They still dominate the business world and will continue to dominate the business world, whether you believe it or not. So they are doing something right with their "peddling a PC interface". Many people still prefer using PCs, whether you believe it or not.
Wrong.
It's just INCREDIBLY cheaper to hold onto to legacy equipment. I mean, look at the percentage of people STILL using XP for crying out loud! It has nothing to do with people "preferring" anything. It has to do -- and ONLY to do -- with what is the absolutely cheapest way of fitting out your enterprise office.
"His mathematical ability is elite, and possibly the best among Fortune 500 CEOs.
One of his great college feats came his sophomore year when he outperformed Bill Gates on the Putnam exam, and was among the top 100 performers on the 1974 Putnam Exam. For reference, the median score on the exam is typically 0.
In this vein, perhaps the best story comes from his and Gates' performance in a core graduate Microeconomics course at Harvard, taught by future Nobel laureate,Michael Spence. According to Gates, "the professor allowed you to bet your whole grade on the final if you choose." As a result, neither Gates nor Ballmer ever went to class very often, and instead chose to cram for the final only in the week before. Ballmer earned the second highest grade in the course, falling just short of Gates, who earned the top score."
Many people still prefer using PCs, whether you believe it or not.
I have an old friend (non-techie) who has struggled mightily through Windows 2000, then XP, then 7... all the while hanging on to his ancient AOL email account for dear life. It doesn't matter how bad/slow/broken his PC experience is (malware/bloatware-ridden), he is FRIGHTENED OF CHANGE.
He doesn't actually need Windows for anything he does; he simply "prefers" to live with the devil he knows... not trusting how vastly improved his computing experience could be.
"His mathematical ability is elite, and possibly the best among Fortune 500 CEOs.
One of his great college feats came his sophomore year when he outperformed Bill Gates on the Putnam exam, and was among the top 100 performers on the 1974 Putnam Exam. For reference, the median score on the exam is typically 0.
In this vein, perhaps the best story comes from his and Gates' performance in a core graduate Microeconomics course at Harvard, taught by future Nobel laureate,Michael Spence. According to Gates, "the professor allowed you to bet your whole grade on the final if you choose." As a result, neither Gates nor Ballmer ever went to class very often, and instead chose to cram for the final only in the week before. Ballmer earned the second highest grade in the course, falling just short of Gates, who earned the top score."
You're probably wasting your breath. People here want to believe the worst of anyone not at Apple. Allegiance with Apple is what gives them credibility, or so they believe.
They said the exact same thing about mainframes... Look at IBM from 1960-1990, and look at IBM today. That's the trajectory Dell and HP want to take and that may be what ends up happening to Microsoft. The big factor was that IBM was vertically integrated... software (OS and application), hardware (chips, hard drives, tape and computers), and support. Microsoft isn't in that position.
Yes. If only Microsoft sold proprietary tape drives, they could still be milking their 3 mainframe customers.
On the other hand, they do have customers using Windows XP and Office 2003. Those are like tape drives.
Yes. If only Microsoft sold proprietary tape drives, they could still be milking their 3 mainframe customers.
IBM's way smarter than Microsoft. They sold off hard drives years ago and switched to flash (Texas Memory Systems). They're in tape because tape isn't a low-margin commodity. There's no alternative to tape: Amazon and Google back up on tape.
You're probably wasting your breath. People here want to believe the worst of anyone not at Apple. Allegiance with Apple is what gives them credibility, or so they believe.
You're probably wasting your breath. People here want to believe the worst of anyone not at Apple. Allegiance with Apple is what gives them credibility, or so they believe.
Bull feathers. That was a good story, and i'm glad to have heard it. Explains one reason why Gates trusted Ballmer, which I've always wondered about.
But you just revealed more than you should have about yourself, and why you're here.
Microsoft is in a terrible position right now. They are making decent profit on business tools/services, but consumers are going elsewhere.
I think we are at the peak of microsoft, and the decline is about to hit hard in the coming 10 years. It does not matter who leads msft, it´s monopoly is falling apart without them being able to control or stop it. It´s done.
As someone that has been using, fixing and building computers since 1992, the peak of Microsoft was with Windows XP in 2001. It's been downhill since then. They almost redeemed themselves with Windows 7, but that was just a blip on the radar.
One of his great college feats came his sophomore year when he outperformed Bill Gates on the Putnam exam, and was among the top 100 performers on the 1974 Putnam Exam. For reference, the median score on the exam is typically 0.
I'm not impressed. Even I ranked 111 with a score of 39 my junior year. Now if he was top 10; I would be impressed. Of course maybe balmer would have been better suited as a math professor then. Not a software executive.
The fact that Balmer basically kept MS flat through the 00's was probably good for Apple.
Thank you for this informative bit of news, Microsoftinsider. Oh wait...
I must be getting old. I am getting fed up of people referring to this site as 'SamsungInsider', 'GoogleInsider', 'AndroidInsider', etc., whenever there is a non-Apple story.
