people thought, but it would surprise me if many people literally asked for Windows 3 behaviour at the time (even restricting yourself to the pros of Win3 and ignoring the cons).

Microsoft itself rolled up a selection of mid-80s quotes about how the Mouse was useless, in the context of how important Touch is becoming, which was contemporary to Windows 1:

“Mice are nice ideas, but of dubious value for business users” (George Vinall, PC Week, April 24, 1984)
“There is no evidence that people want to use these things.” (John C. Dvorak, San Francisco Examiner, February 19, 1984)
“I was having lots of fun, but in the back of my corporate mind, I couldn't help but think about productivity.” (George Vinall, PC Week, April 24, 1984)
“Does the mouse make the computer more accessible, more friendly, to certain target audiences such as executives? The answer is no.” (Computerworld, October 31, 1983)
“There is no possibility that this device will feel more comfortable to the executive than the keyboard. Because of its ‘rollability,’ the mouse has the aura of a gimmick” (Computerworld, October 31, 1983)
“The mouse and its friends are merely diversions in this process. What sounds revolutionary does not necessarily help anyone with anything, and therein lies the true test of commercial longevity.” (David A. Kay, Datamation, October 1983)
(found the citations at this citation :)): http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/arc...

I remember as a kid in the 90s some people still made these arguments (you can even find some on slashdot where keyboard-only is the most productive!), who were very used to the keyboard-only model. Read further and you find that some couldn't shake the idea that nobody was telling them to use ONLY a mouse in all applications for all devices, which is what you hear now with touch where people instantly go on about gorilla arm as if they think the vision is people sitting on a traditionally-setup desktop surface and manipulating spreadsheets with their outstretched arms, meanwhile dipping their fingers in a vat of grease so the screen gets illegible.

All that said, yes, Windows 8 was stupid, and by far the dominant reason is they got rid of the start menu in favour of a modal UI (which also showed up at boot). I really think that's it. Everything else was either a benefit, or ignorable, or so minor as to not be worth a quibble. There isn't a huge performance or driver stability problem like Vista had. There isn't a big OS stability issue like Windows Me had. It's not even a problem that the "Modern UI" exists -- it's actually pretty good on actual tablets, despite having some differences in the fundamental model than iOS and Android's copycat-iOS.

I don't understand why they haven't fixed that yet. People clamoured for the start button, and then adding a button that takes you to that fullscreen modal experience felt like a huge "fuck you" because that wasn't what anybody meant by the start button. By and large, there's two kinds of people: one wants the old-fashioned cascading menus from XP, another wants the modeless search from Win7 (ideally I'd really like both, but I'd take modeless search). Instead we got modal search that covers the screen.

I'm pretty sure that's basically the entire problem.

Well, that and some of the new apps were shit. The mail app was shit and the store

Re:In other words ...

[Anonymous Coward]

And he did get lucky - the iPod was sold just at the point where portable music was moving from cassettes and CDs to MP3s. A bit of clever viral marketing in white earbuds and boom.

Heck, iTunes Music Store wasn't something people "didn't know they wanted" - Jobs knew people wanted it, and he worked hard to get it. It was the music industry that was reluctant (where else can you claim the tiny marketshare of the Mac was a huge advantage? Where else would being able to sell to a market of sub-5% of computer users be a huge selling point over making it available to 90+% of Windows users?).

You cannot claim that you conveniently misrepresent the fact the iTunes/iPod combo is served up to those 90% of windows users as well, with that 5% only it could have been flop.

Re:In other words ...

[Atzanteol]

Basically what happened was Microsoft tried to take the same keyboard/mouse interface of Windows and shove it in a portable handheld form factor. Apple realized that the UIs must be different because interactions are different between a precise keyboard/mouse and an imprecise touchscreen - things that are easy with a mouse can be quite hard with a touchscreen (drags, for example), and vice versa.

And now Microsoft has taken the same touch interface from their phones/tablets and shoved it into the desktop/laptop form factor...

Re:In other words ...

[Anonymous Coward]

...and GPs point is if they collectively listened to that kind of thing, we'd still be in DOS because OMG clicking on things is different AAAAHHH.

1. I can't remember anyone saying 'Uh, Windows 3 sucks, DOS is so much better with all its arcane key combinations'.
2. Macs had been around for years, and everyone knew DOS was a clunker in comparison.

Who in their right mind wants to be forced to use a touch screen on a desktop PC with a keyboard and mouse?

Windows 3 did suck. 3.1 was good and then 3.11 was good for MS. I've used windows since 1.0 to get access to "Paint".

Re:In other words ...

[Anonymous Coward]

MS's current situation may be very precarious. Think about the path MS took to get into cloud services. They started by being the #1 desktop so anyone who worked behind the scenes was familiar with Windows. MS leveraged this near 100% familiarity to get them into servers. This means maintaining control of the desktop is crucial for MS since all of their money is ultimately traced back to the desktop. At the current time, Android and MacOS are the two heavily used desktops with the power of familiarity. I suspect Satya Nadella may not realize who crucial the desktop is, and if he loses it MS may not survive...

Re:In other words ...

[Hognoxious]

if something is wrong, then clearly doing the exact opposite is right. Any three year old knows that.

Re:In other words ...

[Anonymous Coward]

So now the same idiot who was in charge of XBox being an always on-line nuisance is going to ram this philosophy through the rest of the product lines..

Uh... C+E has nothing to do with XBox, C+E provides infrastructure, how XBox chooses to use that is completely isolated from the work Satya has been doing. Shut your FUD spewing mouth and stop spouting crap you know nothing about.

And this is why I normally ignore comments.

Re:In other words ...

