Microsoft Shakes Up Its Leadership and Internal Structure(techcrunch.com)
techcrunch.com
Microsoft Shakes Up Its Leadership and Internal Structure
http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/17/microsoft-shakes-up-its-leadership-and-internal-structure-as-its-fiscal-year-comes-to-a-close/
110 comments
As an ex-management consultant, I don't see any other plays that were possible for Elop. I am going off of the Bloomberg article for some conclusions. He is vilified simply because he became the last CEO of a beloved empire which was already gasping for it's last breaths. His plays were the right plays from a Business Perspective. But at that point, it was already too late and Apple/Google had already conquered the market. The only viable option would have been to re-invent the cell phone.
1. Nokia had a Maps business. Obviously, Elop wanted to see it on the chosen platform. 2. Nokia had a host of apps that they wanted to see on the chosen platform. 3. Google refused to allow modifications to their MADA. 4. Meego/Maemo were not viable/not ready. 5. Microsoft's offer came with an infusion of cash.
(Bloomberg article: http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/magazine/content/11_24/b42320567...)
1. Nokia had a Maps business. Obviously, Elop wanted to see it on the chosen platform. 2. Nokia had a host of apps that they wanted to see on the chosen platform. 3. Google refused to allow modifications to their MADA. 4. Meego/Maemo were not viable/not ready. 5. Microsoft's offer came with an infusion of cash.
(Bloomberg article: http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/magazine/content/11_24/b42320567...)
> He is vilified simply because he became the last CEO of a beloved empire which was already gasping for it's last breaths
That's being overly generous to Elop. The 'Burning Platform' memo was by his own volition and it played a big part in the decline. This essay nails what Elop did wrong[1] (a bit over-the-top though). Namely, he called his own product crap, and when he distributed the memo, Nokia had no solution ready - they were waiting on Microsoft (Osborne effect). "Hey guys, our phones are currently crap. That Maemo phone you're about to buy - we're discontinuing it. We will have awesome ones sometime in the future though. Remember to by a Nokia ;-)".
1. http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2011/08/coining...
That's being overly generous to Elop. The 'Burning Platform' memo was by his own volition and it played a big part in the decline. This essay nails what Elop did wrong[1] (a bit over-the-top though). Namely, he called his own product crap, and when he distributed the memo, Nokia had no solution ready - they were waiting on Microsoft (Osborne effect). "Hey guys, our phones are currently crap. That Maemo phone you're about to buy - we're discontinuing it. We will have awesome ones sometime in the future though. Remember to by a Nokia ;-)".
1. http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2011/08/coining...
> The 'Burning Platform' memo was by his own volition and it played a big part in the decline.
He wrote the memo but the question is to what extent it simply described the situation as it actually existed. If he had never written that memo, would Nokia be a competitive mobile platform ecosystem today? I find that hard to believe. I don't think it's realistic to blame so much on a few hundred words.
He wrote the memo but the question is to what extent it simply described the situation as it actually existed. If he had never written that memo, would Nokia be a competitive mobile platform ecosystem today? I find that hard to believe. I don't think it's realistic to blame so much on a few hundred words.
By describing 'the situation as it actually existed', he did a massive disservice to the company he helmed. I am not saying it was the reason Nokia failed, only that it was a huge contributing factor.
You do not expect a company CEO to do negative PR - he damaged Nokia's brand and greatly harmed the confidence developers/consumers had in Nokia.
> I don't think it's realistic to blame so much on a few hundred words.
From the article I previously linked: "Gerald Ratner[1] was CEO of British jewelry group Ratners (since renamed Signet Group). He made a famous speech in London to the Institute of Directors in 1991 in which he said his company products were sold for such low prices "because its total crap." This remark was then published and caused his company to collapse and was only saved by his departure - and the rebranding of the company to Signet."
Ratner destroyed his company in 43 words (relevant part of speech is on Wikipedia).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Ratner
You do not expect a company CEO to do negative PR - he damaged Nokia's brand and greatly harmed the confidence developers/consumers had in Nokia.
> I don't think it's realistic to blame so much on a few hundred words.
From the article I previously linked: "Gerald Ratner[1] was CEO of British jewelry group Ratners (since renamed Signet Group). He made a famous speech in London to the Institute of Directors in 1991 in which he said his company products were sold for such low prices "because its total crap." This remark was then published and caused his company to collapse and was only saved by his departure - and the rebranding of the company to Signet."
Ratner destroyed his company in 43 words (relevant part of speech is on Wikipedia).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Ratner
The burning platform memo was leaked. It wasn't as if it was sent out as a press release.
It's completely ridiculous to send a memo to any significant fraction of the employees of a 60+k person company and not make plans for it being the top story in tomorrow's news.
If it was impossible for him to communicate with the people who worked fine him about the need for changed strategy without dooming the company, they were already doomed.
Samsung rose to power as the biggest (and most profitable) Android manufacturer during the same time Nokia made its big (company breaking) bet on Windows Phone. If Nokia had gone with Android perhaps they could have been the dominant Android hardware...
And maybe they could have been like the OTHER Android OEMs. I know which I think is more likely. And even being Samsung isn't all that hot:
http://www.zdnet.com/article/apple-takes-89-percent-of-all-s...
Apple is, I think like 20% of the smartphone market worldwide? But about 90% of the profits. And Samsung has to make almost all of its profits at sale, with Google making all the ongoing profits from stuff like Maps and app stores; if Microsoft cut Nokia in on any of that money (Nokia shipped mapping and music apps for their Windows Phone, for example), it may have looked like a better deal than Android offers Samsung currently.
Compare the sale price of Motorola Mobility to Lenovo (after Google stripped it of its patent portfolio) to how much money Nokia's handset business sold to Microsoft for without patents attached. What Elop did with Nokia's phone business may have been the best case scenario for it.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/apple-takes-89-percent-of-all-s...
Apple is, I think like 20% of the smartphone market worldwide? But about 90% of the profits. And Samsung has to make almost all of its profits at sale, with Google making all the ongoing profits from stuff like Maps and app stores; if Microsoft cut Nokia in on any of that money (Nokia shipped mapping and music apps for their Windows Phone, for example), it may have looked like a better deal than Android offers Samsung currently.
Compare the sale price of Motorola Mobility to Lenovo (after Google stripped it of its patent portfolio) to how much money Nokia's handset business sold to Microsoft for without patents attached. What Elop did with Nokia's phone business may have been the best case scenario for it.
Sorry, but there's not much to support the idea that Nokia could have magically made it if only they had picked Android.
The first Samsung Galaxy was shipped in 2009[0] -- over a year before Elop was made CEO of Nokia [1] and nearly two years before the "Windows Phone Strategy" was announced.
