Following my #1 prediction yesterday of dire consequences in 2014 for Microsoft some readers challenged me to say what should happen this year in Redmond to right the ship. Is it even possible? So here’s my answer which isn’t in the form of a prediction because I doubt that it will actually happen. But if it actually does come to pass, well then I told you so.
At this point in Microsoft’s history the only CEO who could follow Steve Ballmer and be more or less guaranteed to be successful is Bill Gates. I think Bill should take back his old job for awhile.
This line of thinking was suggested to me, by the way, by aerodynamic software specialist John Dreese, who is very clever.
Microsoft has become IBM, though not the rotten and corrupt IBM of today. Microsoft has become the IBM of the 1980s and early 90s when Steve Ballmer managed that most important customer relationship for Redmond. Ballmer learned as much from IBM as he did from Microsoft, Proctor & Gamble, or Stanford Biz School. It’s just a lot of what he learned hasn’t been that useful.
So Microsoft is today top-heavy with bad management — managers managing managers who are managing managers — and has for the most part lost its way. Ballmer, whom I have always liked by the way, is trying to lead like Jack Welch because he can’t lead like Bill Gates, simple as that.
Yet Ballmer is neither Welch nor Gates and that’s the problem.
He’s done a fair job of minding the business but not a very good job of minding either the culture or the technology.
If Ballmer stays on the Microsoft Board, anyone who follows him as CEO will be subject to undo criticism and a very short event horizon — anyone that is except Bill Gates. Ballmer has no power over Gates and Gates for the most part doesn’t even care what Ballmer thinks.
But why would Bill Gates even want the top job at Microsoft? He’s moved on, after all, to curing malaria and saving the world, right?
Bill Gates would take the job on the right terms if it allowed him to realize a goal and imitate Steve Jobs.
Bill always admired Steve and marveled at his ability to inspire workers. Bill also pretty much gave up the idea that he could ever compete with Steve. But I think the current situation might change that. Bill might just now be able to out-Steve Steve.
The problem is Windows. The unified code base between desktops, tablets and phones was a mistake. Apple has OS X and iOS — two different code bases — for a very good reason. A phone is not a PC and a PC is not a phone. But to this point Microsoft has been too proud, too stupid, and too caught up in its own internal nonsense to admit this.
The only person who could cut through the crap at Microsoft and fix this mess is Bill.
Take the job for one year and $1 with the goal of delivering two new operating systems in 365 days — Windows 9 and Microsoft Phone.
Bill has mellowed and matured in his time away. He’s simply a better person than he was and I think a better leader, too. Nor are the troops as over-awed as they used to be, which is good.
Bill could do this, and by doing so earn even more money for his foundation.
But will he?
No credit to people who responded to your request for predictions when you use one almost verbatim?
Gates simply DOES NOT MATTER. I don’t understand why he still has this aura around him. When he was in charge he was mostly IGNORED by the managers managing managers, managing… He is not up to the job, because he couldn’t even do it when the company was much smaller.
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They need a CEO who will ruthlessly cut the layers of fat and force the productive units to code what the market needs. Right now they follow nobody’s leadership, and code crap that is acceptable to the internal politics. They will never get a CEO like that because Ballmer and Gates are too arrogant to give up control. So the slide will continue.
Good recommendation: Get Bill Gates to run Microsoft.
Bad recommendation: Discard the unification strategy.
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Yeah, that’s the most technically ignorant and disastrous thing I’ve heard Cringely recommend in recent times. Apple’s major platforms all use a unified code base, running Cocoa APIs on Darwin. The unified code base is what allowed Apple, the computer company, to produce the most revolutionary phone of the past decade. The unified code base then allowed Apple to extend that phone into a true smartphone and then the most revolutionary tablet. There is no technical reason why a phone would run a limited OS anymore.
At Microsoft, the unified code base allowed the Xbox to achieve dominance. The lack of a unified code base is what crippled the Windows Phone before the 2012 release of Windows Phone 8. What stymies Microsoft now is that, while the underlying kernel is unified across Microsoft’s platforms, the API has been insanely fragmented. This is probably because of Microsoft’s notoriously adversarial culture.
Microsoft doesn’t need the different platforms to be fragmented again. Microsoft needs somebody to get the scattered platform and development teams together, and spank them all until they cooperate and produce unified APIs. As well-received as Windows Phone has been, I suspect that they have to cull it and replace it with Windows RT. But only if they build a good phone experience on Windows RT. They’ll also have to make Windows RT backwards-compatible with Windows Phone applications.
