Microsoft Should End The Steve Ballmer Experiment

[haste.]

Microsoft is just one of those companies whose financials look like a kids sandbox in a neighborhood full of cats. On the surface, everything looks OK, dig a little deeper, and its full of shit. Suffice it to say, I think there is a lot more red ink hiding in the numbers and they are pacing/concealing/staggering those losses to reduce shock value/preserve stock value. I am not going to throw Enron out there as a comparison, but............

Charlie's opinion aside, Microsoft has just made some mind numbingly bad moves in a market that will no longer tolerate incompetence. 15-20 years ago when you were the only OS on the biggest computer platform, you could get away with incompetence. Now it costs you.

Microsoft has many many tons of cash laying around to cover fuckups with, so short term, meh. Long term, strategically, problems are there.

Please stop. I know you tried to soften it by saying "not throwing out Enron" but please stop. Enron had exponential growth due to extreme abuse of revenue recognition. They literally used AA to figure out every loophole in GAAP and abuse the shit out of them, creating subsidiary companies to flow expired assets and other completely immoral acts. This isn't Enron.

Worst comparison ever.

 

[rudy]

I am also surprised no one has mentioned the largest crime in MS, XBOX, Xbox is probably the biggest conflict of interest they have that has totally put windows back 10 years in function. Before Xbox MS was trying to make windows do everything and they were moving for ward with that. Putting devices in more places. After Xbox had success MS started pulling features from windows and just plain ignoring various niche sectors they hoped to sell an Xbox into. Want to fix MS? Kill the xbox and focus again.

 

[Rix]

Microsoft has had their finger off the pulse of their customer base for a long time. The corporate culture working there is atrocious. They've turned it into a software sweatshop, they don't innovate -- they imitate. The move from Windows 7 to Windows 8 is a great example - you can claim Microsoft came up with the idea for a tablet computer well before Apple (and you'd be correct) but they just can't seem to get these things right and win in their market segments. XBOX has been the exception, but they have been doing a pretty good job of boning that up lately too.

Why do they seemingly continuously screw up good ideas and products? It's the corporate culture and leadership's direct responsibility. Ballmer needs to go. Richard Branson would kick ass as the CEO of Microsoft, too bad that will never happen .

 

[Terminus]

I nominate myself for CEO of Microsoft.

And yes, there will be blood.

 

[Shorehn]

And yes, there will be blood.

I hope you're good at dodging chairs.

 

[BladeVenom]

just sad

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywi0h_Y5_U

Ballmer laughed like an idiot at the iPod, iPad, iPhone, and Android. They all ended up kicking Microsoft's ass.

Here he is laughing at Chrome, and Google having two operating systems. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVaPZAJaqFM Now look how many operating systems MS has come up with since that video Windows 8, Windows Phone, Window RT, and Kin OS. Now Chromebooks make up 25% of cheap laptops.

Everything Ballmer laughs at, ends up beating Microsoft.

 

[xxaaqq]

I think that it's valid to believe that Ballmer because I feel like there are so many "almost" amazing things out of Microsoft. And somewhere, someone has to be saying "Hey, but..." and it isn't being heard by the ultimate decision makers. "Nope, we're not going to put any time testing Windows 8 with mouse-only devices. TOUCH IS THE FUTURE!!!!" "Yeah, but..." Why wasn't this heard at the top??

 

[Monkey God]

Ballmer never should have been given the helm in the first place. He has zero leadership and no vision. He's a competent right-hand man, not a CEO.

 

[Megalith]

Why does Ballmer literally sound like a comic relief character in a movie?

 

[phatbx133]

Ballmer need to go, find someone who have vision, smart, listen to people what they want for Windows, etc...

Windows 9 could be hot unless UI removed sh*t, light foot print, bring back start menu intact,

I have Windows 8 upgrade but never installed on my pc

 

[Tawnos]

I think that it's valid to believe that Ballmer because I feel like there are so many "almost" amazing things out of Microsoft. And somewhere, someone has to be saying "Hey, but..." and it isn't being heard by the ultimate decision makers. "Nope, we're not going to put any time testing Windows 8 with mouse-only devices. TOUCH IS THE FUTURE!!!!" "Yeah, but..." Why wasn't this heard at the top??

