Pondering the Future of a Re-Org'd Microsoft 400
puddingebola writes "This story from Forbes touches on Steve Ballmer's announcement that Microsoft will reorganize. From the article, 'Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer appears to be planning a major reorganization. His apparent objective is to help the company move toward becoming a "devices and services company," as presented in the company's annual shareholder letter last October.' What follows is an analysis of the current state of Microsoft's current ventures: shrinking PC sales, Nokia management calling for a change of course, Office 360 lagging, a $1 Billion investment in Nook, the losses on Xbox. Once again, if Microsoft starts to lose the revenue of Windows and Office, how long does the boat float? And what of the suggestion, on the verge of another update in the Xbox console, that Microsoft should sell the Xbox division?"
Never Heard of Office 360 (Score:5, Funny)
What is "Office 360" is that Microsoft office for the X-Box? Sounds like input would be pretty slow.
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Re:Never Heard of Office 360 (Score:5, Funny)
It's the new name for Office 365 after they realised they can only deliver 98.63% uptime.
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It's how many minutes it takes to launch it.
Re:Never Heard of Office 360 (Score:5, Funny)
They were going to call it "Office 180", then completely changed direction.
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I'd buy an Xbox today if it could replace my office pc. I need word, excel, and support for network printers. The ability to pop in a game for a 15 minute break would be a key selling point over playing spider solitaire on my current system.
Considering the Xbox 360 already has HDMI support it is shocking no one on their development team has made this happen yet. I mean, it's a no brainer. The present day 360 is on par with a budget PC, but is all inclusive in a small form factor. It is ideally suited to be
Re:Never Heard of Office 360 (Score:5, Interesting)
What you want, then, is a Coleco ADAM.
If you booted the ADAM up without a game cartridge, it loaded up its word processor, and you could print to the attached printer.
If you had a casette tape in the machine when it booted- it would run the casette.
And if you had a game cartridge in during boot time, you could play the game.
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Yep, and look what an astounding success the ADAM was in the market.
The ADAM didn't have the smartest engineering design, either: the power supply was in the printer, so you couldn't run the computer without the printer being attached.
Re:Never Heard of Office 360 (Score:5, Informative)
I'd buy an Xbox today if it could replace my office pc. I need word, excel, and support for network printers.
On my Linux ultrabook I have LibreOffice which opens anything produced on word, and I've been using a great HP printer server that gives me wireless and internet printer access for a long time. Seriously, whats the gain by using Microsoft?
Re:Never Heard of Office 360 (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously, whats the gain by using Microsoft?
Phtoshop and PC gmaes.
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Do that many people really use Photoshop? For what little image editing I do, GIMP works fine; usually, the only things I ever do are crop and resize. I just don't have any reason to mess around with colors and such, let alone doing crazy stuff like putting objects on different backgrounds and the like. Resizing (like to make images 1/4 size so I can upload them at places where the full-size image is too big) is frequently done easily just with an Imagemagick script.
Are enough people really doing advance
Re:Never Heard of Office 360 (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know about Photoshop, but Gimp also has the worst UI of any software I've used on a semi-regular basis.
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That's fine, but how many people out there actually use PSD files in their work? I'm guessing most office workers out there, and most home users, do not ever get PSD files sent to them, and if they did, they wouldn't know what to do with them. They can use Word and that's about it, perhaps a little Excel and Powerpoint for some of them.
People keep making Photoshop out to be some kind of killer application that nearly everyone with a computer needs to use, but I don't see it. Not everyone is a photographe
Re:Never Heard of Office 360 (Score:4, Insightful)
For a good chunk of the corporate world (or any other place that uses locked down computers) Microsoft Office is the standard file format. It is the way people communicate. As long as you can input and output to those file standards your fine. Just hope there is not anything Microsoft specific like VBA.
Not saying its right, just saying that it is the way it is.
The circle of life (Score:2, Interesting)
First they'll drop the software, then they'll drop the devices, and then they'll be IBM 2.0. How ironic.
