Microsoft's Lost Decade 407
Kurt Eichenwald has written a lengthy article about Microsoft's slow decline over the past 10 years, cataloging their missteps and showing how consistent, poor decision-making from management crippled the tech titan in several important industries.
"By the dawn of the millennium, the hallways at Microsoft were no longer home to barefoot programmers in Hawaiian shirts working through nights and weekends toward a common goal of excellence; instead, life behind the thick corporate walls had become staid and brutish. Fiefdoms had taken root, and a mastery of internal politics emerged as key to career success. In those years Microsoft had stepped up its efforts to cripple competitors, but—because of a series of astonishingly foolish management decisions—the competitors being crippled were often co-workers at Microsoft, instead of other companies. Staffers were rewarded not just for doing well but for making sure that their colleagues failed. As a result, the company was consumed by an endless series of internal knife fights. Potential market-busting businesses—such as e-book and smartphone technology—were killed, derailed, or delayed amid bickering and power plays. That is the portrait of Microsoft depicted in interviews with dozens of current and former executives, as well as in thousands of pages of internal documents and legal records."
We discussed a teaser for this piece earlier in the month — the full article has all the unpleasant details.
The problem is Ballmer (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is Ballmer. Always has been.
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Are you sure? Given the timing it sounds like these policies were put in place by Bill Gates when he was still CEO.
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Agreed.
The problem with marketing guys is that they care only about money and risks.
They don't want to bet money on products that may not work, so they tend to copy existing products.
When your focus is money or measuring risks, you cannot focus on users or products.
Gates and Jobs cared about products (but not much about users), and that's why they succeeded.
Also, they think about their products as sequels, like movies sequels.
A good product will have a good reputation, so the next version will sell a lot mo
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Re:The problem is Ballmer (Score:5, Informative)
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Given that Ballmer became CEO in 2000, and prior to that he had been a division head for many different divisions, I think he had a lot to do with this cannibalistic culture that seems to be at the core of MS these days.
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Oh - Microsoft will be around for a long time. It won't go "boom" instantly.
But I have the feeling Microsoft is at the place IBM was when Microsoft started growing. By no means IBM was out of business then, and it is still a healthy company today. What DID diminished was their relevance at the forefront of consumer OS technology (notice I left out the market for main servers - IBM is still doing good in that field).
And that's exactly what is happening with Microsoft today. In fact Microsoft is a big Moloch
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Microsoft has never really been good at technology .. Bill Gates made up for a weakness in tech, with a mastery of business strategy.
Microsoft may never have been 'high tech', but Bill Gates understood how mass-produce software on an industrial scale. Most of their old competition killed themselves with buggy/bloated/late products. However by the time 'Longhorn' came around, MS couldn't even do that...
lost? (Score:3, Insightful)
Seems like XP and 7 did quite well.
New markets (Score:5, Insightful)
Bigger is better? (Score:5, Insightful)
The article's author seems to think that Microsoft should have conquered those new markets. But what about the opposite approach: don't even try to enter those markets. Why should a company always try to become bigger even in areas that are not its strength?
In particular, why should Microsoft be in the smart phone business? It's not like smart phones will replace PCs. They are behind Apple and Google in terms of features, mind share and available 3rd party applications; to succeed they must either do the same thing much better (like Apple with the iPod) or do something different to make their platform stand out. If they don't have the ideas for that, it's better in my opinion to stay out of the market altogether rather than make a "me too" product.
Re:Bigger is better? (Score:4, Insightful)
why should Microsoft be in the smart phone business? It's not like smart phones will replace PCs
I would not be so sure about that one. Smartphone OSes seem to work pretty well on tablets, and I suspect that within 5 years we'll be seeing them on low-end laptops or in some sort of laptop/tablet hybrids (not rotating screen, but perhaps removable/easy to hide keyboard). It is also the case that a large number of common computing tasks can now be done using only a tablet or smartphone.
The point here is that Microsoft's relevance in personal computing is fading somewhat.
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Except that you're completely missing out on the ongoing disruption in IT. In a few years, Joe six-pack and your mom will be on a tablet or a smart phone as their primary (personal) devise. Not to mention developing countries, which are currently being introduced to IT through tablets and smart phones. Most households, in that context, will not have a PC. And I'd bet the horse on the fact that many business uses of PCs will have been replaced by the smart phones and tablets too -- eg doctors, machine tool p
Re:New markets (Score:4, Insightful)
But as alternative platforms begin to overwhelm the PC, that victory will become increasingly empty. Being the dominant PC OS maker in a world dominated by smart devices largely running iOS or Android clearly indicates a long term problem.
Re:New markets (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the post-PC world will be much like the paperless office...
No. 1 console maker? (Score:5, Informative)
According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_game_consoles), Nintendo Wii sold more units than both Xbox and Xbox 360. While Xbox 360 outsold Sony Playstation 3 by a few million units, combined sales of all Playstation models are several times higher than sales of both Xbox models. So what makes you say that Microsoft is the number one console manufacturer?