In 2011 -- years before any strategy shift to either Windows or Android would have been able to be implemented, Samsung was already shipping more smartphones than anyone else -- including Apple [2]. Nokia didn't ship their first Windows Phone device until November 2011.
It would have been a Blackberry Storm kind of stupid to try taking on Samsung with Android as the platform. There's no compelling reason to pick Nokia over Samsung when the target market is just looking for value. At least with Windows Phone, there was some differentiation they could hope to appeal to consumers with.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Elop
[2] https://gigaom.com/2012/02/07/npd-apple-sold-most-smartphone...
The first Samsung Galaxy was shipped in 2009[0] -- over a year before Elop was made CEO of Nokia [1] and nearly two years before the "Windows Phone Strategy" was announced.
In 2011 -- years before any strategy shift to either Windows or Android would have been able to be implemented, Samsung was already shipping more smartphones than anyone else -- including Apple [2]. Nokia didn't ship their first Windows Phone device until November 2011.
It would have been a Blackberry Storm kind of stupid to try taking on Samsung with Android as the platform. There's no compelling reason to pick Nokia over Samsung when the target market is just looking for value. At least with Windows Phone, there was some differentiation they could hope to appeal to consumers with.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Elop
[2] https://gigaom.com/2012/02/07/npd-apple-sold-most-smartphone...
While I agree with most of what you say, Nokia did have a differentiator: awesome, reliable, rugged, (occasionally) stylish hardware -- not a strength for most Android manufacturers, I think you'll agree. But Nokia's software is generally terrible.
Nokia hardware & Android software could have been a pretty killer combo, and a sufficient differentiator to get some extra profit margin; plus Nokia was (is) very experienced in producing at huge volume.
Unsurprisingly, the rump of Nokia that was not merged into Microsoft is now climbing on the Android bandwagon in a big way... but unfortunately everybody else now has a 10-year headstart.
Nokia hardware & Android software could have been a pretty killer combo, and a sufficient differentiator to get some extra profit margin; plus Nokia was (is) very experienced in producing at huge volume.
Unsurprisingly, the rump of Nokia that was not merged into Microsoft is now climbing on the Android bandwagon in a big way... but unfortunately everybody else now has a 10-year headstart.
I agree, and everyone loves to hate the bad guy but what I find interesting is that my wife loves her Lumia phone running Windows, she really really wants a Lumia 640 and they are just barely becoming available in the US after a lot of really great reviews in Europe. There is a small but vocal group of people who could be excellent advocates here and logistics issues? or something are plaguing the roll out. That is a bigger systemic problem. Hopefully aligning both windows and hardware will highlight situations where you have a hardware 'winner' that is under funded.
I think what most of us hate him for is going the MS route rather than making Android phones. Nokia used to make great phones, but with sub-par OS. Why not combine the best of both worlds?
At the time, I don't think normal users would have called Android better than 'sub-par'. I'll admit that with Material Design and recent OS releases, they've gotten much better, but still many of my non-geek friends tolerate their Android phone that they got for "the big screen".
Now that Apple has solved the "I want a big screen" problem, I think those people will run back to iOS.
I'm sure Elop thought MS was going to put some more effort behind WP. They got a lot of things right, but not the UI and certainly not the marketing.
For what it's worth, I've been using WP for about 3 years now. It's performance is underrated, but Metro went too far as a flat UI.
Now that Apple has solved the "I want a big screen" problem, I think those people will run back to iOS.
I'm sure Elop thought MS was going to put some more effort behind WP. They got a lot of things right, but not the UI and certainly not the marketing.
For what it's worth, I've been using WP for about 3 years now. It's performance is underrated, but Metro went too far as a flat UI.
Making phones right now is really a game of supply chain mastery and scale. Nokia didn't have an particular advantage in either area, especially when it came to smart phones. If they started making android phones, it's more likely they'd be another HTC or LG than another Samsung or Apple.
Nokia lost 17 million euros a day it's market value while Elop was CEO of Nokia. I guess he is going down in the history as one of the worst CEO's. Though, some say he wasn't a mole but was hired to sinking ship but somehow it is hard for me to believe from his actions.
He was hired by the Nokia board to do exactly what he did. So blame the greedy board members only looking for their bank accounts.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/terokuittinen/2013/09/24/nokia-a...
http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2013/09/24/nokia-board-...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/terokuittinen/2013/09/24/nokia-a...
http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2013/09/24/nokia-board-...
To destroy the company and reduce its value until someone (how odd it's his previous employer) acquires it? That's a bit hard to swallow.
Nokia (as a cell phone company) died the day the iPhone came out. They were too big and bureaucratic to react with competitive products, and there's no way you can turn that around (regardless of CEO) on the timescale that consumer cell-phone purchasing decisions are made.
Note that Blackberry, Motorola, and Palm also died, and LG and HTC aren't doing so hot.
Note that Blackberry, Motorola, and Palm also died, and LG and HTC aren't doing so hot.
That's not exactly true. Nokia pretty much owned the featurephone market and had all the right relationships with telcos that were the primary channel.
The excuse they were too large and bureaucratic to change does not fly when you are the CEO - he had the power to make the required changes. Nokia also had good technology, on par with Android, at least. The mistake was not to realize that iOS's and Android's strength is not on their technology, but the rich ecosystem built around it.
The excuse they were too large and bureaucratic to change does not fly when you are the CEO - he had the power to make the required changes. Nokia also had good technology, on par with Android, at least. The mistake was not to realize that iOS's and Android's strength is not on their technology, but the rich ecosystem built around it.
CEOs have less power to steer the ship than you think. The main assets of a corporation in a knowledge industry are the particular skillsets of its employees and the web of personal relationships between them. If the knowledge required to adapt to a market shift doesn't exist within the company, then the only option that a CEO has is to bring it inside the company, and assimilate it into the existing web of relationships without having the existing power structures reject the new talent. This is challenging in the best of times, with the most forceful CEO, and virtually impossible when you've got only a couple years to live, a complacent workforce, and a board that's only interested in salvaging what they can.
Assuming that you're right that iOS and Android's strength is their ecosystem rather than their technology, there's no way Nokia could've capitalized on that. They couldn't bring on hardware partners, like Android, because all of the hardware partners were their competitors and wouldn't trust anything they did. They had no expertise in engaging independent developers; Nokia has never had a product where they've had to, and their OS (Symbian) was reportedly a pain in the ass to develop for. And while they knew how to build a mass-market consumer product, they didn't know how to build a mass market consumer platform - first-hand experience of what consumers could do with an open-ended computational device wasn't in their DNA the way it is in Apple & Google's.