In my opinion, only...

There was significant PM/design team deafness, everything from "just give it a try" to outright adversarial reactions to negative internal reviews. On top of that, a relatively short shipping cycle coupled with a relatively long RI/FI schedule meant that by the time the majority of people were giving feedback there wasn't a lot of time to change and/or improve the experience.

Out of those things, only a couple really improved. One, using the product for a while really did improve my perception of it. It's now unfamiliar for me to go back to 7's start menu, as it requires more mouse dexterity (something I've gotten lazy with) and I use the live tiles for a lot of my "at a glance" stuff. Two, though a number of the things I wish had been fixed/changed never got touched, we got the Win+X menu. That was a late-breaking and awesome addition.

 

[xxaaqq]

In my opinion, only...

There was significant PM/design team deafness, everything from "just give it a try" to outright adversarial reactions to negative internal reviews. On top of that, a relatively short shipping cycle coupled with a relatively long RI/FI schedule meant that by the time the majority of people were giving feedback there wasn't a lot of time to change and/or improve the experience.

Out of those things, only a couple really improved. One, using the product for a while really did improve my perception of it. It's now unfamiliar for me to go back to 7's start menu, as it requires more mouse dexterity (something I've gotten lazy with) and I use the live tiles for a lot of my "at a glance" stuff. Two, though a number of the things I wish had been fixed/changed never got touched, we got the Win+X menu. That was a late-breaking and awesome addition.

Off topic - what does "RI/FI" stand for?

Anyway, I like Windows 8, and the vast majority of my usage is on my work laptop (no touch) and my home desktop (no touch). But on both...

• Installed Pokki
• Set media files and documents to open in Desktop apps
• Rarely visit the start screen

So for me, it's basically a Windows 7 experience, but with much faster booting and better multiple monitor supports (better taskbar options, basically).

Because of how *I* like to use the computer, I feel like Microsoft really missed the mark by omitting a "default mouse-driven" experience for users that wanted that option. And I don't think they'll hit that target with 8.1 either. As long as people are launching images and documents from Windows Folder explorer into Modern apps, and you're returning to the Start Screen instead of the desktop when you close those apps, you're going to feel like it's a jarring system, with too many extra steps.

 

[Tawnos]

Off topic - what does "RI/FI" stand for?

Anyway, I like Windows 8, and the vast majority of my usage is on my work laptop (no touch) and my home desktop (no touch). But on both...

• Installed Pokki
• Set media files and documents to open in Desktop apps
• Rarely visit the start screen

So for me, it's basically a Windows 7 experience, but with much faster booting and better multiple monitor supports (better taskbar options, basically).

Because of how *I* like to use the computer, I feel like Microsoft really missed the mark by omitting a "default mouse-driven" experience for users that wanted that option. And I don't think they'll hit that target with 8.1 either. As long as people are launching images and documents from Windows Folder explorer into Modern apps, and you're returning to the Start Screen instead of the desktop when you close those apps, you're going to feel like it's a jarring system, with too many extra steps.

RI/FI = Reverse Integrate/Forward Integrate. It's the process by which a feature branch is brought up to winmain and then pushed down to all other feature branches. So if a change is happening in fbl_uex_dev1 (one of the feature branches for user experience), it would have to go to fbl_uex, then to winmain. It usually happened every couple weeks to a month. However, if there were bugs that resulted in you turning off different features (before the code to do that was removed), it could be another two-four weeks before you could give it another try with the fixes. By the time the twin UI was ironed out enough to be usable on a daily machine, the team wasn't interested in any design feedback. They were concerned with bugs in the UI at that point, not with overall changes.

The modern apps for viewing images was another thing that got complaints, but fortunately it was a change once then forget (except, of course, for those of us installing a new build every week or two) issue. *shrug* That never bothered me any more than the other default apps handlers in previous windows versions did, but I could see how it would bother people who were totally new to win8, especially if they didn't know how to close the app. Still, after using Win8 almost daily for the past couple years with the modern UI, I don't think it's worth the derision heaped upon it by certain detractors (who scream louder than the fanboys, it seems).