Moreover, unlike sales of smartphones and tablets, sales of game consoles are stagnating already. So it's pointless to argue whether Microsoft, Nintendo or Sony is the No. 1 or coolest console manufacturer.
Re:No. 1 console maker? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's worse than that - Microsoft dumped something like $30 billion over the course of a decade into their home entertainment division, the vast majority of it spent on the Xbox and Xbox 360. They only started showing quarterly profits a couple of years ago - mostly from software, not hardware sales - and last I checked at the rate they're going it'll take them over a decade just to recoup their initial investment assuming software sales and prices hold up (which they haven't and won't on now-obsolete hardware). In other words, their investment in the console business will never even manage to break even.
Compare and contrast with Apple, which spent far, far less developing and launching both the iPhone and iPad, products which turned a profit almost immediately.
The console business has been a disaster for Microsoft since the beginning, and it's been a world of hurt for Sony since the launch of the PS3. The problem is, both Microsoft and Sony spent massive fortunes developing and subsidizing the "bleeding edge" hardware for their latest generation of consoles. By the time manufacturing costs came down to the point where they could realize hefty profits on both hardware and software sales for their platforms, Nintendo had stolen a good chunk of the market away with the cheaper Wii. Worse, all three consoles are now effectively obsolete, and they (and their software vendors) are competing with mobile devices from Apple and the Android vendors for consumers' dollars. And the mobile devices are crushing the consoles in the race for consumer dollars.
The Xbox 360 was supposed to last Microsoft until 2015, but if the Wii U is a success later this year, it'll likely decimate both hardware and software sales of Microsoft's outdated console. While Microsoft could unload another $20 billion designing, manufacturing and subsidizing a next-gen console, I just don't see how they can hope to ever turn a profit on that business. It's a lose-lose situation for Microsoft in the console business. If they don't shell out another $20 billion, they effectively drop out and never make their investment back. If they shell out $20 billion, they'll probably still end up an also-ran and never make their money back.
Of course, they could do something less elaborate with their next gen console, but they'll have already lost prime mover advantage to Nintendo, and lackluster hardware will rapidly be eclipsed by ever-cheaper PCs and increasingly capable mobile devices. In other words, their "next gen" system would have a shelf life of about 3 years. They'd have to produce something really cheap to make those numbers pan out, and it's hard to see developers expending a lot of effort on a platform they know is gonna be dead in under 5 years.
And of course Apple could completely wreck Microsoft's console business by using the firehose of cash they're getting from their mobile business to produce their own console. Subsidize a halfway decent box and follow the iPhone's cheap software strategy - keep the price of most titles under $20 - and you'd cripple Microsoft. They'd hemorrhage billions before being forced out of the market with their tail between their legs.
I think Microsoft's even more screwed than the conventional wisdom thinks they are. Their mobile strategy is a shambles, their console business will never turn a profit (and could end up costing them another $10-$20 billion), they're an also-ran in the cloud, and their OS and office applications monopolies are increasingly threatened by Apple in the home, and by Linux and cloud-based applications in the workplace.
Their patent portfolio is formidable, but then, so was Kodak's.
I think they have about 5 years left to turn it around before they begin a rapid slide into irrelevance, and I don't think there's a snowball's chance in hell that Ballmer could lead such a turnaround.
Re:lost? (Score:5, Insightful)
XP and 7 exploited the same OEM channels that forced MS-DOS down everyone's throats.
"Continuing to coast" is not quite the standard the author was looking for.
Re:lost? (Score:5, Insightful)
There seems to be this mythology about Microsoft "used to be innovative". I think back and don't recall ANY time where that was the case.
The first computers to have music-quality sound were Atari (1979) and Commodore (1982) and Apple Lisa (1983). Not Microsoft which didn't get sound blaster ability until years later.
The first computers to have enough GPU power to playback fullscreen videos were Atari and Commodore (1985) and Apple (1988). Not Microsoft.
The first computers to have true preemptive multitasking were Commodore (1985). Not Microsoft which took ten years to get, and it didn't work with the then-standard 16-bit apps. Only new 32-bit programs. (Apple didn't get it until 2001 with OS 10.1.)
The MS business model started by selling software to larger companies (Atari, Apple, Commodore, IBM, and the PC clone makers). Those same large companies did the innovating while Microsoft just followed along and copied what others had already done 5-10 years earlier. They were never innovative. Never.
Re:lost? (Score:4, Informative)
None of your examples have anything to do with Microsoft. They didn't design the hardware, so they could not control the sound and graphics of the PC. They may have had real multitasking prior to NT had it not been for IBM insisting that OS/2 ran in 286 mode. It was one of the reasons wh IBM and Microsoft went their separate ways in the OS market.
Microsoft have had plenty of innovation over the years, especially from the work done at Microsoft Research. Unfortunately, they are not always very good at commercializing the technologies that are invented.
