Microsoft has a lot of incredible talent in the development ranks that will have no problem finding a spot at competitive companies. I wish them all the best.
This is plain and simple a textbook case of disruptive innovation. Microsoft could not bring themselves to react quickly to the iPhone, iPad, and Android threat because it was not in line with their cash cow business that was still raking in the money hand over fist. When they finally did react they offered a weak compromise solution that tried to hang on to their past, with a tweener tablet solution that tried to pull traditional PC attributes into the tablet domain and a desktop solution that tried to pull tablet attributes into the PC domain. Neither compromise really works.
The future of Microsoft is as uncertain as any other large company at the crossroads between fading past glory and an uncertain future. They could absolutely fail just as quickly as DEC, Kodak, RCA, Allis-Chalmers, etc., have failed. Windows, Office, and the server platforms are okay, but not enough to keep 130k employees profitably engaged. The Nokia merger was a huge mistake. When all is said and done nobody on either side of that fiasco will walk away a winner except those who have already taken their money and ran, Mr Balmer included.
The next coffin nail for Microsoft will come from Google. The Chrome OS is poised to destroy Microsoft's margins on desktop OS licensing. Microsoft will put up a valiant fight but they will eat their own babies trying to buck the inevidable and end up losing anyway. Windows 8 soiled the Windows empire. Retreating back to being a conventional desktop OS won't restore them either. It would only prove that they really have no new ideas for moving their vision of a desktop OS beyond where it was with Windows 7, which was really just a trimmer version of Windows Vista, which was also an evolutionary change from XP and every Windows version before it. Office is basically in the same boat. Bring in someone from 1992 and Windows 3.1 versions of Office and set them in front of Office 2013 and they will not experience much in the way of functional improvements. The toolbar is incredibly large and there are no more 30 tab dialogs, but the useful feature set is little changed.
The bottom line is that Microsoft is (structured to be?) an incredibly strong follower but they are borderline inept as a leader. Nobody is handing Microsoft the kind of deal of a lifetime that IBM gifted them with. Following Apple is no longer good enough. Too many others are ahead of them in that department.
What's left for Microsoft? In my humble opinion the perfect merger for them would be Cisco. They could own the Internet of Everything on all fronts from hardware to software to servers to infrastructure to services and applications. The problem is that Cisco is so big itself that retaining any value in such a mega merger would be challenging, as would getting by regulators. But I see Microsoft having much more upside in that arena than doing UFC cage matches with Google or wars of commodity attrition with the Asian upstarts who we haven't even heard of yet. Whatever they decide they have to leverage their strengths in their IP and workforce rather than laying off good people, riding the cash cows who aren't looking as healthy as they once did to death, and selling off IP. Once they start selling off their IP like Kodak did you may as we'll start making arrangements for calling hours and flowers.
Wow! This article contains enough hyperbole, false statements and plain BS to even amaze James Carney. Maybe AppleInsider should just stick to reporting Apple news and forgo commenting on Microsoft - since their bias is so blinding reality is undiscoverable.
I just visited the Verge and didn't see one story about Microsoft's potential layoffs. There was however a story about senator Cory Booker taking selfies with other senators. Wow is that site going downhill.
That site is terrible, I never visit it anymore. It's also full of political stories and other nonsense that have nothing to do with tech at all. I'm not interested in their screwy political agendas and their biases.
The site is also very heavy, and everything takes time to load.
Wow! This article contains enough hyperbole, false statements and plain BS to even amaze James Carney. Maybe AppleInsider should just stick to reporting Apple news and forgo commenting on Microsoft - since their bias is so blinding reality is undiscoverable.
What article did you read? I see 4 paragraphs that lay out some facts about the size of MS's workforce and some reports that thousands of them are due to be let go--after pointing out that 30,000 were added recently as part of an acquision. Where is the hyperbole and fact statements?
I don't. I don't really care what happens to them. This is the same company that held an actual funeral for the iPhone.
As for their current problems, anybody could have seen it coming. I said it years ago on this site.
Windows 8 was a terrible concept and so was their "convertibles". Trying to combine touch with a traditional OS, and force it down user's throats was a stupid idea.
long in gov't/corp space is 7 years. 7 years ago the iPhone was introduced. Seems like yesterday.
What I'm saying is, Windows Server die like AS/400 did for IBM (that was 2000 when they killed it). Windows Server is less like a mainframe, because IBM is still making mainframes. Is there a compelling reason for for Windows Server? Other than Active Directory? which is one VPN away from being served in the cloud.
