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Microsoft 'Was Sick', CEO Satya Nadella Says In New Book (intoday.in)
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has just published a new book called Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft's Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone. An anonymous reader quotes India Today:
Nadella's push for cultural shift -- and hiring "learn-it-alls" instead of "know-it-alls" -- is largely meant to jolt enthusiasm for a new era of innovation at the company. Microsoft had long depended on the success of its flagship Windows operating system and the royalties it gets for each PC sold with it. But the global PC market is declining, and Microsoft fell behind as Apple and Google led the shift to smartphones. Nadella doesn't take any shots at Microsoft's co-founder and first CEO Bill Gates -- who wrote the book's foreword -- or Ballmer. But he's frank about their disagreements, especially over Ballmer's disastrous $7.3 billion acquisition of Nokia's phone business in 2014.
Nadella also refers to the company's previous organizational structure as a "confederation of fiefdoms" and recounts negative feedback received from employee surveys and emails. "The company was sick," Nadella writes. "Employees were tired. They were frustrated. They were fed up with losing and falling behind despite their grand plans and great ideas. They came to Microsoft with big dreams, but it felt like all they really did was deal with upper management, execute taxing processes and bicker in meetings..." He promises not to squander the new energy felt by employees after years of frustration. So far, it seems to be paying off; Microsoft shares have doubled since he took the top job in early 2014, and the company is attracting buzz for its work in AI, augmented reality and a new effort in futuristic computing.
A former Microsoft board member says Nadella "has made people believe in the future of Microsoft in a way that neither Bill nor Steve really did."
Nadella also refers to the company's previous organizational structure as a "confederation of fiefdoms" and recounts negative feedback received from employee surveys and emails. "The company was sick," Nadella writes. "Employees were tired. They were frustrated. They were fed up with losing and falling behind despite their grand plans and great ideas. They came to Microsoft with big dreams, but it felt like all they really did was deal with upper management, execute taxing processes and bicker in meetings..." He promises not to squander the new energy felt by employees after years of frustration. So far, it seems to be paying off; Microsoft shares have doubled since he took the top job in early 2014, and the company is attracting buzz for its work in AI, augmented reality and a new effort in futuristic computing.
A former Microsoft board member says Nadella "has made people believe in the future of Microsoft in a way that neither Bill nor Steve really did."
I'm surprised he doesn't appear to realize one of the reasons the PC market is declining is because there are people out there that are hanging on to their older PCs that still get the job done just to avoid Microsoft's flagship OS and it's spying.
You know, something that's entirely his fault that happened entirely on his watch.
I think this is a clear example of why we should be against monopolies. Microsoft didn't change out of the goodness of its heart. It got where it is now kicking and screaming. And yeah, I still don't trust them, but everyone has to admit, they have taken some steps to move in the right direction. But only because they were forced to by some real competition.
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
...will turn out to be tricking its customer base into renting rather than owning its software. He bought off the fiefdoms by picking winners and turning them into rent-receiving franchises.
As long as few viable alternatives exist for Office and Exchange and Windows remains their nearly exclusive platform and all turn into a rent-seeking business, Microsoft will continue to make a lot of money.
Before Nadella breaks a rib patting himself on the back, it should be noted that Microsoft abolished stack ranking of employees just before he took over as CEO. If you want to know why Microsoft employees were at each others' throats, and why morale was so low, you need look no further than Ballmer's favorite process for "improving" employee performance.
Microsoft could have hired a tree sloth to replace Ballmer, and employee morale would still have improved. It had nowhere to go but up after years of stack ranking.
Exhibit A: .NET Core.
Exhibit B: VS Code
Exhibit C: SQL Server for Linux--in a Docker container.
Exhibit D: Ubuntu for Windows.
Exhibit E: Microsoft happily sells well-supported Linux to cloud customers and contributes back to ensure Linux provides what their customers need.
10 years ago, Ballmer would have probably fired an executive who proposed this plan. Today, being a second coming of Gates or Ballmer would probably be a "career limiting move." Microsoft has pretty much "gotten with the program."
I just wish that Nadella would aggressively pursue the phone market again, but this time by making Windows installable on Android phones a la Sailfish X. Unlike Jolla, they have the resources to pay and/or strong-arm most Android vendors to permanently unlock their bootloaders. And what's the government going to say to that? It's bad for consumers to have Microsoft aggressively pursuing opening up the hardware? A federal judge would look at Microsoft's opponent like they're nuts.
"Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft's Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone."
The title is enough to make me puke up my lunch.
"Save us, Satan Nutella, you're our only hope!"
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Do you mean designing Windows 10 specs to be nearly identical to the Specs of Windows 7? So older PC's and newer lower powered portable devices can use it?
Adding enhanced touch screen displays as this is the current trend.
What Microsoft is seeming to really miss is the change of the PC market to the Workstation market. The Personal Computer is now a Phone or Tablet. However systems built with Desktop Based technologies, are now used for either High End Gaming or Real work. It needs much more focus on Making Windows 10 a productive OS, that really gets out of the way on what you are trying to accomplish.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Behind the scenes, MS still is under the influence of the same guys as usual. MS is just riding the storm and biding its time, until it can show its true colors again. Trust MS at your own peril.
when MS hired him?
Probably something like the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem...
Microsoft is a company that found two of the most amazing cash cows of all time and rode them hard. The problem is that the market started to move on without them as markets are wont to do to companies that are too busy milking their cash cows to be bothered worrying about finding the next one. Microsoft's business tactics made sense during Gates era as CEO but about 10-15 years ago they should have been moving onward to the next thing while Balmer was CEO. Microsoft could possibly have dominated mobile but they were too busy protecting Windows and Office and built a toxic company culture to protect those products. The good news for Microsoft is that they have SO much cash that they can screw up a lot before it becomes an existential problem. They could even just buy their way into another industry wholesale if they had to (they have enough cash to buy both Ford and GM) so that hides a lot of flaws that would otherwise have investors screaming.
Touch screens are not the current trend in desktops, and never will be.
If Windows 10 represents Microsoft's idea of what a "better future for everyone" looks like, that's an excellent indication that Microsoft is still sick.
What's with the management at big companies that so many could think stack ranking was a good idea?
It shows that management doesn't know the first thing about managing. How could they be so utterly incompetent at it? Did they skip business management in college, skip college altogether, think they don't need no book learning? How could such people be chosen for management? I can think of several ways: Nepotism, favoritism, Good Old Boys Club, and groupthink in mistaking clueless, pushy loudmouths as go-getters, and still adhering to the religion of The Stick, that is, trying to push people into being more productive with threats, employing slave-driving tactics. Yeah, that worked so great for the Confederacy. Memo to management: the Confederacy lost the war.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
How is it not a malicious and damaging thing to do even if its solely used the way that you describe?
It seems to me that the result of it will be that you'll just keep the best backstabbers and most politically savvy people and lose the ones who, while they may be truly excellent in their jobs, are too "nice" or don't have the stomach for political gamesmanship.