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And they broke the JDA in the middle of OS/2 2.0 development after the first SDKs was already sent out by MS to developers [os2museum.com], only to later attack OS/2 with tactics that ended up being much worse [wikipedia.org].
Re:lost? (Score:5, Funny)
> They were never innovative. Never.
Had anyone done something like Bob before? :-)
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The first computers to have true preemptive multitasking were Commodore (1985).
Unix has had preemptive multitasking since 1969. And even for home computers, the Sinclair QL since 1984.
Re:lost? (Score:5, Insightful)
Its like saying IBM did well selling a mainframe, sure once upon a time they did that and made huge fortunes, today, they don't.
Well, actually, IBM does make a large amount around new mainframe sells. While various pieces of enterprisey software are their meat and potatoes now, While System Z isn't particularly glamorous, it is *solid* and IBM doesn't screw with it. Would some things in a brand-new System Z configuration seem downright *archaic* by many technical people? Of course. Is IBM's dedication to the platform largely as-is incredibly valuable to the market they do retain? You better believe it. Contrast this treatment to MS. If run like MS, mainframe probably would have been changed to be more like competitors that were eating away market share rather than staying the course to retain a very profitable core market. Kind of like what Sun did with the Ultra 5 and Ultra 10 back in the day.
IBM is actually an interesting company in terms of financial success. They are rarely the leader of any particular wide market, yet so incredibly diverse that not a significant IT deal goes down without IBM getting something out of it. You buy HP blades but IBM might make money off their switch modules. You buy software from Oracle but oracle pays some licensing fee of some patents to IBM, and maybe some IBM hardware to run the software. IBM seems to always have *some* disappointing business units and some golden children in any given time period, but that changes over time. IBM used to have hardware as the golden child, software as nothing to write home about, and a fledgling service business. Times changed and suddenly their services business is the only one looking particularly good, software exceeding hardware to the point of the very immediate demise of mainframe a likely bet. Things change again and now software is the star, with Services and hardware both looking not particularly appealing, but within the hardware mainframe has actually made a comeback.
IBM is perhaps the most boring of the massively successful technology companies, but they don't seem to care that much given their understated, but very consistent positive financial results over time.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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I am a Mac user, the only true technical reason to upgrade the Mac OS since 2000 or so was when they switched to the x86 platform. They incentivize upgrades more by by outright dropping support for old hardware than the relatively minor features they add in what basically amounts to a yearly service pack. I just upgraded to Mountain Lion for the hell of it and I wouldn't know I had upgraded if I didn't know what to look for.
The majority of what you listed in OS X has been implemented in some fashion in Wind
No MBAs (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No MBAs (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure the degree alone is the problem.
I think it's more likely to be about "Skin in the game" and familiarity with the landscape.
Too many MBA CEOs brought in thinks that they're selling widgets. They can sell computers just like they can sell soda pop, it's all the same to them.
Jobs was on a(n) (un)holy mission to remake the galaxy. Sculley was selling widgets.
Re:No MBAs (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll buy that familiarity with the technology is a factor, but it's also about the thrill of technology as a motivator. Business types don't have it. Everybody knows what their SOLE motivation in life is, only it's self defeating in this particular sector.
I have a picture of the MBA at bed time. After the obligatory five minutes, he and his wife are lighting up smokes. She is stroking his shoulder, murmuring sweetly. "It's all right, sweetie. You're just wound up." His brow is furrowed in thought and he is thinking silently "How can we leverage sex in the business? How can we rake in the bucks and rip off the people?"
Few engineers know the reality of business ... (Score:3)
I'll buy that familiarity with the technology is a factor, but it's also about the thrill of technology as a motivator. Business types don't have it. Everybody knows what their SOLE motivation in life is ... How can we rake in the bucks and rip off the people?
Few engineers know the reality of business and MBAs - been there, done that, I am guilty - just as few business types understand the reality of engineering and other technical disciplines. When I eventually attended business school I thoroughly enjoyed it for two reasons. (1) Learning new and different things. (2) Laughing at myself, laughing at how ignorant and misinformed I had been about business, marketing, etc. Here's a clue: the professors in business school love Dilbert as much as any geek.
To avoi
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Sculley is unfairly maligned. He was the guy who pushed forward the Apple Newton..... had he not been in charge it would have been killed-off.
And that would have been a bad thing because?
The Newton was a flop. The guys who did the Palm Pilot got the PDA right, with a lot less hype and at a price folks could actually afford.
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The guys who did the PalmPilot were former Newton engineers. They based their work upon what they learned from working at Apple. Had the Newton project never existed, neither would the Palm. (So yes it was a good thing Sculley pushed-forward the Newton project. It wasn't good for Apple since they messed-up the design, but it was good for us, the customers.) It's similar to how VHS would never have existed if Sony had not developed Betamax. Even though Betamax ultimately failed, it was good that Sony
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I've seen that argument before, but I don't really buy it.