IBM didn't kill the AS/400. Get your facts straight. I (we) do lots of "AS/400" work. IBM did not kill-off the AS/400. It has been renamed to the i5, iSeries, and now the "IBM i" . There are even cloud-based "AS/400" services too. We're purchasing another "AS/400" from IBM this year.
Those that have use it, swear by them. The big shops know that. There are plenty of big-name operations out there using the systems reliably, and at far less cost in the long-term than Intel-systems. We've have iPad apps that interface directly with our AS/400's, and the users have zero clue (or care) what's running the back-end.
They're awesome platforms. It's just a pity that IBM does a really lousy job of putting the brand out there. It's hard to compete with the commodity Wintel market and universities focusing mainly on PC systems.
Well my old school mate has just returned to the UK after 11 years working mainly in Microsoft's mobile devices division and now job sampling ( UK metaphore for unemployed)...he just resigned. According to him, in the last 6years, the amount of crud thrown at the wall, defies belief. Nothing sticks. One of his 'major pushes' was knifed after just 9 weeks due to a so-called 'clerical error' induced by management changes! and another got cancelled for quasi- religious reasons?...really...[I]his words[/I]. Said he just wanted to go walkabout, but decided to make it permanent instead. Allowing for hyperbole, disillusion...and yes, a measure of homesickness, it doesn't sound like much fun in the skunk works dept. :???:
That site is terrible, I never visit it anymore. It's also full of political stories and other nonsense that have nothing to do with tech at all. I'm not interested in their screwy political agendas and their biases.
The site is also very heavy, and everything takes time to load.
A lot of people have complained about the quality going downhill. Lately their stories are either pop culture stupidity, blatantly political or Google's PR arm. And the headlines De more and more of the click bait nature. A recent headline was "how to look cute and not get raped". Complain about the quality of articles in the comments section and you're likely to get banned.
I wonder how many of those are retail. According to Apple's 10-K, as of September 2013 42,800 of Apple's employees were retail. If you strip them out Apple actually has less employees than Google.
I wonder how many of those are retail. According to Apple's 10-K, as of September 2013 42,800 of Apple's employees were retail. If you strip them out Apple actually has less employees than Google.
It says on the Apple site that 26,000 of them are U.S. retail employees.
I'm not sure if that's in addition to the 50,250 or if the 50,250 includes retail.
It says on the Apple site that 26,000 of them are U.S. retail employees.
I'm not sure if that's in addition to the 50,250 or if the 50,250 includes retail.
Apple's 10-K said as of September 2013 they had 80,300 of which 42,800 were retail employees. So that 50,250 must include retail employees. Just further illustrates how bloated Microsoft is. No way is their retail staff that large.
I wouldn't want to be at MS right now. The low hanging fruit is a shiny, new OS that apparently looks and functions like Windows XP. If MS accomplishes this with Windows 9, they look like they are running towards yesterday. But they hang on to the enterprise market and can move a few more Office products.
It's hard to believe how they could have miscalculated so badly on mobile. A whole slew of nerds with no vision.
Apple's 10-K said as of September 2013 they had 80,300 of which 42,800 were retail employees. So that 50,250 must include retail employees. Just further illustrates how bloated Microsoft is. No way is their retail staff that large.
Microsoft's employees grew by 25,000 when you add in the Nokia employees.
According to Bloomberg, Nadella is ready to reduce Microsoft’s workforce and begin the process of integrating Nokia’s Devices and Services division (which was officially acquired earlier this year). Microsoft currently has over 127,000 employees (including the roughly 25,000 that it added from Nokia) and Bloomberg’s sources indicate that more than 5,800 positions will be cut. - See more at: http://www.dailytech.com/Report+Microsoft+Set+to+Announce+Sweeping+Job+Cuts+This+Week/article36220.htm#cmt949582
I don't know why it is so hard for Microsoft to compete with Apple... aside from their absolute blindness to what consumers want. A turn around for Microsoft seems easy.
It says on the Apple site that 26,000 of them are U.S. retail employees.
I'm not sure if that's in addition to the 50,250 or if the 50,250 includes retail.
