Bach, Allard leaving Microsoft
techflash.com
techflash.com
On one hand, expect to hear many people outside Microsoft to boo this move since J. Allard seemed to be one of those "young executives who Got It". On the other hand, Steve Ballmer is left with less choices seeing those red numbers in Excel Spreadsheet almost overflowing whatever the data type in cell G-14, H-15 and K-25.
I'll give Microsoft two thumbs up for its effort trying to stay relevant (cause y'know... it's hard). But it's the price they have to pay when they decided to relax when they managed to monopoly the consumer market back in 95-2002 time period and to pursue/grow their business offerings.
It's tough to be both Apple and IBM at the same time.
Now you can say, "MS has missed the big trends like mobile devices and search". This is true, but at the same time they've really nailed the enterprise. Not sexy, but they went from people saying, "MS is a desktop OS, not a server" to them being one of the dominant server software providers. From Windows Server to SQL Server to Sharepoint to BizTalk.
If I were Ballmer and my head was on the chopping block my argument would be, "I've made us essential in the enterprise. This is revenue that we will see for decades. Sure, the consumer market I didn't do as well, but given a choice I'll take the less glamorous enterprise market. Why? In the consumer market you can go from market leader to struggling to make a profit in one product cycle (see Nintendo and Sony in the past decade)."
I'm no Ballmer apologist, but I just think there's an argument. Although really the stock price is hard to argue against.
In 3Q FY10 their breakdown was: Windows 3.0B Office 2.6B Server 1.3B
And note, this is profit for the quarter, not revenue. So their server division (which also includes VS -- which makes good revenue, but not great income) is about half of Office income. And I believe Sharepoint is counted in the Office income, although I'd consider it a server product and it brings in more than $1B revenue (not sure about the margins on it though).
Their team is about 26 people (26 of probably bottom line, not including Product managers, PMU, and everything all the way up).
And the Internet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGvHNNOLnCk
A used car salesman running Microsoft is out of his depth. Is it really any surprise the company has floundered for years?
Honestly, trying to get a straight answer on Microsoft licensing is, as far as I am concerned, the worst thing about their products (which are often technically rather good).
I'm confused. Did you read the article?
"The Entertainment & Devices Division has posted operating profits in the company's most recent two fiscal years, and it's on track for another profitable year, rebounding from the billions of dollars in losses it posted as the Xbox business was getting up to speed."
Why on earth would "this shake-up" be needed?
Because you can't be top dog in the pack when you're looking at Nintendo's cute wagging backside inching further away. Wii is the PS2 of this millennium. There's no way the PS3 or XBox 360 will touch it.
Microsoft isn't used to being second fiddle. Hell, look at how they're stagnating in the web browser arena. Firefox and Chrome et al. are eating away at IE and MS doesn't seem to care because they can't control the browser with all these open standards anyway. Bing is an also ran that can't even come close to Google's dominance, no matter how much money they throw at consumers with that cashback scheme.
The reason they became successful (then, with the introduction of Windows 95, dominant) is that they were cheap and kinda worked. That's great in the era of big iron and 20lb. "portables" and all that. But now, people are willing to pay for "just works" and "magic". Plug, main screen turn on, device do thing, you use and it no hard.
When the vast majority of users are obsessed with social networking, writing small little text/tweets, bite-size 2D addictive casual games with one-button control, and playing music and youtube videos, how are you going to cash in on that if you're a Microsoft? Try to replicate Zynga and Twitter? Then what? Watch as you're yet again late to the party and throwing massive gobs of money down the pit to fill it up and catch the competition?
Maybe -- and this could be the key -- MS needs to start _aquiring_ technologies instead of trying to reinvent them like they're some garage startup. Go buy some big sexy new technology, actually ship it (or hell, ship surface/origami/courier/etc.). Because you're not going to outsexy Apple or outcasual Nintendo playing by their rules. You just won't.
> Microsoft isn't used to being second fiddle. Hell, look at how they're stagnating in the web browser arena.
Microsoft plays second fiddle all the time. Aside from Windows, Office, and (_maybe_) VS, nearly all their products are ranked second (or lower) in popularity. MSN Messenger. Bing. Windows Mobile / CE. Xbox. Windows Server. IIS. SQL Server.
> Bing is an also ran that can't even come close to Google's dominance, no matter how much money they throw at consumers with that cashback scheme.
I've heard good things about Bing. Claiming they bought all their users is disingenuous.
> When the vast majority of users are obsessed with social networking, writing small little text/tweets, bite-size 2D addictive casual games with one-button control, and playing music and youtube videos, how are you going to cash in on that if you're a Microsoft? Try to replicate Zynga and Twitter? Then what?
You don't, and you then compare the current financials of Microsoft, Zynga, and Twitter.
> Maybe -- and this could be the key -- MS needs to start _aquiring_ technologies instead of trying to reinvent them like they're some garage startup.
Microsoft acquires companies _all the time_. It's a common criticism: "Microsoft has never created anything. They've just bought out companies that create things." "Like some garage startup"? Hardly.
> Go buy some big sexy new technology, actually ship it (or hell, ship surface/origami/courier/etc.).
Whatever criticism Microsoft deserves, failing to ship is hardly among it.
Once in a while, there will be divisions that would require some changes. Couple years ago, Vista (or the OS div) was the main target. They moved Steven Sinofsky from Office to OS.
Once the situation over the OS div is better a bit, then the Online division. They brought up various outsiders if I remember correctly. Some from Yahoo!, not sure if they get anyone from Google (most likely not). Then Bing showed up.
Now it's the E&D that got their piece of Ballmer Pie.
PS: I'm probably speculating.
I believe so, but I don't recall specifics.
> Once in a while, there will be divisions that would require some changes. Couple years ago, Vista (or the OS div) was the main target. They moved Steven Sinofsky from Office to OS.
Sure. My original point (in response to you) was that E&D is in the black - not the red - so your vision of Balmer "seeing those red numbers in Excel Spreadsheet almost overflowing whatever the data type in cell G-14, H-15 and K-25" simply doesn't exist.
> PS: I'm probably speculating.
And I'm trying to bring everyone back to earth. :)
This story will be like this for a while and I'm not sure that's a good way to run a business financially or mentally (for the employee).
Yes, they are finally profitable (after almost 9 years?). But sometime you'd have to check the casualty as well. In this case, it looks like the Microsoft brand is the foremost casualty.
Perhaps once it crossed that line from being a money pit to a profitable division Microsoft decided it was time to put the "grown ups" in charge to juice up profits using all the marvelous techniques cut-throat business minded people excel at. That's a total guess on my part but it seems like something Microsoft would do.
J Allard's name is really :) Allard; outside Microsoft, the bug of mangling the smiley into a J for people without the Wingdings font installed will no longer happen.
Their own Outlook tray notification does this. I still double-take when the message preview ends "Thanks J"
I haven't heard of any other high-profile departures recently. Have you?