I think a massive number of people have based too much on what are merely/largely fixable failures to date in the unified code base direction. Although I understand many of the arguments against the concept (given at least today’s hardware architectures, though to me that seems incredible short-sighted; in the near future, all hardware will be equally voice-accessible, bypassing most physical interface issues) and I understand (but don’t agree with) the argument people don’t want a unified code base, I do not understand people whose criticism of Win8’s flavors is based solely or primarily on the many easily fixable issues.
Most people don’t give a $*** about a unified code base. They care about the interface the same way most people don’t care what kind of radiator their car has they just want to make sure they can drive the damn thing.
I argue that Apple’s current approach of have a separate touch interface and a separate keyboard/mouse interface makes sense. I argue that Microsoft’s combination of the two is confusing at best and counterproductive at worse.
Your argument that voice will control both at some point is interesting and definitely minimizes differences between the two. But I wonder if “voice” actually becomes a third interface.
Xbox achieved dominance because the online experience is more consistent than Playstation, and I don’t think that has anything to with their code base. Not that I am disagreeing with your larger point, but I have known far more people with Xbox bricks than PS bricks, and in every other way I prefer the Sony experience.
It’s very plausible that only Bill Gates has the clout to override Steve Ballmer unless the latter entirely leaves the company and sells his shares (fat chance). However, on product strategy I have to agree with “R.” The problem with Windows 8 was not that it attempted unification but that it was not nearly unified enough. WinRT and Win32 are two almost totally separate systems, making a Win8 hybrid hardly better than just using an iPad and a Win7 laptop side-by-side — actually worse because WinRT is so immature and has a weak ecosystem. For bonus insanity, WinRT itself is incompatible with Windows Phone!
MS needs to face the challenge of making a unified system across all devices that’s backward compatible and scales properly all the way up to traditional desktop use. They failed with Win8 because they didn’t even try, not because it’s the wrong strategy. Unification is a growing trend in the industry: Ubuntu Unity has been at it for a while, Apple is by all accounts preparing a 13″ iPad Pro that would compete with notebooks (despite Apple propaganda to the contrary), and the first PC manufacturers are delivering Android on desktops (with appropriate custom window managers). Rolling back the idiocy of the present Win8 setup is necessary, but if MS doesn’t try again with a better approach they’ll be left behind once more.
I’m with Chris here. Win 8 is cranky enough if you want to run it in desktop, and I may never get used to the “live edges,” where every time you bump one, uncommanded and frustrating things happen.
but the object code is way different between RT and PC, and the whole thing looks like a sideshow if you somehow got deluded into thinking you could interoperate between them. there are different processors with different opcodes and you can’t shovel apps from one into the other. Android doesn’t have that. Apple gets around it by making you flush things through the cloud or the iTunes store. Windows mumbles something about Azure and never follows up, so the users are grousing.
Microsoft has to jump one way or the other, and stop trying to sit on the razor wire. go ARM or go home. you could put an emulator on the desktop like Apple did in the switch from PowerPC to Intel processors and automatically switch into and out of it depending on whether the first line of code caused an exception, or if MS was smart enough to put an “ear” on their apps, switch by ear. which Jobs did with MacOS 1.0 to identify both app and creator on all docs.
but MS has to either stop the “unified” talk or get off the fence.
No, not going to happen. Tech journalists and pundits love the idea, it would a great “story,” and easy to write about, but Gates is smart enough to know his days as a CEO are behind him.
Gotta say, usually I think you’re spot on, but breaking up the unified code base seems like a bad idea. The first company to really make phones and pcs work together seamlessly (think Stark’s phone/workstation integration in Iron Man/Avengers, tho I doubt it’ll be that smooth/slick) is going to have a huge market advantage, and as far as I can tell, Microsoft is the only major tech company even looking in that direction.
‘Anyone who follows him as CEO will be subject to undo criticism’ – did you mean ‘undue criticism’? I know they sound the same in a lot of spoken US English.
Maybe Bob really did mean “undo criticism” – as in, “Hey, I’m Steve Ballmer, I’m not going to let you do that!”
“The unified code base between desktops, tablets and phones was a mistake. Apple has OS X and iOS — two different code bases — for a very good reason. A phone is not a PC and a PC is not a phone.”