"Apple yesterday filed its 2013 10-K annual report with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, offering some insight into how the company has grown over the past year. Among the interesting tidbits included in the report:
"Apple yesterday filed its 2013 10-K annual report with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, offering some insight into how the company has grown over the past year. Among the interesting tidbits included in the report:
- Apple's employee headcount grew to 80,300 full-time equivalents, up from 72,800 at the end of fiscal 2012. Nearly all of that growth was outside of the company's retail division, which grew by only 400 to 42,800 full-time equivalents."
Comments
This is plain and simple a textbook case of disruptive innovation. Microsoft could not bring themselves to react quickly to the iPhone, iPad, and Android threat because it was not in line with their cash cow business that was still raking in the money hand over fist. When they finally did react they offered a weak compromise solution that tried to hang on to their past, with a tweener tablet solution that tried to pull traditional PC attributes into the tablet domain and a desktop solution that tried to pull tablet attributes into the PC domain. Neither compromise really works.
The future of Microsoft is as uncertain as any other large company at the crossroads between fading past glory and an uncertain future. They could absolutely fail just as quickly as DEC, Kodak, RCA, Allis-Chalmers, etc., have failed. Windows, Office, and the server platforms are okay, but not enough to keep 130k employees profitably engaged. The Nokia merger was a huge mistake. When all is said and done nobody on either side of that fiasco will walk away a winner except those who have already taken their money and ran, Mr Balmer included.
The next coffin nail for Microsoft will come from Google. The Chrome OS is poised to destroy Microsoft's margins on desktop OS licensing. Microsoft will put up a valiant fight but they will eat their own babies trying to buck the inevidable and end up losing anyway. Windows 8 soiled the Windows empire. Retreating back to being a conventional desktop OS won't restore them either. It would only prove that they really have no new ideas for moving their vision of a desktop OS beyond where it was with Windows 7, which was really just a trimmer version of Windows Vista, which was also an evolutionary change from XP and every Windows version before it. Office is basically in the same boat. Bring in someone from 1992 and Windows 3.1 versions of Office and set them in front of Office 2013 and they will not experience much in the way of functional improvements. The toolbar is incredibly large and there are no more 30 tab dialogs, but the useful feature set is little changed.
The bottom line is that Microsoft is (structured to be?) an incredibly strong follower but they are borderline inept as a leader. Nobody is handing Microsoft the kind of deal of a lifetime that IBM gifted them with. Following Apple is no longer good enough. Too many others are ahead of them in that department.
What's left for Microsoft? In my humble opinion the perfect merger for them would be Cisco. They could own the Internet of Everything on all fronts from hardware to software to servers to infrastructure to services and applications. The problem is that Cisco is so big itself that retaining any value in such a mega merger would be challenging, as would getting by regulators. But I see Microsoft having much more upside in that arena than doing UFC cage matches with Google or wars of commodity attrition with the Asian upstarts who we haven't even heard of yet. Whatever they decide they have to leverage their strengths in their IP and workforce rather than laying off good people, riding the cash cows who aren't looking as healthy as they once did to death, and selling off IP. Once they start selling off their IP like Kodak did you may as we'll start making arrangements for calling hours and flowers.
Wow! This article contains enough hyperbole, false statements and plain BS to even amaze James Carney. Maybe AppleInsider should just stick to reporting Apple news and forgo commenting on Microsoft - since their bias is so blinding reality is undiscoverable.
Care to elaborate and provide some examples?
I just visited the Verge and didn't see one story about Microsoft's potential layoffs. There was however a story about senator Cory Booker taking selfies with other senators. Wow is that site going downhill.
That site is terrible, I never visit it anymore. It's also full of political stories and other nonsense that have nothing to do with tech at all. I'm not interested in their screwy political agendas and their biases.
The site is also very heavy, and everything takes time to load.
Wow! This article contains enough hyperbole, false statements and plain BS to even amaze James Carney. Maybe AppleInsider should just stick to reporting Apple news and forgo commenting on Microsoft - since their bias is so blinding reality is undiscoverable.
What article did you read? I see 4 paragraphs that lay out some facts about the size of MS's workforce and some reports that thousands of them are due to be let go--after pointing out that 30,000 were added recently as part of an acquision. Where is the hyperbole and fact statements?
Anyone know how many employees Apple has (to compare to MS's 130,000)?
I wish them all the best.
I don't. I don't really care what happens to them. This is the same company that held an actual funeral for the iPhone.
As for their current problems, anybody could have seen it coming. I said it years ago on this site.
