MS has nobody to blame but themselves. They squandered a huge lead in the smartphone market, and continued to make mistakes after the obvious paradigm shift Apple created.
Right but remember Microsoft didn't wait to copy Apple as they did with Windows, so they actually tried DIY with phones and their true talent was revealed ... They Zuned! Google on the other hand used Microsoft's Windows playbook and managed to retool their own DIY mobile crap in the nick of time and copy iOS and we have Android.
Yep. I left that off as these cuts are all centered around the mobile space. I don't expect Microsoft to give up on Surface (especially when iPad sales growth seems to have stagnated) but I don't see what the point is sticking it out with phones. The only traction they had was in the low end but that seems like more trouble than it's worth.
That 'stagnation is across the board for tablets, Apple suffering less than most so not sure what you see Microsoft doing there! Simply failing less badly than phones?
Out of nowhere, Microsoft has also suddenly become a huge player in the cloud. They're giving companies like Amazon a real run for the money. This is certainly one area in which Apple has not excelled thus far, despite the fact that it's been dealing only with the consumer, as opposed to enterprise, data and media thus far.
From what I hear -- I am no expert -- Nadella has been been purposeful and aggressive on the cloud front.
The emergence of 'The Cloud' is THE most disruptive trend in the last 10 years. Microsoft has been very aggressive in moving their business customers to a cloud-centric model before Amazon and Salesforce do.
Apple uses their Cloud-based offerings to add value to their (consumer) ecosystem with limited success. I personally think Apple has finally got it mostly right, but their focus will always be on adding value to their consumer ecosystem...
Microsoft has been working on a cloud services for enterprise for quite a while. HP's ex-CEO wanted to throw off their PC and Printer business and go after the market Microsoft Cloud customers... and while HP has some presence there, I can't see them ever building to where MS is headed... HP just started in that direction too late and doesn't have the reserves to be aggressive.
Amazon has a ton of extra servers they rent out to enterprise customers, but they don't seem to want to sell cloud services.
Google is selling cloud services, but not really set up to effect enterprise as much as consumers. Plus they have the ADHD of a squirrel.
The last one around is IBM. They have a well developed cloud services plan that is unique and involves Apple mobility products. They tie their cloud to their "big data" which makes them further unique.
Personally, I give MS and IBM the most likely winners for enterprise customers. They both have a lot of experience and focus in this direction.
Apple will land some specific customers on their cloud, like education and maybe medical. But for Apple the Cloud is secondary to their core business.
HAHA!! Thanks! The only company the WIndows Phone overtook was BlackBerry by about 1%. For MS to be slaughtering their Nokia minions like flies, it doesn't bode well for any "push" in the near future or beyond.
Microsoft has been working on a cloud services for enterprise for quite a while. HP's ex-CEO wanted to throw off their PC and Printer business and go after the market Microsoft Cloud customers... and while HP has some presence there, I can't see them ever building to where MS is headed... HP just started in that direction too late and doesn't have the reserves to be aggressive.
Amazon has a ton of extra servers they rent out to enterprise customers, but they don't seem to want to sell cloud services.
Google is selling cloud services, but not really set up to effect enterprise as much as consumers. Plus they have the ADHD of a squirrel.
The last one around is IBM. They have a well developed cloud services plan that is unique and involves Apple mobility products. They tie their cloud to their "big data" which makes them further unique.
Personally, I give MS and IBM the most likely winners for enterprise customers. They both have a lot of experience and focus in this direction.
Apple will land some specific customers on their cloud, like education and maybe medical. But for Apple the Cloud is secondary to their core business.
Cloud is secondary (in the sense they don't sell it directly to end users or business, Apple doesn't sell parts of experience, only the whole experience), but internally, I'm betting it will be a massive part of value added to the eco system in the next few years.
Translation. Our mobile strategy has failed and we are going back to being a software company and selling subscriptions of Office Suite on other mobile platforms (iOS and Android). My prediction is they find a buyer for the Nokia handset division similar to what Google did with Motorola. At least their new CEO had the foresight to stop the bleeding...
