Tag: Strategy

Microsoft Corp. today announced that Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer has decided to retire as CEO within the next 12 months, upon the completion of a process to choose his successor. In the meantime, Ballmer will continue as CEO and will lead Microsoft through the next steps of its transformation to a devices and services company that empowers people for the activities they value most.

“There is never a perfect time for this type of transition, but now is the right time,” Ballmer said. “We have embarked on a new strategy with a new organization and we have an amazing Senior Leadership Team. My original thoughts on timing would have had my retirement happen in the middle of our company’s transformation to a devices and services company. We need a CEO who will be here longer term for this new direction.”

Microsoft

Finally! Maybe after a decade of stagnation in the PC world and Microsoft we will finally get back some direction and alternatives in the market.

Also, pay special attention to the phrase i marked out in bold. Telling.

Death of the desktop is clear not because Windows desktop sales are declining but because Macintosh desktop sales are declining. When Mercedes (Apple) begins to suffer declining unit sales, what does it mean for GM (Microsoft)? Not good.

The only option is to invent the future, which Ballmer and Microsoft are attempting to do by entering the tablet hardware business (again emulating Apple) and cutting bold smart phone deals with outfits like Nokia. But Microsoft, for all its posturing and $1 billion marketing budgets, isn’t any good at inventing the future and knows it. Ballmer lacks confidence that Redmond can invent it’s way out of the current hole. And because he lacks confidence, as does nearly everyone else at Microsoft, of course it won’t happen.

Microsoft didn’t invent the PC but benefited from its invention. Microsoft didn’t invent BASIC, they didn’t invent the PC operating system, they didn’t invent word processor, spreadsheet, or presentation applications, they didn’t invent PC games, they didn’t invent the graphical user interface, they didn’t invent the notebook or the tablet, they didn’t invent the Internet, they didn’t invent the music player or the video game, but they benefited from all these things.

Like Blanche DuBois, Microsoft has relied on the kindness of strangers.

I, Cringely

There’s a couple of errors with this reasoning. First, Macintosh desktop sales has been declining because Apple has provided very little value in its latest lines of desktops, and this while the world is going through a very strong financial crisis. I would suggest that the only way to actually see the desktop trending average would be to avoid the edges of the market and see what’s the “middle-class” buying.

Second, although i don’t disagree that most people will be perfectly satisfied with their pc-as-appliance model of tablets and smartphones in the future, Enterprise computer needs will remain stable for some sort of desktop computer, even if not some cumbersome power-hungry beast based around Intel’s x86 line.

Third, Microsoft is not “a person”, it’s a set of persons, which has changed a lot through out the times and it’s definitely not the same set of persons today than it was yesterday. Just because 30 years ago MS didn’t invented BASIC or the Operating System it certainly doesn’t mean that they will not invent something revolutionary and ground-breaking now.

Fourth, the whole argument is based on Ballmer being some sort of machiavellian genius of finance and business strategy. And that I have a very hard time believing…

Steve Ballmer

This explains why Microsoft is in a downwards spiral (and until further details from Surface are provided i don’t think that will save it either). Windows should never have become “heart and soul” of Microsoft. Office is what people really need/want, Windows is just a tool to an end, or a tool for the use of another tool. And not a really good one.

As long as you can do your Office work, in a compatible and “usual” way, it really doesn’t matter if you have Windows, Linux, Mac or some other OS. Focusing on Windows instead of Office will be the key event of Microsoft downfall.

I don’t get this. Microsoft announces in June that they will ship a tablet somewhere around Fall, with a undisclosed price! Does this makes any sense?

If it would ship today, then many people would probably buy it as a impulse purchase and this single momentum alone could probably make sure that the product “sticked” to the market and kept on selling. After an initial run of several hundred thousand sales, is probably difficult to just ignore a product all together.

But making everyone wait for three to six months? First, the only way the “regular Joe” will have access to the Surface experience is through journalists and commenters and regular “tech pundits”. But what if those folks, which are usually hyper-critical and always have an axe to grind or an angle to the story, slander it? What if they say that the battery sucks or the keyboard-cover is useless or it gets too hot? With the iPad there was a deluge of bloggers and regular folks saying that the whole “warmgate” was an absurd and exaggeration from Consumer Reports. Mouth to mouth communication helps a lot spreading the “good news” of a product and fighting doubts and confusion. Regular, intermediated, press on the other hand is always a risk and usually tend to focus on the defects.

As usual Microsoft seems to try to take a step forward that then translates into a risky movement and ends in two steps towards oblivion. Until the Fall, Surface can either disappear in the wind or surge again with bad reviews. But it won’t stay on the news with praises and excited covers and reviews for four or six months that’s for sure. Maybe i’m wrong, but this has pretty much been the pattern in the last years.