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Microsoft losing its edge; will worsen with Gates Departure

smh.com.au — Ballmer may lack the strong leadership needed to tackle the challenges facing Microsoft. "The direction they've laid out has not impressed investors," says some analyst, "We need the old Microsoft with the direction and vision they had - Gates's vision."

Who dugg this? Made popular Jun 18, 2006

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  • aptget, on 10/12/2007, -16/+50Microsoft is going down the same dark road Apple did in the 90s when Steve Jobs got replaced by John Sculley. The CEO of a company makes or breaks it.
  • Shawh, on 10/12/2007, -7/+29I believe if you call Microsoft support and tell them the situation, they will send you a new, working activation code.
  • Zipp425, on 10/12/2007, -5/+26I think two things could really happen. Microsoft could lose its edge, or we could see a completely new microsoft in the next few years. Not everyone at microsoft is a stiff.
  • mephitix, on 10/12/2007, -3/+19Has anyone realized this story *cough*opinion*cough* is inaccurate? Ballmer isn't going to take over leadership... Ray Ozzie and Craig Mundie are going to share the roles of Bill's day-to-day activities. Ray Ozzie will become Chief Software Architect and Craig Mundie will become head of Microsoft Research.
  • ThetaDot, on 10/12/2007, -15/+28DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS!
    DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS! *Heart Failure Ensues*
    DEVELOPERS DEFEIJoejfa;oes;jfwefjaewf *gurgling noises*
  • dbpigeon, on 10/12/2007, -15/+28"and there will be no Business Set Standard of a Program such as OFFICE, making opening different file meeting programs an utter living hell."

    What about OpenDocument format?
  • VcTrMASO, on 10/12/2007, -6/+19Call Microsoft, they will reset his copy and he will be able to use it again.
  • bebop717, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13Edge? What edge?
  • Ireland, on 10/12/2007, -9/+18It's best to get off a ship before it sinks!
  • Ryland, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Doesn't matter. Gates' release date will be pushed back, just like all Microsoft projects.
  • ArthurSucks, on 10/12/2007, -6/+14Is Bill leaving his first mate to go down with the ship?
  • jarcoal, on 10/12/2007, -8/+16the CEO certainly has an important role in the company, but the real innovation happens at a regular employee level. well run companies know this, and heavily reward their employees for good ideas/products. to say a CEO makes or breaks a company is fairly extreme, i think.
  • TheNik, on 10/12/2007, -10/+17@pigeon - A few organizaitons have taken OpenDoc into their arms. This leaves the other million-and-such organizations that still have yet to learn about OpenDocument. It isn't going to happen.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10Man, look at all these Microsoft fanboys!
  • foolfromhell, on 10/12/2007, -10/+17i do not believe this is correct"
    Please elaborate
  • lotonah, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6So where can Microsoft go to make itself better?

    Hard to say. There's a lot of things that they do right, and a lot of things that they do horribly wrong.

    Okay, this whole thing is going to sound like rambling. And I'm hardly an expert on all things, just a generalist.

    In the enterprise arena, I think that they're doing alright. TCO is a little high, it's not as simple as it should be to keep a network configured and secure. But at least the enterprise arena isn't the shambles that the home market is...maybe that's because most home users don't have an IT staff to prop themselves up.

    -In the home/SOHO arena, STOP treating your customers like criminals! That seems like an easy one. Unfortunately it's a tact that Microsoft has had since day one. Q

    -Quit charging home users out the nose. Or do some *useful* bundling. Apple is doing a great job of this lately, and don't seem to be losing money doing it.

    -Vista is a horrible mistake on so many levels. Too many SKU's to choose from.

    -Pricing is too high. I can buy OSX for $140 Canadian. A boxed version of XP Home is what, over $300?? No wonder piracy is so high.

    -How tough will it be for people to upgrade/downgrade? If Mom buys the low-end product and decides later she needs more capabilities, will it be easy for her? What about the other way around?

    -I think Microsoft should have looked back at other systems that scaled--like GEOS. Novice, intermediate, advanced--different menus, options, everything for each level.

    -Architecture-wise, I wonder if Vista should be more of a VM environment. Or better yet, get a UNIX as your core and VM everything. You could be completely 100% backwards compatible with software dating back to DOS, without the legacy overhead.

    -Make old OS's available to customers that want them, with zero tech support but at a lower cost. Also do the same with the application software. I can go buy several different versions of CorelDraw right now, I may not need the latest greatest.

    -Get the drivers on a different layer than the core of the OS. Lock down user privilege, but more OSX like, and not the idiotic way that Vista has.

    -Announce that XP support will continue for another 4 years. Give the upcoming security package away for free. They owe it to the customers.

    -Stop the sprawl. How many services are there now? How many DLL's the programmers have to learn? All these API's for them to deal with. Different versions of DirectX break other software. This is stupid and lazy.

