Bill Veghte was the head of Microsoft's Windows marketing and business development through Vista and leading to the Windows 7 launch. A 19 year Microsoft veteran. He went from there to HP in 2010, first to lead up the software division including Autonomy. In January of this year he became HP's Chief Strategy Officer, and in May he rocketed up to his current position. He is currently HP's Chief Operating Officer responsible for HP's day-to-day operations and being groomed for CEO, which was tipped to be an insider next time.
Now with Windows 8 launch at a critical phase Microsoft needs their man at the top of HP to keep it from falling off the Windows wagon when everybody else is getting drunk on mobile profit dollars that Microsoft platforms don't get a swig of.
That she will step down is obvious. She just wrote down 8.8 billion dollars in a stroke on a deal she voted as Chairman and CEO to approve. Monday that was 1/4th of HP's market cap, and as I write this it's over a third. HP has to sell about 300 million laptops to earn that sort of operating profit - which would take a decade. It's over a year's entire payroll. And that's not all. If you look at their balance sheet they have written off 20 billion dollars in goodwill in the last year - or as I write this, 87% of their current market capitalization - in one year. Those writedowns are effectively saying "oops. We overpaid for acquisitions." In this competitive environment a company the size of HP doesn't have the luxury of throwing away $20B overpaying for acquisitions. This is not poor judgement. It is quite clearly deliberately stripping a legendary company's assets to be the profits of external entities. It is a capital siphon. Somebody should be going to prison.
Really, who would pay over 11 billion dollars for a software company? That's 10,000 man years of American software engineer salary, or 50,000 man years of global mix software engineers. You could put a man on Mars for that much money. Software is hard, but it's not that hard. That is over 200 times what Google paid for Android, which last quarter was the world's most popular operating environment by devices shipped.
Sure, you can't blame her for too many of the other $11B, but really it doesn't matter at this point. If you're the boss everything that goes wrong is your fault. Else why even have a boss?
And yes, I did predict these things here - that he would be in position to be made CEO around the time of Windows 8 launch, that Autonomy would be written down. But I didn't put the two things together because there was no telling when they would do the writedown. If not for the writedown it would have to be another board scandal or something. Bill Veghte is HP's Elop. He will drive HP with a focus on optimizing the benefit to Microsoft until HP is no more. And for some reason he will be impossible for shareholders to remove until it is too late.
We still don't know where Sinofsky is going. He'll probably guru out in India for a while before he surfaces at the head of another tech company. And when he does, it's doomed.
My grandson had taken my primary tablet to play Minecraft with, and my wife was watching Netflix on the backup. So yes, I did crank up the Ubuntu PC for the first time in a few weeks to post that comment. But I didn't have to. I could have done it from my SGS3 phone.
My tablets get used about 12 hours a day - we fight for possession of them. I burn out my SGS3 phone every day. I have a rail of 4 desktop PCs the kids use all day, and a few Windows laptops that see varying use. We have 3 netbooks and 3 Kindle fires too. What the hell is your point again? Which gets used most? That would be the Android tablets. The other stuff is what you have to get by on when it's not your turn with the tablet.
Cool. I have an Android tablet, a TF101, that I bought over a year ago that I use to do all those things. My monitor is a 55" Samsung over HDMI, and the tablet has Citrix so there isn't anything you can do on your PC that I can't do on it. Keyboard? Yes. Mouse? Yes. Office and Outlook? Yes. Manage 100's of servers? Yes. Doing it wherever I happen to be? Yes.
It's a matter of policy that people employed to bash Android can't actually spell the word correctly in their posts, because that increases the interest level in search engines. So we see Android spelled "Andriod" and other ways, and it's a sure giveaway. "aneroid" is a new one. You get points for that.
You and I understand the subtle nuances of your post, the tradeoffs between this potential use and that other use, the tug and pull between the developer and the environment provider. You Microsoft ACs have grown quite good at sparring with me. But the end user doesn't have a micro givashit. He just wants to enjoy being empowered by the device to do stuff he couldn't do yesterday. And the stuff he cares about is first: to connect to his loved ones and his lesser loved ones. Second: to share his life with the aforementioned loved ones and any who might be interested. He could give a fuck less about APIs.
2012 is already the year of Linux on the desktop. And the desktop is in your pocket. Android/Linux moved more devices last quarter than Windows devices by a ratio of 3:2. Christmas is coming and by then it will be a clean sweep. By the final reports in February we will know that 2012 was the year that Linux came into its own.
If some want to cry "Waah! That's not fair! Mobile is not PC." Well suck it up sunshine. If you are a developer this is all that matters: these are the people who will buy your apps. If you make devices this is all that matters: these are the devices that move units. If you sell devices at retail this is all that matters: this is the stuff that doesn't grow dust on the shelf. People buy the devices with Android on over the devices with Windows on by a ratio of 3:2, and the first thing they do after they turn it on is buy apps and content. The only entity in all the world who cares to split this linguistic hair is Microsoft because they want to maintain the illusion that they are still king of this particular hill. But they are not. They don't own the word "PC" either, or it would be PC(R). There were PCs before Microsoft tried to take ownership of this word, and there will be PCs after we have forgotten their long sordid story. These devices are personal, and they compute. They are personal computers. Heck, some of them are more powerful than an early Cray supercomputer - in your pocket.