Assuming that you're right that iOS and Android's strength is their ecosystem rather than their technology, there's no way Nokia could've capitalized on that. They couldn't bring on hardware partners, like Android, because all of the hardware partners were their competitors and wouldn't trust anything they did. They had no expertise in engaging independent developers; Nokia has never had a product where they've had to, and their OS (Symbian) was reportedly a pain in the ass to develop for. And while they knew how to build a mass-market consumer product, they didn't know how to build a mass market consumer platform - first-hand experience of what consumers could do with an open-ended computational device wasn't in their DNA the way it is in Apple & Google's.
CEOs cannot make magic, but Nokia had everything they needed inside the company except perhaps the willingness to realize the market had changed and that they had no longer a viable application layer. That much was evident since the first Android - it would be a two horse race and Android was the only one they could ride.
Except they weren't so strong on software and platforms. Their programmers had mostly worked on feature phones, and Symbian was made by an external company at the time.
The first reaction to the iPhone was to buy Symbian in 2008, which in retrospect is so wrong that's surprising, but the vast majority of people at all level (people in the street, geeks, executives) didn't understand the real change that iPhone was bringing until maybe 2009-2010.
Then Nokia tried to fix the software problem buying Qt. That ended up as being a mistake as well. Qt was built on the idea that you can create a UI framework that unifies all platforms; that was realistic when the support OS were all desktop and thus similar in main concepts and interaction patterns; Qt also nominally ran on embedded at the time, but the experience was suboptimal at best. So Nokia drank the idea that adding "another backend" to Qt was the solution, also because developers loved Qt. But of course it's not that easy. It took them 2-3 years to come up with a new codebase that could handle the new interaction patterns (QML) and that's a geological era in smartphones. At that point, they still didn't have a complete working solution for a qt iPhone killer, and Elop had to cut the chord. That day, the fate of Nokia was already written.
The first reaction to the iPhone was to buy Symbian in 2008, which in retrospect is so wrong that's surprising, but the vast majority of people at all level (people in the street, geeks, executives) didn't understand the real change that iPhone was bringing until maybe 2009-2010.
Then Nokia tried to fix the software problem buying Qt. That ended up as being a mistake as well. Qt was built on the idea that you can create a UI framework that unifies all platforms; that was realistic when the support OS were all desktop and thus similar in main concepts and interaction patterns; Qt also nominally ran on embedded at the time, but the experience was suboptimal at best. So Nokia drank the idea that adding "another backend" to Qt was the solution, also because developers loved Qt. But of course it's not that easy. It took them 2-3 years to come up with a new codebase that could handle the new interaction patterns (QML) and that's a geological era in smartphones. At that point, they still didn't have a complete working solution for a qt iPhone killer, and Elop had to cut the chord. That day, the fate of Nokia was already written.
Once upon a time there was the presentation of the first Maemo device to the employees. The feedback about it becoming an hit if GSM support was added, was just ignored.
Very few also had the opportunity to see a Nokia 7710 live besides us, as it was quickly killed after a few months on sale.
Also the famous blog post about how shitty Symbian C++ was, that only Nokia employees would be willing to use it.
Some years ago The Register had a pretty good report about the internal politics going on there.
Very few also had the opportunity to see a Nokia 7710 live besides us, as it was quickly killed after a few months on sale.
Also the famous blog post about how shitty Symbian C++ was, that only Nokia employees would be willing to use it.
Some years ago The Register had a pretty good report about the internal politics going on there.
Boards have to approve every major move by a CEO and can fire a CEO at any given time for any or no reason.
This person was the chairman of the board, read through his profile:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorma_Ollila
>Prior to joining Nokia in 1985, Ollila worked for eight years in corporate banking at Citibank's London and Helsinki offices, and when he joined Nokia his tasks involved international investment deals. A year later, in 1986, Ollila found himself as head of finance during Nokia's renewal under then CEO Kari Kairamo. He was appointed as chief of the mobile phones section in 1990, and CEO two years later in 1992. When Ollila first came to power, the company had suffered from internal disputes and had had a financial crisis for a number of years.
>As CEO of Nokia he has led the strategy that restructured the former industrial conglomerate into one of the major companies in the mobile phone and telecommunications infrastructure markets.
>In 1999, Ollila seriously considered taking part in the Finnish presidential election, following a request from a member of the National Coalition Party, Sauli Niinistö[citation needed] who was at that time Finnish finance minister and who later became Speaker of the Finnish Parliament. This was in spite the fact that Ollila belongs to a different party, the Finnish Centre party, which he has been involved with since his activities in student politics at the University of Helsinki[citation needed].
>He was CEO of Nokia from 1999 to 2006. He was succeeded as CEO by Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo. On 15 September 2010, he announced he intended to step down from the position of Chairman in 2012[2] and did so on 3 May 2012.[3]
>Ollila is the Chairman of the Research Institute of the Finnish Economy (ETLA), the most reputed economic and social studies think tank in Finland. Since 2005, he is chairman of the European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT).
That doesn't look like someone who would trash a company they built for whatever conspiracy theories people cook up about how Elop got hired.
It's funny how Microsoft is ascribed the superpowers of a comic book super villian around these parts while they barely break 3% in the mobile market.
This person was the chairman of the board, read through his profile:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorma_Ollila
>Prior to joining Nokia in 1985, Ollila worked for eight years in corporate banking at Citibank's London and Helsinki offices, and when he joined Nokia his tasks involved international investment deals. A year later, in 1986, Ollila found himself as head of finance during Nokia's renewal under then CEO Kari Kairamo. He was appointed as chief of the mobile phones section in 1990, and CEO two years later in 1992. When Ollila first came to power, the company had suffered from internal disputes and had had a financial crisis for a number of years.
>As CEO of Nokia he has led the strategy that restructured the former industrial conglomerate into one of the major companies in the mobile phone and telecommunications infrastructure markets.
>In 1999, Ollila seriously considered taking part in the Finnish presidential election, following a request from a member of the National Coalition Party, Sauli Niinistö[citation needed] who was at that time Finnish finance minister and who later became Speaker of the Finnish Parliament. This was in spite the fact that Ollila belongs to a different party, the Finnish Centre party, which he has been involved with since his activities in student politics at the University of Helsinki[citation needed].
>He was CEO of Nokia from 1999 to 2006. He was succeeded as CEO by Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo. On 15 September 2010, he announced he intended to step down from the position of Chairman in 2012[2] and did so on 3 May 2012.[3]
>Ollila is the Chairman of the Research Institute of the Finnish Economy (ETLA), the most reputed economic and social studies think tank in Finland. Since 2005, he is chairman of the European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT).