[Anonymous Coward]

You got misled by the confusing terminology.
User Session = what it says on the tin
Kernel Session = kernel, drivers, background services. Anything that keeps running through a logout.
Hardware Session = active RAM contents. The difference between suspend-to-ram (Sleep) and suspend-to-disk (Hibernate).

So, a much shorter and more useful explanation:
Win8 hybrid shutdown == logout, hibernate at login screen.

Re:In other words ...

[BasilBrush]

No, Jobs wasn't right. He has several notable flops (Mac G4 Cube, anyone?).

The implicit expectation of someone who makes no mistakes is ridiculous. The fact is his successes far outweighed his mistakes, to a greater extent than pretty much anyone else in the industry.

And he did get lucky - the iPod was sold just at the point where portable music was moving from cassettes and CDs to MP3s.

That wasn't luck. It was recognising an opportunity.

Re:In other words ...

[Anonymous Coward]

He was briefly right in what he chose to offer with the iPhone maybe, until Android surpassed it.

On the desktop, the numbers speak for themselves. MS at about 90% and Apple at 7%.

If you take a look at mainframes and supercomputers, I don't think you'll find anything by Apple. Most of those are running BSD or other UNIX-like OS.

Re:In other words ...

[Black LED]

Meanwhile, the real "creative professionals" skipped the wait and got PCs. There is nothing you can do on a Mac that you can't do as well or better on a PC.

Re:In other words ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Steve Jobs could decide what was good to sell by personally using it. Another guy who did the same thing was Jeff Hawkins and look how much more successful the Palm Pilot was than the rest of its contemporaries. It sold as much as all the rest of them combined.

Re:In other words ...

[david_thornley]

Develop legally for iOS?

Reimagine!

[Sponge Bath]

...require us to reimagine a lot of what we have done

Following the reimagined Battlestar Galactica, where cylons look like humans, the reimagined Microsoft CEO will lose the borg mask.

Market voice

[hcs_$reboot]

An indication on Nadella's "rating" from a business perspective will be reflected by the MS share quotation tomorrow.

Re:Market voice

[BasilBrush]

Why wait till tomorrow? The market is open now, and already has the news. MSFT is flat, so the market's opinion is a big fat "meh!"

Re:Market voice

[EvilSS]

An indication on Nadella's "rating" from a business perspective will be reflected by the MS share quotation tomorrow.

The market really didn't react much, but then again Nadella has been the rumored front runner for a few weeks now so it's really no surprise to anyone. I think everyone is going to wait until he starts making some announcements on direction before they react.

Re:Market voice

[Anonymous Coward]

And the market was hearing Nadella was the CEO for about the past week and a half. In that time MSFT is up 2% while the market at large is down 5%. So you are wrong.

Re:Market voice

[Tough Love]

An indication on Nadella's "rating" from a business perspective will be reflected by the MS share quotation tomorrow.

Why wait till tomorrow? MSFT lost $2 yesterday on the reliable leak. But make no mistake, that no confidence vote was about Gates, not Nadella, who nobody cares about.

This is going to change everything!

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally, I can ditch Linux and go back to windows 8.1, skyDrive, office365, bing search and live accounts.

Re:This is going to change everything!

[hcs_$reboot]

"go back" to win 8.1" meaning you're not in the Linux world since long ago. "bing search" well, no need of windows, you can even search from Bing in Linux..

Re:This is going to change everything!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow you're dumb.

"humbled"?

[DoofusOfDeath]

If he was humbled by being appointed CEO, then one of several things is true:

(A) He doesn't know what "humbled" means.

(B) He has a very bizarre psyche.

(C) He thinks that being made CEO is a punishment for some mistake he's made in his current job.

Re:"humbled"?

[sideslash]

It's a way of being polite and classy, and saying "I know there are a lot of really qualified people around me, and your selection of me has forced me to honestly reflect on my weaknesses." It's more a communication to his peers who were just passed over for the job than to the underlings who were never in the running.

Now, did you really need that explained to you, or were you just running your mouth?

Re:"humbled"?

[Chrisq]

(C) He thinks that being made CEO is a punishment for some mistake he's made in his current job.

Or maybe a past life

Re:"humbled"?

[Sockatume]

To be humbled, to be made to feel small or modest. Pretty standard bit of English. Seems a natural reaction to being put into a massively auspicious position. You're not a robot powered by a 1900s dictionary and a copy of Stunk and White-Out are you?

Re:"humbled"?

[Sockatume]

I think he needs to read more.

Re:"humbled"?

[Anonymous Coward]

You should also look up the word "idiom".

Re:"humbled"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Try not to be too autistic you fucking moron, pedantic shit like that is why nerds get beat up in high school.

Re:"humbled"?

[UnknownSoldier]

> (C) He thinks that being made CEO is a punishment for some mistake he's made in his current job.

That's known as the "Peter Principle" or "Dilbert Principle" ;-)

"... companies tend to systematically promote their least-competent employees to management (generally middle management), in order to limit the amount of damage they are capable of doing."

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...

Re:"humbled"?

[sideslash]

This is a nerd website, my dear AC. The goonish bullies of high school are all working at Walmart now. Pretty sure I have nothing to worry about.

Re:"humbled"?

[sideslash]

Good idea. Here are some books for a start (hint: being humbled by receiving an honor is a common expression in literature).

Google Books Search

Re:"humbled"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mitt Romney works at Walmart? Oh. no, wait he owns Staples, where useless PC technician dweebs like you slave away for ten bucks an hour servicing Dells.

Re:"humbled"?

[Anonymous Coward]

The trouble is, when people like you cavalierly redefine simple words, you make our language less meaningful for the rest of us. Jargon is like code, it keeps the "right" people in and the "wrong" people out.

Re:"humbled"?

[isorox]

(C) He thinks that being made CEO is a punishment for some mistake he's made in his current job.