Yep, something like that.
Windows Phone was DOA the moment it was released in 2010. In true MS (and more specifically, zune-like) fashion, they hung on to a loser product for AGES.
People all over are taking this wrong. Nokia made a ton of different handsets with one thing changed between them. Microsoft is doing this to make their phone lineup simpler/. instead of 10 different models of phones they will make 2 or three. If your cutting down the phone models to just 2 or 3 you can let go a ton of staff.
No one has any idea what these tens of thousands of ex-Nokia employees were doing. But if they were engineers working on future design enhancements, then MS just ceded the future to Apple and certain of the Android manufacturers. A ton of staff is needed if you want to push performance in Batteries, Integrated Antenna design, new features, Touch ID, and Materials Design...even if you only want to make a couple phone models.
Windows Phone was DOA the moment it was released in 2010. In true MS (and more specifically, zune-like) fashion, they hung on to a loser product for AGES.
Forever zuning it.
Ironically, since Ballmer "the Sales Guy" had no real strategic understanding of tech, and so was able to be rolled, or rather "Sinofskied" by a staffer on a critically flawed mission - Windows 8 (a much bigger failure than Win Vista) was based on concepts in Windows 7 for Phones.
But Windows phones designed for Win 7 P couldn't run Win Phone 8 and as I recall at least, the apps were generally lost as well. And since then every update for Win Phone has run well behind its PC version - including the still very beta-ish and buggy Win Phone 10.
A total comedy of errors. NTM, that users of Win 6.5 for phones were pretty much stranded by 7 - so these users have been dissed, used and abused almost too many times to mention.
The wonder is that it has a 2.7% share even with all of the above and more I've forgotten.
Consumers spoke. They're not interested in Windows phone. And what OEM was going to jump on the bandwagon once Microsoft purchased Nokia's phone business? Microsoft should just focus on making great apps for iPhone and Android.
Well Windows 8/8.1 stunk!!! Really, really BAD!!! I've tried it on the Desktop, don't like it. Our new Windows Server is running Windows 8, don't like that either. I figured maybe it's better on a tablet. So just to have first had experience I went and got a 7" Windows 8.1 Tablet. A Winbook TW700. Guess what, It sucks WORSE!!! The Metro (Whatever MS wants to call it) interface I do like up to a point at least. The problem is when you get thrown out of it into the Normal Windows Desktop. Now you're trying to click on links and drop down menus and whatever using your Finger on a 7" screen. IT SUCKS!!! It's a half finished OS. It switches between each interface either your on the Desktop, Laptop or a tablet. You want to Normal IE and you keep getting that crappy Metro IE. There was a number of issues with the tablet. I only spent $70 on the thing, but my iPad 3 is far far better and worth the money for it.
Windows 10 looks like what Windows 8 should have been. I'll hold out judgement until I actually uses it myself. I'll update my high end custom Windows 7 Pro computer I built last year and get Windows 10 Pro on it. I had to switch from Media Center to a TIVO setup for my house since Media Center will get removed in the Upgrade.
This killing 7800 Jobs in the Mobile Phone unit, I think is the final nail in the coffin for Windows 10 phones!!! Here it is, Windows 10 being released in under the month and MS does this. Who has any trust left for a MS phone now? You've just scared off people who were thinking about getting a Windows 10 phone. Bye, bye!!!
Yep. I left that off as these cuts are all centered around the mobile space. I don't expect Microsoft to give up on Surface (especially when iPad sales growth seems to have stagnated) but I don't see what the point is sticking it out with phones. The only traction they had was in the low end but that seems like more trouble than it's worth.
iPads sales are doing fine. People just don't need to replace them every 2 years. I'm still using my iPad 3 all the time, daily in fact. my Dad uses his iPad 2 every day!!! my brother has his iPad 1 & 2 and that's always being used. The iPad 1 by his kids all the time. I'm waiting to buy a new one. I'd like to get that rumored iPad Pro with the larger screen. No me, the iPad MINI's just seem silly. With Big phones, a Mini is pointless.
