The Microsoft High-Profile Exodus Continues 331
snydeq writes "Bing principal Scott Prevost is the latest of several high-profile exits from Microsoft in the wake of Bob Muglia's departure, causing some to question the long-term outlook for Redmond, InfoWorld reports. While the departures have spanned the company's business divisions, the concern centers square on the Microsoft core: 'Microsoft's numbers are looking good in the short term, but the future of core products remains unclear, and so far, Redmond's cloud and mobile strategies don't seem to be paying off.'"
Mayeb Not a Bad Thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Given how Microsoft has faltered in the marketplace, has failed to innovate and continues to misunderstand its customers, perhaps the old guys need to go.
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BillG? What does Gates have to do with this? Microsoft has been Ballmer's show for a while now.
Re:Mayeb Not a Bad Thing? (Score:5, Funny)
This only goes to show that you can't fix some problems just by throwing more chairs at it.
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Maybe it's time for big (err...meager) Bill to make a comeback. Let's face it, Ballmer isn't and never will be an innovator nor a visionary. He's like what would happen to Jobs if Jobs lost his ability to understand the simpleton market and create products that can only stand up to media attention and not nerd potential. You know, Jobs is a salesman. Ballmer however is good at churning profit from stuff that already exist, and might be the reason Microsoft is always playing catch up. What is the most innova
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What is the most innovative product Microsoft has created since Gates left?
Surely kinect has to fit in there somewhere.
Kinect is not Microsoft innovation (Score:5, Informative)
1) it was developed and researched outside microsoft - they bought the tech and payed to have it mass produced; the concepts involved are even older.
2) The motion capture craze was created by Nintendo years ago and before that they attempted the idea with the failed power glove because the tech wasn't good enough back then to pull it off. (Although I saw a university VR lab put that glove to use as a 6degree motion controller)
3) Kinect is not that innovative, its an improvement to an existing idea of Nintendo's. Arguably, its not even an improvement because for many Wii games you only need the acceleration motions to play just fine and after the 1st hours of swinging around like an idiot I discovered I could do just as well sitting down using much smaller motions. I'm not just talking about the simple applications where the motion is really simple. Its more flexible to different styles of input. The kinect is a literal minded approach to somebody who doesn't quite "get it" which is typical Microsoft thinking. Take the motion thing and throw money at it and buy everything that lets you technically do the thing as well or better at an initially HUGE expense. They miss the concept of your natural inclination to move the controller about while STILL holding a controller and go 150% for capturing my body's motion. Its great for dance and stuff but its targeting an even SMALLER niche than nintendo's technically limited approach. If Nintendo did kinect, it would be done better because they are the true creative thinkers.
The person who needs to leave (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The person who needs to leave (Score:5, Interesting)
> The person who needs to leave ...
> is Balmer.
Why? Does Microsoft bring some inherent value to the software development field?
IMHO, they have done more to hamper the entire field than everybody else, primarily by using illegal methods to kill a number of really innovative operating systems back in the 80's and 90's.
And they still try to freeze new markets by spreading FUD while copying existing products instead of actually making something new.
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The masses were already using computers, Commodore were big, as were Atari. They basically played a bait and switch with people who wanted the openness offered by the x86 clone market.
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They basically played a bait and switch with people who wanted the openness offered by the x86 clone market.
Bait and switch? how so?
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Re:The person who needs to leave (Score:4, Informative)
Yes. I don't know if you are old enough to remember, but back then Intel-based computers were freakin' expensive. The only reason they persisted was 1) severe mismanagement within Commodore/Amiga which had some of the best selling computers with really great features (color display, 8-bit sounds) and 2) the IBM PC internals were very open (as in any company could expand on it).
The only reason Microsoft got in it's position was mismanagement within their competitors' base (especially Apple) and Microsoft already had a foot in the door selling OEM DOSes to computer manufacturers. Microsoft also sold their products much cheaper (between $15 and $30 compared to $60 for DR-DOS, $250 for CP/M and $200 for OS/2) while those other OS'es had far better system management especially once the 386 came out (Protected Mode and 32-bit being severely behind in MS-DOS until 1998).
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Probably not, you point out the benefits that the hardware market being opened up has given us...