Being made CEO of a dead end company with almost no help for salvation that's been run into the ground for the last 10+ years is Punishment

Re:"humbled"?

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair, that is an awful list of books. I don't like the expression, personally. I find it disingenuous and sleazy sounding.

Re:"humbled"?

[sideslash]

Most high school bullies are not from rich families, the exception doesn't define the rule. And there's nothing wrong with nerds working at Staples during/after high school. Hopefully that is not a real nerd's long term career, though. I started my first full time programming job as a teenager.

Re:"humbled"?

[Anonymous Coward]

>redefine simple words
That's a bad ass argument.

Re:"humbled"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been terribly naughty; Can I have some of this well paid 'punishment'? :)

Re:"humbled"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I see you don't know this clown. He isn't very bright, and his coworkers don't respect him. I see him about once a month when he eats in my restaurant,and the Microsoft peacocks are very easy to read. He was only picked so that he'll do exactly what the board tells him to. He knows he's been promoted way past his abilities so he is simply going to be a lackey.

Re:"humbled"?

[TheSeatOfMyPants]

That's not a new, cavalier usage: "humbled"has been used that way for a very long time, enough that it appeared more than once in 50-150 year old literature Iread as an English major in college.

The phrase also matches the more nuanced definitions for the term 'humble' and its root in humility, both referring to an individual that doesn't overestimate their worth or believe they're worthy of accolades or adoration. When people are given a powerful show of confidence -- nomination for a prize or position, admission to a highly competitive university, etc. -- many initially feel lucky that others believe in them that much, less worthy than others that weren't chosen, and worried they won't live up to their supporters' expectations. In other words, no matter how arrogant and proud they were when secure in their old position, being pushed towards the new one humbles them, thus the "Iam humbled by" phrase.

Give him a chance

[jones_supa]

Well, let's at least not destroy this guy immediately. Maybe he has something good to bring to Microsoft as the CEO.

Re:Give him a chance

[sandytaru]

To be fair, they don't have anywhere to go but up (or belly up) at this point.

Re:Give him a chance

[mlts]

He isn't tossing chairs just yet.

I do have high hopes for this guy. MS, though not as flashy as other computer companies, has a lot of directions it can go for growth/innovation. They sit on a lot of technologies, and pretty much own the enterprise. MS had some bumps last year, but the main reason they emerged profitable was the price hike on their server products.

Re:Give him a chance

[Anonymous Coward]

They are a 300 billion dollar company and between the 4th and 6th largest company in world (depends on fluctuating stock prices). I realize you probably get all of your info from Slashdot comments, but in the real world they are doing quite well.

Re:Give him a chance

[gmuslera]

Same was said about Nokia when they hired Elop. If you think you reached the absolute bottom, some guy may bring shovels to start digging down.

Re:Give him a chance

[jkrise]

Maybe he has something good to bring to Microsoft as the CEO.

Humanity has more stakeholders than Microsoft has shareholders. The only good Satya can do is to drive down the company so that the market will get products and services that they actually need and want; not what's forced down their throats by arrogant monopolists who think "'We are the only ones who can harness the power of software and deliver it through devices and services that truly empower every individual and every organization.'

Any arrogant sod that spoke thus should not be empowered like Ballmer before him; it spells disaster.

Re:Give him a chance

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? If he succeeds, then in a few years they'll replace him with some clown to bring yet another decade of MS-style idiocy.

Re:Give him a chance

[nine-times]

Honestly, I think it's really a mixed bag. Microsoft is of course continuing to make money, and some of their recent products have shown noteworthy improvement. On the other hand, it's been clear that they've been floundering a bit for years. They've had several major blunders and screw-ups that would have buried any company that didn't start out with a monopoly in a lucrative market. That is, if they hadn't had a steady income from Windows/Office/Exchange, from customers who pretty well have to buy those products whether they like it or not, then they wouldn't be able to stay in business selling their other products. And even those products have been mishandled.

But you're right, yes, they continue to make massive amounts of money from those products in spite of the mishandling. But "doing quite well"? I would say that if they were doing quite well, they wouldn't have dropped Ballmer.

Re:Give him a chance

[Toreo asesino]

I came here to read about why this relatively unknown guy would clearly mean doom for MSFT, by people that have never worked there with very public disdain for pretty much all the products MS make.

I was not disappointed.

Re:Give him a chance

[Anonymous Coward]

If you rely on captive customers to be a big company, you're not doing well. And any such company, as history will show you if you care to research it, will implode very quickly indeed if their "customers" suddenly realizes that there are alternatives. The bigger they are, and all that jazz.

Re:Give him a chance

[Tough Love]

I was not disappointed.

Me neither, it's not about the unknown guy, it's about the return of Gates. Can't wait to watch him destroy Microsoft the rest of the way.

Re:Give him a chance

[Anonymous Coward]

I came here to see the arrogance of a Microsoft insider who fought his way to the top of the pile. I was not disappointed either.

Re:Give him a chance

[Toreo asesino]

And so the circle-jerk of Slashdot continues. The echo-chamber in this place is too much sometimes.

Re:Give him a chance

[vandamme]

Wouldn't it be funny if the whole world threw off their handcuffs and went Munich on them? It could happen quickly.

But ... He hath

[Anonymous Coward]

But ... He hath but a woman's name.

is Microsoft even still a thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

I operate in a pretty much completely OSX world. Whenever I see some crusty old Dell core2dou in some bean counters cubicle it just looks like a fucking relic.

Re:is Microsoft even still a thing?

[RightSaidFred99]

Lol, yes. You're _so_ cutting edge.

You remind me of the "Guy with no TV who is always telling you he has no TV" assholes. "Windows, that's still around?!!".

Let the hatred commence...

[HerculesMO]

I've been on Slashdot long enough to know that unless Linus accepted the CEO spot, whoever got it was going to get a lot of hate here.