That doesn't look like someone who would trash a company they built for whatever conspiracy theories people cook up about how Elop got hired.
It's funny how Microsoft is ascribed the superpowers of a comic book super villian around these parts while they barely break 3% in the mobile market.
Most likely because his previous employer was the company that had the better contacts.
However I do believe he wasn't a mole rather another manager driven by greed alonside the board members.
Once upon a time I worked for that Finn company.
However I do believe he wasn't a mole rather another manager driven by greed alonside the board members.
Once upon a time I worked for that Finn company.
Also killing the most exciting software platform -- Maemo/Meego.
On the other hand we now have Jolla so it's not that bad.
On the other hand we now have Jolla so it's not that bad.
>one of the worst CEO's
Leo Apotheker?
Leo Apotheker?
They're both up there. Having destroyed one of the most promising products (WebOS / Maemo) in recent times among other things.
HP is much less dead than Nokia. On the other hand, Nokia was in much worse shape, right?
Nokia isn't dead though. They are a top-tier player in network equipment along with Ericsson and Huawei.
The company is profitable, its market cap is around $26 billion USD, and they recently announced a major deal to acquire Alcatel-Lucent. They seem to have survived the amputation of the mobile phone division quite well.
The company is profitable, its market cap is around $26 billion USD, and they recently announced a major deal to acquire Alcatel-Lucent. They seem to have survived the amputation of the mobile phone division quite well.
That's why I said "less dead" ^_^.
Buying Alcatel-Lucent suggests to me they aren't all that healthy, based in part on my working at Lucent in 2001 and paying attention to that field since then. And "amputating" what was once more than 2/3rds of the company, going back to 2002, yikes. But, still, you might be right depending on how you define this sort of business health.
Scary how their revenue peaked the year the iPhone came out....
Buying Alcatel-Lucent suggests to me they aren't all that healthy, based in part on my working at Lucent in 2001 and paying attention to that field since then. And "amputating" what was once more than 2/3rds of the company, going back to 2002, yikes. But, still, you might be right depending on how you define this sort of business health.
Scary how their revenue peaked the year the iPhone came out....
At least he is assured a permanent place in business school case studies.
He will always be vilified, but the truth is that Nokia was on the way out anyway, no matter who was in charge.
So was Apple in 97.
Which kind of affirms the grandparent poster's point. Corporate turnarounds like Jobs's return to Apple are one in a million.
If Jobs hadn't been available, who could have saved Apple in 1997? I can't imagine a non-founder CEO up to the task.
Nokia had been fatally wounded by the short-sighted strategy of Elop's predecessors. He took a risk -- jumped off the famous "burning platform" and drowned. But the platform was already going down in flames.
If Jobs hadn't been available, who could have saved Apple in 1997? I can't imagine a non-founder CEO up to the task.
Nokia had been fatally wounded by the short-sighted strategy of Elop's predecessors. He took a risk -- jumped off the famous "burning platform" and drowned. But the platform was already going down in flames.
And Microsoft stepped in with their help and a huge cash injection, and Jobs was vilified for letting them.
I have sometimes wondered if the people at Microsoft in charge of that move have since regretted it.
IIRC, they did it mostly, because they were under investigation for antitrust charges (and very nearly were broken up), so they could show the DOJ they had an actual competitor. If that is true, they seem to have gotten a little more than they bargained for (the stock they bought must be worth a fortune today, though).
IIRC, they did it mostly, because they were under investigation for antitrust charges (and very nearly were broken up), so they could show the DOJ they had an actual competitor. If that is true, they seem to have gotten a little more than they bargained for (the stock they bought must be worth a fortune today, though).
> the stock they bought must be worth a fortune today, though
I dont have the source to back me up but I read MS sold the stock long time back even before the iphone.
I dont have the source to back me up but I read MS sold the stock long time back even before the iphone.
Probably not, they knew that their jobs would be much harder if Apple failed.
Heh. IIRC, that was actually a payoff for IP infringement, and it wasn't particularly huge, relatively speaking.
Having said that, committing to Office on the Mac was significant.
Having said that, committing to Office on the Mac was significant.
Yeah, it was related to QuickTime.
San Francisco Canyon Company was hired by Apple to port QuickTime to Windows, later it was hired by Intel to do some work on Indeo. Intel and Microsoft used the work done by San Francisco Canyon Company to jointly to improve Video for Windows performance, but San Francisco Canyon Company allegedly included QuickTime code and proprietary information without Apple's permission.
Things got nasty but Jobs opted to use this leverage to give Apple some credibility when it had suffered a serious blow from the Copland wreck.
Jobs set the terms: Apple and Microsoft agreed to cross-license each others patents, current and prospective lawsuits were dropped, Apple agreed to make IE the default browser, Microsoft agreed to continue developing Microsoft Office for Mac for 5 years and Microsoft would announce the purchase $150 million in non-voting stock.
It wasn't done out of pity, Microsoft's lawyers likely believed they would lose the case and this was a sweetheart deal which it would have been stupid to refuse.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Canyon_Company
http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/02/01/maritz_on_apple/
San Francisco Canyon Company was hired by Apple to port QuickTime to Windows, later it was hired by Intel to do some work on Indeo. Intel and Microsoft used the work done by San Francisco Canyon Company to jointly to improve Video for Windows performance, but San Francisco Canyon Company allegedly included QuickTime code and proprietary information without Apple's permission.
Things got nasty but Jobs opted to use this leverage to give Apple some credibility when it had suffered a serious blow from the Copland wreck.
Jobs set the terms: Apple and Microsoft agreed to cross-license each others patents, current and prospective lawsuits were dropped, Apple agreed to make IE the default browser, Microsoft agreed to continue developing Microsoft Office for Mac for 5 years and Microsoft would announce the purchase $150 million in non-voting stock.
It wasn't done out of pity, Microsoft's lawyers likely believed they would lose the case and this was a sweetheart deal which it would have been stupid to refuse.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Canyon_Company
http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/02/01/maritz_on_apple/
Apple was saved by their founder. Usually the only people who can really turn a company around are their founders and even then stories of that are rare.
I would buy stock in MS if Gates ever came back, but I don't expect it.
I would buy stock in MS if Gates ever came back, but I don't expect it.
I am not sure if I agree with the statement that Nokia's market share were destroyed by MS. If I recall Nokia was on its downfall even before Apple's iPhone came into market. I grew up with the 3330, so I always have a soft corner for them, it was my first phone and lasted forever. However, with the emergence of the iPhone, Nokia's fate was sealed. Most people here on HN including me considered Nokia DOA and it wasn't until the emergence of Lumia phones with its incredible Camera that people started to take notice. The comments went from "pfft DOA" to "I would totally consider if they made one in android!".