Sorry, Bob, you’re not thinking far enough out of the box, ergo my belated prediction here:
With the introduction of the latest ARM A50 series CPUs (not to mention the next iteration from ARM) in 64 bit flavors, the core of your mobile device is already on a par with the guts of lower end commodity laptops/systems in terms of raw computing power.
This will lead inevitably to your mobile device BECOMING your computer, i.e., embedded display used while on the go, but at home/office display switches to larger monitor/TV via Chromecast or like device and wireless peripherals attach when the device’s presence is detected if so configured.
The OS running on the device should evolve to contextually adapt to this paradigm. I think Apple may get to this first, the rumored 12″+ tablet pundits are completely misunderstanding is really the next generation of MacBook Air, not sure what they’ll call it, but it will be a convertible with a touch screen and a REALLY slick Ivey designed detachable keyboard. MacOS X/iOS have been in the process of reaching the point where they start to merge, there needs to be toolkits to develop apps that run optimally given usage context.
(Guess that’s a second belated prediction…)
Ballmer had to clear up the legal mess created by Bill Gates. Do you want to go back to the shady business ethics of Microsofts past?
Ballmers only big mistake was Windows Longhorn, which was focused on the wrong vision of the future, followed by a hard code reset and the resulting Windows Vista. If this delay hadn’t happened, they would have had a tablet and phone OS on time.
Windows 8 is not bad, it just needs more iterations. Just like Android was a mess at first. And the iPhone didn’t have an app store at first. These things take time. Problem is, they might not have that time.
The sanctions and restrictions that Microsoft had to operate under after their monopoly prosecution are largely expired now, AFAIK. (And you might well note that, with BG and Microsoft not able to operate in their usual ways, how much the industry has changed and thrived in the interim.) Steve Jobs is no longer around to steal his thunder and make him look bad. Plus a lot of the troubles that Microsoft has suffered through lately appear to be largely self-imposed, and he could probably correct many of these with a snap of his fingers. So perhaps this is pretty much an IDEAL time for him to come back. We’ll just have to wait and see.
“undo” criticism should probably be “undue” criticism. Unless that was a cunning pun and I missed it.
I’m taking it that when you say “eliminate the unified OS”, you’re talking about the user interface and not the underlying layers.
If so, I completely agree. The dual UI is hated by tech pudents and customers. Of course, you can ignore the pudents (No keyboard? The iPhone is a failure!). However, the customers hate it. People are refusing to upgrade to Windows 8. It’s becoming another Vista.
You talk about Apple being Dogmatic! Microsoft’s Win8 debacle is entirely for dogma. “We’ve said Windows is the perfect OS for tablets, PDAs, and phones since 2002 and we’ll take the whole damn company down to prove it!”
I don’t know what it’ll take. Microsoft has fallen so far behind. They’re like RIM in 2009. They know they might be in trouble, but they’re still big and successful. Blackberry tried, but dawdled and was left behind. The BB10 OS was pretty good. The new phones were quite nice. But by 2013, it wasn’t Android or iOS, and no one needed another phone OS.
Microsoft clings to the enterprise, but that’s the same mistake Blackberry made. Blackberry was sure businesses would stick with them. Sure, they won’t have the cache they had in 2000 when Hollywood stars had Blackberries, but IT would stick with them!
Microsoft is very vulnerable. Their on line presence is lacking, the Xbox maybe a major player in a segment that has lost its importance – much like Windows CE dominated the PDA market.
Within a year or two, all those corporate PCs will be replaced with Android or ios devices. It might be too late already.
I think Bob is correct with the code base and the UI. Apple has two very distinct methods for coding: mobile and desktop. They might have similar cores, but they are a long way from identical. The user experience on a desktop is not the same as a PC. Microsoft attempted to make them one and the same and it just didn’t work. Can they fix it? Probably. Create two and only two operating systems – one for mobile and one for desktop. Lose the professional, home, RT and other derivatives. Windows 8 is too fractured and hard to use. Make it simple, cheap and unique to both device types (with similarities as needed). That will solve the tech problem. As for management, give developers a reason to work, reduce management and introduce something new: fun.
Ok, I have to respond (to this and several other postings) based on Bob’s following prediction column a day. That posits the notion that Apple is going to thrive by eventually doing away with the PC platform since that is in terminal decline, and focus only the iOS (smart phone) product line.