Re:The circle of lifen (Score:5, Informative)
I don't think IBM should take your insults lying down. IBM knew when to shift. They may not be high-profile in the PC world anymore, but they've certainly spun off their product lines to companies that could handle them. Meanwhile, IBM themselves haven't exactly disappeared. A quick cut-and-paste from Wikipedia: "In 2012, Fortune ranked IBM the #2 largest U.S. firm in terms of number of employees (433,362),[7] the #4 largest in terms of market capitalization,[8] the #9 most profitable,[9] and the #19 largest firm in terms of revenue.[10] Globally, the company was ranked the #31 largest in terms of revenue by Forbes for 2011.[11][12] Other rankings for 2011/2012 include #1 company for leaders (Fortune), #1 green company worldwide (Newsweek), #2 best global brand (Interbrand), #2 most respected company (Barron's), #5 most admired company (Fortune), and #18 most innovative company (Fast Company).[13]"
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I don't think IBM should take your insults lying down. IBM knew when to shift. They may not be high-profile in the PC world anymore, but they've certainly spun off their product lines to companies that could handle them. Meanwhile, IBM themselves haven't exactly disappeared.
That is because IBM has always been about being in businesses that are higher margin and where they can use their breadth and depth of talent, IP, etc. to their advantage. Once the PC market became a commodity they moved on. Big iron is much harder to commoditize and they can sell services around it that use the computing power as business tools. Even as they spin off some businesses they buy others, such as Monday (PwC Consulting) that fit within their services model.
MS has always been, first and foremost,
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Once the PC market became a commodity they moved on.
No, not exactly. IBM flailed around in the commodity PC market for quite some time before finally exiting. Remember the PS/2 and PS/1? (What ever happened to the PS/0 anyway?) They tried for a long time to push massively overpriced junk in a market full of inexpensive "clones", even attempting to take over the market with proprietary junk like the MCA bus interface, thinking somehow that everyone would give up on the clones and run back to IBM and thei
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Once the PC market became a commodity they moved on.
So no, they didn't "move on" when the PC market became a commodity; it took them a very long time to wake up and smell the coffee, and even then it took them a while before they finally sold off that business unit.
I didn't mean to imply they did so immediately; as you pointed out they tried to differentiate themselves, with little success beyond the thinkPads, to be abel to command a premium. Eventually they simply exited the market when it became they could not get premium pricing. But that is my main point - IBM shifted its focus to areas where they can extract a premium; existing the PC market is just one example of how and when they do that.
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So no, they didn't "move on" when the PC market became a commodity; it took them a very long time to wake up and smell the coffee, and even then it took them a while before they finally sold off that business unit.
To their credit, they moved far quicker and far better than any of their original competitors. Look at HP and Dell (or the companies they merged with) as an example of why IBM is a model for every company trying to divest from a core but dying business.
Re:The circle of lifen (Score:4, Informative)
It's worth remembering that IBM still gets a significant share of its profits from mainframes. It's not the "growth Growth GROWTH" that CEOs chase blindly through the maze, but as a cash cow it allowed IBM to survive a few wrong turns before stumbling onto services as the next big thing.
There's a lesson there for Microsoft, I think.
Re:The circle of lifen (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple is sometimes described as a company that came back from the brink, but for the most part still do what they always did: upper-middle-end computer-driven consumer hardware. IBM went from mostly hardware to mostly services.
I'd disagree - I think Apple did essentially re-invent itself when it switched from Apple Computer to Apple back in '07.
It realized it's future was mobile devices, and despite it's massively profitable iPod franchise, effectively cannibalized it completely with the touch-based offerings, iPhone and iPad. Prior to this change Apple was a Mac/iPod company, afterwards it was the iPhone company (and still is).
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Did IBM really reinvent itself, or just shrink some of it's cthulhu tentacles while expanding others?
Microsoft just never really diversified, it basically has only two tricks, Windows and Office. There are other things profitable for Microsoft but they're tied to those products (ie, Visual Studio, selling certificates, etc). MS has been obstinately resolute about Windows and because they've been a monopoly they've gotten flabby when it comes to competing. People know they're not so great at actual qualit
Better Idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Better Idea (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Better Idea (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Better Idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Linux brings in a substantial portion of my income but statements like that hurt its adoption, not help it. In an "real" corporate environment, Linux isn't free. I've never met a CEO who wanted to base his/her business on unsupported software. By supported, I mean when something goes down, they want a throat to grab (and sue if things get really bad). The result is something like RedHat or OUL, which has support, not definitely isn't free.