Now consider if those same benefits had extended to software as well?
Openness in software basically got sacrificed or overlooked as people moved to open hardware, so now we've got to a state where hardware is highly competitive but software is largely dictated by microsoft through marketing and lock-in.
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Even if I accepted your premise that they "brought computing to the masses" (which needless to say I don't), they don't get to charge rent on it ad infinitum. They've been out-innovated, out-engineered, and just flat out-hustled by the competition for the last decade. They can ride the wave for a little while longer yet, but make no mistake, their fifteen minutes are up.
Re:The person who needs to leave (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple (almost) went through this (voluntarily) once already with John Scully, it's about to happen again when Steve Jobs dies "suddenly". I expect a lot of "Apple loses their mojo" stories following that.
And before anyone says I'm some kind of Microsoft asrtoturfer, let me say that I'm a Gentoo-using Microsoft hater of long, long standing. I'm just saying that none of this should be surprising.
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Balmer was BillG's right hand man, he is part of the old guard - except unlike BillG he has no vision whatsoever.
By replacing the old guard, I suppose some of us hope we will get a "new" different MS - hopefully innovative and non-evil.
MS has a tremdous amount of resources and probably some very smart people working for them, it would be nice to see them put it to good use.
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>
MS has a tremdous amount of resources and probably some very smart people working for them, it would be nice to see them put it to good use.
Absolutely true. The question is, can they rise above the hoards of mediocre employees to make a difference? I watched DEC succumb to this fate, long before Compaq and HP ate them up.
Or instead the... (Score:2)
... Developers, developers, developers, developers.
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... Developers, developers, developers, developers.
That's what Linux/open source needs.
Re:Mayeb Not a Bad Thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Kinect is the most innovative product?
By Kinect, you mean the more advanced version of the EyeToy [wikipedia.org], right?
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No, I think the good Dr. is referring to a device which uses an infrared projector to cover the room in an array of invisible dots which are then picked up by an infrared camera to rapidly create a 3 dimensional map of objects in the space, not an over-priced webcam.
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Riiiight, nothing new or interesting in the iPad. No innovation in the Chevy Volt or the Nissan Leaf either.
I'll grant you, Microsoft can make and market a better toy. But they can't invent one. "Microsoft Innovation" is an oxymoron.
If you recall, the Kinect was invented at Carnegie Mellon three years ago by a grad student who _later_ went to work at Microsoft:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Lee_(computer_scientist) [wikipedia.org]
Oops, Johnny Chung Lee left Microsoft already. He just went to Google:
http://procrast [blogspot.com]
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and who is kinect developed by? oh thats right PrimeSense.
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On the software side, Kinect Adventures is selling quite well, but it's only slightly above Wii Sports which has been out for 218 weeks. Moreover, if you plot the total sales of Kinect Adventures [vgchartz.com], you see that sales have collapsed. Part of this is due to the
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Considering how difficult it has been to make Android "tablet-ready," I'd say you're underestimating it.
Android is a hell of a lot different to iOS. iOS was pretty much a tablet OS already.
What specific difficulties are you referencing that Android has had to overcome that iOS has already 'innovatively' overcome?
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So ripping off an 7 year old product but doing more to market it is the most innovative product of the year?
Yeah the iphone is just a ripoff of the nokia 3210. Seriously it's pretty obvious you've never actually used kinect if you think it's fundamentally the same as eyetoy.
You should have it this good. (Score:3, Informative)
Given how Microsoft has faltered in the marketplace, has failed to innovate and continues to misunderstand its customers, perhaps the old guys need to go.
Microsoft Reports Record $0.77 Earnings Per Share in Second Quarter [slashdot.org]
Among the factors driving Microsoft's record revenues and earnings per share was the 55% growth in revenue for the Entertainment & Devices Division, as the success of the Kinect sensor boosted sales of Xbox 360 consoles, Xbox Live subscriptions and Xbox games.
Microsoft Business Division revenue grew 24% year-over-year. Office 2010 is the fastest-selling consumer version of Office in history, with license sales over 50% ahead of Office 2
"The iPad Is Not Killing Microsoft's Business" (Score:3, Informative)
URL Fix: Microsoft Reports Record $0.77 Earnings Per Share in Second Quarter [ttkn.com]
Here is another look at Microsoft's second quarter.