Yet having dual focus at MS on both a smartphone and PS operating systems is going to save MS??
Which is it, Bob?
Bravo. To which I would only add that they lose the obsession with back compatibility and the concomitant bloat.
Microsoft had ( has ) too many managers that have made working at Microsoft secondary to spending all the money they earned at Microsoft. I can’t blame them but they should really get out of the way – cruise on their boats and let someone who’s hungry take over.
On the other hand I’m not too upset to see Microsoft decline.. they sat back and rested on their position in the marketplace to the detriment of their customers, heck.. the entire industry. I’m glad Gates is trying to make up for it… and I respect him for trying… but I’m not sure it’s possible.
Yeah.. the sooner Microsoft is gone the better.
Just my (sleepless) opinion…
Columnist John Dvorak made a very good point that Bill Gates would not want to give up his current presidential treatment (https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2422238,00.asp)
As far as Bill Gates putting a stop to the “Windows everywhere” strategy, I don’t buy it as Bill *is* the one who’s pushed this strategy. He’s the one who killed the Microsoft Courier in favor of putting Windows on a tablet.
I would be honestly surprised if Bill took the reins back. I think Cringely has it wrong in that he would want to imitate Steve. If you’ve read his bio, the one thing that Steve always regretted was the effect that Apple had on his family life. Ballmer specifically said that he’s retiring now to be with family more (one could argue the mounting criticism nudged him along) and I think Bill recognizes that. His foundation is doing absolutely incredible work, arguably what he is doing for the developing work is as impactful as the work he did for the 1st world. Maybe I’m just projecting, but if I had a choice of the kind of legacy I could leave, and it was between taking over Microsoft again, and being the guy who eradicated Malaria, or figured out how to make clean power, or whatever, I’d opt for the 2nd personally. Especially if I already had all the money in the world, regardless of who took over MS…
I have far more respect for him now as a Philanthropist than I ever did for him as a CEO.
I agree with Ed. While Bill Gates may have always admired (and even been a little bit jealous of) Steve Jobs, the “second coming” act that Jobs was able to pull (starting in 1997) at Apple was very much a function of who Steve was…. what his vision was and what he could do.
Bill Gates is NOT Steve Jobs – they’ve been polar opposites from Day One. IMO Gates doesn’t have it in him to do the kind of “company savior” act that Jobs was able to pull off……that was very much an accomplishment that was accomplished by Jobs because of who and what he was.
Even if Bill Gates were to take the reins back at Microsoft, I can’t see anything within his M.O. that would make the kind of bold revolutionary changes required to save Microsoft.
No, their ony hope is fresh blood….the Jobs/Apple paradigm does not apply here, that was a once-in-a-millenium event that was 100% wholly a function of the unique-ness of Steve Jobs.
One problem with this is that Gates has never really been much of a vision person.
The other problem is that Robert X would have Microsoft try to fight a war which is pretty much over. You need to skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it is now.
Isn’t having Bill Gate fix the Windows UI schism sort of a moot point? From what I have seen in the media where Bill talks about Windows 8 he likes it. So what would motivate Bill to change his mind and thus the company’s direction if he took over as CEO once again. The line of reasoning that Bill would like to imitate Steve Jobs is rather silly since Bill knows he has a different skill set and personality from Steve. Bob, you are grasping for straws with this one. Ballmer bet the company with the current direction it is going and there is no turning back until something dramatic happens financially with the company’s bottom line. One positive note for Microsoft is that they dropped stacked rankings which is the first step towards turning things around since this speaks to the foundations of the corporate culture.
Bob is more right than wrong.
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Microsoft needs someone who understands what you can do with computers. Bill is that person; Ballmer never was, hence why Mulally was just wrong. Bill Gates taking over Microsoft to give it a new direction push for a short period is the best idea to come forward so far.
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As for Windows on every device, and I’ve said this for years: it’s been a terrible idea right from the start. A phone has different needs to that of a desktop. Try to use the same interface on both phone and desktop and you get a compromise that results in two bad products. Better to split them. Better to have the best product you can build for desktop, and the best product you can build for mobile. As long as I can share pictures between phone and desktop who really cares what you do with a phone?