Take Betamax. Development began in 1971 with JVC, Sony and Matsushita, but the partners broke up fairly early on. Sony worked on Betamax, Matsushita on VX and JVC worked on VHS. Heck, even Sanyo had their own format (V-Cord), which was radically different from the others. These formats happened because the technology had progressed to the point where they could be manufactured at a somewhat-affordable price point. Sony getting Betamax into the m
Re:No MBAs (Score:5, Interesting)
Ah the rosy spectacles of the past. When Bill ran it, everything was not great. They almost completely missed the Internet revolution because Bill Gates never understood it. Also Bill's reign got them investigated and found guilty of corporate shenanigans. He didn't leave because he wanted to, he left because he was the most hated guy in the industry.
Re:No MBAs (Score:5, Insightful)
The boss of Boeing needs to know if it makes sense to invest in electrical planes, to understand the weight constraints of batteries, the trends and how it can impact the airplane industry in 20 years.
The boss of Microsoft must understand how software works, to understand what are the costs and advantage to port to ARM, the necessity of having a specialized version for embedded software vs having a completely different product, deciding if tablet are more like a big smartphone, a small laptop or a totally new platform, etc...
MBAs are taught to understand product/market/etc (Score:3)
Agree - but this can be simplified. There's a rule.
Managers are of two types.
There are managers who believe that management itself is a profession that stands outside of any other profession or industry; that is, that a manager only manages people. It doesn't matter what those people do. Nor does it matter what the manager knows about the business he/she manages. A good manager will deliver goodness, regardless.
Then there are managers who believe that they'd best excel at the specifics of the industry they find themselves in. Because one should understand the 'why' of making decisions, outside of the people involved.
The first type are MBAs. The second type are filthy rich.
Funny, but wrong. I'm a somewhat recent MBA grad and we were definitely taught that understanding your product, your market, your industry, the economic forces that effect your industry, etc was critical. About 1/3 of my class were engineers and scientist.
To avoid redundancy see: http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3010671&cid=40801865 [slashdot.org]
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An MBA is not an accounting/finance degree (Score:3)
MBAs are taught finance.
Wrong. An MBA program is not about accounting and finance. An MBA program actually is an overview of all the pieces of a company/organization. Accounting and finance is just one piece. To avoid redundancy see: http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3010671&cid=40801865 [slashdot.org]
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I think it's more fair to say that MBAs tend not to deliver mind-blowingly overwhelming sucess. MBAs are the vast majority of anomymous, boring leaders in the business world. On the whole they lead mostly obscure companies in relatively subtle and unexciting rate of growth, but still on the whole mostly growth.
Meanwhile, the Zuckerberg, Gates and Jobs of the worlds are effectively the lottery winners amongst non-MBAs playing corporate leadership game. Through a combination of persistent vision, acumen, a
An MBA degree program is not what you think (Score:3)
Lost decade? (Score:5, Interesting)
So doubling your revenues and net income is now considered a "lost decade"?
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This is an apologist's view point. Save for the aforementioned minor successes, Microsoft has polarized and engendered enormous amounts of FUD into the markets it once championed.
While the article leaves out several glaring mistakes by omission, it is a largely accurate portrayal of an organization that's losing mindshare, market leadership, money, intellectual capital, and the warmth of its users.
The most glaring omission in my mind: poor quality software. Windows 98-Windows XPSP2 were horrible and fraught
Re:Lost decade? (Score:5, Insightful)
Windows 98-Windows XPSP2 were horrible
Pardon me, but are you proposing that windows was horrible from 98 through XPSP2? 98 was a major improvement over 95 in every way including stability. ME was crap. 2k was fantastic. XP was fine for me from SP1, dunno what terrible things you were doing to it.
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Yes, there was improvement, and yes, there became in the process of rapid releases and poor quality checks, unbelievably bad security and increased vulnerability.
For you, the sense that XP SP2 introduced demotion of user from root/admin is what made it a bit safer, and architecturally tenable. In the meantime, I had to scrape countless machines of malware, viruses, and just plain insane and stupid problems caused by revision desynchronization.
I wrote BOOKS on the subject.
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You got used to it, I guess. But that didn't make it fine.
I was dual-booting (or sometimes dual-boxing) Windows and Linux throughout much of that period, running SunOS and IRIX and others on other machines, and it's not clear to me that Windows was of lower quality as a desktop OS than the alternatives (except for ME) until about Windows Vista, which is when they really screwed the pooch on quality. But you couldn't expect the average user to perform even the simplest maintenance tasks on Linux back then, you'd often get into a state where you'd have to run fsck m
Re:Lost decade? (Score:5, Insightful)
During the period that Microsoft's market cap got lopped in half, Apple's multiplied by over ONE HUNDRED TIMES. So yes, I'd say that qualifies for a lost decade. Market cap is the world's picture of how much you are worth as a company.
