Will Microsoft get rid of Ballmer?

"You've missed Job's trick. Snow Leopard doesn't compete with Windows, rather Mac competes with PC. And PC+Win7 still sucks compared to Mac+SL."

This is where your post lost all credibility. Mac is competing with PC but the competition includes the OS. A system is a paper weight without the host. The host decides the performance and utilization of the hardware. Right now SL uses less than 30% of the hardware on the Mac Pro while Win 7 uses all of it on a similar Xeon system. Since the hardware is the same on both that means OS 10.6 doesn't perform nearly as well as Win 7. If it doesn't perform nearly as well then which product is superior? Giving a bunch of reasons why it's ok for the other products to not be as good as Win 7 doesn't justify the argument that Win 7 has competition. It doesn't right now in the main markets plain and simple. Tell me, if your watching a football game between 2 opponents and 1 team blows out the other team before half time do you think that the losing team is competing? I sure dont. Oh and if you could buy a BMW would you even consider the Hyundai?

The Linux argument is still the same regardless if red hat is gaining ground. Until they standardize components like Direct X and .Net Framework they will only ever have a small share of the market. No matter how many Linux guys scream, that will be the case. Direct X alone has secured Microsoft for the forseable future and until others use similar components for their partners, that wont change.

You wouldn't understand. Lets just leave it at that, beyond the fact that your (and my) PS3 is limited by its own hardware, console gaming is far, far behind that of PC gaming. Even on a 55 inch TV, whats the maximum resolution? 1080P? waste of time. Try 1600P.

What about controls? Its funny when I use a mouse on CODMW2 on my ps3. Mice cannot be matched by controllers, and most anybody would agree.

Microsoft is the only company to deliver Direct X. That;s the reason PC gaming exists, and that is how this comment is relevant :)

for Balmer's replacement would be Ray Ozzie. He might be a little weak on the business side, but he's strong on the tech side, and MS has for too long been in thrall to their marketing/sales/business folks. It would do them a world of good to have a technologist in charge again. Maybe then they could once again put out an OS that people want and that works the way people want it to, instead of an OS that people use just because it's new and the marketdroids tell them it's the OS they want.

Dont see the issue if people want to spend their money on Apple kit that is not the highest spec.

As the Apple kit is designed to be a premium product like Bower & Wilkins, B & 0, Gucci, Lowe, Virtu,

Microsoft market is the lower end customer on a budget and Apple the higher end customer with money!!!!

Would you complain about people buying designer clothes? £200 for a shirt or £1000 for a suite.

When you could probably get something similar for 20% of the price!!!

Its about buying something which other people do not have people aspire to be rich have nice house, car, etc

not cheap clothes from primark, or a mish mash put together Computer which looks like frankensteins monster.

Obviously some people need to get better jobs and some style!!!!!! If you cannot afford a Mac stop bitching!!!! People with money can!!!!

Why play games on a desktop computer i dont get it!!!

I am happy with my PS3 playing on my 55inch LED Samsung TV.

Large viewing area and the ability to play games with other people instead of crowding round a small desktop computer screen.

Steve Jobs with his standard PC components inside a box is a box shifter. Just one that puts a nice sticker on the outside and whacks the price up. Oooh shiny sticker, ahhhh.

He's a price-putter-upper, not what I am after. He's a niche-market box-shifter.

I want global domination, low priced but profitable, worldwide.

What is a Mac and Snow Leopard? I know a Mac is a pc with a different OS than Windows, but what is Snow Leopard? SL doesn't ring any bells.

I'm guessing SL is a version of the OS, probably the latest version, but could it also be the web browser?

And when you say Mac competes with PC, the internals are the same. The Mac looks prettier than some pc's, but not all.

I've heard the interface is good to use, but that it's limited, cannot play games and is expensive in many many ways.

Graphics cards for the Mac are 3x the price for the same card for a PC, why?

Do you not feel ripped off Glen when buying pc hardware for your mac, and doesn't it just rub your nose in the fact that inside they are the same. But one of us is getting value for money.

I've never used a Mac, I might like it if I did, but why the heck can't it run games if it has the hardware? Are they afraid the OS is not fast enough for games/

Perhaps some of these articles should advise that information content is primarily for Dramatic impact.

That would help the rest of us.

I had to check on wiki to find out what a calculator was.

In answer to your question .... No England doesn't have calculators. It looks like they stopped using them before I was born.

How do they work exactly?

Just a fact-check. Microsoft's stock price has NEVER been double what it is today. In the last five years, it has only been 6 dollars higher.

Ballmer is enough drama on his own, don't be proud if making up more...

Microsoft is old news. Ballmer is gone, no doubt, but the best is yet to come. Do you honestly think that Google will stop at Android? They are laying the foundation for an operating system to compete with Windows on actual computers. Apple will probably join the fray eventually too. Microsoft is the next IBM, except IBM has managed to pick up the pieces rather well. We'll see if M$ can do the same. Eventually someone comes along that is unwilling to sell out (Google) and gives customers an honest choice.