 

[pcjunkie]

RI/FI = Reverse Integrate/Forward Integrate. It's the process by which a feature branch is brought up to winmain and then pushed down to all other feature branches. So if a change is happening in fbl_uex_dev1 (one of the feature branches for user experience), it would have to go to fbl_uex, then to winmain. It usually happened every couple weeks to a month. However, if there were bugs that resulted in you turning off different features (before the code to do that was removed), it could be another two-four weeks before you could give it another try with the fixes. By the time the twin UI was ironed out enough to be usable on a daily machine, the team wasn't interested in any design feedback. They were concerned with bugs in the UI at that point, not with overall changes.

The modern apps for viewing images was another thing that got complaints, but fortunately it was a change once then forget (except, of course, for those of us installing a new build every week or two) issue. *shrug* That never bothered me any more than the other default apps handlers in previous windows versions did, but I could see how it would bother people who were totally new to win8, especially if they didn't know how to close the app. Still, after using Win8 almost daily for the past couple years with the modern UI, I don't think it's worth the derision heaped upon it by certain detractors (who scream louder than the fanboys, it seems).

Sorry....no screams more than the fan boy heatlesssun. He's probably turned more people off from Win 8 than MS.

 

[Tawnos]

Sorry....no screams more than the fan boy heatlesssun. He's probably turned more people off from Win 8 than MS.

The difference, at least to me, is that I don't see him jump in and bringing up Windows 8 in non-related threads. On the other hand, I see a number of other anti-Win8 posters do it repeatedly.

 

[Red Falcon]

The difference, at least to me, is that I don't see him jump in and bringing up Windows 8 in non-related threads. On the other hand, I see a number of other anti-Win8 posters do it repeatedly.

No, I've seen him do it many times over in multiple non-Windows/MS related threads.
Honestly, this has been a nice discussion so far without his input.

Or instead of saying "input", I should have said "PR statements".
It's been a breath of fresh air.

As for Ballmer, his extreme arrogance of Microsoft's products is what has driven the company into the ground.
Microsoft is in need of new leadership, of which will hopefully listen to its customers instead of ignoring 100% of them, regardless of how crappy the products are doing.

 

[Tawnos]

No, I've seen him do it many times over in multiple non-Windows/MS related threads.
Honestly, this has been a nice discussion so far without his input.

Or instead of saying "input", I should have said "PR statements".
It's been a breath of fresh air.

As for Ballmer, his extreme arrogance of Microsoft's products is what has driven the company into the ground.
Microsoft is in need of new leadership, of which will hopefully listen to its customers instead of ignoring 100% of them, regardless of how crappy the products are doing.

You would be one of the people I was referring to, in that you take almost any chance you can to shit on Microsoft or Windows, for just a few examples:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1040067634&highlight=#post1040067634
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1040044561&highlight=#post1040044561
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1040038362&highlight=#post1040038362
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1039989128&highlight=#post1039989128

At least looking through heatlesssun's post history, the comments stay on topic or in reply to someone else who forked the topic, rather than being the one to attempt the fork. :-\

 

[pcjunkie]

You would be one of the people I was referring to, in that you take almost any chance you can to shit on Microsoft or Windows, for just a few examples:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1040067634&highlight=#post1040067634
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1040044561&highlight=#post1040044561
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1040038362&highlight=#post1040038362
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1039989128&highlight=#post1039989128

At least looking through heatlesssun's post history, the comments stay on topic or in reply to someone else who forked the topic, rather than being the one to attempt the fork. :-\

Quit hijacking the thread...stay on topic or go to a Win 8 thread if you want to gush over it.

 

[Red Falcon]

You would be one of the people I was referring to, in that you take almost any chance you can to shit on Microsoft or Windows, for just a few examples:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1040067634&highlight=#post1040067634
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1040044561&highlight=#post1040044561
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1040038362&highlight=#post1040038362
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1039989128&highlight=#post1039989128

At least looking through heatlesssun's post history, the comments stay on topic or in reply to someone else who forked the topic, rather than being the one to attempt the fork. :-\

You looked through all 27,000+ posts of heatlesssun's?
Please, go back to around the 23,000-area posts of his.
Or did you forget how he wanted everyone to be mass banned?