Microsoft may be a big, sprawling company, but it's hardly acting like a deer in the headlights facing a speeding Steve Jobs at the wheel. Given the decades-old and often bitter rivalry between Apple and Microsoft, that narrative is tempting. But a deeper look into Microsoft's report reveals a company that's surprisingly nimble for its size.
First of all, the idea that Microsoft can't create a phenomenon like the iPad anymore simply isn't true. The iPad sold 2 million units in its first 60 days. The Kinect sold four times as many, tapping mainstream interest much sooner.
What's especially interesting is that the Kinect sold so well despite the lack of buzz in the tech media. Comparing Google search and news trends for the word "Kinect" with that of "iPad," and you'll find that the iPad attracted much more of the public conversation. And yet the Kinect's 8 million sales in November and December surpassed the 7.3 million iPads that Apple sold in the entire fourth quarter.
Factoring out the effect of the Windows launch, Microsoft estimated growth around 3%, "in line with PC market growth." Again, 3% growth isn't terrific, but it's nowhere near as bad as the headline figure suggests.
Even if Microsoft's Windows revenue does start to slide in coming years, the company can weather the blow. Sure, Windows revenue makes up a quarter of Microsoft's total sales. But its business-software division -- including Office, as well as SharePoint and Exchange -- contributes 30% of its revenue, and that division expanded its profit by 35% last quarter.
Other divisions are seeing similarly strong profit growth. Microsoft's server and tools division, which makes up another 22% of revenue, saw its profit rise by 21%. And the entertainment group, which makes Xbox and Kinect and accounts for 19% of revenue, posted profit growth of a whopping 86%.
The threat of tablets to Microsoft is real and shouldn't be trivialized. But neither should Microsoft's ability to keep sales and profits growing in other areas of its broad-based businesses.
No, the iPad Is Not Killing Microsoft's Business [dailyfinance.com]
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They should fail. The market demands they fail. They've only survived as long as they have because of their artificial Windows monopoly on OSes and software.
Why are they still trying with the Zune? I heard the latest model sold somewhere like 2,000 copies total. Wow. Meanwhile the ipod and iphone are EVERYWHERE. My grandma has one.
Also, they keep pushing IE. And who the hell still uses IE? Its a complete joke. Free products (firefox, chrome, opera, etc. etc.) are far super
Re:Mayeb Not a Bad Thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Copying is not innovation. Releasing an AV to correct problems in your own OS is not innovation. They allow streaming? As opposed to what, denying it?
It is your computer slick.
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Copying can be innovation if your copy is better. See any Apple product in the past ten years.
Releasing the best AV on the market for free is innovation, even if it is to protect your own system. If it's not innovative, then why can't Kaspersky or Eset or Norton keep up?
Allowing streaming isn't innovative, but it is good. Do you really think Apple would allow open-source competitors to AppleTV to run on their platforms?
Microsoft isn't really the evil monopoly they used to be. They are oftentimes inept (
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I have to say this is a bad example, since Apple seems to have a cult following that are going to buy Apple products no matter what. Kind of like Amiga had back in the day, you know the type that would just go ON AND ON about how wonderful their Amiga was. Thing is, I think the Amiga was much more to the PC market than what Apple is today. Ahh, but there's a skinny guy in the same old jeans and turtleneck, and you get white apple stickers when you buy the produc
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>> It's the branding.
>
> Keep telling yourself that, and some day your wish may come true.
Nothing cures your regard for Apple as a technology company as fast as using a Mac.
Of course most people don't. Macs are an expensive proposition if you haven't already drunk the cool-aid. Not many people are geeky enough to blow that kind of money on "just trying something out".
Long Term Strategy to Take Down Apple (Score:5, Funny)
Actually, the future of Redmond is secure. They're strategically letting all these folks go, so that they can all go work for, and eventually destroy, Apple from the inside out. It's like the Cylon infiltration of the human race on Caprica in BSG...
Or Google, or both.
Bing (Score:4, Interesting)
Bing principal Scott Prevost...