Maybe you need to talk to Morticia.

Corporations such as Microsoft exist for one reason, to make a profit. They do so by have three main objectives:

1. Grow the company
2. Increase the bottom line
3. Increase stockholder equity

Nowhere in any corporation's mission statement is there anything that says "provide employment" or words to that effect. He who thinks that's a goal is sadly mistaken; he who doesn't understand the situation he voluntarily came to be in is grossly ignorant of that situation.

Basically, "If you're going to be dumb; you'd better be tough" and know who you're dealing with in the corporate world. If you as an employee don't look out for yourself, well, then nobody is looking out for you.

It's great to be young and idealistic, but that doesn't put food on the table, buy baby new shoes and keep mama happy.

Apple's OSX is trash. Do you really think its the answer to all the OS problems like you seem to think?

i personally like keeping my data intact when a guest logs into a account. i like actually having compatibility with all kinds of hardware. i like not being forced into the little bubble of hardware that the all might steve jobs has forced you into.

you are a windowlicker and should go ahead and get on your sunshine bus now.

interested_party says "They need some new direction, someone who understands people. Someone like the boss of Ryanair, or Walmart or Costco."

Or, indeed, the boss of Apple :-)

But seriously, Microsoft doesn't need a box shifter in charge (which is what Ryanair and Walmart are). In Ballmer it *has* a box shifter in charge. Your complaint about the high number of SKUs is a complaint about a textbook box-shifter revenue maximisation tactic.

blackstaff wrote: "what OS can compete with Win 7 now?"

The answer is "almost all of them". Apple and Red Hat have spent nothing like Microsoft have spent, and yet still have offerings in the same ballpark. They shouldn't even be close.

By the way, you don't need to be the best to compete, Hyundai still sells cars even though BMW exists.

"Win 7 is the best product out plain and simple for that market."

You've missed Job's trick. Snow Leopard doesn't compete with Windows, rather Mac competes with PC. And PC+Win7 still sucks compared to Mac+SL.

"Linux just can't standardize enough for the business"

Huh? Business has standardised on Red Hat. That's why Red Hat shares are worth a bit.

"...and domestic markets"

Ubuntu, you've heard of it?

"Considering they own the market..."

That's exactly MSs problem. They own a market -- operating systems on desktop computers. And it's not growing anymore. To keep MSFT shareholders happy they need a growth product. And they've repeatedly failed at that, despite out-spending every competitor they've faced. Apple are all over them in alternative form factors: laptops, phones, music players. Nintendo are all over them in gaming. Google are all over them in online services.

The only success they've had is to stop Linux being dominant on tiny laptops. That is, one of the wealthiest corporations the planet has ever seen was given a run for its money by an operating system knocked together by a bunch of people pooling some code and broadly following the principles of a smelly MIT hippie.

You can see why Wall St is worried about Ballmer, it's like Johnson & Johnson having to raise a sweat to compete with a soap-making hippie commune. It just shouldn't be imaginable.

Micro$oft has done a lot of stupid and nasty things over the years but the one thing that annoys me the most is them laying off thousands of employees while they make billions in profit. That is a really shitty thing to do in my opinion and I despise any company who does it. I immediately sell all stock that I own in one that does that purely out of principle. It is obviously not the best financial strategy but that kind of thing really pisses me off.

... the irony being that until 6.1 Windows Mobile didn't actually sync very well even with Microsoft's own exchange server, falling over in a big heap if you had too many folders.

And as for ActiveSync: there's some days of my life I want back.

Gates was rather like Sir Humphrey from Yes Minister / Prime Minister. Only an American counterpart. Mentally observant, ruthless as hell, very, very driven, spoke less than he listened, and his powers of observation blended with the paranoia only treacherous-natured people possess, served to see Microsoft dominate the IT landscape.

Ballmer, is naught but a a loud-mouthed buffoon. He speaks far more than he listens or observes; he could inflate a hot air baloon with the gasses he emits AND boil water with the sound energy he produces; he's outputting so much on both a heat and sound level that he's almost a human signal-jammer. Good luck to any communication coming the other way. You'd need a small nuclear explosion to get any information through to Steve 'softly softly' Ballmer; the one-way blather from Ballmer overpowers any incoming signal. He's the most dangerous kind of ignorant person - the ignorant person in charge.

He's best suited as a Henchman. Ballmer is best suited to being a gofer, someone used by another person who has the brains. Without a mastermind, hell, even a MIND behind him, he's a white noise generator...

Windows XP worked pretty well. I'd have been happy if they made it faster, more reliable, better interoperabiity with other pc's, netbooks, mobile phones etc.