Strategically I think it was a better plan for Nokia to go with Windows regardless of the CEO. Apple doesn't do partnerships and the only other popular option was Android, which was ruled by Samsung and to compete against them would be to compete against a Goliath. So indirectly I think MS did help them even though it was for their own gains.
Also keep in mind, only the phone division was sold to MS. The rest of the company is intact and still trading in the stock market.
Strategically I think it was a better plan for Nokia to go with Windows regardless of the CEO. Apple doesn't do partnerships and the only other popular option was Android, which was ruled by Samsung and to compete against them would be to compete against a Goliath. So indirectly I think MS did help them even though it was for their own gains.
Also keep in mind, only the phone division was sold to MS. The rest of the company is intact and still trading in the stock market.
Microsoft has perfected the use of executive outplacement as an offensive weapon. Watching where he goes now will prove entertaining.
Let's just pray he doesn't go to Blackberry. QNX deserves better.
Let's just pray he doesn't go to Blackberry. QNX deserves better.
Betting website should add this prediction. Elop new company will sell in two years -> 1 : 4
And a new unofficial national holiday for Finland. Finally!
side note: MS does not pay premiums when buying companies..ever
Steve Ballmer destroyed ~3.8 Enrons of shareholder wealth during his reign. http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_1_5/1754661_Shareholder_decimat...
That doesn't even take into account dividends paid or the dotcom boom. My bad for clicking on a low quality non tech forum site.
Takeaways and what I'll watch for:
Kirill failed to cloudify. Qi isn't interested in the Dynamics business. Benioff couldn't get on-boarded. Guthrie is happy to step in.
* Azure can improve with Dynamics. Can Dynamics business improve with Guthrie? * Will cloud revenue reporting get more "obfuscated" in quarters to come?
Terry's and Elop's orgs were a) building cohesive/unified experiences and b) fighting conspiring threats to their long-term business solvency. Consolidation chose the most prominent leader.
* Does the bench of Terry's replacements change? * Could it be the first step towards scaling down hardware and devices?
Kirill failed to cloudify. Qi isn't interested in the Dynamics business. Benioff couldn't get on-boarded. Guthrie is happy to step in.
* Azure can improve with Dynamics. Can Dynamics business improve with Guthrie? * Will cloud revenue reporting get more "obfuscated" in quarters to come?
Terry's and Elop's orgs were a) building cohesive/unified experiences and b) fighting conspiring threats to their long-term business solvency. Consolidation chose the most prominent leader.
* Does the bench of Terry's replacements change? * Could it be the first step towards scaling down hardware and devices?
Interesting to see that Scott Guthrie is now getting talked about in the same breath as the MS senior management. His career is on a tear. Hopefully he can continue to help with the turnaround.
Ugh, I sure hope Scott doesn't become an example of the Peter Principle. He strikes me as a very knowledgeable nice guy that wouldn't fare well in management
Scott Guthrie is one of those unicorns who is both highly knowledgeable, very nice personally, and a great manager (I'm not sure why you suggest that he wouldn't fare well in management, but he is already running Azure). I remember a Azure demo day that he led at NEA where he opened a console, created a git repo, wrote a hello world, and deployed it to Azure in ~60 seconds.
He was already there.. he's continuing in the same role
Microsoft is separating applications and Windows. Is that a new thing? Does this mean Outlook and Office are no longer part of the same internal organizational structures when they used to be? I think if this is true and a new development that's going to be very good for Microsoft. I feel like Windows, while still a great workhorse OS has been like a anchor weighing Microsoft applications down on other platforms.
Outlook and Office are part of the Applications and Services Group. Windows was the Operating Systems Group. It's been this way since 2013
Were Windows and Office ever part of the same org? I don't believe so - at least in this century. In fact, my understanding is that the antitrust consent decree required a separation between the OS and applications orgs.
Bing isn't even mentioned.
There used to be a CEO of Bing (Qu Lu and Nadella had been in that slot) but last year, Bing was split up under 5 VPs; there's no longer a real Bing organization.
It's strange. Bing has 20% market search share under its own name, plus 13% under the Yahoo brand. That's 33%. Google has 64%, so Bing is now more than half the size of Google in terms of searches. That's OK market share; it's like being Chrysler vs General Motors.
Bing's profits, though, are awful. Microsoft apparently loses money on Bing.[1] It's hard to tell from the way Microsoft reports online services. Google's advertising revenue is 18 times Microsoft's. That's Bing's problem. Nobody buys Bing ads. It's surprising, with the the market share, that Bing can't fix this.
[1] https://www.ventureharbour.com/visualising-size-google-bing-...
There used to be a CEO of Bing (Qu Lu and Nadella had been in that slot) but last year, Bing was split up under 5 VPs; there's no longer a real Bing organization.
It's strange. Bing has 20% market search share under its own name, plus 13% under the Yahoo brand. That's 33%. Google has 64%, so Bing is now more than half the size of Google in terms of searches. That's OK market share; it's like being Chrysler vs General Motors.
Bing's profits, though, are awful. Microsoft apparently loses money on Bing.[1] It's hard to tell from the way Microsoft reports online services. Google's advertising revenue is 18 times Microsoft's. That's Bing's problem. Nobody buys Bing ads. It's surprising, with the the market share, that Bing can't fix this.
[1] https://www.ventureharbour.com/visualising-size-google-bing-...
I am employed at MSFT. This post (currently the top post) is factually incorrect on basically every level, both on subjects that look good for the company, and on subjects that don't. I'm stepping in to correct this because it's better that people understand honestly where we are and aren't doing well, then it is to have ridiculous rumors spread by people who shouldn't talk about what they don't understand.
Bing is under Qi Lu, full stop. Lu is very senior VP who reports directly to Satya Nadella. Bing is NOT split among Qi and 4 of his VP peers. It IS true that Lu has split the responsibilities of managing Bing up among SOME of his direct reports, almost all of whom are themselves VPs. But the idea that there is no real "Bing org" anymore is just completely and totally wrong. They all answer to Lu, and they've split responsibilities along sensible boundaries, so that things like UX are under one VP and infrastructure is under another VP.
Second, Bing does not have 20% market share "plus" Yahoo's market share. Bing and MSFT properties like MSN have 20% market share. Yahoo has 12%. You can't just credit Bing with Yahoo's market share. That's a search experience they work hard on, and the fact that Bing powers Yahoo is largely immaterial to their consumers, who come to Yahoo for the Yahoo experience. They could switch to Google tomorrow and the vast majority of consumers would not notice or care. Truthfully, the biggest (and arguably only real) benefit for Bing is the increased ad revenue.
Third, Bing IS profitable. This is well-known and reported on.
