WSJ: Gates and Ballmer fought over Microsoft handover | Hacker News Reader

WSJ: Gates and Ballmer fought over Microsoft handover

online.wsj.com

30 pointstimr12 comments

"He (Ballmer) restructured the company... ...and elevated people with general management experience into positions previously held by technology-focused executives."

Bam! And it's all downhill from there...

Like this:

"... NetDocs, a promising effort to offer software programs such as word processing over the Internet. The issue: Because NetDocs risked cannibalizing sales of Microsoft's cash-cow Office programs, some executives wanted NetDocs killed. ... First, NetDocs ballooned to a 400-person staff, then it got folded into the Office group in early 2001, where it died."

The earliest mention of NetDocs I found was from 2000, 6 years before Google Docs was released. I imagine the tech execs would have supported the innovation and made MS a leader, but the management execs only thought about protecting their cashcow, which leaves MS trying to catch up with Google.

I wonder what Gates position would be?

Some products shrink markets. (Easy example in Encyclopedias. Books==$$$$, Encarta/WorldBook==$, Wikipedia==FREE) I think NetDocs would be one of those.

I guess the question is - from a business standpoint - why do you want go from leading your own $10 Billion industry to leading your own $100 Million industry? *Note that figures are utterly made up.

As leading shareholder, BillyG has an interest in Microsoft making money (It funds his work in Africa for one thing!)....

I guess it's an industry that Open Source and other players (eg Google) can eventually destroy on their own, but I'm not 100% sure that BillyG would have so quickly destroyed it...

I guess the issue might be one of pricing though --> and in 2000 MS could have released NetDocs at similar pricing levels to Office - and that might have changed things.. But letting Google etc come in to the market for free before they had the presence, has probably hasn't the end...

(Sorry for the rambling - Have to run..)

Better you kill your cash cow than let the competition do it. Every company ought to learn this lesson and embrace change instead of trying desperately to maintain the status quo. Otherwise we're bound to hear the same sad stories like MS, the newspaper business, the music business, etc

I've maintained for a long while that MS is weaker without Gates. From all I've read, it was clear that Bill had a strong leadership role in the technical domain, and his influence was not to be underestimated.

So the announcement that he was leaving left me certain that MS was past its peak, and will decline over the next decade.

That was until reading this article. Ballmer impresses me with the insight in how to replace such an important leader. Reaching into Max Weber for a credible plan, and then ensuring Gates names two incredible minds to carry on after he's gone: Ozzie and Mundie.

The question is can two replace the one? Time will tell, but a certain downfall is now less certain in my mind.

Thanks WSJ for a great article.

To the contrary, I found the WSJ report showed the direct correlations between the times when Ballmer began to pick up the majority of the work and the decline in the _innovation_ coming out of Microsoft's camp. Their report makes the Gates/Ballmer division of how MS plays ball quite clear.

As they explain, Gates is all about MS innovating and building their own tech. Ballmer is about finding a compromise and playing it slightly more safe (because he's a businessman first and foremost while Gates is a hacker). Sure, it's a huge risk to gamble with one of the world's biggest companies, but Gates knew how to play that game.

Just take a look at the "innovations" that have come from MS post-2001 and compare them to their work prior to that. There's a clear distinction in the aim/position MS took on in the market. Of course correlation isn't causation, but it's still food for thought.

Microsoft has a great and thriving research division, that comes up with great innovations. The trouble for MS is that they haven't been able to translate those into products well.

"Microsoft has a great and thriving research division, that comes up with great innovations."

Guess which division in MS has the least number of managers with "general management experience"? ;-)

> Mr. Gates concluded that it was he who needed to change most. "Steve is all about being on the team, and being committed to the mutual goals," Mr. Gates said. "So I had to figure out, what are my behaviors that don't reinforce that? What is it about sarcasm in a meeting?" he said. "Or just going, 'This is completely screwed up'?"

His behavior is like that of a startup founder frustrated by working with the bureaucrats in the company that acquired his. Of course "Steve is all about being on the team". Most incompetent people are "team players", they hide behind committee decison making.

Irrelevant. MS has never been about quality, no matter whose guidance....and I've never heard anyone seriously support the idea that Gates has any real talent as a programmer.

They have been merely lottery winners.

I agree, I don't think it would really matter who they put in charge of MS. They are simply concerned with pushing out bad products for large sums of cash.

And for all those folks out there that think Bill Gates was a 'hacker' or skilled in any way, just remember back to that article a few weeks ago when he admitted to doing a bit of bin raking for code.

You and logjam should partner up on a company together. Between logjam's deep insights into how to reduce the decades-long process of building the world's largest, most successful software company down to something as easy as buying a lottery ticket, and your Midas-like knowledge of how to push out bad products for large sums of cash, this is a company that can't fail. Please let me know what the ticker symbol is when you guys go public so I can load up my 401K with your stock.

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