News Steve Ballmer to retire as Microsoft CEO

Greetings!

Elops carreer:

 

Microsoft shouldn't hire any CEO who wants to kill bing and XBox.

 

if Elop can't do the monkey dance then I don't want to know about him.

 

If Microsoft’s board of directors was frustrated enough to oust Ballmer, why would they stick with his policies? If the new CEO isn’t given a free rein to do whatever he pleases, why even bother bringing in a new face at all?

 

Depends what the board of directors was frustrated about. It might not be his policies but how he implemented them (look at the disastrous launch of the Surface). It could be that they are looking for a CEO to realise their vision (better), not bring his own.

Again, why plan to ditch the XBox just as they are launching a new model? Why ditch mobile devices when they just bought Nokia? It sounds more like a greedy shareholder's wishful speculating than the vision of Microsoft's future CEO.

 

Well i don't see Elop ditching them the instant he became CEO (if that actually happened) but he may give them notice that if things don't improve they may face closure.

Bing is slowly turning things around and has only been going a relatively short time, on the other hand XBox has at best broke even since it was introduced 12 years ago, and the Mobile/phone department has had many failed attempts in the 12 year they have been trying.

 

XBox is the only bit of Microsoft that the home consumer actually likes. Moreover it is the bit that the younger demographic actually likes. It would be epically stupid to get rid (oh, wait...).

Windows Phone is actually gaining traction. In Europe it takes 10% of the market and in some countries (Italy and parts of Asia) it outsells the iPhone. Mainstream apps are finally appearing (released just today: Vine. Coming in the next month: Flipboard, Instagram). Again, to get rid of it now would be epically stupid. Moreover, it is not an option. If Microsoft wants to have dominance over enterprise server infrastructure, mobile devices are going to be a part of that. They screwed up twice (once when Blackberry took over a market that Microsoft had all the pieces to dominate, and a second time when the iPhone came along); they can't afford to drop the ball a third time.

By the same argument Apple should get rid of iOS, OSX and iWork, because it is not making any money on them --it is giving them away. But of course that would be stupid because they are integral to the overall ecosystem and experience that Apple users pay good money for.

I think all this speculation is BS. Even if Elop had these ideas, why declare them just before the XBox One is launching? Why co-operate wih buying Nokia? It makes no sense on any level except for some greedy, shortsighted shareholders. And they, frankly, are what is wrong with capitalist industry.

 

Not sure how mobile devices have anything to do with enterprise server infrastructure

The articles say Microsoft's lacks focus, so by dumping these lame ducks they would be able concentrate on their core products and as mentioned in the articles license these out to other company's as Elop done with Office and Nokia's Symbian. Don't forget Elop had a lot to do with Office 365 so i don't think its a stretch of the imagination that making this service available on other devices (Apple, Android) would be attractive to him.

And the reason iOS, OSX and iWork don't make any money is because hardly anyone uses them, or wants to use them, not enough to bother licensing them out anyhow. Microsoft on the other hand could make a lot of money by licensing their OS and Office to others company's such as the hypothetically sold off Xbox division.

Yea but it passes the time don't it

 

You'll find out when you want to send confidential documents and emails to your employees out in the field. Or when you want to collaborate on projects with people working away from the office.

Think about it: what good is it to have Office wired into the cloud and Outlook, Lync, InfoPath and all that fancy stuff when you depend on it running on third-party platforms like iOS or Android? Google has already given Microsoft a taste of how it can scupper things when it suddenly decides not to support Microsoft's Exchange servers anymore. You could argue that neither Google nor Apple would have interest in alienating their users who depend on Microsoft infrastructure, but what if they decide to offer their own, competing infrastructure?

Microsoft lost a lot of business opportunities (e-Reader, smartphones, tablets) by "concentrating on core products". It is the reason why it is being outcompeted by Apple and Google and is playing catch-up now.

OK, let's suppose Microsoft ditches XBox, Bing, Windows Phone. Most people use Android mobile devices. Everybody uses Google Search and Google Maps and Google Now. Meanwhile Google suddenly decides to push Google Docs more fiercely, really souping it up and integrating it in its cloud services; kills support for Microsoft Exchange server support on Android phones and tablets and releases Android as a desktop OS which already has Steam and Google Play: plenty of games and media, and since the XBox was dumped there is no incentive to create games for the Windows platform because you can't just port them from XBox. It also decides to stop supporting Windows: no more Google Chrome browser . It might even make its web services unusable on IE (it has already done similar shenanigans on WP in the past).

What is the incentive to stick with Microsoft at all? It offers an OS that has dwindling support by popular software, no games and some expensive business productivity software that functions only in a limited enterprise ecosystem, doesn't play nice with mobile devices and that Google does better and cheaper. Microsoft goes the way of BlackBerry. The PC market gets cold feet and decides to produce and sell devices running Android, not Windows. Microsoft loses its only two cash cows.

The survival of a company lies in its adaptibility to an ever-changing ecosystem: in having a wide genetic diversity to draw on. It needs its fingers in many pies, even if a percentage of them never comes off. What you are suggesting is that Microsoft becomes a highly specialised pedigree animal that can only function in a very specific environment, and does not have the genetic range to adjust and adapt when it is outcompeted by other animals.

 

I'm not the one suggesting it.
I'm merely pointing out why the articles and some people are saying Elop may drop the lame ducks so as to sharpen the company's focus into products that actually make money, and would make a lot more if instead of restricting their products to only running on Windows, they licensed them out to be used on other device.

 

OK, OK, what some (shortsighted) people are suggesting (stop crying! Awww geez... sorry... sorry...)

 

You gotta remember these people also ousted Ballmer at a time that probably wasn't ideal.
Just after the major re-org when people could probably do without knowing their CEO is abandoning ship.

now i feel like i have to say sorry to, did i make improper use of a smiley or are you using your brain voodoo on me

 

Yeah, but possibly some negotiating has been going on around that. I note that Microsoft has just announced that they're dropping the stacked ranking system of employee performance evaluation (finally!). Another move towards 'One Microsoft'.

 

Greetings!

Testing the water?

 

The Microsoft guys that got rich in the 90's are now part of the problem. They keep believing that it is still the 90's, when Microsoft had virtually no competition, most computer devices were desktops and a few laptops, and they were all getting fat and complacent on the profits of extracting maximum value from Windows and Office. As such they systematically shoot down any innovation by younger team members because they think they know better --they've got the millions to prove it.

It is not the 90's anymore. They rode a wave, but the sea has changed now. They are out of date and out of touch. I mean, just as the XBox One is being launched he floats this idea --it shows how much awareness he lacks of what is going on.

 

You never know this generation of consoles maybe the last consoles ever made.

 

Possibly. I think it is just going to shift towards cheap, powerful consoles with more open architecture. The future is Steam boxes and more indie development. I think that's a good thing.

 

Well i was think more of tablets or maybe even phones replacing them.

 

People will still want something on a big screen. But you may get dockable cradles.

 

And for that tablets could just be plugged into the TV, or stream content to it. Maybe they cant do it now, but in 5 or 6 years who knows. We already have NVidia shield and the Steam Machine as proof of concept and i can only see mobile devices getting more powerful.