The only thing I can say is that Microsoft is in dire need of engineering, and they promoted an engineer to the top spot. I think that's refreshing. What happens from here on out depends on what the roadmap looks like, but if the Surface Pro 2 is any indication, they are actually going down a good path on the hardware end of things. Time will tell on the software end.

Re:Let the hatred commence...

[Chrisq]

I've been on Slashdot long enough to know that unless Linus accepted the CEO spot, whoever got it was going to get a lot of hate here.

If Linus did become CEO of Microsoft I suspect you would see more hate than ever before!

Re:Let the hatred commence...

[HerculesMO]

I think you'd see a lot of folks here rationalizing it.

Re:Let the hatred commence...

[BoRegardless]

Good Start, breaking bad quickly once the rest of the announcement is read!

Unfortunately, Gates and Ballmer left, but they are both mega shareholders, still on the board, and whoppee, Bill Gates is coming back to be more involved in new products "working one day a week" as a rumor out of Redmond says an "anonymous source."

The quote "'We are the only ones who can harness the power of software " is emblematic of the arrogance and lack of analysis of competitor's products, considering that most products now are integrated hardware products.

How come I've already lost interest in what Satya says.

Re:Let the hatred commence...

[jkrise]

How come I've already lost interest in what Satya says.

Maybe coz Satya is an Indian? People at high places in Microsoft have been blurting inanities for decades now; and still the Press lap it all up; and even /. debates these sweet-nothings.

Re:Let the hatred commence...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ten bucks says his reign ends in handcuffs, Indians are some of the most corrupt scumbags in capitalism, even worse than Roman Catholics.

Re:Let the hatred commence...

[Common Joe]

I've been on Slashdot long enough to know that unless Linus accepted the CEO spot, whoever got it was going to get a lot of hate here.

If Linus did become CEO of Microsoft I suspect you would see more hate than ever before!

Too late. I hate both of you more than I've ever hated anyone before. This crazy idea about Linus as the CEO of Microsoft is so absurd that it just gave me a major migraine. :P

Re:Let the hatred commence...

[hicksw]

... they promoted an engineering manager to the top spot ...

FTFY
--
"There is no mercy, only ashes." - where is this from?

Your tinfoil hat is on too tight

[sjbe]

Because storing your private/confidential information in a cloud is a stupid idea, because you don't really have control over your data.

I think your tinfoil hat is on too tight. There are plenty of cases where the data isn't all that confidential. It's not really all that hard to store confidential things locally or offline while using cloud storage for less sensitive items. We use Google Drive in our company to store work instructions and forms. If someone at NSA want's to look at those then they can go right ahead. It's nothing that requires deep levels of secrecy but it does require efficient controlled distribution and multiple person access.

Re:Your tinfoil hat is on too tight

[gstoddart]

I think your tinfoil hat is on too tight.

But it doesn't work if it's not tight. :-P

I've worked in private industry, and I've done consultant work with government -- and any non-US government or large industry using Microsoft cloud services is opening themselves up for problems.

The entire world that isn't the US should avoid any of Microsoft's cloud services. So, if you're an American entity, go ahead and use them. If you're not, and you use them, you're an idiot and your data will be potentially used illegally with neither your knowledge or consent.

So the easiest solution is to not use the service at all.

Re:Your tinfoil hat is on too tight

[Anonymous Coward]

> If someone at NSA want's to look at those

Is that a plural? So why the apostrophe, moron?

Re:Your tinfoil hat is on too tight

[jkrise]

> If someone at NSA want's to look at those
Is that a plural? So why the apostrophe, moron?

You are the moron I think. Consider: The NSA is so bloody possessive; the apostrophe is warranted in my book!

Re:Your tinfoil hat is on too tight

[SecurityGuy]

> If someone at NSA want's to look at those

Is that a plural? So why the apostrophe, moron?

Oh, the irony of calling someone a moron because they used an apostrophe for a word that isn't a plural.

Just a tip. Apostrophes are for possessives, not plurals. My cars are parked. My car's registration is expired.

Re:Your tinfoil hat is on too tight

[Anonymous Coward]

So, where does "my car's parked" fit into this? Is this a "parked" that "belongs" to my "car"?

Oh, irony heaped upon irony...

Re:Your tinfoil hat is on too tight

[phantomfive]

Microsoft has been known to lose cloud data before (more than once IIRC). It's great to keep stuff in someone else's data center (which is what the cloud is), but you should also keep it somewhere else to be safe.

Re:Your tinfoil hat is on too tight

[mcneely.mike]

So the easiest solution is to not use the service at all.

The only way to win is not to play. :)

Re:Your tinfoil hat is on too tight

[SecurityGuy]

Fine. :-P Apostrophes are also used for contractions. People also put them in names for reasons I don't quite understand, but whatever. My intent was to correct the misperception that apostrophes are for plurals, which is horribly common these days. It's so common I won't be surprised if it becomes considered correct at some point in the future. $DIETY know's why people have 'started to think that every time there's an 's in a 'sentence there need's to be an apo'strophe before it.

Re:Your tinfoil hat is on too tight

[rochrist]

Indeed Comrade. If you are innocent, you have nothing to fear!

Re:Your tinfoil hat is on too tight

[cusco]

Generally they're in names because there should be a pause or short stop in the pronunciation, or because it's a shortened version of a longer name (so a contraction of sorts).

Re:Your tinfoil hat is on too tight

[cusco]

Can't say as I haven't lost my own data from time to time . . .

Re:Your tinfoil hat is on too tight

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that a joke? Plurals don't get apostrophes. Possessives and abbreviations do.

E.g. "Bob's phone's broken cause of the many times he dropped it"

"Bob's" is possessive (it belongs to bob)
"phone's" is short for "phone is"
"times" is plural.