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Tablet computing is slightly different. Surface is interesting if you think of it as a stripped down PC; but a really powerful but small ultrabook with high resolution display could easily take away from it. It’s nowhere near as good as other tablets if you’re just using it as such. Bluntly Microsoft were too late to this market and with the wrong product. A fully functional Windows ultra miniature notebook would serve them better.
“Bill might just now be able to out-Steve Steve.”
Steve Jobs is clearly at at disadvantage now.
Perhaps a deceased Steve is the only Steve that he could actually out-Steve. Timing is everything!
Yeah, as I’ve stated here and elsewhere before, I’ve thought the real plan all along was for BG to come back as CEO of Microsoft once the threat of their monopoly prosecution troubles had largely passed. And preferably he could come back as a hero who “saves” Microsoft – much like SJ saved Apple – thus adding that much more to the “Myth of Bill”.
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The MOB is something that he has spent a lot of time, money, and energy building over the past several decades, so of course he wants to maintain and extend this for his legacy. After all, money is absolutely no good to you once you’re dead and gone – but your legacy lives on!
So in other words Microsoft needs a “ghost busters” CEO. Someone who can come in and clean out all the ghosts and skeletons, and create an environment by which the NEXT CEO can be successful.
“The only person who could cut through the crap at Microsoft and fix this mess is Bill.”
Uhhh… Bill Gates has been on Microsoft’s Board of Directors all along. Gates is partially responsible for Microsoft’s “mess”.
I think you over estimate the involvement of the Board in the operation of companies.
I suspect that a lot of this “mess” was actually created by BG (or at least allowed to fester) so that he would have some things to easily “fix” when he gets back into the CEO’s chair. Think about it – how hard would it be to put a proper Start menu back into Win8? So hard that a third-party provided one almost overnight! So what’s taking Microsoft so long, despite an apparently overwhelming desire from their customers for that to happen? I mean, that’s basically almost all you hear about Win8 these days – where’s the freaking Start menu, and when is Microsoft going to bring it back? BG may very well be the one insisting that this not happen right now, so he can order it to be done once he’s back as CEO.
“So in other words Microsoft needs a “ghost busters” CEO. Someone who can come in and clean out all the ghosts and skeletons, and create an environment by which the NEXT CEO can be successful.”
I could see that, someone to come in and clean house and reset the company a la Gerstner…
Aside from B. Gates, the only other person with the right set of qualifications and experience is, well, Ballmer, they guy right there before the Board’s eyes. Seems obvious to me.
So, I recommend that B. quit, embark on a dual track plan:
1. Go on a few month vacation, going on a contrived, spiritual renewal/pilgrimage to Burning Man or to Lourdes while, at the same time,
2. scheme to prevent the nomination of a new CEO, then when spiritual renewal is over, voila, like the Greek Winged Liberty, sweep right in to announce himself as the new, most experienced, enlightened candidate who has turned over a new leaf, ready to lead MS out of the wilderness and into the Promised Land, ready to crush Apple, Google, and Samsung.
pc is the phone and phone is the pc, so the unified code base works just fine.
The heck with Microsoft and malaria, Bill Gates should to build a permanent moon base and steal a march on Elon Musk. Now that would be a legacy.
Why is it that “The only person who could cut through the crap at Microsoft and fix this mess is Bill.”? I don’t see your support for that statement in this article, aside from the difficulty of any other successor and that Bill Gates has an obvious pedigree. But the times are different. What skills does Gates have that will allow him to succeed? Why is he the only person? While MS went through some rough times under Gates, they never had to execute a turn-around with the level of complexity now seen and in their current position – how do we have any idea Gates is qualified for this challenge? Simply saying it must be so because he was a successful MS CEO many years ago and because you “think” he’s a better leader doesn’t cut it. Help us, tell us what the specific skills and what the improvements in his leadership are that will rescue MS.
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I’m a bit shocked the article simply states this contention with no real explanation. I’m not at all suggesting you’re wrong, just that the argument seems entirely unsupported in this article.
I think it’s not supported because the qualifications are well known.
Anybody who has known Bill Gates knows that he is frighteningly clever. Several times in Microsoft’s history, he went into seclusion with a bunch of reading material, and emerged with a turn-around strategy that was extremely successful. His manager reviews are notorious for his attention to technical minutiae. Regarding technology, it was difficult to fool Bill Gates, so managers had to pay attention to details.