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During the period that Microsoft's market cap got lopped in half, Apple's multiplied by over ONE HUNDRED TIMES. So yes, I'd say that qualifies for a lost decade. Market cap is the world's picture of how much you are worth as a company.
Yes and at times that world's picture gets completely separated from reality. See Facebook and Zynga IPOs.
Re:Lost decade? (Score:5, Insightful)
Very true, since Apple's success is much greater (Score:4, Interesting)
Market cap is to company's real worth as photoshopped magazine covers are to original models' beauty: a somewhat good reference but not really that reliable.
That is very true, Apple's market cap remains substantially depressed compared to other companies.
In the decade that Microsoft simply continued to sell the same thing they always had, Apple herded the music market unwillingly to digital sales, totally took over portable music players, forced a massive shift in the smartphone market, and then to top it off proceeded to be the company that led the inevitable shift in the computing market to tablets despite Microsoft trying and failing to do sofor almost ten years.
I'd say the "lost decade" description for Microsoft is utterly apt, for all sorts of reasons... the way that Microsoft killed off better technologies as they rose against Microsoft for many years was a loss of around a decade of computer advancements for real people as Microsoft kept the status quo.
But just like keeping the lid shut on a pressure cooker, eventually something much blow - and Apple was the company that forced the issue.
Re:Lost decade? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Stupidity always flows from the top... (Score:5, Insightful)
In any organization I've ever seen or worked for.
Finally a good summary (Score:2, Funny)
You know right away the article is BS.
Because during the last 10 years many MS products have finally become as usable as they should have been 10 years ago.
Re:Finally a good summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Hah, indeed. Microsoft has lots of problems now, but it had a lot of problems before too! It's kind of funny that in 2012 the "old Microsoft" has become some kind of utopia looked back on as if it were driven by technologists in pursuit of technical excellence. In the 1990s, Slashdotters would surely not have thought that. Microsoft in, say, 1997 was not working towards "a common goal of excellence", but some very corporate-strategy driven ideas about where the PC market should go. Arguably that's true of much of what they did in the 1980s, as well.
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We are very sorry about this and will fix it with the upcoming Windows 8.
Regards,
Microsoft
What the hell is "Microsoft's lost decade"? (Score:3, Interesting)
Among others a reply from Frank Shaw (MSFT):
http://www.neowin.net/news/what-the-hell-is-microsofts-lost-decade [neowin.net]
Re:What the hell is "Microsoft's lost decade"? (Score:5, Insightful)
What in that reply goes the SLIGHTEST WAY toward disproving or effectively countering ANY of the article's points? Mindless denial is of course to be expected inside the floundering giant.
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Frank Shaw had me until he mentioned the Xbox; Microsoft's entertainment division has lost them billions. You can tell he's mad, bro, because he wrote "Widows Azure"... little red squiggle not working in internet exploder?
Billions of customers, but they're not coming, they're going. They're going to Android, they're going to iOS, they're even going to OSX for some reason.
Microsoft have always been about ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Note that Apple have been doing that as well, mp3 players, smartphones and tablets were mature before they got involved but they managed to get up to speed quickly enough to dominate those markets
To sum up, I don't see the last decade as anything different with Microsoft in that area, and I recall articles about toxic office politics at Microsoft (and moreso Apple) well over a decade ago anyway.
Group think in action ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Group think has set in such that slowly politics has created an environment where the top management do not hear dissenting voices, so somehow they can do no wrong.
It is natures great recycler.
Monopoly (Score:5, Insightful)
>"Fiefdoms had taken root, and a mastery of internal politics emerged as key to career success. In those years Microsoft had stepped up its efforts to cripple competitors"
Welcome to life at a huge, fat monopoly. At least it seems like they hit an ace with UEFI, further stifling competition and removing consumer freedom and choice.
Looks like Apple is falling into the same trap in their niche markets where they were also a near monopoly (tablets/phones).... instead of opening up, offering product choices, lowering prices, they are spending all their effort trying to sue everyone into submission.
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Illiterate, much?
One of Apple's designers did a mockup of what they thought a Sony smartphone with the capabilities of the iPhone would look like, sporting circa-1983 Sony design cues:
http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/26/3189297/sony-inspired-iphone-design-images#3597459 [theverge.com]
It's a great riff on Sony's once iconic sense of design, now apparently long forgotten by the parent company.
Note that Apple couldn't have been "steeling" the iPhone's design from Sony, because the morons running Sony in 2005 had no products li
And do not forget... (Score:4, Interesting)
I RTFA the whole article... but IMO, it has forgot one or two things....
M$ vs DOJ: If you have read daily technology news back in 90s, you might remember how narrowly M$ escaped from a major anti-trust case. Since then, M$ had to play nice with DOJ to avoid getting the worm can re-opened. So it is somewhat obvious M$ didn't work aggressively in taking over other markets in last decade. All the new players, they do not have to answer DOJ for any anti-trust violations. So... new players are very lucky when it comes to approaching new markets.. be it search, consumer media, social networking etc.