Also, if you come into my office and the best pitch you have for Linux on your project is "it's free", you'll be asked to leave.
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Ever actually try to grab a throat at MS? Last time I tried I got "It's our bug, but we have no fix for you. Don't hold your breath for the next version either"
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However, there are plenty of big companies who have hunter-killer lawyers that would be quite capable of making Microsoft notice.
Pics or it didn't happen. I mean it. I've seen such claims about paid software gives sue-happy CEOs warm fuzzies, but I've not heard of it in practice, ever.
Without some indication it's successfully happened, I just don't believe it.
Re:Better Idea (Score:5, Insightful)
> I've never met a CEO who wanted to base his/her business on unsupported software
Then you've not been around much. Plenty of companies outside of a very small set of "glamourous" ones will happily trade a little risk for a really big discount.
Don't try to conflate the Fortune 100 with everyone because it's simply not the case.
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Well said. I think people who pitch "linux is free" have at best some (indeed free) Linux machines at home or work but never worked in enterprise-grade server software business, nor do they know much about it.
Re:Better Idea (Score:4, Insightful)
I think people who pitch "linux is free" have ...
Have what? read the dictionary?
Free means you don't pay anything for it.
You know those "win a car" competitions? Would you claim that the car you win isn't free since it needs petrol?
Would you claim that bending down to pick up $100 on the floor isn't free money since you had to waste potential earning time to pick it up?
Are you going to use a different value of the word "free" from everyone else. Try readinf "the free dictionary". Ha it's a lie: it's not free because you had to pay for internet access!
Re:Linux costs less. Linux does not cost nothing. (Score:4, Insightful)
Speaking as an certified accountant, you cannot possibly come up with a situation where you can install linux in a business for zero cost.
You ignored my argument: then you cannot even call $100 lying on the pavement "free" since it will cost you time (i.e. money) to bend down and pick it up.
Therefore you are not using the commonly used definition of the word "free".
You couls day "Linux costs nothing to acquire", but then again we have a perfectly good word for that: free.
The moment you have a single employee do any work on it you immediately will incur cost.
Doesn't change anything: Linux itself is free. Using it might cost money (no shit!).
Claiming that linux is free of any cost however is utter nonsense and easily shown to be false.
Seriously, this is not what any normal human speaking english means by free.
If you give something to someone "for free" you know like a present, they will not assume that it has zero lifetime cost, unless they are a very special kind of fool.
Just imagine that:
A: Hey look I got this I pad as a present. I love free stuff!
B: it's not free.
A: yes it is I didn't pay for it.
B: No, it's not free.
A: WTF?
B: you have to pay for the electricity to charge it. You spend more in gas in your car driving the extra weight around. Hence not free.
A: fffffffffffuuuuuuuuuu
B: [dies after having a copy of the complete OED land on his head]
Linux is free in any normal definition of the word.
If we use your definition, then nothing ever is free, and free becomes an entirely pointless word since it can be applied to nothing.
Re:Everything has a cost (Score:4)
Nothing is ever free.
Well, here's where we disagree on the meaning of a word. One defintion is used in dictionaries is "free: at no charge".
Linux fits the bill, as do many other things, and I shall keep using this perfectly fine word that I and most of my fellow Englishmen can agree on the meaning of.
Seriously, you are claiming that $100 lying on the floor is not free money. Very few people and dictionaries would agree with you on this one.
And yes I know what opportunity cost is, and what it doesn't do is alter the definition of widely understood words.
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While I generally agree with your post, I wonder is there any throat to grab for theCEO if windows fuxors something up?
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Linux is free period. It's just a fact. Like the sun is bright.
Only because you chose to pay for support, you now proclaim "but but but for support I still have to pay"
Example: I can go to debian.org download and install full Linux. Or I download and install CentOS if I want Redhat Linux.
This is free. Please point to where I can download Windows 2003 Enterprise Server for free (and legal). There is no such site. You have to pay first $$$ to Microsoft.
Now how you handle support is entirely up to you.
You can
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OS support actually does work (Score:4, Funny)
We have a paid relationship with a Linux OS vendor. When we find problems we file bugs into their system, and they generally *do* get addressed. Not always as fast as we'd like or in the exact way that we'd like, but they do get attention.
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Well that's the point, Linux is no longer "free" in that situation.