The fact is Apple is still selling a ton of iPads, far more then any other tablet being sold. Yes iPads sales have dropped, but people keep leaving out that everyone else's tablet sales have dropped a lot more!!!
I don't want a Surface. I don't want something that's fails at being a good tablet or a Good laptop by trying to be both. I want my tablet to just work. I don't want to deal with firewalls, Anti-Virus Programs, Spyware software, etc . Not to mentions lots and lots of Security updates every month. I get enough of that crap from my Windows Desktop and Laptop. I can do anything and everything I want on my iPad. There's nothing a Surface can do that a iPad can't other then run Windows Software. Though these days I can run Microsoft Office on my iPad if I wanted to anyway. When they say "There's a App for that!" it's quite true!!! iPad has also had Keyboard covers for longer then the Surface has been around!!!
That 'stagnation is across the board for tablets, Apple suffering less than most so not sure what you see Microsoft doing there! Simply failing less badly than phones?
You do realize that windows 2-in-1's like the surface grew market share right?
Out of nowhere, Microsoft has also suddenly become a huge player in the cloud. They're giving companies like Amazon a real run for the money. This is certainly one area in which Apple has not excelled thus far, despite the fact that it's been dealing only with the consumer, as opposed to enterprise, data and media thus far.
From what I hear -- I am no expert -- Nadella has been been purposeful and aggressive on the cloud front.
We here at work just switched over to Office 365 from using all the Google stuff!! Google didn't cost us any money and we still dropped them. I'm still trying to get used to it. It looks like it doesn't fully integrate with my old Windows XP laptop. It works, just not as good as it should. I hope they get me a new computer soon!!! I'm the last person on a OLD computer here!!! This Dell Inspiron 8600.
Cutting these jobs in the Mobile department shortly before the Windows 10 launch doesn't make Windows Phone 10 look like a phone I would want to buy.
The emergence of 'The Cloud' is THE most disruptive trend in the last 10 years. Microsoft has been very aggressive in moving their business customers to a cloud-centric model before Amazon and Salesforce do.
Apple uses their Cloud-based offerings to add value to their (consumer) ecosystem with limited success. I personally think Apple has finally got it mostly right, but their focus will always be on adding value to their consumer ecosystem...
The 'new corporate data center' is the cloud. Corps with AD as their internal rights management backbone will move to Azure Cloud Services, then office365, and then whole hog to the MS cloud delivered internal (business) and externally (customer) facing apps. Then it's a commoditization margin squeezing death spiral, except for those point value adds like 0365/AD... until the next change in the computing environment comes along.
I give Microsoft 20 years. A lifetime in computing, but in the end, their differentiation will be "they do 'legacy' best", and really, they'll just contract the data center ops from someone else, and turn into another IBM, as IBM will turn into an Accenture...
Apple will continue to flourish in that 'their' cloud is for the 6.1Billion people who don't do corporate (at least not 24 hours a day). And Apple's cloud will likely have some condensate (at least a bit) within Azure.
They took advantage of Nokia's management's ineptitude to buy their patent's portfolio. The only reason they didn't immediately sack everyone is more likely related to labor laws than anything else.
From my observations, it seems people don't want a Windows phone at least in part due to its association with Windows on the desktop. Windows on the desktop is regarded by the general populace as slow, buggy, crash prone and virus ridden. Despite it not necessarily being the same case on mobile, people generally seem to link the two. It's typical of MS to misunderstand their target market again; people use PCs because generally in a work environment they have no choice - when given the choice they would prefer not to. And with phones they have that choice, and prefer others.