Considering Slashdot's other Bing story today, I can't say I'm sad to see him go.
Vote of no-confidence? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Vote of no-confidence? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Vote of no-confidence? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Also, it's possible that too-rich, too-old, undermotivated managers are at the heart of Microsoft's apparent stagnation.
This sounds very logical... it would be in-line with the corporate reasoning behind the "streamlining" of the amazing health benefits they used to have (well in addition to the fact that health insurance is outrageously expensive and getting more and more so).
Re:Vote of no-confidence? (Score:5, Funny)
When the ship is headed toward an iceberg and the captain is being stubborn or unaware, the best course of action is often evacuation.
Otherwise, it's just like throwing chairs on the Titanic?
Sorry, couldn't resist.
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Simple explanation (Score:5, Insightful)
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Microsoft now gives RSUs since as you point out the stock gain is not great anymore. They made the change in 2003. RSUs are basically outright grants of stock that are available for you to sell after some vesting period.
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You don't think the "velvet handcuffs" aren't renewed from time to time?
I thought it was the general practice to keep granting appropriate number of ISO/NQSO/RSU for your mid-to-high-performers... at least that's how it was when I was a big-company employee.
Ex-Microsoftie (Score:5, Interesting)
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a small software company as a CTO with about $100million in sales last year
sorry but 100m a year isn't considered "a small ... company" by anyone. smaller than MS yes.. but not small.
Depends on the number of people (Score:2)
I've worked in a large range of companies.
I'd say anything under 100 people is "small", or small enough that you gain most of the same benefits in terms of increased responsibility and some lack of excessive management that you get from a "large" company.
A company that size, could be doing 100m in sales (didn't say if that was gross or net after all).
Even if it's mid-size though you can often be better off than with a truly large and ossified company. Certainly I think that would be true early on in your c
Re:Ex-Microsoftie (Score:4, Interesting)
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You know the economy is healing when conversations turn from "Grab any job available" to "Never work at THAT place".
Re:Ex-Microsoftie (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe I'm stuck in the 80s, but it seems like you just described IBM.
Quick, what's the Microsoft Company Song?
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Your experience echos every developer I know at Microsoft who isn't working on one of their dev products. People talk about EA burning out their game devs, but Microsoft seems to do the same thing.
Lack of communication between and within teams despite an abundance of useless meetings, customer-focused red tape, developer infighting, and poor management all make progress slow to a halt.
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That is the trouble with most big companies, if you are into politics these places are a great way to spend your days, for all other people it's a nightmare.
Most awful things are the hypocritical political correctness and the backstabbing that takes place by these so called political correct hypocrites.
It's an environment where psychopaths thrive.
Microsoft can't be all things to all people (Score:5, Insightful)
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I agree completely. It seems like Microsoft has some sort of complex where they feel like they need to be involved in everything that has anything to do with personal computers or consumer electronics. It would be great to see them jettison all of the dead weight, clean up the company with some serious re-structuring, and then focus their enterprise on providing a solid OS and application stack to developers and businesses.
Re:Microsoft can't be all things to all people (Score:5, Insightful)
I think part of Microsoft's problem is that in the Office and OS markets in particular, their biggest competitor is themselves. They've made their products good enough where people don't bother upgrading when the new version comes out.
They could intentionally break backwards compatibility with former products to try and get people to upgrade but that doesn't really work for them. Case and point: they ended up releasing the backwards compatibility add-on so Office 2003 could read and write the 2007/2010 file formats.
I doubt they will really give up trying to break into new markets, they have their huge install base of core products to fall back on. It isn't like they are hurting for cash.
Re:Microsoft can't be all things to all people (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course they won't give up. You have to diversify as a business. Suppose cloud computing had an overnight revolution and all of a sudden you don't need a specific operating system anymore? Suppose Windows was found to be infringing on some stupid patent that all of a sudden would require massive code rewrite and/or licensing settlements? Suppose some other example that just made Windows and Office no longer relevant.
You _have_ to diversify if you're a business. You never know when things will crash, or if some dark horse suddenly takes the scene by storm and makes you irrelevant. You can't just sit on your chips. You have to use them to make more. Otherwise, you run the risk of perishing. Fast.