It's almost as irritating as seeing people trying to be creative with names, like 'Samesung', 'Samdung', 'Micro$oft', whatever.
As much as I would like for them to fail, I don't think this will happen anytime soon. Or later. They have an astounding way of doing business, selling software updates that don't do much, but corporate needs to upgrade their software nonetheless.
Consumers weren't much of a good stream of income anyway. Their Windows/Exchange/CAL business is. But I agree with the wish for their failure in the future, just like TS: they've waisted too much of people's time with their mediocre software and time waisted in trying to get the bloody thing to work again.
OT: I think this guy might be a good pick: their Enterprise business is doing great (revenue wise) and Cloud is something that's here to stay. So if he has experience in both of them he could prove to be a good choice. But I know nothing about him, if he turns out to not be the man for the job and MS won't ever fid the the right person, in what kind of config would we be in? A world without Windows/Exchange? Where everyone will be on their own tablet/smartphone, using industry standards for communication and document format protocols? Would such a world be a possibility?
I don't relish a premature death of MS. Apple has done great delivering consumer products, but doesn't seem to have the depth to support corporate enterprises (by discontinuing XServer and taking so long on the MacPro redesign, etc). I would worry that Google would step into the void left by MS and become even more powerful. In some ways I think MS and Apple have figured out how to get along and cooperate when helpful to both. Isn't Apple setting Bing as the default search engine now. Who knows MS may end up selling Bing to Apple or Facebook.
A neck-snapping 180 degree turn - from a marketer to an engineer - may be the kick in the a** that MS desperately needs, but neither of the two are visionaries.
If MS is to succeed, Nadella may be the interim CEO required to clean house and right the ship, making it ready for someone with a creative mind to take the helm. Or they could continue to flail and rearrange the deck chairs until they sink under their own weight.
Good, bad or ugly, Microsoft will always be around, in one form or another.
As for CEO's and their decisions that involve corporations, never underestimate anyone. Once upon a time, who would have thought that Steve Jobs would have "made up" with Bill Gates and brought half decent Microsoft products back to the Mac platform.
Make no mistake, these are big boys playing big games. One day, Microsoft may even start making deals with Apple again...
Comments
They still dominate the business world and will continue to dominate the business world, whether you believe it or not. So they are doing something right with their "peddling a PC interface". Many people still prefer using PCs, whether you believe it or not.
Wrong.
It's just INCREDIBLY cheaper to hold onto to legacy equipment. I mean, look at the percentage of people STILL using XP for crying out loud! It has nothing to do with people "preferring" anything. It has to do -- and ONLY to do -- with what is the absolutely cheapest way of fitting out your enterprise office.
I miss Balmer. I never laughed so hard as when he was doing his Balmer thing.
Not me. He frightened me and often made me cry.
This guy easily looks smarter than Steve Ballmer. Then again, so does my cat...
Ballmer, while not necessarily a great CEO, is probably one of the smartest executives around. From Quora (http://www.quora.com/Steve-Ballmer/What-are-some-great-stories-about-Steve-Ballmer/answers/3046774):
"His mathematical ability is elite, and possibly the best among Fortune 500 CEOs.
One of his great college feats came his sophomore year when he outperformed Bill Gates on the Putnam exam, and was among the top 100 performers on the 1974 Putnam Exam. For reference, the median score on the exam is typically 0.
In this vein, perhaps the best story comes from his and Gates' performance in a core graduate Microeconomics course at Harvard, taught by future Nobel laureate,Michael Spence. According to Gates, "the professor allowed you to bet your whole grade on the final if you choose." As a result, neither Gates nor Ballmer ever went to class very often, and instead chose to cram for the final only in the week before. Ballmer earned the second highest grade in the course, falling just short of Gates, who earned the top score."
That's a big seat to fill.
Many people still prefer using PCs, whether you believe it or not.
I have an old friend (non-techie) who has struggled mightily through Windows 2000, then XP, then 7... all the while hanging on to his ancient AOL email account for dear life. It doesn't matter how bad/slow/broken his PC experience is (malware/bloatware-ridden), he is FRIGHTENED OF CHANGE.
He doesn't actually need Windows for anything he does; he simply "prefers" to live with the devil he knows... not trusting how vastly improved his computing experience could be.
That's a big seat to fill.
Indeed. In more ways than one.
Ballmer, while not necessarily a great CEO, is probably one of the smartest executives around. From Quora (http://www.quora.com/Steve-Ballmer/What-are-some-great-stories-about-Steve-Ballmer/answers/3046774):
"His mathematical ability is elite, and possibly the best among Fortune 500 CEOs.
One of his great college feats came his sophomore year when he outperformed Bill Gates on the Putnam exam, and was among the top 100 performers on the 1974 Putnam Exam. For reference, the median score on the exam is typically 0.
In this vein, perhaps the best story comes from his and Gates' performance in a core graduate Microeconomics course at Harvard, taught by future Nobel laureate,Michael Spence. According to Gates, "the professor allowed you to bet your whole grade on the final if you choose." As a result, neither Gates nor Ballmer ever went to class very often, and instead chose to cram for the final only in the week before. Ballmer earned the second highest grade in the course, falling just short of Gates, who earned the top score."