Fourth, it is basically completely untrue that "nobody" buys Bing ads. Obviously it would not be profitable if that were true. Furthermore, the supposition that you should buy ads based on market share of the search engine is hilariously wrong. You should purchase ads on the platform where they will be more successful. A lot of times this is Google; sometimes this is Bing. The fact that the parent got this wrong basically indicates that they are not to be trusted on this subject, at all. If the poster doesn't know what they're talking about here, it's better to just stop talking then it is to provide information that is wrong or harmful to people listening in.
Bing is under Qi Lu, full stop. Lu is very senior VP who reports directly to Satya Nadella. Bing is NOT split among Qi and 4 of his VP peers. It IS true that Lu has split the responsibilities of managing Bing up among SOME of his direct reports, almost all of whom are themselves VPs. But the idea that there is no real "Bing org" anymore is just completely and totally wrong. They all answer to Lu, and they've split responsibilities along sensible boundaries, so that things like UX are under one VP and infrastructure is under another VP.
Second, Bing does not have 20% market share "plus" Yahoo's market share. Bing and MSFT properties like MSN have 20% market share. Yahoo has 12%. You can't just credit Bing with Yahoo's market share. That's a search experience they work hard on, and the fact that Bing powers Yahoo is largely immaterial to their consumers, who come to Yahoo for the Yahoo experience. They could switch to Google tomorrow and the vast majority of consumers would not notice or care. Truthfully, the biggest (and arguably only real) benefit for Bing is the increased ad revenue.
Third, Bing IS profitable. This is well-known and reported on.
Fourth, it is basically completely untrue that "nobody" buys Bing ads. Obviously it would not be profitable if that were true. Furthermore, the supposition that you should buy ads based on market share of the search engine is hilariously wrong. You should purchase ads on the platform where they will be more successful. A lot of times this is Google; sometimes this is Bing. The fact that the parent got this wrong basically indicates that they are not to be trusted on this subject, at all. If the poster doesn't know what they're talking about here, it's better to just stop talking then it is to provide information that is wrong or harmful to people listening in.
Good to see some clarification. I can tell it means a lot to you since you've become aggressive and belittling. Don't be aggressive and belittling.
Welcome to HN, where people vomit their assumptions like it's fact and get to the top of the comments section.
When is bing the right choice and google the right choice? I figure with their market shares that it would be pretty normalized. Just curious why there's a big difference between the two search engines in terms of users.
I run lots of PPC for lots of clients, and Bing is very relevant. Their UI has been painful, and the quantity of their search traffic varies wildly compared to Google, but it is also much cheaper.
Bing traffic by and large tends to be older, more affluent, and less tech literate... people who don't tend to change their default search engine. For many types of businesses, this is ideal. Also we have had good results in tech B2B marketing with Bing. My theory is that most MS sysadmins don't want to run chrome on their servers but surf from their boxes and get lazy. Also porn.
The big story with Bing is its tight integration with Windows, XBox, Cortana, etc. Their research direction per Stefan Weitz has been to focus on making natural language search really work. Less effort has been invested in trying to keep up with Google and more has been trying to create a different search experience.
When Cortana really hits the main stage this summer/fall, we'll be seeing the manifestation of Bing at its fullest, and if they really get the Neural Networks nailed they could pull off a big shift in how people search, and also how people advertise...
http://blogs.windows.com/bloggingwindows/2015/04/30/cortana-...
Bing traffic by and large tends to be older, more affluent, and less tech literate... people who don't tend to change their default search engine. For many types of businesses, this is ideal. Also we have had good results in tech B2B marketing with Bing. My theory is that most MS sysadmins don't want to run chrome on their servers but surf from their boxes and get lazy. Also porn.
The big story with Bing is its tight integration with Windows, XBox, Cortana, etc. Their research direction per Stefan Weitz has been to focus on making natural language search really work. Less effort has been invested in trying to keep up with Google and more has been trying to create a different search experience.
When Cortana really hits the main stage this summer/fall, we'll be seeing the manifestation of Bing at its fullest, and if they really get the Neural Networks nailed they could pull off a big shift in how people search, and also how people advertise...
http://blogs.windows.com/bloggingwindows/2015/04/30/cortana-...
This coincides with my theory explaining why bing is bigger in the US and not Europe. European regulators forced microsoft to make it easy to switch search engines/browsers, and users when given the choice tend to choose google. That means bing is successful due to being a microsoft product forced upon its users.
Bing has 20% market search share under its own name, plus 13% under the Yahoo brand. That's 33%.
That's hard for me to believe; where do those figures come from? No site I currently work on gets anything close to that much traffic from Bing and Yahoo compared to Google. Anecdotes vs. data and all that, but I'm talking about a few different sites on completely different subjects here. We see quite consistent traffic levels from different search engines if you compensate for active advertising campaigns and similar factors.
Google's advertising revenue is 18 times Microsoft's.
Is that specifically for adds on search engine results pages, or do the figures also take into account other advertising channels?
That's hard for me to believe; where do those figures come from? No site I currently work on gets anything close to that much traffic from Bing and Yahoo compared to Google. Anecdotes vs. data and all that, but I'm talking about a few different sites on completely different subjects here. We see quite consistent traffic levels from different search engines if you compensate for active advertising campaigns and similar factors.
Google's advertising revenue is 18 times Microsoft's.
Is that specifically for adds on search engine results pages, or do the figures also take into account other advertising channels?
Whenever someone types "facebook" in IE's omnibar [assuming IE has an omnibar], it counts as a "Bing search".
But that's true for Chrome/Google too.. if anything, since Chome is more popular than IE, Google probably sees more of these types of searches than Bing does.
Not to anyone responsible for things like allocating advertising budgets for search engines, I suspect...
I concur. Our analytics are fairly consistent with a lot of sources when it comes to browser usage, etc. but we've never seen numbers for Bing + Yahoo anywhere near even 10%.
The Google percentage seems accurate, but there are other sources to consider.
The Google percentage seems accurate, but there are other sources to consider.
probably from here: http://searchengineland.com/bing-reaches-20-percent-search-m...
Bing's under Qi Lu. I guess the main reason is that a search engine by itself can not improve its market share. You'll need more channels to increase the traffic. By giving more power to Lu, Bing can leverage other channels too like desktop search, enterprise search, etc. to increase brand awareness and traffic.
Google is not just a search engine by itself. Most of everything else that Google does also aim to protect and increase search traffic.
Google is not just a search engine by itself. Most of everything else that Google does also aim to protect and increase search traffic.
We buy Bing ads and they covert better than Google. Though there's far fewer referrals.
The problem is 22% of those searches are for Google.