The other thing is the interface is pretty weird. When iOS and Android have a tabbed app, you can immediately see and touch the tab you want to visit. With WinMo, you have to scroll around to see all the pages/tabs before you even know what's available, and you can't go directly to a particular tab without scrolling. Completely stupid, and seemingly done just to be different.
There is of course the thing where MS wouldn't allow upgrades from WinMo 6.5 > 7, or 7 > 8. Pretty poor show considering the norm was at least 3 major point releases from the likes of Apple and Google. They seemingly hadn't learnt from the old days when their artificial limitations were the norm.
Finally, MS still haven't learnt that trying to munge one interface onto 3 separate classes of device doesn't work. It didn't work back in the early 2000s, when MS was selling tiny numbers of Windows embedded (can't remember the name) licensed phones/tablets/PDAs, it doesn't work now.
Out of nowhere, Microsoft has also suddenly become a huge player in the cloud. They're giving companies like Amazon a real run for the money. This is certainly one area in which Apple has not excelled thus far, despite the fact that it's been dealing only with the consumer, as opposed to enterprise, data and media thus far.
From what I hear -- I am no expert -- Nadella has been been purposeful and aggressive on the cloud front.
Not terribly surprising given that Nadella's background is in servers.
What's MS still living on: Windows and Office? They're okay in the short term but long run, they will see steeper competition in enterprise segments and their piece of pie will get smaller. I would not trust in MSFT for long term investment since I don't have product diversity. Surface? How longer will it last? It's not a good tablet nor laptop and Cooks was right: Float and Fly, you can't do both very well.
It wasn't just Ballmer's doing. Satya inherited the foundation laid by Gates, which just played out very naturally under Ballmer.
Microsoft has always been a dog of a company. ALWAYS.
When they weren't busy shoving bad software into cheap junk-boxes, they were busy stealing from Apple (and doing it poorly)* and holding back the rest of the industry from any sort of meaningful innovation.
Those who care about what they're doing don't license their product to third parties. Those who care about their software do their own hardware, too. It's tougher to do than licensing out your crap to any fly by night outfit that can slam together a box, but when it's done right, it's the only sure way to bang out a superior user experience.
Satya inherited the same Microsoft culture that Jobs talked about – the same Microsoft culture that Gates brought to the table; that way of thinking about how people should interact with hardware; that philosophy that's there from blueprint to finished product. Microsoft was always woefully stupid when it came to this. And catering to the enterprise (that is, divided focus) is no excuse.
The rot was always there, we're just seeing the result of years and years of its spread.
And Satya is no Steve Jobs, and no Tim Cook or Jony Ive for that matter. He's a company man who has ceded the entire game (that is, all the parts of it that really matter) to his company's competitors. Not because he doesn't see what everyone else is doing right, but because it's in his company's DNA; it's how his company does business. And everyone he answers to or to whom he's responsible in some way (including an entire IT industry that depends on MS products being shitty enough to require constant maintenance) is perfectly happy with that.
Comments
Right but remember Microsoft didn't wait to copy Apple as they did with Windows, so they actually tried DIY with phones and their true talent was revealed ... They Zuned! Google on the other hand used Microsoft's Windows playbook and managed to retool their own DIY mobile crap in the nick of time and copy iOS and we have Android.
That 'stagnation is across the board for tablets, Apple suffering less than most so not sure what you see Microsoft doing there! Simply failing less badly than phones?
Microsoft has been working on a cloud services for enterprise for quite a while. HP's ex-CEO wanted to throw off their PC and Printer business and go after the market Microsoft Cloud customers... and while HP has some presence there, I can't see them ever building to where MS is headed... HP just started in that direction too late and doesn't have the reserves to be aggressive.
Amazon has a ton of extra servers they rent out to enterprise customers, but they don't seem to want to sell cloud services.
Google is selling cloud services, but not really set up to effect enterprise as much as consumers. Plus they have the ADHD of a squirrel.
The last one around is IBM. They have a well developed cloud services plan that is unique and involves Apple mobility products. They tie their cloud to their "big data" which makes them further unique.