    -DRM. Why can't you trust the customer to do the right thing? 80% of the people out there don't even play MP3's on their computers. Never mind pirating movies and other things. Let's punish them all!!!

    -Deployment. Say I have 10 identical computers that I just built, and they all need XP on them. I should be able to just image a drive and move it over to another computer. It should then ask me for a valid product key. I can do that, if I make the image BEFORE activating Windows, but not after. Same goes for the clients who installed pirated XP, and want to go legit. Just let 'em type in a valid Product Key!!!


    Bah. I have about 80 other things to rant about. But this post is now longer than the Vista product cycle.

    P.S., don't flame me too hard, like I said, I'm just a generalist, not an expert.
  • eug2k, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Lies! Thats what he wants you to think! The fact that he has successfully convinced you and many others of this only further proves his genius. And often very wealthy people who are ashamed of the way they achieved their wealth give their money away to charity to make up for it and make themselves look good.
  • BassCadet, on 10/12/2007, -6/+12As long as a MS operating system is on 90%+ of the world's computers, I don't think they have a whole lot to worry about. Fresh minds, fresh innovation.

    Gates will still be able to step in and alter the course if he senses things are going down the tubes. Remember, he's the majority shareholder.
  • Subcranium, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9Thanks to submitter for spelling "losing" correctly. Mighty rare event here at Digg.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Microsoft will go through a long period of adjustment and this just might turn out to be 2 years. Even after that I'm sure Gates will influence MS's decisions considering he is a major stockholder. But they need another maverick CEO who is as competitive and paranoid as Gates was during his tenure. That sort of tenacity is what made him the richest man in the world. I remember one of his quotes a few years back and I paraphrase here, he said that he was only so successful because he was incessantly paranoid of what the competition might throw up. This might partly explain why many of MS's products are sort of reactive and copy successful elements of their competitor's products. Nevertheless, as long as its legal its fair game right? People can hate him or love him for this but at the end of the day he made money for the stockholders and Wall St. loved him for that. They need another tenacious maverick of a CEO who can bring direction and hopefully innovation rather than retrovation.
  • Criterion, on 10/12/2007, -6/+11I'm all for change and would love to see a completely new Microsoft instead of the behemoth it has been the last 10+ years. Come on MS, make me like you, because I haven't in a long time. Find a focus, set a goal. Decide if you're going to be a platform or applications provider. I don't want, or need you to be both, because that is not in the best interest of the consumer, only of your stockholders. I'm thrilled to see Gates go.
  • 16x9, on 10/12/2007, -10/+15Why? Look, I don't think that Microsoft is going to tank after Bill Gates leaves either but I don't see a problem with well thought out opinion on Digg. If people think the opinion is full of holes then it won't make it to the front page. If they don't then it will.

    But that's just my opinion.
  • deepsub, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8It's important to note, though, that although Microsoft developed it, it was an attempt to 'embrace and extend' by making the web proprietary through ActiveX objects on IE5. Fortunately, other browser developers realized this and incorporated it into competing browsers.

    Embrace and extend != innovation

    I expect the Mico$oft fanboys will bury this and all other comments that don't line up with their views....
  • llbbl, on 10/12/2007, -5/+10I for one look forward to Microsoft's demise.
  • lnxaddct, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5WilliamDyer,
    I don't know though. My speech recognition under my mac is pretty damn great. I just tell it things like "Dinner with [insert name] tomorrow (or Tuesday, Wednesday, etc...)" and it puts it in my calendar. Or I say "chat with [insert name]" or "video chat with [insert name]" and up pops ichat with a window with the person in it. This is just touching the surface. I open a lot of my applications using voice recognition and even sometimes scroll around pages just by telling my computer to move the page. Speech recognition isn't 100% perfect, and perhaps interpreting random speech is still a hassle, but even with some programs today I can get around 97% accuracy while freely speaking at relatively fast rates too. I still prefer text interfaces over anything ( command line), but speech recognition really is pretty decent now a days. Even a lot of call centers use it now, albeit with a limited vocabulary.
  • OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8I'm getting the distinct feeling that MS has sent a horde of fanboys and paid shills to mod down all negative comments about them.
  • mistshadow2k4, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5"That's cool. Go play your game. Your computer is a toy. Keep telling yourself, and everyone else, as much. I'll go back to composing/recording/engineering music, creating artwork, writing software, editing video, and generally using my computer as a rock-solid and productive tool for creativity.
    Good luck with your toybox. I hope that game of FEAR was worth the couple hundred bucks you spent on it (OS, graphics card, memory, etc.)"

    The parent post was a troll, but so are you with this reply. You can do all that AND play games with every OS out there, even Haiku.
  • Chompy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Ballmer is an unimaginative jackass. I remember reading a story about how he won't allow his children to own iPods; the man can't think outside of the box in his own home.
  • DJMac317, on 10/12/2007, -14/+19I'm sorry, Microsoft loosing it edge? When did Microsoft have an edge? I can't recall anyting groundbreaking, innovative or original Microsoft has done in the last 15 years that others haven't done first, and no a Start menu doesn't count.
  • enfact, on 10/12/2007, -5/+9Bill Gates has never had vision, Microsoft has always gotten by by out right stealing or just plain copying other's ideas. They will die, slowly.
  • StuartGibson, on 06/14/2009, -1/+5" A computer on every desktop."