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It's standard practice at any large company to make org changes at least once a year, and is considered mandatory at any that's "struggling"; i.e., not growing, losing money, and/or flopping with high-profile new products or acquisitions. It doesn't necessarily reflect any real change in product mix, day-to-day life for the rank and file, or any high-minded view of how the company ought to be run. It's just what CEOs do to demonstrate that they're "doing something" so they can keep their highly lucrative jobs a while longer. The departure of Elop was expected and is also standard for CEOs of acquired companies at some point from a few months to a few years after the deal closes. So all in all, nothing to see here.
The size and scope of these changes are atypical for Microsoft, especially given the number of senior executive departures.
> I don’t think that Microsoft is shedding its most popular executives.
And perhaps some "ding, dong, the witch is dead" from Redmond over those that are departing?
And perhaps some "ding, dong, the witch is dead" from Redmond over those that are departing?
Who was responsible for the Windows 10 nag that appeared in my system tray a few weeks back? Have they been sacked?
It seems, new Microsoft is sharply focused on consumer part (aimed at Apple and Google) and enterprise part(aimed at Amazon cloud and others). Article conveys the same.
I won't be surprised if bing is handed over to yahoo completely.
I won't be surprised if bing is handed over to yahoo completely.
> I won't be surprised if bing is handed over to yahoo completely.
I would be very surprised. As would all those MS employees working on Bing, it would be unprecedented for a company to hand a fully functional and somewhat critical leg of the company to a competitor.
I would be very surprised. As would all those MS employees working on Bing, it would be unprecedented for a company to hand a fully functional and somewhat critical leg of the company to a competitor.
Dynamics CRM approaching $2B and the Head is cut... :(
I read that as meaning all of the Dynamics products - AX, NAV, GP etc. - not just CRM.
Not sure the comparison with Box is that appropriate - Box is more comparable to SharePoint, which is a huge product (on-premise and as part of Office 365).
Not sure the comparison with Box is that appropriate - Box is more comparable to SharePoint, which is a huge product (on-premise and as part of Office 365).
Need new head to compete with oracle and salesforce
SAP too. Even newer, cloud-based companies like Workday are looking like very promising contenders for the same small/midsize businesses as AX, GP, NAV, and SL.
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Can we please have .NET, C++ and Windows on the same unit to avoid the usual issues among them (e.g. Longhorn)?
I don't remember the Longhorn problems being due to any friction between the developer division and the Windows org.
Rather, mostly Microsoft bit off more than it could chew, and somewhat the perf of .NET on the average machine of the day wasn't up to snuff. If I recall correctly, there were also issues with managed-native interop that really threw a wrench into the works when developing the new (.NET-based) shell.
EDIT: There could also have been issues due to the antitrust consent decree - but that's speculation - I don't remember the details of the decree. If that is the case, then parent comment could be correct.
Rather, mostly Microsoft bit off more than it could chew, and somewhat the perf of .NET on the average machine of the day wasn't up to snuff. If I recall correctly, there were also issues with managed-native interop that really threw a wrench into the works when developing the new (.NET-based) shell.
EDIT: There could also have been issues due to the antitrust consent decree - but that's speculation - I don't remember the details of the decree. If that is the case, then parent comment could be correct.
Many of those performance issues were political and not technical.
Hence why the going native when the windows team won the redesign to Vista.
Everything that the .NET team has been doing in the last years in terms of compiling directly to native code via MDIL to Windows Phone 8 and now .NET Native, it is a consequence of that.
The ideas behind Longhorn could have been achieved if .NET followed the same compilation model as Ada, Delphi, Modula-2, Modula-3, Oberon or any other memory safe language with compilation straight to native code.
This is how I see it by reading between the lines from all those MSDN articles, Channel 9 videos and occasional forum posts.
I might be wrong, but that is how I see it.
Hence why the going native when the windows team won the redesign to Vista.
Everything that the .NET team has been doing in the last years in terms of compiling directly to native code via MDIL to Windows Phone 8 and now .NET Native, it is a consequence of that.
The ideas behind Longhorn could have been achieved if .NET followed the same compilation model as Ada, Delphi, Modula-2, Modula-3, Oberon or any other memory safe language with compilation straight to native code.
This is how I see it by reading between the lines from all those MSDN articles, Channel 9 videos and occasional forum posts.
I might be wrong, but that is how I see it.
(Interestingly, Oberon was mentioned in the comments on the Web Asm submission today: "Oberon language had a similar system called Juice back in 1997. It does exactly the same thing, e.g. using binary format to store a compressed abstract syntax tree as intermediate format which can be compiled efficiently and quickly. I think it even has a browser plugin much as Java applet..." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9733520 )
I was fortunate to be able to use Oberon in its golden days.
Just like any compiled language there were multiple implementations of the Oberon language.
But Oberon was actually a systems programming language with GC, used to implement the Oberon workstation OS, which was used at ETHZ IT department.
Fully complete OS, Xerox PARC style, as Wirth was inspired by the Cedar workstation on his second visit there (the first one lead to Lillith and Modula-2).
At least here in Europe, some universities had some versions of those systems.
Besides that implementation, there were other ones based on bytecode and JIT compilation on module load, for example.
Just like any compiled language there were multiple implementations of the Oberon language.
But Oberon was actually a systems programming language with GC, used to implement the Oberon workstation OS, which was used at ETHZ IT department.
Fully complete OS, Xerox PARC style, as Wirth was inspired by the Cedar workstation on his second visit there (the first one lead to Lillith and Modula-2).
At least here in Europe, some universities had some versions of those systems.
Besides that implementation, there were other ones based on bytecode and JIT compilation on module load, for example.
Very cool. Do you know of any particularly good (English) sources to learn more about the OS, that you could recommend?
I've always been curious about Lisp machines... Was the Oberon OS composed of Oberon code from the lowest to the highest levels?
I've always been curious about Lisp machines... Was the Oberon OS composed of Oberon code from the lowest to the highest levels?
Yes, you can start with the 2013 review of the "Project Oberon" book, that Niklaus Wirth made by Oberon's anniversary.
http://www.inf.ethz.ch/personal/wirth/ProjectOberon/
It includes the source code.
The original edition and many other books are available from his site at the university.
http://www.inf.ethz.ch/personal/wirth/
Some screenshots and information from the old days:
http://www.ethoberon.ethz.ch/native/WebScreen.html
http://www.ethoberon.ethz.ch/native/
Oberon was followed by Oberon-2, which you can find here:
http://www.ssw.uni-linz.ac.at/Research/Papers/Oberon2.pdf
http://ssw.jku.at/Research/Books/Oberon2.pdf
Which then gave birth to Active Oberon:
http://www.ocp.inf.ethz.ch/wiki/Documentation/Front
There was also the EthOS as Oberon evolution.
http://e-collection.library.ethz.ch/view/eth:38713
The Oberon operating system was fully implemented in Oberon, with some assembly for the kernel module and boot loader. In the later versions, the SYSTEM package gained all required intrisics to do everything in pure Oberon.