Personally, I give MS and IBM the most likely winners for enterprise customers. They both have a lot of experience and focus in this direction.
Apple will land some specific customers on their cloud, like education and maybe medical. But for Apple the Cloud is secondary to their core business.
HAHA!! Thanks! The only company the WIndows Phone overtook was BlackBerry by about 1%. For MS to be slaughtering their Nokia minions like flies, it doesn't bode well for any "push" in the near future or beyond.
Microsoft has been working on a cloud services for enterprise for quite a while. HP's ex-CEO wanted to throw off their PC and Printer business and go after the market Microsoft Cloud customers... and while HP has some presence there, I can't see them ever building to where MS is headed... HP just started in that direction too late and doesn't have the reserves to be aggressive.
Amazon has a ton of extra servers they rent out to enterprise customers, but they don't seem to want to sell cloud services.
Google is selling cloud services, but not really set up to effect enterprise as much as consumers. Plus they have the ADHD of a squirrel.
The last one around is IBM. They have a well developed cloud services plan that is unique and involves Apple mobility products. They tie their cloud to their "big data" which makes them further unique.
Personally, I give MS and IBM the most likely winners for enterprise customers. They both have a lot of experience and focus in this direction.
Apple will land some specific customers on their cloud, like education and maybe medical. But for Apple the Cloud is secondary to their core business.
Cloud is secondary (in the sense they don't sell it directly to end users or business, Apple doesn't sell parts of experience, only the whole experience), but internally, I'm betting it will be a massive part of value added to the eco system in the next few years.
Yep, something like that.
Windows Phone was DOA the moment it was released in 2010. In true MS (and more specifically, zune-like) fashion, they hung on to a loser product for AGES.
Forever zuning it.
No one has any idea what these tens of thousands of ex-Nokia employees were doing. But if they were engineers working on future design enhancements, then MS just ceded the future to Apple and certain of the Android manufacturers. A ton of staff is needed if you want to push performance in Batteries, Integrated Antenna design, new features, Touch ID, and Materials Design...even if you only want to make a couple phone models.
Microsoft makes a phone?
Yep, something like that.
Windows Phone was DOA the moment it was released in 2010. In true MS (and more specifically, zune-like) fashion, they hung on to a loser product for AGES.
Forever zuning it.
Ironically, since Ballmer "the Sales Guy" had no real strategic understanding of tech, and so was able to be rolled, or rather "Sinofskied" by a staffer on a critically flawed mission - Windows 8 (a much bigger failure than Win Vista) was based on concepts in Windows 7 for Phones.
But Windows phones designed for Win 7 P couldn't run Win Phone 8 and as I recall at least, the apps were generally lost as well. And since then every update for Win Phone has run well behind its PC version - including the still very beta-ish and buggy Win Phone 10.
A total comedy of errors. NTM, that users of Win 6.5 for phones were pretty much stranded by 7 - so these users have been dissed, used and abused almost too many times to mention.
The wonder is that it has a 2.7% share even with all of the above and more I've forgotten.
Consumers spoke. They're not interested in Windows phone. And what OEM was going to jump on the bandwagon once Microsoft purchased Nokia's phone business? Microsoft should just focus on making great apps for iPhone and Android.
Well Windows 8/8.1 stunk!!! Really, really BAD!!! I've tried it on the Desktop, don't like it. Our new Windows Server is running Windows 8, don't like that either. I figured maybe it's better on a tablet. So just to have first had experience I went and got a 7" Windows 8.1 Tablet. A Winbook TW700. Guess what, It sucks WORSE!!! The Metro (Whatever MS wants to call it) interface I do like up to a point at least. The problem is when you get thrown out of it into the Normal Windows Desktop. Now you're trying to click on links and drop down menus and whatever using your Finger on a 7" screen. IT SUCKS!!! It's a half finished OS. It switches between each interface either your on the Desktop, Laptop or a tablet. You want to Normal IE and you keep getting that crappy Metro IE. There was a number of issues with the tablet. I only spent $70 on the thing, but my iPad 3 is far far better and worth the money for it.