It's no't tha't har'd

Re:Your tinfoil hat is on too tight

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably should have been 'cause as it's short for because.

Re:Your tinfoil hat is on too tight

[Anonymous Coward]

... but it does require efficient controlled distribution and multiple person access.

A local server does both of these better than "the cloud" and has many other advantages also. It doesn't have the cloud marketing drivel though.

When I saw his name...

[Anonymous Coward]

When I saw the name of the new CEO, I thought ,"So, they finally started getting H1-Bs as CEOs."

You'll see folks, this will start supressing CEO salaries and before you know, boards will start screaming about the shortage of qualifed CEOs. And we'll see ads like this:

Looking for experienced CEO. Must have had at least 10 years of experience as CEO in the tech, automotive, banking and real estate industries.

Knowledge of MS Excel or equivalent.

Never mind Nedalla, why is Gates stepping down?

[Viol8]

Chairman is a mostly ceremonial role so the only reason I can see for him stepping down is that he can see the cliff coming and wants to get off before the company goes over. Either that or he thinks his image has been so poisoned by Ballmer that he suspects he needs to go to make the company's image bounce back.

Very strange.

Re:Never mind Nedalla, why is Gates stepping down?

[netsavior]

I think he is obsessing about his charity more and more, and even a ceremonial roll is too much. Also, leaving the board is like a vote of confidence in Nadalla. "See I had to babysit Steve 'developers-developers-developers' Balmer, but this new guy is totally fine."

Re:Never mind Nedalla, why is Gates stepping down?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nadella Asked Gates to be a Tech Advisor for new technologies.

Re:Never mind Nedalla, why is Gates stepping down?

[AlexOsadzinski]

A CEO wants to have the ability to potentially change the course of the company, including, potentially, affecting the sacred cows that inevitably accumulate in any long-term successful business. That can mean reassigning/firing key people who may, in the CEO's eyes, be blocking change. Cancelling beloved pet projects. Forming alliances with former enemies.

The last thing a CEO wants is a Chairman (who may have some limited formal power, but often exerts a lot of informal influence on the Board and key execs) looking over his/her shoulder. In the vanishingly unlikely situation that I had been offered the Microsoft CEO role, I'd love to have Bill as a personal advisor, but I wouldn't want him chairing my Board meetings, either.

Re:Never mind Nedalla, why is Gates stepping down?

[gbjbaanb]

yeah, but Gates told him to say that.

Re:Never mind Nedalla, why is Gates stepping down?

[Viol8]

Yeah , except the Chairman & board appoints the CEO - not the other way around. Aside from that he's the largest individual shareholder in MS so no one inside the company - outside investors sure - is going to tell him what to do.

Re:Never mind Nedalla, why is Gates stepping down?

[Viol8]

No one "asks" a corporate chairman to quit and become a "tech advisor" instead. They either choose to do it or they're told to do it - and no one is going to tell Bill Gates what to do in the company he founded and is still biggest shareholder in.

Re:Never mind Nedalla, why is Gates stepping down?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he is obsessing about his charity more and more, and even a ceremonial roll is too much.

Maybe they should sweeten the deal with a cinnamon role.

Re:Never mind Nedalla, why is Gates stepping down?

[bingoUV]

He's already sold a lot of it, and soon he will be rid of MS stock. It periodically gets sold and goes to B&MG foundation.

Only MS?

[DoofusOfDeath]

'We are the only ones who can harness the power of software and deliver it through devices and services that truly empower every individual and every organization.'

The main thing I can think of that makes Microsoft uniquely position for anything is its semi-monopoly status. Is he arguing that they'll use that to take over a new market?

Re:Only MS?

[QilessQi]

It was an internal email, intended to calm the waters in a time of change... I don't think he would have come out and said, "Well, we've got stiff competition in both the mobile and server markets, and we've really fumbled the ball in the past with things like Microsoft Bob, the Zune, Windows ME, Vista, and the Windows 8 UI, but please don't send your resume to Google just yet..."

Congratulations

[ErichTheRed]

Now, can I please have Windows 9 with the Windows 7 and Windows Classic UI as options?? It's literally the only reason why I'm not switching -- some of the Windows 8 UI is nice, but I can't stand the 2D desktop interface from Windows 2.0.

Seriously, the best thing that could be done for Windows right now is not to dump Metro, but to put it on tablets where it belongs and not force desktop users to buy into the whole touch-first thing.

Re:Congratulations

[jones_supa]

Now, can I please have Windows 9 with the Windows 7 and Windows Classic UI as options??

Actually there is a chance of exactly that happening.

Re:Congratulations

[Jason Levine]

I need to get a new laptop and, for various reasons, Windows 8 is the OS I'm going to wind up with. The first thing I'm going to do is install Classic Shell, Start8, or one of the other third party tools to get my "normal Windows" start menu/desktop setup back.

Could be the "least bad" move

[AlexOsadzinski]

I've met Satya. It was several years ago, as part of a larger groups of VCs who regularly met Microsoft execs. He comes across as technically knowledgeable, smart, decent "presence" and leadership. He didn't strike me as visionary, but that's hard to judge when you're in a group that's being given the corporate line.

Knowing a little about the Microsoft culture, and having seen it over the past 20+ years, I personally think that an outsider would have a horrible time. First, in a company that is strictly a technocracy (and that comes from Bill himself), a non-technical outsider would be derided and would have a very tough time. A Gerstner->IBM type of hire probably wouldn't work. A technical outsider would still have to deal with the pretty inbred internal culture.