Windows 8 was a terrible concept and so was their "convertibles". Trying to combine touch with a traditional OS, and force it down user's throats was a stupid idea.
Anyone know how many employees Apple has (to compare to MS's 130,000)?
50,250 in the US.
https://www.apple.com/about/job-creation/
long in gov't/corp space is 7 years. 7 years ago the iPhone was introduced. Seems like yesterday.
What I'm saying is, Windows Server die like AS/400 did for IBM (that was 2000 when they killed it). Windows Server is less like a mainframe, because IBM is still making mainframes. Is there a compelling reason for for Windows Server? Other than Active Directory? which is one VPN away from being served in the cloud.
IBM didn't kill the AS/400. Get your facts straight. I (we) do lots of "AS/400" work. IBM did not kill-off the AS/400. It has been renamed to the i5, iSeries, and now the "IBM i" . There are even cloud-based "AS/400" services too. We're purchasing another "AS/400" from IBM this year.
Those that have use it, swear by them. The big shops know that. There are plenty of big-name operations out there using the systems reliably, and at far less cost in the long-term than Intel-systems. We've have iPad apps that interface directly with our AS/400's, and the users have zero clue (or care) what's running the back-end.
They're awesome platforms. It's just a pity that IBM does a really lousy job of putting the brand out there. It's hard to compete with the commodity Wintel market and universities focusing mainly on PC systems.
Allowing for hyperbole, disillusion...and yes, a measure of homesickness, it doesn't sound like much fun in the skunk works dept. :???:
I wonder how many of those are retail. According to Apple's 10-K, as of September 2013 42,800 of Apple's employees were retail. If you strip them out Apple actually has less employees than Google.
It says on the Apple site that 26,000 of them are U.S. retail employees.
I'm not sure if that's in addition to the 50,250 or if the 50,250 includes retail.
I wouldn't want to be at MS right now. The low hanging fruit is a shiny, new OS that apparently looks and functions like Windows XP. If MS accomplishes this with Windows 9, they look like they are running towards yesterday. But they hang on to the enterprise market and can move a few more Office products.
It's hard to believe how they could have miscalculated so badly on mobile. A whole slew of nerds with no vision.
Apple's 10-K said as of September 2013 they had 80,300 of which 42,800 were retail employees. So that 50,250 must include retail employees. Just further illustrates how bloated Microsoft is. No way is their retail staff that large.
Microsoft's employees grew by 25,000 when you add in the Nokia employees.
According to Bloomberg, Nadella is ready to reduce Microsoft’s workforce and begin the process of integrating Nokia’s Devices and Services division (which was officially acquired earlier this year). Microsoft currently has over 127,000 employees (including the roughly 25,000 that it added from Nokia) and Bloomberg’s sources indicate that more than 5,800 positions will be cut. - See more at: http://www.dailytech.com/Report+Microsoft+Set+to+Announce+Sweeping+Job+Cuts+This+Week/article36220.htm#cmt949582
I don't know why it is so hard for Microsoft to compete with Apple... aside from their absolute blindness to what consumers want. A turn around for Microsoft seems easy.
"Apple yesterday filed its 2013 10-K annual report with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, offering some insight into how the company has grown over the past year. Among the interesting tidbits included in the report:
- Apple's employee headcount grew to 80,300 full-time equivalents, up from 72,800 at the end of fiscal 2012. Nearly all of that growth was outside of the company's retail division, which grew by only 400 to 42,800 full-time equivalents."
http://www.macrumors.com/2013/10/30/apples-2013-annual-report-inside-the-numbers-on-employees-retail-stores-and-more/
So it would look like a bit over half of Apple's employees may be in retail.
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/320193/000119312513416534/d590790d10k.htm
"Apple yesterday filed its 2013 10-K annual report with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, offering some insight into how the company has grown over the past year. Among the interesting tidbits included in the report:
- Apple's employee headcount grew to 80,300 full-time equivalents, up from 72,800 at the end of fiscal 2012. Nearly all of that growth was outside of the company's retail division, which grew by only 400 to 42,800 full-time equivalents."
http://www.macrumors.com/2013/10/30/apples-2013-annual-report-inside-the-numbers-on-employees-retail-stores-and-more/
So it would look like a bit over half of Apple's employees may be in retail.
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/320193/000119312513416534/d590790d10k.htm
Good info, but I think that it's important to point out that I believe the numbers that you are quoting is for Apple worldwide, and not just the US.