I wouldn't make little jabs about Microsoft, Ballmer, Windows 8, Surface RTs, or the XBone if they didn't all completely suck and attempt to fuck loyal customers at every turn.
Seriously, I've had nothing but good things to say about Windows 7, and about how great Microsoft was under the leadership of Bill Gates.

In all reality, Ballmer is the real problem behind Microsoft's poor choices, technology, and leadership, or lack there of.

My posts in this thread (save for this one) have all be on-topic.
You have a right to your opinion, and I have a right to mine, just leave it at that.

 

[wonderfield]

The difference, at least to me, is that I don't see him jump in and bringing up Windows 8 in non-related threads.

You must not frequent the Apple subforum much. Or at all, even, based on your post history.

 

[CreepyUncleGoogle]

Why can't people just pick on someone no one takes seriously like those Libertarians weirdos instead of fighting about something like an operating system which is a matter of personal preference? I like Windows Vista and Mint with the Cinnamon UI, but that doesn't mean that people who prefer Windows 8 are all that evil (at least, not as evil as Chrome lovers anyhow). Steve Ballmer will go or stay based on how Microsoft's stakeholders feel and no amount of whining and complaining from you people with your unimportant opinions will change that. So there!

 

[Red Falcon]

Occupation: SDE @ Microsoft

Ahh, now I'm starting to get the picture of why you are so sensitive towards negative Microsoft-related comments.
Bad Microsoft PR = less work for you.

Well, believe it or not, Ballmer has done more harm to Microsoft than my "negative" posts could ever do.
If I really had it out for Microsoft, I would be telling everyone Ballmer is the man and can do no wrong!

But I don't have it out for Microsoft, I just tell the truth, and sometimes, honey, the truth hurts.

 

[Red Falcon]

Steve Ballmer will go or stay based on how Microsoft's stakeholders feel and no amount of whining and complaining from you people with your unimportant opinions will change that. So there!

QFT

 

[Tawnos]

You looked through all 27,000+ posts of heatlesssun's?
Please, go back to around the 23,000-area posts of his.
Or did you forget how he wanted everyone to be mass banned?

Nope, just went back the same number of pages for both of you. Was the mass banning thing when he got banned for a while? I missed whatever caused that, but a call for mass banning is pretty messed up. Holding different opinions is fine.

I wouldn't make little jabs about Microsoft, Ballmer, Windows 8, Surface RTs, or the XBone if they didn't all completely suck and attempt to fuck loyal customers at every turn.
Seriously, I've had nothing but good things to say about Windows 7, and about how great Microsoft was under the leadership of Bill Gates.

I wish you would be more mature about it and refrain from making jabs at every turn. The XBox One isn't even out yet, so you have no real way to evaluate if it "completely sucks". Windows 8, well, that's been done to death. My own experience with the Surface RT has been mixed. It's more useful than an iPad for me, but not useful enough to replace my laptop, so it mostly sits at home while I lug around my laptop . We certainly don't attempt to fuck any customers at any turn (at least I don't, and anyone I can think of who works here doesn't), but I know that some people hold that perception regardless of what we do.

In all reality, Ballmer is the real problem behind Microsoft's poor choices, technology, and leadership, or lack there of.

He definitely isn't what I would call an inspiring leader, but I don't think the blame can solely rest on his shoulders. There have definitely been poor choices he's spearheaded, and his dogged insistence on our current review model is a huge turn-off for me and many others here. As I said earlier in this thread, I think he'd be a great CFO or right hand to the CEO, but as a leader I feel he is too reactionary. I'm glad to see that he made the choice to reorganize the company which will hopefully reduce the infighting among product groups, as that's been an issue here for far too long. Whether this signals a longer-term evolution in his approach to management remains to be seen, but I'm hesitantly optimistic.

My posts in this thread (save for this one) have all be on-topic.
You have a right to your opinion, and I have a right to mine, just leave it at that.

Agreed, differences in opinion can foster good discussion (such as in this thread). They can also turn into needless jabs, nitpicking, and flamebait. I usually try to stay away from that, unless someone acts like an outright asshole, where I'll call them on it and move on with my life. Like STL, I would probably make a poor CEO .