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.
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: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:Finally a good summary (Score:3, Funny)
We are very sorry about this and will fix it with the upcoming Windows 8.
Regards,
Microsoft
Re:Terrible article (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:And do not forget... (Score:4, Funny)
Apple doesn't care about market share. Apple cares about making products.
Re:lost? (Score:5, Funny)
> They were never innovative. Never.
Had anyone done something like Bob before? :-)