At the very heart of the DOJ case...M$ was accused of "locking-in" customers for their products. And now, fast forward to 2012... Apple is literally locking in consumers behind their gardened walls with a plethora of their own hardware and software, Google & FB literally collecting private details from its consumers. Playing the devil's advocate here, I wonder how come they are not scrutinised intensely ?
M$ massive hiring spree: Though I can't exactly remember the figures and fact, I believe M$'s staff count has gone up by few folds since the turn of the century. Though I am not sure what's the reason behind this; but I am pretty sure this is the real reason why wheels started getting off. More staff means more HR to handle them. My best guess for this 'staff head count inflation' is, having lot of cash in bank.
But my overall conclusion is... markets are wide open only for a brief period of time. One can concur that market only during that brief moment. Late comers will always have to play "do or die" battle before totally convert the market to their camp, or die an early shameful death. M$'s biggest issue it seems, not discovering wide open markets to concur like the rest.
Having said all that, during last decade, M$ consumer products have become more stable and secure than in 90s. That's something worth noting.
Also, I would like to see Steven Sinofsky to head the Redmond camp after Ballmer... looking at his track record, I believe he can stop this plunging boat from drowning.
p.s
I have to agree that 'management style' in M$ is somewhat deleterious. My software house has this ghastly 6-month review cycle despite being a SMB. In the most recent review, I was accused of not having any initiatives during work by the reviewing HR boss. My sad situation is, my technical boss disagrees with my initiatives. To avoid annoying him too much, and get the team working on one direction; I have learnt to suspend my ideas and just to be a "yes-boss" guy. But would the HR boss understand my situation fully? Personally, I put lot of hours in writing well-polished reliable code. In return, both my bosses are nit-picking on me. IMO, these reviews are good for "failing" employees.. but the rest, why bother.. just throw them free candy or coffee.
Re:And do not forget... (Score:5, Insightful)
Such behavior is illegal only if you have a sufficiently large share of a properly defined product market. MS apparently got terrible legal advice in the 1990s (or ignored good advice); someone should have been telling them that they were dominant enough in their principle market space (personal computer operating systems) that the rules were different. Apple holds less than 20% of the global market for smartphones, a distant second behind Samsung for the most recently finished quarter. That's not enough market share to get you in trouble. Google appears ready to settle their antitrust case in the EU, and the FTC announced several months ago an investigation of Google's business practices in the US. And it's difficult to define an applicable "market" where Facebook dominates, since they don't charge their users.
Re:And do not forget... (Score:4, Funny)
Apple doesn't care about market share. Apple cares about making products.
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There are two kinds of lawyers. MOST lawyers are there to mitigate disputes. Courts and precedent are fairly clear for 80% of cases. So lawyers advise you to follow the rules. About 20% are the M&A guys, the ambulance chasers, divorces, etc. the "we'll make it legal" lawyers. Gates father was partner in such a firm, with a stake in Microsoft doing well, so you can see how they gave the advice the client wanted to here and not based on the law.
I always find it interesting how when I explain to my compan
It's Hard To Argue with Free (Score:5, Insightful)
In times past Microsoft would find a nice add-in product for their software and then bundle a cloned version of it for free. Remember Stac Electronics? The disk compression Microsoft put in the next version of MSDOS was not better than Stac's, but it was free. Stac only won some money in a lawsuit, but was essentially destroyed. I think to this day developers are still mindful of this predilection. Now this same thing is happening to the cash cows of Microsoft: Windows and Office. Linux and LibreOffice are the nemesis of Microsoft's flagship products. Another product for the server world is Exchange. Exchange virtually forces the use of Outlook. No other Windows or Linux client can properly work with it. This is a strategy MS uses to delay the inevitable. Don't you think /. is read by MS employees? They can read the signs of the times. They just can't show their strategy to carry them through this. This lost decade is the decade of dealing with free alternatives. Microsoft is reaping what they have sown. You can't perpetuate the monopoly on Windows and Office alone anymore. I'll say it again:
It's hard to argue with free.
The article is misleading (Score:3)
in the 1990s it flourished becuase of a demand for computers and NO competition. They were probably more hated then than now. Their software was far less reliable then, than now.
They were far more overreaching in their rhetoric and legal prowess to cover up their inability to make good products then, than now. They were far more evil then than now.
They have competition now, and if they tried what they did then, now, they would be sink.
Re:Terrible article (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Terrible article (Score:5, Informative)
It did a pretty good job of laying out why MS has failed to keep up with the leading edge of the industry, and why they will need radical cultural change to ever catch up. In particular, the article avoided overblown hystrionics, for example not claiming MS is dead, but pointing out that MS has become like IBM in how it operates.
I haven't had time to read the whole article yet. However, if the summary is accurate (ha ha), it's certainly not the first time that MS's internal politicking and entrenched interests since the late 90s have been pinpointed as a major obstacle to innovation and their continued success in a changing market.