Re:Microsoft can't be all things to all people (Score:4, Interesting)
The more fields your business dominates, the safer it is. So, something can't come along and kill your business completely. The only thing missing here seems to be a viable long term plan. MS does its best when it can leverage one product with another. Right now the jury is out on Windows Phone 7, however the desktop is safe, as well as Office, and while they seem to have missed the ball on slate type computers, they seem to have solidified their hold on laptops and netbooks.
Their fear might be, if they were to focus on one thing (desktop) then something innovative could come along and wipe them out quickly. Now, they are spread out among several markets and one innovation cannot come along and give them serious trouble.
My two cents: It will happen eventually, but they are delaying it magnificently.
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It's largely due to their model I'd say. Their core business is Desktop/ Server OS and Office. Their strategy is to keep you locked into their core products rather than make you want to stay with their core products. It seems their approach to this is to try and make sure everything else you do leads back to a logical decision to do it on Windows.
ie. If you use IE as your browser you are essentially locked into Windows. If you use WinMo 7 on your phone then it is easier to manage on Windows. If you ha
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Because they have to diversify, sooner or later the OS and office suite markets will become commoditised.
They are trying to enter new markets now while they have a significant source of income and can afford to take serious losses for a few years before they establish themselves (see xbox). If they have no replacement revenue stream when their core ones dry up, they would be pretty screwed.
Re:Microsoft can't be all things to all people (Score:5, Insightful)
Resting on past laurels (Score:3, Interesting)
Other than maybe Xbox which isn't a major cash cow when have they released a hit product? The vast majority of their revenues still come from Office and Windows and related products. Take away those core products and there's virtually no company. It's not just innovation they seem to have trouble coming up with new products that a majority of people like. If they did have to start from scratch even with all their cash reserves they'd end up a minor player.
High Profile? Um.... (Score:2)
No, because maybe it doesn't matter. Was he some epic tech innovator, or just a business management type dude? My money's on the latter, and that means nowt.
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Product Manager, i.e. herder of developers. Came from Powerset, who Microsoft bought to pump up MSN Search into BinG!!
Mobile strategy (Score:2)
Combine this with no tablet presence at all, and you have MSFT positioning itself as trying to hold onto the shrinking desktop market.
Give it a rest already (Score:2)
WinMo 7 has been out for 3 months. In that time it has not gained complete dominance (or close) of the mobile market. Paint me surprised?
How long was it until Android started gaining any real traction? A lot lot longer if I remember correctly.
Et fin.
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Hell it has not sold many phones at all. WInMo 7 is stillborn. They will lose money on this and keep it up until WinMo9 when they finally manage to force a product onto the market.
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http://mashable.com/2010/12/21/windows-phone-7-sales/ [mashable.com]
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It's 1.5 million sold by MS to operators and retail stores. There's still no publicly available figure for the number of phones sold by those operators and stores to actual users.
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It is about choice Neo (Score:5, Interesting)
Many people first used Windows not by choice, but by mandate -- there was no other option and the Microsoft monopoly made sure it stayed that way. (unless you bought a Mac) My guess is many people have found the MS experience frustrating and a general PITA, but there was never any other choice. They had to live with the shoddy time wasting experience Microsoft called computing.
Now given the option of having their "desktop experience" on their "phone" or "pad" I am sure many people are interested in real alternatives. My prediction is no matter how hard Microsoft tries to play the "we are the future of computing because we invented everything" song and dance, most users will chose iOS and Android for exactly that reason. Hi-tech karma at its best.
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If Microsoft doesn't cannibalize windows, someone else (probably Google) will do it for them... Apple is already taking a large chunk of the high end.
Last one out... (Score:2)
... be sure to power down the NT box running hotmail.
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It's actually a BSD box, but don't tell anyone.
Why is this news? He's not super-duper-senior (Score:4, Informative)
I have no idea why this made the news. The artcile says he is "a" principle development manger, not "the" principle development manger.
"Principle" is a job title:
Mangers go like this
For several years, I was "a" princpiple development manger in Windows. Im now a principle lead becuase there was a specific team I wanted to be a part of. If I leaft, it would be news.
-foredecker
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Good lord, it's "principal"!