In any event, a more telling comparison is how the payment is done. If I wanted to stop paying for Red Hat support, I can still use Red Hat for new and existing installs, I'd just lose support calls and RHN. Or I could simply convert to CentOS.
If I stopped paying for Windows, I could use existing entitlements, but I couldn't buy any new ones without dishing out cash.
Additionally, Windows is a pile of garbage that I wouldn't install as serv
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When will Microsoft wake up the fact they release crap, users are getting fed up with it.
People have been putting up with it for over 20 years; why would MS change their strategy now?
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When will Microsoft wake up the fact they release crap, users are getting fed up with it.
People have been putting up with it for over 20 years; why would MS change their strategy now?
Isn't the point of TFA that Microsoft is changing course?
Changing course from scraping along the side of the iceberg to directly ramming into it, but still...
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Re:Better Idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft's strong-point used to be that you could get stuff done with their GUI's without having to read much of the manuals. Average Monday-blawzay hangover employees could click their way to getting stuff up and going via GUI trial and error. While that's not necessarily a lofty advantage, it fit a need and companies liked that.
But they got away from that by stuffing their UI's and tools with "enterprise-level" gobbledygook because they want to compete on IBM's and Oracle's turf. Now they are the worse of both: bloated and bureaucratic without the reliability and support structure of IBM (relatively speaking).
I would recommend they go back to their roots of get-it-done GUI tools or front-ends. They could even do so for Linux front-ends for server admins who don't want to learn Linux command-lines and scripting. Again, I'm not necessary condoning such practices or employees, only saying there is a market (profits) for such tools and they have existing experience there.
Free? Not remotely (Score:2)
your server product make me laugh because Linux can do everything for free and better.
"For free"? Hah! Not hardly. The fact that some linux distros (but not all) are distributed free of charge hardly makes installing linux in a business free of charge. You seem to have neglected the cost of hardware, installation, training, support, application software, integration with existing systems, and data migration just to start. While there are plenty of cases where linux is the better option financially there are NO cases where it is genuinely free. (as in beer)
As for better, that depends en
What in the world are they thinking? (Score:5, Interesting)
Brilliant move! De-emphasize the divisions that bring in the big bucks *and* have a unique advantage over competitors for legacy reasons, while placing even more emphasis on the divisions that lose money and have mediocre market share.
Seriously, this move by Ballmer is about the direct opposite of what a business in transition should do. I wonder how much longer before the stockholders finally kick him out.
To a first approximation, Microsoft *is* Windows and Office. That's what keeps everyone locked in. That's what brings in the big volume licenses. Cede that, and the rest of the edifice collapses entirely. Ballmer might not like it, but Microsoft is a software company and lives or dies on desktop software. The truth is that they have to transition to a more mature company model, paying dividends and making a lot fewer splashes. They aren't ever going to be hip and cool and revolutionary. And their customers don't want them to be.
Re:What in the world are they thinking? (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is they have historically sacrificed everything for windows desktop. Office could be running on other platforms, but it won't for that reason.
The OSX version should not even be called office, since it lacks so many corporate features like Excel services.
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Windows and Office are dying. Microsoft needs to use the remaining revenue they can squeeze from them to start up new division and products without tying them to these dying software systems. So far, almost everything else they have done has failed because it had to be tied to Windows and Office.
Rehabilitation of a Junkie (Score:3)
MS got addicted to their cash cow near-monopolies. If they split up into multiple companies, then each part has to compete on its own and will have to find ways to survive without milk from the Cash Cow. They may flounder at first, but eventually will become competitive again. There's probably no shortcut.
Rehabilitation from addiction can be painful.
Ballmer's delivery services... (Score:5, Funny)
[Steve Ballmer's] objective is to help the company move toward becoming a "devices and services company,"
Maybe he can deliver me a chair?
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Wait, so Ballmer wants to make MS a company that sells things MS has a terrible reputation for?
MS biggest reorganization (Score:5, Funny)
Re:MS biggest reorganization (Score:4, Insightful)
Wishful thinking. If I had moderator points, I would be torn between Funny and Insightful.
Why is Ballmer still CEO? (Score:4, Interesting)
As a naive individual with little to no business knowledge or training, could somebody please explain how Steve Ballmer is still CEO of Microsoft?