Some time back I commented on [slashdot.org] (and cherry-picked) a similar article, which wasn't new even then- it dated back to early 2010. Still very informative though.
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... for example not claiming MS is dead, but pointing out that MS has become like IBM in how it operates.
Heh - I was just telling my brother who works at Microsoft that they are the new IBM. I sort of meant it as a compliment. Big companies can rarely continue innovating and winning in new spaces, so you might as well hunker down in the trenches and set yourself up for the long haul.
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Will they now share the IBM motto "Where technology goes to die"?
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I stopped reading partway through - it read like a hit piece. Let's go ahead and ignore the success of Windows 7, XBOX 360, Office, SharePoint, Lync, etc just to make an outrageous claim in order to sell magazines. Is the internal culture of Microsoft bad? Maybe..but they're still churning out good software, and with the exception of a one-time write-down from a failed acquisition, they are still one of the most consistently profitable companies in the world. Like all large companies, they have had prod
Re:Terrible article (Score:4, Insightful)
You cant seriously call Xbox a success without using a fair bit of progressive counting. To date XBOX still a bit to go before all the investments are returned. And its still not anywhere near a market leader position. This while it has eaten up much of the PC gaming space, cannibalizing another MS business end.
Windows 7 is by no means a success since total share of Windows has fallen since its introduction, not risen. Only reason its a success is because of the monopoly. Without it, W7 would have failed utterly. Just look at how "well" WP7 is doing for reference of how things work out for MS without their monopoly benefits.
Sharepoint a success? Where? And Lync a success, in what reality? Outside the "Microsoft or nothing" sphere nobody knows about it even. And therein lies the real problem, the "MS or nothing" sphere is shrinking fast.
Microsofts only products they manage to make money off of is Office and Windows thanks to their monopoly. Everything else is complete and utter failure.
Re:Terrible article (Score:4, Insightful)
Aside from the OS a machine runs, MS has precious little at stake when it comes to PC gaming. And I don't know of a single Xbox user who isn't using Windows and every one of them own PCs. MS lost nothing to the gaming crowd with the Xbox.
Re:Terrible article (Score:4, Informative)
Actually a lot of people used to run Windows just to play games. A huge number. Most of those are now using consoles instead. Many of these now use no computer at all but a tablet or phone for what internet usage they have. I've had little problem moving people to Linux since when I ask them if they use the computer for gaming they almost always reply that they have a Wii or X-Box or Playstation for that (in some cases all three!)
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Xbox has been a huge success. 67 million units sold, 19 million kinects, Microsoft Games is highly profitable; enough so to offset the losses from Windows Phone 7 in their entertainment division. All that aside, Xbox is a huge success for one simple reason: They broke the console sales trend. In all previous consoles by year 4 sales begin to decline, sharply. The 360 is the first that accelerated sales (rather dramatically) in year 5.
Re:Terrible article (Score:4, Insightful)
Until you look at how much Microsoft has spent.
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counting on next generation to be the generation to bring the money in by truckloads is progressive counting..
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Re:Terrible article (Score:5, Informative)
The Xbox lost $4 billion and came in a distant seccond.
The Xbox 360 has lost $3 billion, after a few quarters in the black the division is now in the red again, and the 360 is currently tied for second.
That's not what any rational person would call success.
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Re:Terrible article (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe the main reason for the popularity of X-Box is the insanity at Sony. Once Sega dropped out of the market it's like Sony forgot how to compete.
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I'll admit, I originally started replying to this, but there is no way this guy is being genuine.
Re:Terrible article (Score:5, Insightful)
While xbox is a household name, profit wise it isn't stellar. It also has had an interesting effect of moving the attention of Windows game developers onto consoles. The problem being this actually seems to weaken MS lockin, migrating userbase from a mindset where microsoft unquestionably dominates the market to one where MS is just one of three big names. While this in the short term has boosted MS offering in the market, it also has made these studios get over their desktop fixation and get accustomed to supporting Sony and to some extent nintendo.
So far, not critical, but it does potentially pave the way for the big game companies to completely torpedo the desktop and xbox gaming market. At the same time as getting developers in the mindset of multi-platform support, it starts pushing it's first-party app store as well as a bizarre model for desktop usage. Between the improved view on multiplatform development and threatening digital distribution channels that particularly valve has become accustomed to it, they are paving the way for a company like Valve to completely undermine MS' desktop and console gaming market.
There are a large number of factors external to MS facilitating this scenario, but MS strategy has done it's part to explicitly fuel thisto some extent.
A very real scenario seems to be:
MS effectively forfeits the desktop market due to lack of interest on their part. It's a boring market where they cannot grow and today's business philosophy seems to dismiss sustainability without exponential growth (growth is always indicated as a percentage, the raw dollar values are de-emphasized). Companies are still using XP by and large, which might have been ok except MS is simultaneously pushing the market to develop software that doesn't work with XP, so XP usage might be characeterized as 'limping along' with increased difficulty over time. Between OSX and Linux (though the 'front and center' Linux DEs have also lost their way), some enterprises are seeing viable MS alternatives. On the homefront, erosion comes more easily, mostly at the hands of IOS, Android, and to a lesser extent OSX and Linux, share-wise (consumer desktop/laptop market is increasingly driven by 'enthusiasts' as the casual user base moves on to tablets and phones).