Windows 10 looks like what Windows 8 should have been. I'll hold out judgement until I actually uses it myself. I'll update my high end custom Windows 7 Pro computer I built last year and get Windows 10 Pro on it. I had to switch from Media Center to a TIVO setup for my house since Media Center will get removed in the Upgrade.
This killing 7800 Jobs in the Mobile Phone unit, I think is the final nail in the coffin for Windows 10 phones!!! Here it is, Windows 10 being released in under the month and MS does this. Who has any trust left for a MS phone now? You've just scared off people who were thinking about getting a Windows 10 phone. Bye, bye!!!
Yep. I left that off as these cuts are all centered around the mobile space. I don't expect Microsoft to give up on Surface (especially when iPad sales growth seems to have stagnated) but I don't see what the point is sticking it out with phones. The only traction they had was in the low end but that seems like more trouble than it's worth.
iPads sales are doing fine. People just don't need to replace them every 2 years. I'm still using my iPad 3 all the time, daily in fact. my Dad uses his iPad 2 every day!!! my brother has his iPad 1 & 2 and that's always being used. The iPad 1 by his kids all the time. I'm waiting to buy a new one. I'd like to get that rumored iPad Pro with the larger screen. No me, the iPad MINI's just seem silly. With Big phones, a Mini is pointless.
The fact is Apple is still selling a ton of iPads, far more then any other tablet being sold. Yes iPads sales have dropped, but people keep leaving out that everyone else's tablet sales have dropped a lot more!!!
I don't want a Surface. I don't want something that's fails at being a good tablet or a Good laptop by trying to be both. I want my tablet to just work. I don't want to deal with firewalls, Anti-Virus Programs, Spyware software, etc . Not to mentions lots and lots of Security updates every month. I get enough of that crap from my Windows Desktop and Laptop. I can do anything and everything I want on my iPad. There's nothing a Surface can do that a iPad can't other then run Windows Software. Though these days I can run Microsoft Office on my iPad if I wanted to anyway. When they say "There's a App for that!" it's quite true!!! iPad has also had Keyboard covers for longer then the Surface has been around!!!
That 'stagnation is across the board for tablets, Apple suffering less than most so not sure what you see Microsoft doing there! Simply failing less badly than phones?
You do realize that windows 2-in-1's like the surface grew market share right?
Out of nowhere, Microsoft has also suddenly become a huge player in the cloud. They're giving companies like Amazon a real run for the money. This is certainly one area in which Apple has not excelled thus far, despite the fact that it's been dealing only with the consumer, as opposed to enterprise, data and media thus far.
From what I hear -- I am no expert -- Nadella has been been purposeful and aggressive on the cloud front.
We here at work just switched over to Office 365 from using all the Google stuff!! Google didn't cost us any money and we still dropped them. I'm still trying to get used to it. It looks like it doesn't fully integrate with my old Windows XP laptop. It works, just not as good as it should. I hope they get me a new computer soon!!! I'm the last person on a OLD computer here!!! This Dell Inspiron 8600.
Cutting these jobs in the Mobile department shortly before the Windows 10 launch doesn't make Windows Phone 10 look like a phone I would want to buy.
The emergence of 'The Cloud' is THE most disruptive trend in the last 10 years. Microsoft has been very aggressive in moving their business customers to a cloud-centric model before Amazon and Salesforce do.
Apple uses their Cloud-based offerings to add value to their (consumer) ecosystem with limited success. I personally think Apple has finally got it mostly right, but their focus will always be on adding value to their consumer ecosystem...
The 'new corporate data center' is the cloud. Corps with AD as their internal rights management backbone will move to Azure Cloud Services, then office365, and then whole hog to the MS cloud delivered internal (business) and externally (customer) facing apps. Then it's a commoditization margin squeezing death spiral, except for those point value adds like 0365/AD... until the next change in the computing environment comes along.