What knowledge is the board of directors privy to that the entire rest of the world isn't that has kept him employed for so long?
I *must* be overlooking something to explain how somebody could so completely mismanage Microsoft to the point of irrelevancy and still work there.
Re:Why is Ballmer still CEO? (Score:5, Informative)
Get Your Re-Org Boots On (Score:3)
with Microsoft is because he was lucky enough to have known Bill Gates and Paul Allen
Right, and the board must feel that if they get rid of the 'original team' facet, the stock price will suffer. It's incredibly short sighted - in the long run the founders are dead, so they have to do it sometime unless they're planning to have Bill Gates's head in a jar run the company. But public companies rarely do 'long-term'.
In the meantime, get your re-org boots on [dilbert.com], Microsofties.
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As a naive individual with little to no business knowledge or training, could somebody please explain how Steve Ballmer is still CEO of Microsoft?
A literal interpretation of your sentence is that you are asking someone with little to no business knowledge or training to answer your questions.
(Which is probably what you'll get on Slashdot.)
What knowledge is the board of directors privy to that the entire rest of the world isn't that has kept him employed for so long?
Maybe it's something that *he* knows about the Board of Directors.
Re:Why is Ballmer still CEO? (Score:5, Informative)
As a naive individual with little to no business knowledge or training, could somebody please explain how Steve Ballmer is still CEO of Microsoft?
I would surmise it is a combination of the following:
* Balmer is among the largest shareholders in the company and good buddies with his predecessor who is the largest shareholder and Chairman
*Microsoft has a relatively unimpressive and compliant board largely hand picked by Bill Gates and Balmer
*The fact that despite their problems the company remains hugely profitable which makes it harder for the board to complain even if they were inclined to do so.
*The company's large market cap and strong cash position make them a very unattractive target for a buyout and difficult for activist investors
*There are credible rumors that Balmer culls potential rivals [reuters.com] within the company
I'm sure there are other reasons but those are probably among the bigger reasons.
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Massive stock holdings. He's IIRC the second largest stock holder in Microsoft.
Re:Why is Ballmer still CEO? (Score:5, Funny)
Microsoft needs to hire Ballmer a personal chauffeur to drive him around. Hans Reiser would be the perfect man for the job. He's tanned, rested and experienced.
They also should buy him a house . . . right next to John McAfee would be perfect. That seems to have worked before . . .
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Microsoft is very cleverly following the Harkonnen plan from Dune. Under pressure from the government, Bill Gates needed to leave Microsoft. As such, Harkonnen's brought in "The Beast Rabban" (Steve Balmer).
Rabban's job was to so badly mismanage everything, that anything would be preferable to the continued domination of Steve Balmer. Then, at the appointed moment, Bill Gates can be brought back to rescue Microsoft and save Dune. The regulators will accept Bill Gates, because anything is better than Wi
Bearing in mind (Score:2)
Mis-titled Article (Score:4, Informative)
This article did not discuss the reorganization plans. Instead it whined and complained about Microsoft's poor sales performance.
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Maybe... there are no plans to speak of?
in your dreams (Score:2)
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Wishful thinking. No one ever went broke from underestimating the taste of the American public. I do hope xbox one is a massive failure. I don't really believe it, though.
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Your post is so full of urban myths, disinformation and wrong assumptions, that the only true words I could find were "the", "or", "who", "a" and "and".
"Devices and services company" (Score:3)
Reorgs are internal (Score:2)
Reorgs are rarely the result of or for the benefit of external factors and market pressures. Reorgs exist for two key reasons: inertia and political infighting. Inertia is when senior management gives up on trying to fix unfixable problems and resorts to throwing all the moving pieces in the air and hoping something works. Political infighting is self evident - just turf wars and stepping all over each other for personal gain. First the senior managers try to push specific underlings out of their jobs - and
Article Is Garbage (Score:2)
This guy clearly has no idea what he is talking about. First of all, the new XBox was announced on May 21, not launched. Secondly, yes mobile gaming is increasing due to the popularity of smartphones and tablets, but true gamers aren't going to be flocking to play a new Call of Duty on their smartphone. The next generation
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The article is based almost entirely on rumors and bad information, but that's what you get from these "Forbes Contributor" articles. They're not from the Forbes staff, they're basically a curated set of blogs hosted by Forbes.