If Microsoft wants their standards adopted by W3C why don't they just make it a corporate mission to stuff the W3C panels and get it done like they did with ISO and their Office document standard?
If you think that's baffling, try this: the photons that travelled this long time to get to us don't experience time at all. For them the instant they arrive is the same instant they left that distant galaxy.
The US Constitution is mainly about the people setting the structure of and granting powers to the government. The parts about why the powers are given have long been considered advisory recommendations without force of law. And pretty much ignored.
Of course in the eternal jockeying for power, with Republicans having quashed this great and popular idea there is a chance the Democrats will pick up the banner and run with it. That would make the GOP look even more like jerks. It's a very, very small chance - but it's there.
As Valve has pointed out their games actually work better on Linux after porting and without significant optimization. Stay with your Windows PC instead of your Valve hand-optimized Linux-based console and you'll find your gaming experience frustrating as you get Pwned by nOObs over and over. But hey, if that's your thing...
Look, Microsoft is pushing all software through their own store if they can beginning with Windows 8. Steam is a software store that would compete with that store, on Microsoft's Windows platform. Gabe Newell used to work at Microsoft. He knows this means they intend to eliminate the Steam software sales store in Windows, and they are as eminently able to do that as they have been to sabotage all other software that competes with their offerings on Windows. The Goose has fled and Valve needs a new goose. Hence the console plan. An own-brand console gives Valve a platform that cannot be made to sabotage their content.
A lot of casuals are just going tablet and phone, really.
It could be worse. Retail box software vendors are just out of luck. No more sales for you.
If Valve manages to take a significant fraction of their 90% PC game sales market share to an own-brand console from the PC, the PC gamer market might become too small of an ecosystem to remain sustainable. And Valve will become a giant of the console gaming industry.
Slashdot Mirror
is my surprised face:
Bill Veghte was the head of Microsoft's Windows marketing and business development through Vista and leading to the Windows 7 launch. A 19 year Microsoft veteran. He went from there to HP in 2010, first to lead up the software division including Autonomy. In January of this year he became HP's Chief Strategy Officer, and in May he rocketed up to his current position. He is currently HP's Chief Operating Officer responsible for HP's day-to-day operations and being groomed for CEO, which was tipped to be an insider next time.
Now with Windows 8 launch at a critical phase Microsoft needs their man at the top of HP to keep it from falling off the Windows wagon when everybody else is getting drunk on mobile profit dollars that Microsoft platforms don't get a swig of.
That she will step down is obvious. She just wrote down 8.8 billion dollars in a stroke on a deal she voted as Chairman and CEO to approve. Monday that was 1/4th of HP's market cap, and as I write this it's over a third. HP has to sell about 300 million laptops to earn that sort of operating profit - which would take a decade. It's over a year's entire payroll. And that's not all. If you look at their balance sheet they have written off 20 billion dollars in goodwill in the last year - or as I write this, 87% of their current market capitalization - in one year. Those writedowns are effectively saying "oops. We overpaid for acquisitions." In this competitive environment a company the size of HP doesn't have the luxury of throwing away $20B overpaying for acquisitions. This is not poor judgement. It is quite clearly deliberately stripping a legendary company's assets to be the profits of external entities. It is a capital siphon. Somebody should be going to prison.
Really, who would pay over 11 billion dollars for a software company? That's 10,000 man years of American software engineer salary, or 50,000 man years of global mix software engineers. You could put a man on Mars for that much money. Software is hard, but it's not that hard. That is over 200 times what Google paid for Android, which last quarter was the world's most popular operating environment by devices shipped.
Sure, you can't blame her for too many of the other $11B, but really it doesn't matter at this point. If you're the boss everything that goes wrong is your fault. Else why even have a boss?
And yes, I did predict these things here - that he would be in position to be made CEO around the time of Windows 8 launch, that Autonomy would be written down. But I didn't put the two things together because there was no telling when they would do the writedown. If not for the writedown it would have to be another board scandal or something. Bill Veghte is HP's Elop. He will drive HP with a focus on optimizing the benefit to Microsoft until HP is no more. And for some reason he will be impossible for shareholders to remove until it is too late.
We still don't know where Sinofsky is going. He'll probably guru out in India for a while before he surfaces at the head of another tech company. And when he does, it's doomed.
And now she will step down, leaving the company in the capable hands of Bill Veghte. Just as I predicted.
The new $200 chromebook uses Celeron dual core.
Does Intel know you can get a Nexus7 or chromebook for $200?
Can we give it a rest for 3 years or so?
"Trolling is a art!"
That was lovely, and I owe you more than "wait and see".
But I haven't got any more in me tonite than that. It's time for bed. So: "wait and see."
