A phrase in this message caught my attention: "Microsoft's past
glory." I don't think Microsoft *ever had* a past glory. They began
by purveying junk heavily laced with self-serving commentary
designed to tell ignorant buyers how great Microsoft was, and I
cannot see that from there, they ever went up far at all. Any
"glory" in their accomplishment seems to me about on a level
with Willie Sutton, who also made a lot of money.
Asked why he robbed banks, Sutton replied, "Because that's
where the money is."
Microsoft seems to have operated on the same principle, at
great cost to society as a whole. I think today's change can be
labelled "market saturation," but actually, Windows *is* a
a bummer to use with all its unfinished business, vendor lockin,
and not-so-hidden connections to hardware, software, and
three-letter Washington agencies and companies.
How about if, we step back and try to see this picture in its
larger and longer perspective? A frequently good question is
simply, "Why now?" Why has Gates retired with his 50 or 60
or 80 billions? Why is Microsoft showing signs of stress? I
don't think the analogy of rats leaving a sinking ship is good
here. But that a better analogy is, if you're in a business
career then you want to go where the growth is. So why is
it no longer in Microsoft?
Cheers -- Martha Adams [cola 2007 Apr 5]
"BearItAll" <spam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1175769338.46236.0@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>
> Is this good or bad we have to wonder, from MS's point of view that
> is.
>
>> A Whole Lotta Movin' On! [at Microsoft]
>>
>> ,----[ Quote ]
>> | * As has Jenny Lam of Vista UX.
>
> It must be very tempting to dump the entire Vista team at this time.
> It's a
> disaster, the team's leaders would have to get the boot anyway for
> such a
> bad attempt. Ballmer, how much of the troubles rest on his shoulders,
> well
> you can't help feeling that it will be a lot of the troubles. Did he
> give
> them enough time, it looks like the answer to that is 'no', did he
> give
> them enough resources, I don't know the answer to that, but I know
> that if
> you reduce the time you must increase the resources to compensate, but
> that
> will top out to a point where no more resources will help the
> situation and
> only time will do. Could he have stopped the disastrous Vista OS going
> out
> of the door knowing that it wouldn't work? That has to be his
> responsibility.
>
>>
>> Microsoft Search Leader To Leave Company
>>
>> ,----[ Quote ]
>> | The Microsoft Corp. vice president who led the company's push into
>> | Internet search is leaving the software giant as the effort he
>> | helped launch loses ground against lead competitor Google Inc.
>> `----
>>
>
> Let him go, he didn't get the search engine even remotely comparable
> to
> Google and some of the other engines. The results in MS search are
> always
> pathetic compared to the others. So let this bloke go and get someone
> who
> knows what they are doing.
>
> Had MS search been good Google wouldn't have stood a chance, simply
> because
> MS search is already onboard and easy for users to get at. It failed
> because it isn't a good product.
>
>>
>> ,----[ Quote ]
>> | Blake Irving, a Corporate Vice President in Microsoft's Windows
>> | Live Platform group, is resigning his post, according to sources
>> | close to the company.
>> `----
>>
>
> This is the one, out of all on the list Blake is the only one who has
> had
> success, so chances are he is moving on to take advantage of the nice
> new
> entry in his CV. Fair play to him, go for the money mate, companies
> come
> and go but your morgage never goes away.
>
>
>> ,----[ Quote ]
>> | Bryan Lee, corporate vice president at Microsoft's entertainment
>> | and devices division, also played a key role in shaping the Xbox
>> | game console business and the introduction of its Internet
>> | Protocol television software.
>> `----
>>
>
> Let him go, Zune was a flop and the Xbox360 isn't doing too well.
>
>
> If I was Mr MS then I must say that had these folk not been leaving I
> would
> be droping hints to them such as a note on their office door saying
> something like 'Go home dimwit'.
>
> But then what, do you take on more executives to put things right, is
> good
> polytechnic business skills what MS need at the moment, I would say no
> to
> that. Instead put that particular wage packet into some good strong
> programming/development teams, preferably teams that are already
> established.
>
> Slash-n-burn is all very well, until you need a bit of wood for the
> fire or
> realise the ground that you are uncovering will only manage one years
> crops, what do you do next year? We all know what MS needed to do in
> their
> slash-n-burn period was to take those companies and keep the people,
> not
> just the bits of paper with bits of code written on them. It's the
> people
> who wrote that code you needed to keep. And that is what I would do
> with MS
> now, I would build those teams of 'people', designers, coders,
> humanisers.
>
> Then I know that I could recover MS's past glory.
>
> MS wont do that though, instead we will watch the squirming in the
> mud, the
> tides gone out and they can't find their way back into the water. I
> don't
> like to see this and I wish it wasn't happening, but I really can not
> see
> how they can survive, unless maybe, Ballmer takes a dive and lets
> someone
> else take over, is Dr Eric Schmidt available?
>
>
> humanisers? That popped in my head as I wrote it, because in MS's peak
> time
> with Win98, I remembered that MS had done many a serious study on the
> human
> interface, it made up a huge document, I had it in print form at one
> time.
> It went through many areas including colours, keyboards, mice,
> lighting and
> too many for me to remember. They took that report seriously and many
> of
> the best parts of Win98 (I presume NT too at the time) benefitted from
> it.
>
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