We've seen disastrous "shake the company up with outsiders" hires at HP, Yahoo (not Marissa, the, um, previous errors), Motorola, Nokia and others. Satya is probably, IMHO, a good hire, he knows the culture, and he has to simultaneously manage transitions in various product lines, and keep the money engine going. Remember, while many people talk as if Microsoft is dead and irrelevant, just look around you at almost any conference, or on a flight, and see how many people are using Windows and/or Office. And Microsoft is still worth around a third of a TRILLION dollars. A decent chunk of the US population invests in Microsoft, directly or through funds. A CEO can't take big risks with that market cap.

I wish him the best. He's got a lot to do.

Re:Could be the "least bad" move

[water-and-sewer]

I also wish him the best and agree he has a lot to do. But he's just made it a lot harder on himself by volunteering to attach the boat anchor of Bill Gates around his ankle before starting the race.

Lots of people have said the whole culture of "do anything but touch Office/Windows cash cows" led to a lot of the dysfunction, and that was very much the doing of Gates and Ballmer. In fact, at one point - don't know if that's how it played out - people were complaining that with Gates on the hiring panel they would be unlikely to find and hire a true reformer, and would be more likely to hire just a "rearrange the deck chairs on the Office/Windows" Titanic guy.

Maybe that's what has happened?

If Satya is smart and bold and aggressive, he'll tear Microsoft into a thousand pieces and throw them all into the shark pool, then only fish out the survivors. That place is a mess, with an entrenched "culture" that will take it at high speed to FAILville. That means really taking out the chainsaw and letting the blood flow.

Meanwhile, he'll have Bill Gates humping his leg, pouting "don't touch Office, don't touch Windows waa waa waa."

Re:Could be the "least bad" move

[jafac]

Actually, your point about a CEO can't take big risks with that market cap; Microsoft REGULARLY takes big risks (and falls on it's face), and that market cap is largely what protects them. (I'm talking about ms bob, win me, win ce, zune, win vista, win 8/metro). They have proven time and time again, that they're incredibly resilient in the face of failure. But they still refuse to take revolutionary-scale risks, (like, going back to providing OEM end-users with free os install disks - seriously, WTF?)

Re:Could be the "least bad" move

[Anonymous Coward]

Lots of people have said the whole culture of "do anything but touch Office/Windows cash cows"

Looking at Windows 8 and Office 2013, I'm not sure if that culture has existed for awhile.

Re:Could be the "least bad" move

[Tough Love]

in a company that is strictly a technocracy (and that comes from Bill himself), a non-technical outsider would be derided and would have a very tough time.

It's not a technocary, it's a backbiteocracy.

Re:Could be the "least bad" move

[AlexOsadzinski]

I love your analysis. The history of tech (and, for all I know, non-tech) companies is sadly littered with failures caused by founders who couldn't face significant change. A founder's ego and self-worth are often very tied to the ideas that (s)he grew into a big company.

Ken Olsen at DEC famously decried Unix as "snake oil" (ok, maybe not COMPLETELY wrong) and drove the company out of business with proprietary, closed systems.

Ray Noorda at Novell hung on a very long time after his tragic health issues rendered him ineffective.

Scott McNealy couldn't get away from the SPARC/Solaris/Java mantra, and his anti-Microsoft jihad, and then he (or his Board) tragically handed off his company to a successor who I (and others) considered an inexplicable choice, but it may have been because he, too, believed the same mantra.

I have great respect for all the above gentlemen, and I think that I understand why they hung on "too long", but I wish that they hadn't, for the sake of their legacies, their employees, their customers and their shareholders.

These issues may yet afflict other, current, hot startups. What are the long-term founder transitions for Google, Facebook and others?

Re:Could be the "least bad" move

[Anonymous Coward]

>I personally think that an outsider would have a horrible time.

I dunno. I'd like to think that Mulally would've been able to reshape the culture.

wait for it...

[bugs2squash]

So he's the new chair man ?

Unclear on why Gates is stepping down as Chairman

[mark-t]

Does anyone know why that's going on?

Re: Never mind Nedalla, why is Gates stepping down

[Anonymous Coward]

Chairman is the one who really controls the corporation, CEO only takes corporation where chairman wants. The board choose chairman who has power over board members.

Wisdom of the market

[Trailer Trash]

Their stock opened at 36.97, hovering around 36.25 now. Not a lot of excitement either way for the announcement, but still slightly negative.

Nerval's Lobster is a fake

[Anonymous Coward]

Nerval's Lobster is a slashdot editor pretending to be user who only submits links to articles he's written on the Slashdot spinoff sites (slash business intelligence, slash cloud, etc.). Check the Nevral's Lobster user account if you want, you'll see no comments and many submissions, each submission to an article on a spinoff site, each article written by the same person.

Petty fraud aimed at driving traffic to the unpopular Slashdot spinoff sites.

Re:Nerval's Lobster is a fake

[Sockatume]

He's writing content that Slashdot likes to read, and then submitting it to Slashdot, where Slashdot users decide to read it? That son of a bitch.

Re:Nerval's Lobster is a fake

[Anonymous Coward]

He's a paid editor pretending to be a user in order to make corporate links to spinoff sites seem like user-generated submissions.

Louder screaming for H1B visas???

[Anonymous Coward]

Just sayin'...

IIT?

[whoever57]

He grew up in a privileged environment but didn't make it into IIT. What does that say about him and his technology skills?

Re:IIT?

[Anonymous Coward]

A perfect fit for MS?

Re:IIT?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it take an IIT to prove your technical skill ? The fact that you think so raises serious doubts on your skill / understanding .
besides, Steve Ballmer !!! led the company for years .. skill duh ...

Elop now in charge of Xbox, Surface, WinPhone.