Windows XP 64bit Easy Upgrade - That's why I wanted. In fact I wanted Windows XP Easy Upgrade 128bit, so I could do the upgrade now and not have to worry about doing another OS install for 15 years!

XP - Home v Pro = Pro everytime, they should have gotten rid of Home. Now we have at least 5 versions of Windows, ffs. Fcuk the customer, lets screw him as much as we can, he will keep on taking it, wont he?

5 versions of the same OS - WTF OMG FFS, ARGGH.

That's what drives "customers for life" to look around and see if they can get a better deal elsewhere. They get messed around, so they look around.

Make it simple, reliable, easy, straight forward, global, everywhere - THE STANDARD - and you have us all, forever.

Market it 5 different ways, slower, harder to use, awkward, remove Outlook Express/Outlook + Hotmail cosy goodness, make office impossible - NO LONGER THE STANDARD - and you have us all looking at Google's OS, Apple's OS, Openoffice, Firefox/Opera, gmail - and a way out of MS's rip off worsening products.

It's not everyone else getting better, it's MS marketing itself to hell as fast as it can.

Some dickheads from marketing and sales have gotten too much say over product development, and that's why we have so many variants of the single OS. They think if there are more versions then people will buy more. What?

1 PC = 1 OS. Not 5 OS's.

That's also why we have Office 2007 saving documents in a fcuking awful format that no one else you send them too can open. Too many twats.

I could go on and on, it's so bloody obvious.

If American interviewers had more balls they would interview some senior MS people and ask them why they are deliberately alienating customers. Viewers would phone/text/email in with their points of view and MS might learn something.

Microsoft have an incredible advantage but they are throwing it all away.

They need some new direction, someone who understands people. Someone like the boss of Ryanair, or Walmart or Costco. Someone who can understand people, make products we all understand, and make it everywhere, low priced and global.

Ok then for all you MS haters, what OS can compete with Win 7 now? You can't possibly say Snow Leopard is even in the same league with the multi threading issues and performance issues. Win 7 is the best product out plain and simple for that market. Server and Database management is solid to. Facts are the facts. Novell and Sun had their chances in the past to compete and for what ever reason they didn't try. Linux just can't standardize enough for the business and domestic markets. So that leaves MS. Considering they own the market I am very suprised they put out such a superior product as Win 7 considering Apple totally botched Snow Leopard badly and they are fighting to gain market share. Until somebody knocks the champ down, he is still the champ. Before someone predicts the downfall of Ballmer or Microsoft, they should remember they are still the champ and king of the hill. If you dont like it, then knock em off with better products. Until then suck it up.

Microsoft's problem isn't Windows. It ships on most computers. Microsoft's problem is that it is the "Windows and Office company". So Microsoft's revenues are bound to the demand for traditional desktop and laptop computers, a demand that is falling from both business (who are hitting expensive limits on computer room power and cooling, and who want to get off the desktop upgrade cycle, because there just isn't the productivity improvement to justify an upgrade) and consumers (who aren't that interested in upgrading their PCs so much as complementing them with a non-traditional computer).

Microsoft's attempts to move beyond being the "Windows and Office company" have been either expensive successes (XBox) or failed in the face of better and earlier competition (Bing, Zune).

Ballmer should take the rap for the failure of Windows Mobile. It was a leading operating system in a field about to explode. It was sunk by two products -- the well engineered, well marketed Apple iPhone and the RIM Blackberry. The lack of resources that starved mobile development, the lack of trust and long-run revenue opportunity which lead developers to go with Apple rather than Microsoft, the lack of product design skills -- all these come down to Ballmer. When the leading company which uses your product -- HTC -- re-skins it so it is easier to use, well there's a hint there to any contemplative executive. As there is when you are relying on leveraging your hold on corporate servers to sell other product, but then the outstanding example of that is done by another company -- RIM.

Sure, Ballmer has a tough gig. He's up against one of the best CEOs of all time in Steve Jobs. A man who when discarded by Apple saw the potential of Pixar, whereas you can hardly think that Ballmer when discarded by Microsoft will be as impressive.

All that's without considering more mundane corporate issues. Just look at the people who work for Microsoft. They're impressive as hard-nosed businesspeople. But they've sold all they can to other hard-nosed businesspeople, and they lack the flexibility to be anything else. Let along the damage that the hardnosed behaviour does to their image in the markets where they hope to grow.

promote Sinofsky, based on results over the last four years.

When you break the news to Ballmer:

Do it in a room with no chairs. A golf course is also a bad choice. You might mention SCO, Psystar, and T3 as possible choices for employment...

M$ is about making money, not technology. Always was, always will be. Once you all understand and accept that, everything falls into place. They will do _anything_ to keep the big bucks flowing, ANYTHING! M$ is a poster boy for soulless capitalism.