Regarding qualification, Bill Gates is the only known person who has run a company with the size and technical diversity, and also the dysfunctional culture, of Microsoft. Because he ran Microsoft before, and is on the board of directors. And given that Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer will remain on the board of directors, only Bill Gates would not be intimidated by their presence.
One thing Bill Gates does not have is a company of well-trusted managers to take over Microsoft, the way Steve Jobs essentially had NeXT do a reverse-takeover of Apple. He is very clever, though, so I think he could manage.
Bill Gates almost missed the Internet. He might be smart but only in a very limited fashion. Microsoft had their chance in e-readers, smartphones and tablets but they got beaten to the punch by other more nimble companies. Apple, Android, Amazon have these markets sewn up. No chance for Mircosoft… but to look for the next big thing. Something which historically they are not good at doing.
“Almost” meant that he didn’t. Compared to their competition during the rise of the Internet, Microsoft has done extremely well.
I think Microsoft has achieved a surprising turnaround in the smartphone business. It looked like they were going to fail, but their willingness to sell phones below cost has given them a significant market share in many markets. With their massive cash hoard, they can keep this up until Windows Phone at least outnumbers iPhone. It’s clear that Microsoft considers the mobile market to be essential to their future. They are not going to let go of it without a fight.
“Look for the next big thing… which historically they are not good at doing.” Being “late” has not proven fatal to Apple, or to previous-decade Microsoft.
Its because of the MS-DOS cash cow that Bill Gates could get away with almost missing the Internet. He lucked into that because some guy went flying and IBM were a bit clueless. Without that he would be just another also ran in the PC industry.
Bill never had to execute a turn-around in his tenure similar to what MS faces today. Back then, they had their hooks into every vendor, guaranteeing them a license to print money. With that, they could afford to spare no expense to get back in the game.
Perhaps they can still spare no expense to turn around, but the situation today is that they are facing mature market segments as opposed to developing ones. Today, they also lack the coercive “back-room” power that they once had. Bill will have to use a modified play-book now.
I doubt Bill would come back anyhow. But it would be interesting if he did.
Technically, I wonder about the immense amount of legacy compatibility that MS retains in their products. How much does that saddle them down? Why don’t they just create a new OS or morph an existing one into a new one that lacks all the compatibility junk? Add a virtual-process that essentially runs any legacy code in a virtualized environment, that can be the whole old API stack. By doing this, they could statistically monitor how many old apps are used, versus new stuff (and on different platforms: tablet, PC, phone). They might find the data suggesting they could have the guts to even eliminate the virtual-process capability from future products.
I doubt if “legacy” code is the problem. Legacy code, whether the OS itself or the applications, were designed to run on very slow processors using very little memory and storage. In other words they are the most efficient code we will ever see. The main reason legacy code is replaced is for marketing reasons (to sell new stuff) or to solve new problems with less efficient code simply because devices are now more powerful, lessening the need for efficiency.
Right! There are a lot of inconsistencies with Bob’s other columns. An older rehash of his 90’s writings showed how terrible Gates was at managing MS as it grew too big for his amateur management “style” (if it could be called such). It is even bigger and more complex than in those days, so how could he do any better – seems like Bob should be thinking he would do worse.
And now there is Bob’s following prediction column the next day. That posits the notion that Apple is going to thrive by eventually doing away with the PC platform since that is in terminal decline, and focus only on the iOS (smart phone) product line.
Yet having dual focus at MS on both a smartphone and PC operating systems is going to save MS?? By a CEO who over a decade ago made MS the MesS it is now?
Which is it, Bob?
Bob,
I don’t always agree with you but I almost always enjoy your writing; except recently when you’ve started to confuse the prepositional phrase “a while” with the adverb “awhile” (rarely correct in a non-poetic context). You’re well on your way to using the non-existent word “alot”
You’re correct. But I was wondering where the preposition was in the “prepositional phrase”. The full prepositional phrase is “for a while” where “a while” is the object of the preposition: https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/while-versus-awhile
Bill should keep doing what he is doing. He’ll get the Nobel Peace Prize – either that or the Nobel Committee people are idiots, or corrupt – and that’s way out of Steve Jobs league. Besides why compare himself to Steve Jobs? Jobs was a flawed man. Brilliant, but he treated fellow human beings awfully. Bill Gates is doing right by his fellow man and will be remembered for it.