[WiiVault]

So I'm gonna bet those divisions are not going to see the focus they did under Ballmer. Assuming the company decides to shift away from chasing the competition with decent but never exciting consumer products. Makes sense too, the new CEO worked for a segment of the company that couldn't have been too thrilled to be bankrolling duds like those. It is pretty bizarre to think that Elop reportedly wanted to sell the Xbox (and Bing) group and now he has been put in charge of it. But maybe it was just a nice gesture to hand him some Ballmer legacy stuff that isn't really anything but an endless drain of company resources and focus. Or maybe they are just stupid and think that his skill at wreaking good organizations might have the the inverse effect on already broken ones.

Chairman

[sjbe]

Chairman is a mostly ceremonial role so the only reason I can see for him stepping down is that he can see the cliff coming and wants to get off before the company goes over

If the person holding the position of Chairman of the Board is acting as a figurehead then they are Doing It Wrong. Chairman of any public company is FAR from a ceremonial role.

Politics

[sjbe]

But he's just made it a lot harder on himself by volunteering to attach the boat anchor of Bill Gates around his ankle before starting the race.

I wouldn't read too much in the public politics. My guess is that he's just playing nice. No reason to burn bridges needlessly. With Gates leaving as chairman, Satya will (probably) have a relatively free hand. If Gates is off the board then he can be publicly nice but ignore him behind the scenes.

Dear Satya Nadella

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Satya Nadella. Windows 8 is total crap. Please give us back a usable desktop interface and the start menu.

Or we'll all buy MACs.

Yours, the windows lusers of the world.

NO! We Need Ballmer!

[captjc]

Now who will throw the chairs out windows? Who will Fucking Kill (TM) Google? Who will do the developer rain dance by chanting "developers" while running around a stage in a pool of sweat?

We need you Ballmer. America needs you.

If he wants to start off right

[slapout]

His first official act should be to apologize for Windows 8 and promise customers that he'll remove the tablet interface from Windows 9.

Btw, SkyDrive is now going to be called OneDrive: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyDrive

Re:If he wants to start off right

[Tough Love]

His first official act should be to apologize for Windows 8...

Ha ha, you're right, and when he doesn't do it you can pretty much predict the rest of the story.

Re: Give him a change

[Anonymous Coward]

Just out of curiosity, I looked at the MSFT SEC quarterly filings for the previous 5 years, and the annual filings 7 years prior to that. Did you know what I saw? Not a single year where their net profits (after all bills have been paid) were less than around 8 billion dollars (8 with 9 zeros) annually.

Do you know what that tells me? They have a massive amount of cash, and are making money hand-over-fist. I know it's a pipe-dream of /. that Microsoft is on the verge of bankruptcy at any given moment, but that isn't anywhere close to the truth.

For business?

[SuperKendall]

Anything you store in Microsoft's cloud is subject to the PATRIOT Act and can be demanded with a secret warrant.

So what? It's just business data.

If it were personal data, sure I might not put documents in the cloud (although ha ha, I use Dropbox all the time).

Basically if you don't like the government looking into your cloud data, you are better off trying to fight against that than to stop using networks to hold data, and losing all of the advantages that can confer.

Re:For business?

[Anonymous Coward]

Which networks hold data? They just transfer it
(ok you could say they're 'storing' the data they're transfering)

Re:For business?

[Nivag064]

So a European company should put their sensitive commercial data in a US hosted cloud, so the American government can pass it on to US corporations? You gotta be joking!

Google and MS both address this issue

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that the NSA folks will be foiled by my anonymous post, but both MS and Google have datacenters and offer hosting offshore for exactly that reason. These envrionments are owned and operated by owned though administratively different organizations, and have fully separate administrative staff for these reasons.

Not that is stops the NSA mind you, but an MS or Google offshore datacenter offers you the same legal protections as hosting with a foreign company. Working on implementations for both of these for large multinationals I can tell you MS offers the option of having your non-us subsidiaries administrated entirely by non-us companies quite readily. Extracting similar protections from Google was quite hard 2.5 years ago on my last Google implentation, but they were already working on smoothing that out back then.

These companies do not openly advertise their US Govt avoidance plans, but you can be sure these conversations are had in the board rooms and contract reviews. If you look at the O365 forums how to pull these things off are discussed quite openly by the implementors of these services. And the processes are documented, just not in flashing lights that say "How to avoid US jurisdiction".

Google was a little harder since they have a feature that moves which datacenter your mailbox is hosted in after you access it in that country between 5 and 10 times, but I am sure they now have a flag that prevents that.

Re:Google and MS both address this issue

[petermgreen]

Just how strong are the internal legal and manegerial firewalls though? If the US government orders the US parent company to obtain data secretly from the EU subsidary will the subsidary really be able to stop them?

Don't worry, be happy

[Anonymous Coward]

Nadella will outsource everything to his homeland. There won't be anything left on this side of the pond for ELOP to destroy.

Racism...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hooray, now the Indians will have even more free reign to piss on the white guys at Microsoft. Not that it didn't already happen, but now what can the victims do, complain to the CEO?

Oh yeah, and anyone looking for equality for women should probably look somewhere else too... it's a cultural non-starter for an Indian boss. Women in the workplace are to be tolerated if they're good at what they do and quiet/submissive. Once they make it known that they have an opinion, gig's up. (To be clear, that's not my view on women in the workplace, that's what I've seen working for Indian managers at Microsoft, before I got the hell out of that soul-sucking place).

Ohboy Skype credits!

[Weaselmancer]

Office 365 is subscription office for individuals (with other perks like some cloud storage and Skype credits)

Because that's just what I need when I'm typing a business letter. Videochat.

If Microsoft ran a restaurant each sandwich would come with a bowling ball.

Re: Ohboy Skype credits!

[VTBlue]

I just choked on a slice pizza after reading your comment. Hilarious! *and painful*

Re:Ohboy Skype credits!

[EvilSS]

Office 365 is subscription office for individuals (with other perks like some cloud storage and Skype credits)

Because that's just what I need when I'm typing a business letter. Videochat.