@jason: what planet are you from?
@sv guy: Yes, I always check the stock performance of my OS vendors.
@marc123: NT was designed from the ground up as a new, robust OS.

While I agree that Windows 7 is a decent OS, it's still bloated.

Microsoft IS hard at work re-writing the CORE of the OS. Server 2008 Core is the first fruit off the tree. As they untangle more spaghetti code and remove the dependencies... they will have a nice efficient core that they could then slap a basic desktop on, with basic networking, basic memory management, and basic application launching.

A "No frills" efficient OS built upon the much improved core, would be most welcome, and remain compatible, IMO.

...belong in prison for their criminal acts, for which Microsucks has been convicted on three continents.

Actually, I'm surprised that it has not done so already.

Win 7 seems as though it will improve MS' reputation but, honestly, anything would have after Vista.

And Vista was Steve's. So why is he still around?

Microsoft needs to pull out of the markets:

1) Zune MP3 Players

2) Bing Internet search

3) Xbox 360

Zune and Bing actually make a loss and the Xbox division just makes a small profit.

You can check this by reading Microsoft financial results.

It should concentrate on its key divisions:

1) Office Suite

2) Windows OS

The OS needs a complete rewrite from the core up getting rid of all legacy support and designing a new OS to be robust and be ready for the next 10 years

All it takes for Herr Ballmer to reverse the trend is the hire of a champion or the purchase of a novel technology, with both having no equal in AIMethodology or Live Operational Virtual Environments .... which are as Strata in Cloud Cover for Systems InterNetworking Networks .... Viceless SIN Operations.

But you have to be QuITe SMART yourself to recognise one of those Programs/Programmers, to understand and believe what they can do/they say they can do.

It is the simplest thing in the world though to call their bluff in those cases where you find what you think you have been looking for and might need. :-)....... and invariably at exalted levels in such fields, will the Program realise the simplicity and therefore be more than able to deliver everything in Spades.

It is certainly the dapper Default Alien Position, which you might find is even massively understated, which would be a real, as yet untapped, hidden bonus too.

It's called desperation. When all else fails, do the right thing.

Any charismatic figures left?

Balmer was OK, but never Microsoft CEO material. Gates was difficult to replace, as will be Steve Jobs. GE is still trying to figure out their problem.

What is Steve Jobs' old liver doing now?

Obama should replace Balmer and Gates, and then unionize MS.

Vista launched in 2006. Gates retired in 2008.

Microsoft still owns the desktop operating system and corporate office productivity software franchises.

All of its other businesses have historically been rounding errors and miserable failures.

As to stock performance, MSFT has tracked or outperformed the NASDAQ for the past couple of years.

Ballmer's stupidity or Job's arrogance?
In the end they will both lose.

....what have you been doing so wrong with say Windows 7 or have you been asleep the past 18 months?

Even Vista is fine now.

Again thats the kind of criticism you could have fired at MS a few years ago but not so much now.

yeah sure I bet MS would love to write a whole new OS from the ground up but then the corporates would moan, the customers would moan, compatability blah blah blah. Only the tech folks would love it.

Damned if they do, damned if they dont.

If MS was so bad wouldnt all the corps and public shifted elsewhere? After all they have had plenty time to do so since Win95.

Agree woth jason, Microsoft has Grown More mature, with Tech Help Self serve & Vast Amounts of O/S Improvement. NT6 seems Kitties Delight & Hardware has gotten Edge on -=7=- system.

Shure MicroShek Did Poorly on Vista Beta, In Fact, Except half dozen specfic Mainboards, Vista Ultimate64 Was BUST, Yet that was Simply Too Great Step Up From Lame xp, for 590 Crowd.
Microsoft writes Simplier Linear Code, as descriptive, while UNIX Is Bully of SchoolYard. Its' Ineveitable that UNIX will eventually take Throttle & GO, Even In Personal Computing Market.

Excepting that Greatest progress Has Been In Last Several years & Todays Show IS Greatest Show On Earth. From InSide SAuce, Ballmee' Keeps Failures Heads In Pickle Barrel in Basement. Cuts On Going Losses & Theres Still Hope vonSoft will BUY Google.
Has AnyOne Seen My Body?

drashek

Windows has become progressively worse since the very good Windows 2000.

We now have bloated garbage. Something had to give.

The only way M$ will recover its former position is a completely new OS built to be robust and efficient.

Isn't that what we all want? An OS that simply works well, i.e. a solid host for our applications?

To be honest I feel that MS has improved it's image no end over the past few years.

It's ready to accept, admit and apologise when things dont work and fix them quickly.

It's now asking the users what they want.

It's making inroads to work with the open source groups.

They also seem to have much more of a sense of humour than other computer firms we could mention.

I feel its a far better MS than we had 5 years ago.

I think the issue with Ballmer is more the fact he doesnt have that glossy CEO image that the media likes.

I just wish they would get the ZuneHD out to the world.