My grandson had taken my primary tablet to play Minecraft with, and my wife was watching Netflix on the backup. So yes, I did crank up the Ubuntu PC for the first time in a few weeks to post that comment. But I didn't have to. I could have done it from my SGS3 phone.
My tablets get used about 12 hours a day - we fight for possession of them. I burn out my SGS3 phone every day. I have a rail of 4 desktop PCs the kids use all day, and a few Windows laptops that see varying use. We have 3 netbooks and 3 Kindle fires too. What the hell is your point again? Which gets used most? That would be the Android tablets. The other stuff is what you have to get by on when it's not your turn with the tablet.
Keep telling yourself that. It will make you comfortable until The End.
Cool. I have an Android tablet, a TF101, that I bought over a year ago that I use to do all those things. My monitor is a 55" Samsung over HDMI, and the tablet has Citrix so there isn't anything you can do on your PC that I can't do on it. Keyboard? Yes. Mouse? Yes. Office and Outlook? Yes. Manage 100's of servers? Yes. Doing it wherever I happen to be? Yes.
It's a matter of policy that people employed to bash Android can't actually spell the word correctly in their posts, because that increases the interest level in search engines. So we see Android spelled "Andriod" and other ways, and it's a sure giveaway. "aneroid" is a new one. You get points for that.
You and I understand the subtle nuances of your post, the tradeoffs between this potential use and that other use, the tug and pull between the developer and the environment provider. You Microsoft ACs have grown quite good at sparring with me. But the end user doesn't have a micro givashit. He just wants to enjoy being empowered by the device to do stuff he couldn't do yesterday. And the stuff he cares about is first: to connect to his loved ones and his lesser loved ones. Second: to share his life with the aforementioned loved ones and any who might be interested. He could give a fuck less about APIs.
In case you're wondering, yes: This submission was all about identifying the Microsoft shill accounts, not providing interesting meat for discussion.
/submitter. You have been /. trolled. Please burn this account and make another.
I'm kind of curious how you got Microsoft Office to boot.
Everything since is bug fixes that ought to be free, and moving the buttons to get you to buy it again.
Sadly, no mod points.
2012 is already the year of Linux on the desktop. And the desktop is in your pocket. Android/Linux moved more devices last quarter than Windows devices by a ratio of 3:2. Christmas is coming and by then it will be a clean sweep. By the final reports in February we will know that 2012 was the year that Linux came into its own.
If some want to cry "Waah! That's not fair! Mobile is not PC." Well suck it up sunshine. If you are a developer this is all that matters: these are the people who will buy your apps. If you make devices this is all that matters: these are the devices that move units. If you sell devices at retail this is all that matters: this is the stuff that doesn't grow dust on the shelf. People buy the devices with Android on over the devices with Windows on by a ratio of 3:2, and the first thing they do after they turn it on is buy apps and content. The only entity in all the world who cares to split this linguistic hair is Microsoft because they want to maintain the illusion that they are still king of this particular hill. But they are not. They don't own the word "PC" either, or it would be PC(R). There were PCs before Microsoft tried to take ownership of this word, and there will be PCs after we have forgotten their long sordid story. These devices are personal, and they compute. They are personal computers. Heck, some of them are more powerful than an early Cray supercomputer - in your pocket.
If Microsoft wants their standards adopted by W3C why don't they just make it a corporate mission to stuff the W3C panels and get it done like they did with ISO and their Office document standard?
If you think that's baffling, try this: the photons that travelled this long time to get to us don't experience time at all. For them the instant they arrive is the same instant they left that distant galaxy.
The media and software companies give to both parties. As I said before the election, "If you buy both sides, it doesn't matter who wins."
The US Constitution is mainly about the people setting the structure of and granting powers to the government. The parts about why the powers are given have long been considered advisory recommendations without force of law. And pretty much ignored.
Of course in the eternal jockeying for power, with Republicans having quashed this great and popular idea there is a chance the Democrats will pick up the banner and run with it. That would make the GOP look even more like jerks. It's a very, very small chance - but it's there.
As Valve has pointed out their games actually work better on Linux after porting and without significant optimization. Stay with your Windows PC instead of your Valve hand-optimized Linux-based console and you'll find your gaming experience frustrating as you get Pwned by nOObs over and over. But hey, if that's your thing...
Look, Microsoft is pushing all software through their own store if they can beginning with Windows 8. Steam is a software store that would compete with that store, on Microsoft's Windows platform. Gabe Newell used to work at Microsoft. He knows this means they intend to eliminate the Steam software sales store in Windows, and they are as eminently able to do that as they have been to sabotage all other software that competes with their offerings on Windows. The Goose has fled and Valve needs a new goose. Hence the console plan. An own-brand console gives Valve a platform that cannot be made to sabotage their content.
A lot of casuals are just going tablet and phone, really.
It could be worse. Retail box software vendors are just out of luck. No more sales for you.
If Valve manages to take a significant fraction of their 90% PC game sales market share to an own-brand console from the PC, the PC gamer market might become too small of an ecosystem to remain sustainable. And Valve will become a giant of the console gaming industry.