That might be why they don't include it with the corporate accounts, just the individual home and student accounts.*

*Typed while listening to a conference call using Skype on my desktop PC.

well there goes there

[slashmydots]

If he's in charge of their awful "software as a service" bullshit, that's DEFINITELY the end of Windows. We'll get a Windows 9 that's so stuffed full of app store bullshit and half the features missing, it will kill the company permanently.

Re:well there goes there

[Anonymous Coward]

So in the future, when Windows 9 (whatever they end up calling it) has come and gone and Microsoft is still around and doing fine, what will be your excuse for having said something so utterly retarded?

Torpedo in the water?

[JasoninKS]

Poor guy doesn't stand a chance, nor does Microsoft in the long term. Both previous CEOs are on the board, so both former CEOs are amongst his bosses. On top of that, I'm sure he'll be expected to maintain the status quo as opposed to being allowed to think in new directions.

Does it really matter?

[erp_consultant]

As long as Billy G. is still on the board it's going to be business as usual for MS. Sure, Gates stepped down from the largely ceremonial Chairman role only to transition to "technology advisor". Whatever that is. The point is, he's still got a seat on the board. Certainly, he's still the largest individual stock holder so some might argue that he deserves a seat on the board of the company that he built. That's a fair argument.

But if MS is going to thrive in this market it's going to need new leadership and new ideas. And it's going to need someone that can execute on those ideas without Gates hovering over him. Make no mistake - Gates still has a huge influence over MS no matter what his role is or what his title is.

MS logo-icon

[markhb]

Does anyone else miss the old BillG-as-a-borg icon? Using the former corporate logo is so... corporate.

Re:MS logo-icon

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone else miss the old BillG-as-a-borg icon? Using the former corporate logo is so... corporate.

People bitched about that icon constantly before it disappeared. My favorite complaints were "it's biased, Linux fanbois, etc" and "it's unprofessional", both of which translate to "not politically correct enough".

Re:MS logo-icon

[markhb]

Does anyone else miss the old BillG-as-a-borg icon? Using the former corporate logo is so... corporate.

People bitched about that icon constantly before it disappeared. My favorite complaints were "it's biased, Linux fanbois, etc" and "it's unprofessional", both of which translate to "not politically correct enough".

* sigh *. The only hopeful spin I can put on that is that this was inevitable once the throngs of Linux fanboys and hardcore gamers that formed the site's audience back in the 90's grew up and became VP's. ("Unprofessional"? Really? Since when was anything about /. professional?)

idiot !

[Anonymous Coward]

He is idiotic ! Why can we not have a normal person. I will never buy another MS product.

Micro-Soft Penis !

[Anonymous Coward]

He is incompetant !

Remember Bill at Harvard?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bill has never been the kind of kid to follow nor take orders.

His Harvard disaster speaks volumes now that he has been ousted from Chairman to a mere 1/3 part time 'Product Reviewer[?]' in a corner cubicle. When Bill gives his first "review" in his new "position", something like, "Fuck this shit and You!" he'll be out the door faster than Balmer.

Likely, M$ will burn through 10 CEOs and 14 CFOs and a OPEC super tanker filled with Division CEOs in the next eight years really.

Bunch of cunts

[Hognoxious]

You want MS to be Sony, Nintendo, or Apple.

I don't. I'd rather they were like Caldera, Sinclair Research, or ICL.

Re: Never mind Nedalla, why is Gates stepping down

[Anonymous Coward]

Was your sole resource for learning English a compilation tape of chinamen from black & white movies?

Might be a good move for Microsoft

[Dark Fire]

Putting the man in charge of the most successful division in recent years seems like a good move compared to the other options.

Also, reducing Gates influence over the company should help them to make better decisions. Gates has been more concerned with share price stability (since he has been selling large blocks of shares for the last decade) rather than growth and transformation which are essential for Microsoft to survive let alone thrive in the new environment. New classes of devices are changing the way we learn, work, and play and the majority of those new classes of devices do not run a Microsoft operating system. Microsoft needs to make its applications and server platform relevant to these new device classes rather than trying to own-it-all, which is a strategy that has failed for the last decade and depressed its share price.

Except, of course, Microsoft is not a "technocracy

[melted]

Except, of course, Microsoft is not a "technocracy", and it hasn't been that for a very long time. Let me remind you, for the past decade the company was run by a completely non-technical guy with a sales background. At Microsoft the fast track to the management ladder is to become a program manager (PM for short), or to be one right from the start. PMs promote and hire still more PMs, to the point where you get 1:1 PM/Dev ratio, and they do nothing but report status to one another.

Therein lies just one of Microsoft's major problems. All this entrenched (and unnecessary) old boy network needs to be dismantled first and foremost. Nadella is not going to do that. So Microsoft will be just as fucked as it was before, because this is a prerequisite for any kind of forward progress over there.

For Internal Use Only

[SuperKendall]

So a European company should put their sensitive commercial data in a US hosted cloud, so the American government can pass it on to US corporations?

What do you think we are, China?

There great thing about the NSA is they only share internally! That's even their new motto "Your secrets are safe with us, plus a handful of contractors".

The real mistake you are making though, is putting ANY value on business documents. Have you ever read, or generated any? If some fell into the hands of "enemy" companies I would feel so sorry for them...

Re:For Internal Use Only

[Nivag064]

Chuckles!

NSA: Not Secret Anymore

Why bother with a huge spy network, when you only need one well placed mole in the NSA???

What Is His Caste?

[NewYork]

If you meet anybody from India ask him "What Is Your Caste?" If he answers it, then you're doomed. Because he has already injected Cancer into your society. Caste is like Cancer. It cannot be Cured. It has to be Cut-Off.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...