MS Languages and platforms a dead end (Score:5, Insightful)
VB6 migration path to VB.net: Fuck you. Recode.
Winforms to Web: Fuck you. Recode.
Silverlight to WPF: Fuck you. Recode.
WPF to anything:Take a guess.
Microsoft Office interface: Fuck you. Retrain.
Windows interface: Fuck you. Retrain.
Old Windows phone: Fuck you.
New Windows phone: Maybe we'll let your app on our store, and by the way. Fuck you.
Why anybody, at this point, would invest *any* time in any windows language or platform is beyone me. Think Android. Think iOS.
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You're missing some:
32-bit to 64-bit ADO.NET drivers (they finally relented and released the 64-bit Access 2010 engine that gives you a few, but that was five years after your 32-bit SQL module completely broke in 64-bit SQL 2005)
SQL Server 2000 -> 2005: When automatically creating object change scripts, the code created in 2005 breaks in 2000 due to system object reorganization, with no backwards compatibility in 2005. Nice.
Flight Simulator (way to kill an immensely popular franchise)
Mechwarrior (Ditto)
Jumping the shark? (Score:4, Insightful)
Is this Microsoft's jumping the shark moment?
Whenever I hear of a large software company suddenly saying they're now a devices and services company, I have to wonder if they have a good grasp on what's happening.
They keep thinking they're going to move everything to the cloud and subscriptions, but I'm not sure if their customers actually want that from them.
One does have to wonder if they're not just trying to figure out what to do next to stay relevant in some segments -- but you have to be sure to not destroy the main revenue streams you already have.
Re:Get your resumes ready guys! (Score:5, Insightful)
The only thing inhibiting Microsoft's growth is incompetence at the top.
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Can't get qualified folks?
Are you high? H1-Bs are limited to prevent a total free fall of developers wages.
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Sounds like you were never involved in hiring tech people in one of the big coastal cities... If your hiring requirement involves anything beyond "can do basic HTML" and you don't pay insane salaries, forget it.
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If by insane you mean the price the market dictates you would be correct.
Fun fact, the price the market dictates is the price the market dictates. If you want cheaper workers, go hire in fly over country.
Re:Get your resumes ready guys! (Score:5, Interesting)
You somehow missed the start of last decade, when market started to become global.
From an employer's perspective, the difference between an US-based remote worker and an India-based remote worker is the salary (to a greater extent) and cultural differences (to a smaller extent, includes English proficiency). Speed of communication is just as good (instantaneous regardless of where you are) and cheap (VoIP).
Apart from some relatively small cultural differences (which can be ignored with little effort), everything else is advantageous for the India-based worker: smaller salary, less pretentious, able and willing to work overtime for insignificant compensation, etc. Even if Quality of Work might (arguably) be lower, you can get 5 IN workers for half the price of an US worker and (arguably) have quantity offset quality. But to date, my 10+ years global workforce experience tells me that IN-based work quality is about 60-70% of US-based quality (valid for coding and support, YMMV) for a much, much lower salary. Mexico, for that matter, is worse than that (mainly due to laziness; they're smart but hellishly lazy).
One more thing to mention: the horrible Indian accent and general incompetence you sometimes encounter when calling support has a very simple root cause: the employer got overly greedy and went for the cheapest outsourcing company they found. their mindset was: "why pay 1/4 of the salary and have good customer service when we can pay 1/7 of the salary and fuck our customers?" - Dilbert method FTW.
Note: My global workforce and outsourcing experience covers USA, Ireland, Germany, France, Italy, Chile, Mexico, India, Romania, China, Singapore, Japan and Egypt. I could literally write a short novel about each.
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Simple: because that's where most of the qualified workers are. Yes, there's some qualified workers in fly-over cities, but not at nearly the density or number of the west coast cities (not even at the density of places like SLC, Phoenix, Colorado Springs, Austin, etc.). Worse, a lot of tech workers simply don't have any interest in living in the ultra-conservative heartland cities like Omaha. Even if you paid relocation for them, you wouldn't find that many takers.
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Well yeah, if you aren't willing to pay market rate, you won't find many takers. You can't hire a surgeon for $80k/yr, either.