I give Microsoft 20 years. A lifetime in computing, but in the end, their differentiation will be "they do 'legacy' best", and really, they'll just contract the data center ops from someone else, and turn into another IBM, as IBM will turn into an Accenture...
Apple will continue to flourish in that 'their' cloud is for the 6.1Billion people who don't do corporate (at least not 24 hours a day). And Apple's cloud will likely have some condensate (at least a bit) within Azure.
What Nokia patents did Microsoft purchase?
The other thing is the interface is pretty weird. When iOS and Android have a tabbed app, you can immediately see and touch the tab you want to visit. With WinMo, you have to scroll around to see all the pages/tabs before you even know what's available, and you can't go directly to a particular tab without scrolling. Completely stupid, and seemingly done just to be different.
There is of course the thing where MS wouldn't allow upgrades from WinMo 6.5 > 7, or 7 > 8. Pretty poor show considering the norm was at least 3 major point releases from the likes of Apple and Google. They seemingly hadn't learnt from the old days when their artificial limitations were the norm.
Finally, MS still haven't learnt that trying to munge one interface onto 3 separate classes of device doesn't work. It didn't work back in the early 2000s, when MS was selling tiny numbers of Windows embedded (can't remember the name) licensed phones/tablets/PDAs, it doesn't work now.
Out of nowhere, Microsoft has also suddenly become a huge player in the cloud. They're giving companies like Amazon a real run for the money. This is certainly one area in which Apple has not excelled thus far, despite the fact that it's been dealing only with the consumer, as opposed to enterprise, data and media thus far.
From what I hear -- I am no expert -- Nadella has been been purposeful and aggressive on the cloud front.
Not terribly surprising given that Nadella's background is in servers.
What's MS still living on: Windows and Office? They're okay in the short term but long run, they will see steeper competition in enterprise segments and their piece of pie will get smaller. I would not trust in MSFT for long term investment since I don't have product diversity. Surface? How longer will it last? It's not a good tablet nor laptop and Cooks was right: Float and Fly, you can't do both very well.
Not terribly surprising given that Nadella's background is in servers.
Nadella will be doing fine. The problem was that he inherited a POS company from Mr. Ball...mer who drove MS to the ground.
It wasn't just Ballmer's doing. Satya inherited the foundation laid by Gates, which just played out very naturally under Ballmer.
Microsoft has always been a dog of a company. ALWAYS.
When they weren't busy shoving bad software into cheap junk-boxes, they were busy stealing from Apple (and doing it poorly)* and holding back the rest of the industry from any sort of meaningful innovation.
Those who care about what they're doing don't license their product to third parties. Those who care about their software do their own hardware, too. It's tougher to do than licensing out your crap to any fly by night outfit that can slam together a box, but when it's done right, it's the only sure way to bang out a superior user experience.
Satya inherited the same Microsoft culture that Jobs talked about – the same Microsoft culture that Gates brought to the table; that way of thinking about how people should interact with hardware; that philosophy that's there from blueprint to finished product. Microsoft was always woefully stupid when it came to this. And catering to the enterprise (that is, divided focus) is no excuse.
The rot was always there, we're just seeing the result of years and years of its spread.
And Satya is no Steve Jobs, and no Tim Cook or Jony Ive for that matter. He's a company man who has ceded the entire game (that is, all the parts of it that really matter) to his company's competitors. Not because he doesn't see what everyone else is doing right, but because it's in his company's DNA; it's how his company does business. And everyone he answers to or to whom he's responsible in some way (including an entire IT industry that depends on MS products being shitty enough to require constant maintenance) is perfectly happy with that.
* http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/08/10/xerox-parc-the-apple-inc-macintosh-innovator-duplicator-litigator
and
http://forums.appleinsider.com/t/151396/microsoft-posts-first-quarterly-loss-in-company-history/40#post_2150408