I may be saying stupid things but if I were Microsoft I would create an internet database that could be connected to about anything and would contain about every data that exists. Businesses could use it to store product data that stores, distributors and other could use to market them, movie studios could put data about their movies, like the credits, trailers, pictures, and related products. Comments could be added to data items. If I searched for a particular Star Wars product I could go to the movie data, look at the related items, find a store that has the item in stock. People could have their informations like they have on Facebook with privacy filters on each item of their data. These are examples, but I think that it could revolutionize the internet and could even eventually replace the regular web pages with templates that could refer to the database for the content.
I use Google search for that. Google creates their own database of the Internet and lets us search it.
I’m talking centralized data that could be used by programs. Google don’t kow how much stock of a product a store has, it doesn’t classify the data. It just reads the pages and allows us to search for som text. It’s very different from what I’m suggesting.
Bill could code both of those OSs in a week each.
“Apple has OS X and iOS — two different code bases”
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I remember Apples brag that OS X and iOS share ~80% same code base!
Microsoft problem is not code base but User Interface.
Apple strictly different UI on desktop and on touchscreen device.
Microsoft try to sneak in “train of future” called multitouch-mobile-devices using Windows desktop monopoly ending with creations of Frankenstein UI that nobody wanted.
Re: “Frankenstein UI that nobody wanted.” At least they didn’t try to block third party software which completely eliminates the new interface (if you customize it that way). I’m using Windows 8 with Stardock’s Start8 and ModernMix programs for only $8.
There’s a difference between going up and going down!
William’s success going up may not be repeated trying to save the company. William knows this and he know his status will change if he fails.
William basks in his status now and would have less friends if he failed!
Windows 9 and Windows Mobile I would say.
Gates got out because he recognized the train wreck coming. He’s not coming back.
Let’s assume the Cringe is right that it was a mistake for Microsoft to attempt a unified PC/mobile platform. Isn’t it really too late to fix this? You succeed by skating to where the puck is going to be, not where it is now.
This has been the problem for some time. Nobody in power at Microsoft seems to know what should come next. For a while now, they have been trying to play catch up. With the target moving so quickly, this strikes me a very bad strategy (can you say Zune?).
I think that the idea iOS devices will start to replace PC devices this year is probably correct. The rumor is that the next iDevices will support 4K resolution. Just the thing for the new Apple monitors.
One quibble, I think Apple is going to start increasing the iOS form factor this year and they’re going to show that content creation works just fine with multi-touch devices providing that the screen is large enough.
And Gates did only one thing that was truly impressive. He recognized that IBM needed Microsoft more than Microsoft needed IBM. It was not obvious when he had that realization and he was very bold to act on it. The visionary talks he gave at CES (or wherever it was) just never seemed to capture the imagination.
They always reminded me of those futurists that kept telling us there would be flying cars. Where are they? The real prediction should have been that our need to physically travel would seriously decrease when everything can come to you.
Looks like it is Nadella. Too bad the new Chairman, John Thompson, can’t even pronounce Satya’s name correctly (he pronounces it Sasha).
Bill Cringely,
You are almost right! Bill is doing same thing as Steve when he went back to Apple. Advisor-> Part time CEO -> CEO
He’ll call all the shots on the tech, product, strategy, etc….
So it appears that we have ended up here with something of a compromise at the moment. BG isn’t back as CEO (yet), and while he is out as chairman of the board he will still be there as a puppet-master and will still be calling all (or at least most) of the shots – as he has no doubt been doing behind the scenes all along. This should be interesting to watch.
[ and has for the most part lost its way. Ballmer, whom I have always liked by the way, is trying to lead like Jack Welch because he can’t lead like Bill Gates, simple as that.]
Fascinating to me. Am intrigued and curious about your thinking method. I do not like Ballmer as a CEO for MSFT it reminds me of Fisher & Perez at Kodak(they had tons of leading edge tech patents and squandered them away) or Usula Burns at Xerox, though an engineer her experience is mostly managemment. As you are aware of MSFT business savvy and their tech miopia which squarelly falls on Ballmer’s shoulders. I am of the belief that non technical CEO can’t safeguard the future of a technical company. Simple they have not developed a passion for American technological ‘Advancement’ only passion for business deals. What do you know or what perspective do you have that allows you to like Mr. Ballmer. Am sure I will learn something important. Thank you in advance.
There is no next big thing for MS. The last big thing from Redmond was Win95. Sorry, its over.