Casual game development on Android paves the way to support Ouya on the low end (XBLA competitor) and on the high end, Valve makes a go of it with a game console, a stronger, diverse name in gaming and digital distribution of games than MS. I see this as highly disruptive to Sony, Nintendo, and MS, but I don't think Valve would've had such an easy time of it if MS hadn't paved the way with xBox.
Phone/tablet is easy enough to see. MS has no appreciable share. To those saying 'but WP7 users always rave about it', that would be a natural consequence of a small user base. The only people there are naturally going to be fanboys. Just like WebOS had exceedingly high satisfaction among its very small userbase (I liked WebOS, but it really lacked a lot). IOS and Android seem to be carving up the market handily.
Basically, MS is screwed. They are trying to compete with google using Bing to dubious result. They are pushing Azure to comete with EC2 and are diluting their vision because it just isn't working. They are throwing their desktop market (the only market they securely held) under the bus to try to prop up metro which has been a market failure on phones today.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
A lot of people just don't want to be part of the xbox experience because it's expensive and offers nothing new.
Funny thing. After all these years, I was finally considering buying an XBox 360, because the indie games sounded appealing. Then I sat down with one for the first time in a while and experienced their new UI for the first time. Utterly disastrous. Where the hell did all the GAMES go, and how do I navigate past all the ads to get to them?!
So, yeah, I won't be buying a 360, ever.
Re:Terrible article (Score:5, Interesting)
Windows and office are just the extensions of successes that date back to the 90s and before.
Sharepoint? Not much to write home about.
XBox is more interesting but still mainly something that leverages Microsoft's platform dominance with MS-DOS and derivatives.
So all in all you've basically got what boils down to MS-DOS and friends. Microsoft can only coast on that so long.
Re:Terrible article (Score:5, Funny)
Sharepoint? Not much to write home about.
I wouldn't say that. It *does* have that traditional Microsoft "catastrophically bad and yet my boss bought it" feel. Their OS and even things like Exchange kind of work nowadays.
Re:Terrible article (Score:5, Informative)
Microsoft's server revenue was $4.5b last quarter growing at 14% year over year. Yes sharepoint, SQL Server, Dynamics... are something to write home about.
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Those are 80% margin... Where is all that money GOING? They should have had enough cash on hand to easily write down that $6b loss and had profit to spare.
People are starting to realize Microsoft is not MANAGED very well. Sure, they have buckets of money, but when you add up the metrics they are PISSING AWAY almost 50% of their GROSS margin on money-losing units. They have carefully shuffled their divisions so they each make 10-15% yearly but looking at even the public books they are hiding MASSIVE bleeding
Re:Terrible article (Score:5, Interesting)
What idiot modded this troll? It was right on point.
Windows and Office are cash cows, yes, but other than Ballmer's incompetence they're the biggest part of the problem-- everyone at Microsoft is afraid of doing something that might threaten Windows or Office. That's why Microsoft spent years trying to stuff bloated desktop Windows into tablets and phones-- and why they were made to like complete asses by Apple.
And XBox? Pfft. They bought their way into the video game market, plain and simple. IIRC they haven't yet reached the break-even point because of the billions they pissed away at the start. XBox is the last time you'll ever see them be able to pull that move, too. No more showing up late with a mediocre product and coming out on top only because they can outspend their competitors.
And Sharepoint is just another product designed to increase corporate IT inertia and maintain Windows' dominance on enterprise desktops.
~Philly
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not a hit piece. It's just that Microsoft is not 'leader of the pack' anymore.
Microsoft is the new IBM.
And IBM is still profitable isn't it?
Btw, were are those 'outrageous' claims made in the article? It states that Microsoft is still making a reasonable profit, doesn't it?
Re: (Score:3)
My favourite part is how he states that iPhone brings in more revenue than all of MS's business as if this is not true for any other tech company out there. The fact that Apple are so successful does not mean that MS failed so badly and definitely does not mean that they are worse than everyone else in the industry. While Apple is obviously on top I wouldn't say that MS failed compared to Google or Facebook.
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Um, they STOPPED SELLING any alternatives? Any product can be a best seller when you just stop selling the others. That's a move right out of the *aa play book.
Said product is 80% PROFIT. Where's all that bacon? It also took SEVEN YEARS to properly replace their flagship product with something consumers actually would buy. SEVEN YEARS milking a cash cow! The issue is NOT the raw numbers, but how they went SO LONG without improving themselves.
Re:Poor Nokia (Score:5, Insightful)
They got what they deserved from that asinine move.