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floppy
September 19th, 2005, 04:45 PM
An interesting article from Forbes. Here's the url and some quotes:

Microsoft's Midlife Crisis from Forbes.com:
http://www.forbes.com/2005/09/12/microsoft-management-software_cz_vm_0913microsoft.html

"There's a way people keep score. Billions! Billions! Billions! If you wanna grow, things that rhyme with 'billions' are very good." (Steve Ballmer)

In the fiscal year just ended, sales rose only 8%, the first time the company has ever reported less than double-digit growth.

The Xbox videogame machine, the MSN online service, the wireless and small-business software--collectively have racked up $7 billion in losses in four years.

The free Apache program, a Linux variant, has 70%--worth $6 billion in revenue had Microsoft gotten the sales.

The last version of Windows has 50 million lines of code, and Vista will run a lot more.

Some current and former employees describe a stultifying world of 14-hour strategy sessions, endless business reviews and a preoccupation with PowerPoint slides; of laborious job evaluations, hundreds of e-mails a day and infighting among divisions so fierce that it hobbles design and delays product releases. In short, they describe precisely the behavior that humbled another tech giant: IBM.

karuptdata
September 19th, 2005, 04:49 PM
Why do you think that M$ sales are slumping so bad and their stock from what i hear is going down to..You would think with the upcoming release of xbox 360 sales and stock would increase or could it be more business are turning to linux for a solution i know i changed my office from xp to ubuntu and my employees love it..what do you think?? \\:D/

Brunellus
September 19th, 2005, 05:00 PM
Amusing how the article can't tell the difference betwen Apache and Linux. It seems that Linux has become a kind of shorthand for when people mean Free or Open-source software...

drizek
September 19th, 2005, 05:11 PM
Amusing how the article can't tell the difference betwen Apache and Linux. It seems that Linux has become a kind of shorthand for when people mean Free or Open-source software...
thats a good thing IMO.

also, he talks about how MS now discusses TCO, security and stability and credits ballmer for providing that. shouldnt he be crediting linux for it instead?

Goober
September 19th, 2005, 05:49 PM
M$ might go through some tough times, but I have no doubt that they will overcome. It might mean some massive shake-ups, they might lose some market share, they might face some - dare I say it? - real competition, but they will overcome. They are simply too big, and have too many products that sell to actually go down.

Be nice to see them go through some kinda of an internal power struggle, though. Their ego needs to be checked, IMO. But, until somebody gets a decent Windows Emulator working for Linux, or until Windows Games work on Linux, I, and all other gamers, need Windows.

skoal
September 19th, 2005, 06:18 PM
Shoot, I must be the exception. I love Ballmer. "Goo-GLE! Goo-GLE! Goo-GLE!" That 'ole boy gets me fired up just by reading his words. I'd hire him in a heartbeat, but unfortunately, that would require some additional expenses other than just his salary, like refurnishing the CEO room with indestructable titanium chairs and bolting them to the floors.

I think some of the numbers in this article are a bit erroneous (or misleading). On the trailing edge of every technology cycle release (~5 years), Microsoft experiences a decline in growth - slower sales, profits, or whatever. Once core family product lines are eventually released, you will see a surge (possibly record profit margins again) in those same statistics - Xbox, Vista, then whatever else. All new product offerings (like Xbox) have an initial time investment/loss margin you expect before they show profits, especially while grabbing a foothold against well established Industry giants like Sony or Nintendo. Just wait in ~2010 for another forbes article talking about waning Microsoft growth. Cycle, rinse, repeat...

Now, if those same surges aren't shown, then I'll turn my head and raise a brow. I think, unlike IBM of yester yore, Microsoft is doing what all modern day huge companies do - diversify and extend it's lines of business. The real bureaucracy and bloat (in such companies) is really only apparent (and problematic) in the human resources department, and I think there have been several such (infamous) cases of late showing that at Microsoft.

\\//_

Kyral
September 19th, 2005, 07:41 PM
Give us time, Ballmer says. "You could say 1995 to 2000 was about us winning on the desktop. Then 2000 to 2005 we won and drove the server market.

How exactly did they win the server market? Last time I checked LAMP had 80% market share.....

angkor
September 19th, 2005, 07:48 PM
I never really took notice of the guy until I saw that Monkey-boy video a couple of days ago. Do people actually take that man seriously? To me it's incredible that a man who's acting as if he just stuffed an entire Sahara of cocaine up his nostrils could be capable of running a company the size of Microsoft...

Mr. Electric Wizard
September 19th, 2005, 09:07 PM
I never really took notice of the guy until I saw that Monkey-boy video a couple of days ago. Do people actually take that man seriously? To me it's incredible that a man who's acting as if he just stuffed an entire Sahara of cocaine up his nostrils could be capable of running a company the size of Microsoft...

:lol: :lol: :lol:
Dude, you gotta post a link to the video, I haven't seen it yet...

Mr. Electric Wizard
September 19th, 2005, 09:12 PM
Nevermind, found it.
Man, that dude's a freak!

angkor
September 19th, 2005, 11:42 PM
Nevermind, found it.
Man, that dude's a freak!

Yup, that's what I thought. :D

For anyone else that hasn't seen the video yet:

http://www.ntk.net/ballmer/mirrors.html

mstlyevil
September 19th, 2005, 11:50 PM
That was scary. Was he trying to be like a Preacher or something?

super
September 20th, 2005, 12:17 AM
i just saw the videos,
what the heck was that supposed to be?!

that guy must be on crack!!

too bad dave chappelle doesn't have his show anymore cause i can think of some hysterical skits using those videos. :-P

Qrk
September 20th, 2005, 04:51 AM
Even if Microsoft is going to have a harder time making money... their products have gotten much better since they "won" the desktop. They may get a lot of flack for letting IE wallow (they deserve it, IMHO), but Windows 2000 and XP SP2 are secure enough for the home desktop and easy to use for 90% of the population.

I think microsoft's current slump comes from the fact that the easy problems they had in, say '98, are fixed; like the blue screen of death, the GUI and system performance. (XP is fairly fast when you use it right) Yet the most important problems are the security and lack of modularity; these go right to the heart of the OS.

bob_c_b
September 20th, 2005, 11:31 AM
Even if Microsoft is going to have a harder time making money... their products have gotten much better since they "won" the desktop. They may get a lot of flack for letting IE wallow (they deserve it, IMHO), but Windows 2000 and XP SP2 are secure enough for the home desktop and easy to use for 90% of the population.

I think microsoft's current slump comes from the fact that the easy problems they had in, say '98, are fixed; like the blue screen of death, the GUI and system performance. (XP is fairly fast when you use it right) Yet the most important problems are the security and lack of modularity; these go right to the heart of the OS.

While SP2 made things somewhat better, I would hardly call XP (any SP level) secure enough. There are still signifigant issues with spyware and the tide of virus infections may have slowed but they are far from gone. I would not call an OS that needs anti-virus, anti-spyware and a regularly scheduled patch day "secure enough" by a long shot.

XP w/SP2 "feels" better as a solution, but without almost five years to get it right (and the first 3.5 years were pretty bad) it had better seem improved.