    Sounds like quite a vision to me.
  • tormented, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@OBKenobi

    They don't have to "win" to make money from their web services. They could be behind a lot of competitors but still make money off of it, so why not do that? So Google makes more money off their web services, what does that really matter if MS is making money off their "inferior" services?
  • deepsub, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6This thread == Microsoft fanboi denial
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5"Apparently Apple fanboys are welcomed, but MS fanboys are insulted? Double standard anyone?"

    Uh, apple fanboys are routinely derided here. Which is why I sarcastically referred to positive commenters here as Microsoft fanboys - the term and its overapplication is absurd and ... well ... kind of pathetic. It speaks volumes about the utter lack of sense here that my comment flew over your head. Moron.
  • salmonmoose, on 10/12/2007, -9/+13Whilst XP Home is somewhat of a waste of space; if you can't keep an XP install up and running now we have SP2 you really don't deserve to own a computer.
  • eug2k, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Bill Gates is a genius. That said I hate the man. I hate Microsoft. I hate Windows. Microsoft is finally starting to loose some ground and Gates does a very smart thing and decides to resign. This will make it seem like Microsoft's decline was caused by his resignation when really it has already begun and will continue after he resigns.
  • msipes, on 10/12/2007, -20/+23Opinion. No Digg. This crap needs to stay off Digg.
  • quinnk, on 10/12/2007, -12/+15@jarcoal: Apparently you've missed out on the last two decades and the CEO cult, then. What bright-faced business student wants to be the middle-management innovator? Why are less and less people entering engineering (creative) programs at university? Everyone wants to be the big boss, or at least a VP. I would say that the CEO, who generally sets an organization's direction, is more important, for better or for worse, than you're willing to give them credit for.
  • OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3They probably are anyway, when he's not looking. MS isn't known for their security.

    As a matter of fact, his kids probably have two dozen people over right now and Ballmer has no idea what's going on.

    MRRRAWAAWR! WHO IS THAT! WHO IS IN MY HOUSE! BALLMER SMASH!!!!! Ooh, COOKIE? (finds half-eaten, week-old cookie on floor, sits down to eat it)
  • deepsub, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Indeed... people invest too much of their own self worth in Gates & co. and try to take credit for what they've accomplished through ruthless business tactics and questionable ethics.

    Losers

    Instead of coming up with good, fact based counterpoints, they bury the comments.

  • Tyrax, on 10/12/2007, -6/+9XMLHTTPRequest
  • sneakerelph, on 10/12/2007, -8/+11half assed OS each month? Now i think you know you are exagerating.

    and i just upgraded the GFX card in my mac last week.
  • mephitix, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5@OBKenobi

    I don't think MS is just pushing out tons of web services. I don't think that's their strategy. If you look at some of the newly-announced features for Vista and XBox, it seems that they're driving towards integration, which is very smart. Windows Live isn't just a web service, it's a _platform_ that will integrate nicely with Windows Vista, XBox, and other media.
  • OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7Ray Ozzie is a web services type of person. He was involved in primarily dot.com stuff. Gates thinks this is important, but with MS's corporate culture and attitude, NONE of their web services are ever going to take off.

    MS's idea of the web is the same as AOL's. Branding, intrusive prompts and security, a deluge of advertizing, censorship, and lame page design.

    MS should focus back on it's software, not this web stuff. MS cannot win against Google and other leaner, faster innovators.

    Times have changed, the computer industry has grown to big even for the Evil Empire (MS) to control. Now by the time MS rolls out it's knockoffs, the rest of the world has already moved on.

    Consumers are becoming slightly better informed as well. MS and others like them can't pull the same stunts they used to. People are demanding security, privacy and QUALITY.
  • colincornaby, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Huh. I replaced the graphics card in my 5 year old G3 once. Just bought a new one from ATI, opened up the case, and put in the new Radeon. But my case didn't even have screws keeping it closed. Just a latch. Opened really nicely. Sucks to be you with your case.
  • THECOM, on 10/12/2007, -6/+9Edge? Microsoft has an edge?
    Oh! So that's what that huge blunt surface we keep crashing into is!
  • deepsub, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4They're going strong at losing money.

    The Xbox division has yet to make a net profit.
  • deepsub, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Equipment_Corporation
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Here's some good reading:

    "A List of Microsoft Litigation"
    http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=2005010107100653
  • OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Ok, so ten years ago, would you have predicted that Communist China would ever buy IBM's PC division? Don't think MS is invincible. One little screwup and *BOOM*, there goes your fancy planet-shattering battlestation.
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