I've always found it disturbing (Score:2)
Steve Ballmer should have been fired immediately after his infamous DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS monkey dance. Seriously. This is the guy you want running the biggest software company in the world? However, all the articles I've read always say two disturbing things:
(1) Microsoft's Board of Directors thinks Steve Balmer is just wonderful because during the 10 years he has been CEO Microsoft's revenue has tripled and profits have doubled.
(B) Even if they wanted to get rid of Balmer, there's nobody who can repl
Healthy (Score:2)
History repeats itself (Score:4, Informative)
Back when "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM", they had an exodus of top talent, too -- just before things went south for the company. Luckily, they were in the process of repositioning them self as a service company instead of a hardware company.
Both companies followed the same "fat-cat" syndrome. Small lean company innovates and captures a large part of the market. As company grows, focus shifts to maintaining status quo. Company becomes too large and lazy (fat cat) to respond quickly to changing environment. Somebody else becomes the new lean tiger. Pattern repeats for new comer. Fat cat isn't just for technology companies. It happens in all industries. It's just that change occurs so quickly in technology companies that instead of taking decades to be toppled, it happens in years. Both IBM and Microsoft lasted longer at the top of their game than most technology companies, but the same forces are still at work.
Back when they were trying to bust up Microsoft for being a monopoly (again, same thing happened to IBM), was when they needed to change. Microsoft had the opportunity to get rid of all competition with Office by improving the product. Instead, they chose to change file formats to try and make the competitors incompatible. That is a very short sighted solution, as it also makes your own installed product base incompatible. Next, they re-did the interface, but still didn't really improve upon the functionality. Next they played around with pricing structures and actually started to remove features, accept for the top end product. Again, not a long term growth strategy. A similar scenario played out with the browser and the OS itself.
Meanwhile, others in the tech industry have been chipping away at Microsoft. Nobody is saying that OpenOffice/LibreOffice will topple Microsoft Office. It doesn't have to. Just like Mozilla, Safari and now Chrome, it only has to take a percentage of small percentage of market share to make a big impact on Microsoft's bottom line.
It's like the prevent defense in football (American Football, that is). It may keep the opposing team from making the big play, but gives up a tremendous amount of yardage in the process. Then, one small mistake and the opposing team scores.
Microsoft, like many before it, has become too large and inflexible to adjust to quick change in the modern market and relies on protecting itself with a prevent defense. The problem with that is that in football, you only need to keep the other team from scoring until the clock runs out. In business, there is no clock to signal the end of the game.
Look at that! (Score:2)
Good riddance (Score:2)
Doesn't MS have mad cash reserves? (Score:2)
As in they could coast for years without bringing in a dime?
I wouldn't count them out any time soon.
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Why did the slashdot re-design not also update that stupid Microsoft icon here? It is so dated and lame, I wonder if anybody over 20 even understand the references to it.
Now it looks like Woody Allen. Not sure that it helps the under 20 set, though. What would you suggest? Ballmer's armpits?
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DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS...
Nah, also dated. Nobody under 25 would get that one. Or connect it to MS. "Developers and MS? If anything, developing for Windows is a pita, why would that..."
How about... (Score:2)
They do that thing they did with other corporations and their products?
Like Google, Apple, Intel, Android, iOS, Facebook (both the square AND the rectangular version), SONY...
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Could cause seizures and other health problems.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Smith [wikipedia.org]
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Seriously.... Gates doesn't even work there any more, and Apple is more borg-ish than MS, what with the tight control over hardware.
I know /. is strictly anti-MS, but they could at least update the picture to a flying chair, if only to stay relevant.
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Why did the slashdot re-design not also update that stupid Microsoft icon here? It is so dated and lame, I wonder if anybody over 20 even understand the references to it.
Even fucking facebook has the real logo on this site, and you guys can't use the real Microsoft logo by now?
Yeah perhaps Mr. Smith is the more updated version of the Borg, fitting to represent Microsoft.
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Gawd, pennystock spammers in /. now, how low did we go!
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Wont happen in your life time. MS or the US. Both are way too rich... and if it comes to that MS has mice, US has nukes.
Besides absolutely nothing is stopping MS from reinventing themselves and releasing a Linux distro.