You're probably wasting your breath. People here want to believe the worst of anyone not at Apple. Allegiance with Apple is what gives them credibility, or so they believe.
No, just one.
They said the exact same thing about mainframes... Look at IBM from 1960-1990, and look at IBM today. That's the trajectory Dell and HP want to take and that may be what ends up happening to Microsoft. The big factor was that IBM was vertically integrated... software (OS and application), hardware (chips, hard drives, tape and computers), and support. Microsoft isn't in that position.
Yes. If only Microsoft sold proprietary tape drives, they could still be milking their 3 mainframe customers.
On the other hand, they do have customers using Windows XP and Office 2003. Those are like tape drives.
Yes. If only Microsoft sold proprietary tape drives, they could still be milking their 3 mainframe customers.
IBM's way smarter than Microsoft. They sold off hard drives years ago and switched to flash (Texas Memory Systems). They're in tape because tape isn't a low-margin commodity. There's no alternative to tape: Amazon and Google back up on tape.
You're probably wasting your breath. People here want to believe the worst of anyone not at Apple. Allegiance with Apple is what gives them credibility, or so they believe.
Umm, where do you get all this BS from?
Bull feathers. That was a good story, and i'm glad to have heard it. Explains one reason why Gates trusted Ballmer, which I've always wondered about.
But you just revealed more than you should have about yourself, and why you're here.
Microsoft is in a terrible position right now. They are making decent profit on business tools/services, but consumers are going elsewhere.
I think we are at the peak of microsoft, and the decline is about to hit hard in the coming 10 years. It does not matter who leads msft, it´s monopoly is falling apart without them being able to control or stop it. It´s done.
As someone that has been using, fixing and building computers since 1992, the peak of Microsoft was with Windows XP in 2001. It's been downhill since then. They almost redeemed themselves with Windows 7, but that was just a blip on the radar.
One of his great college feats came his sophomore year when he outperformed Bill Gates on the Putnam exam, and was among the top 100 performers on the 1974 Putnam Exam. For reference, the median score on the exam is typically 0.
I'm not impressed. Even I ranked 111 with a score of 39 my junior year. Now if he was top 10; I would be impressed. Of course maybe balmer would have been better suited as a math professor then. Not a software executive.
The fact that Balmer basically kept MS flat through the 00's was probably good for Apple.
Thank you for this informative bit of news, Microsoftinsider. Oh wait...
I must be getting old. I am getting fed up of people referring to this site as 'SamsungInsider', 'GoogleInsider', 'AndroidInsider', etc., whenever there is a non-Apple story.
It's almost as irritating as seeing people trying to be creative with names, like 'Samesung', 'Samdung', 'Micro$oft', whatever.
As much as I would like for them to fail, I don't think this will happen anytime soon. Or later. They have an astounding way of doing business, selling software updates that don't do much, but corporate needs to upgrade their software nonetheless.
Consumers weren't much of a good stream of income anyway. Their Windows/Exchange/CAL business is. But I agree with the wish for their failure in the future, just like TS: they've waisted too much of people's time with their mediocre software and time waisted in trying to get the bloody thing to work again.
OT: I think this guy might be a good pick: their Enterprise business is doing great (revenue wise) and Cloud is something that's here to stay. So if he has experience in both of them he could prove to be a good choice. But I know nothing about him, if he turns out to not be the man for the job and MS won't ever fid the the right person, in what kind of config would we be in? A world without Windows/Exchange? Where everyone will be on their own tablet/smartphone, using industry standards for communication and document format protocols? Would such a world be a possibility?
I don't relish a premature death of MS. Apple has done great delivering consumer products, but doesn't seem to have the depth to support corporate enterprises (by discontinuing XServer and taking so long on the MacPro redesign, etc). I would worry that Google would step into the void left by MS and become even more powerful. In some ways I think MS and Apple have figured out how to get along and cooperate when helpful to both. Isn't Apple setting Bing as the default search engine now. Who knows MS may end up selling Bing to Apple or Facebook.
The implosion of Dell and the slow crash of Microsoft have both been spectacular.
A neck-snapping 180 degree turn - from a marketer to an engineer - may be the kick in the a** that MS desperately needs, but neither of the two are visionaries.
If MS is to succeed, Nadella may be the interim CEO required to clean house and right the ship, making it ready for someone with a creative mind to take the helm. Or they could continue to flail and rearrange the deck chairs until they sink under their own weight.
The next few years will be interesting indeed.
Good, bad or ugly, Microsoft will always be around, in one form or another.
As for CEO's and their decisions that involve corporations, never underestimate anyone. Once upon a time, who would have thought that Steve Jobs would have "made up" with Bill Gates and brought half decent Microsoft products back to the Mac platform.
Make no mistake, these are big boys playing big games. One day, Microsoft may even start making deals with Apple again...