It is a bit confusing to speak about OS and language, because like Java, the same name is used for both.
Eventually they moved on to other stuff.
There was an Oberon evolution for .NET called Zonnon, but it is hardly known.
One of the guys working on Oberon as a student was Robert Griesemer, a Go designer. Hanspeter Mössenböck from Oberon-2 is one of the researchers working on Graal.
Oberon is related to Mesa/Cedar, not Lisp Machines. Basically something like a .NET/Java OS in the late 70's providing the same expressiveness of the Lisp and Smalltalk environments but in a strong typed language, capable of systems programming.
Although they followed the same principle as Lisp machines. On the papers they refer to Assembly as bytecode, because the CPUs were CISC with microcode for execution.
https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_xeroxparcteCedarProgra...
https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_xeroxparcteriencesCrea...
https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_xeroxparctddingGarbage...
So while AT&T was making UNIX, Xerox PARC had Interlisp-D, Smalltalk and Mesa/Cedar.
http://www.inf.ethz.ch/personal/wirth/ProjectOberon/
It includes the source code.
The original edition and many other books are available from his site at the university.
http://www.inf.ethz.ch/personal/wirth/
Some screenshots and information from the old days:
http://www.ethoberon.ethz.ch/native/WebScreen.html
http://www.ethoberon.ethz.ch/native/
Oberon was followed by Oberon-2, which you can find here:
http://www.ssw.uni-linz.ac.at/Research/Papers/Oberon2.pdf
http://ssw.jku.at/Research/Books/Oberon2.pdf
Which then gave birth to Active Oberon:
http://www.ocp.inf.ethz.ch/wiki/Documentation/Front
There was also the EthOS as Oberon evolution.
http://e-collection.library.ethz.ch/view/eth:38713
The Oberon operating system was fully implemented in Oberon, with some assembly for the kernel module and boot loader. In the later versions, the SYSTEM package gained all required intrisics to do everything in pure Oberon.
It is a bit confusing to speak about OS and language, because like Java, the same name is used for both.
Eventually they moved on to other stuff.
There was an Oberon evolution for .NET called Zonnon, but it is hardly known.
One of the guys working on Oberon as a student was Robert Griesemer, a Go designer. Hanspeter Mössenböck from Oberon-2 is one of the researchers working on Graal.
Oberon is related to Mesa/Cedar, not Lisp Machines. Basically something like a .NET/Java OS in the late 70's providing the same expressiveness of the Lisp and Smalltalk environments but in a strong typed language, capable of systems programming.
Although they followed the same principle as Lisp machines. On the papers they refer to Assembly as bytecode, because the CPUs were CISC with microcode for execution.
https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_xeroxparcteCedarProgra...
https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_xeroxparcteriencesCrea...
https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_xeroxparctddingGarbage...
So while AT&T was making UNIX, Xerox PARC had Interlisp-D, Smalltalk and Mesa/Cedar.
So the main reason Longhorn didn't come to fruition was performance? (Honest question, no sarcasm implied).
The main reason is that Microsoft wasn't on track to ship the OS with its grand vision (the "Pillars of Longhorn," which included e.g. WinFS) in any reasonable amount of time.
For example, it wasn't the case that Longhorn was code complete and the Powers that Be said, "You know, the perf isn't where we'd like it, so time to reset." Or that the only work that was happening was perf work.
There were just too many parts to the grand vision of Longhorn, and hence too many moving pieces, and it just never solidified.
IIRC, around the time of the reset, bugs were being opened at a faster rate than they were being closed. So not only was Longhorn not going to be ship-ready in any reasonable amount of time, at that rate it was never going to be ship-ready at all.
For example, it wasn't the case that Longhorn was code complete and the Powers that Be said, "You know, the perf isn't where we'd like it, so time to reset." Or that the only work that was happening was perf work.
There were just too many parts to the grand vision of Longhorn, and hence too many moving pieces, and it just never solidified.
IIRC, around the time of the reset, bugs were being opened at a faster rate than they were being closed. So not only was Longhorn not going to be ship-ready in any reasonable amount of time, at that rate it was never going to be ship-ready at all.
At PDC 2003, they also stated they were expecting much faster processors - one slide mentioned 6GHz chips.
Really interesting.
Mid-2003 is when I started at Microsoft. Though: out in MSN, not where the action was. :)
Has Moore's Law really broken down that severely 'lately'? I'm reminded of one of Kurzweil's books that shows 'Moore's Law' holding since before digital computers. But - the book shows - zoomed in, the trend line is actually a succession of periods of fairly rapid growth followed by stagnation. (Obviously though one question is how cherry-picked the underlying data was...)
Edit: The book was The Singularity is Near.
Mid-2003 is when I started at Microsoft. Though: out in MSN, not where the action was. :)
Has Moore's Law really broken down that severely 'lately'? I'm reminded of one of Kurzweil's books that shows 'Moore's Law' holding since before digital computers. But - the book shows - zoomed in, the trend line is actually a succession of periods of fairly rapid growth followed by stagnation. (Obviously though one question is how cherry-picked the underlying data was...)
Edit: The book was The Singularity is Near.
Transistors have kept getting cheaper, but single core perf hasn't been growing as fast for the last decade or so.
I guess one of them was.
But as I said, it was most certainly political as well.
Anyone that went through such big rewrites at corporations similar to Microsoft, knows how much appeasing to different units has more value than technical merits.
Anyway that is just my opinion. For the real issues we would need insider info.
But as I said, it was most certainly political as well.
Anyone that went through such big rewrites at corporations similar to Microsoft, knows how much appeasing to different units has more value than technical merits.
Anyway that is just my opinion. For the real issues we would need insider info.
[deleted]
The "Great Purge" by Nadella to get rid of all of Balmer era old guards so Nadella & Co can reign supreme in Microsoft.
This is more like the idiot purge. These execs are well known for being the worst of the lot inside Microsoft.
Frankly, Eric Rudder should promptly write a book about how to maintain a VP position at a bigcorp without actually doing anything for a decade.
Frankly, Eric Rudder should promptly write a book about how to maintain a VP position at a bigcorp without actually doing anything for a decade.
Ex Microsoft Manager went to Nokia, destroyed its Market Value, sold the debris back to Microsoft is now leaving Microsoft again. Time to short whatever company he is going to next. ;)