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The scary thing is that you actually can. I'd suggest not letting them do much to you, but medicine is getting the same pressures that tech has been hammered with. Plenty of people with medical degrees out there in the world, even half the typical US pay looks pretty good and, despite all the whining around here, the US is still a pretty desirable place to live.
Some of these docs are OK, some are really pretty good. A lot of them are pretty substandard - can do basic stuff but when push comes to shove, t
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Sounds like you were never involved in hiring tech people in one of the big coastal cities... If your hiring requirement involves anything beyond "can do basic HTML" and you don't pay reasonable salaries, forget it.
FTFY
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As others mentioned, its supply and demand. But most countries don't seem to think paying 120k/year+ for someone that can barely get the job done is reasonable....yet if you live in Cali, MA or NY, its the norm.
Thats what I meant by "insane". Do note that I'm among those benefiting from this, so I'm not complaining. I just think its not very surprising that companies will hire in a different country.
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Everything is more expensive in those places.
That's one of the problems in living in such places. If you are here to whine about it then you're an idiot. Move or suck it up.
You don't have to flee to Bhopal either. You can just go to Idaho.
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Re: Get your resumes ready guys! (Score:3)
The point is that if they spent money in Indiana, Ohio, Michigan... They could soak up lots of smart people but its not "trendy" and they won't put money into the system to MAKE trendy spots in Fly Over Country.
Re: (Score:2)
We teach CS and Software engineering where I am (London Ontario).
MS has picked up several of our graduates, some it has shipped to redmond others for the local MS offices. Typical starting salary for a new hire with only a 1 year co-op under their belt is 80k.
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As long as the first ones out the door are the ones that designed and built windows 8 - I'm ALL for that.
Win 8, the greatest thing to happen for Linux - EVER!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You mean Windows 8 is the greatest thing to happen for Apple.
Microsofts screw ups tend to benefit Apple more than Linux.
Re:Get your resumes ready guys! (Score:5, Interesting)
Case in point, this past week my business partner has spent roughly 20 hours upgrading to windows 8 and trying to get Office 2013 to work on her PC. That's 20 hours not spent working on client projects. And we have projects to work on so Windows 8 + Office 2013 have cost us $2000. Meanwhile this week I've worked 20+ hours on projects on my Mac. Just as I have for 10 years now. Yes I know I pay premium upfront for Apple products, but they've stayed out of my way and let me get work done.
Re:Get your resumes ready guys! (Score:4, Funny)
After 10 years you still didn't get your project done?
Man what a slacker.
Re:Get your resumes ready guys! (Score:4, Interesting)
Who do you think approved Win8, and who pushed for the dumb strategy of trying to unify the UI across all devices? It was the guy at the top.
And as the other poster said, Win8 was a boon for Apple, not Linux. Linux shot itself in the foot by adopting the same idiotic unified-UI strategy with Unity and Gnome3. The KDE folks had the right idea, wanting to have different UIs for different devices (but running the KDE libs underneath them all; kde-desktop for the desktops and laptops, kde-netbook for netbooks, and kde-active for phones and tablets), however almost no one in Linux-land wants anything to do with KDE for some reason, and instead they prefer to keep using Gnome, while simultaneously bitching about the Gnome devs and their arrogance and removal of features.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sell the only post-pc success story MS has? (Score:4, Informative)
Except that the Xbox div loses tons of money.
It always amazes me how many people actually think that the Xbox is a highly profitable endeavor for Microsoft. While it has turned profitable recently, the Entertainment & Devices Division (where XBox is accounted for) is only mildly profitable. Nowhere near the profit rate of Microsoft's enterprise and desktop cash-cows. It is a stretch to call the Xbox a fiscal "success", at best one could now say it is not "money-losing". It is highly unlikely that Microsoft could expand the revenues and margins of EDD into a company-sustaining business.
Re: (Score:3)
While it has turned profitable recently, the Entertainment & Devices Division (where XBox is accounted for) is only mildly profitable.
And the Entertainment & Devices Division includes other things besides XBox, including (last I checked) the Macintosh software division. When they stuck the mac stuff in that category, that's when it started actually being profitable.
That, plus with failure rate of the XBox 360 being somewhere near 30% for a while, it's hard to believe they've come anywhere near break-even.
Re: (Score:2)
I would argue that he has in fact mismanaged Microsoft quite well. I have never seen anybody do a better job at mismanaging a company.