It's Time for Bill Gates to Come Back to Microsoft
gdgt.com
gdgt.com
Comparing Microsoft’s dilemma to Apple and Steve Jobs isn’t an accurate comparison. Apple was almost out of business when Steve Jobs returned. When a company is practically out of business you can do things you otherwise wouldn’t be able to. Like destroy whole product lines (Newton), screw over partners (all the MacOS licensees) and even toss out your main product (MacOS in favor of OSX).
Microsoft is still profitable. They still have tons of customers. You couldn’t, for example, replace Microsoft Windows with a whole new OS and get away with it.
There is only one company in modern history that has grown to the size of Microsoft, started failing and then come back to achieve greater glory. That company is IBM.
If Microsoft is to succeed they need to find someone like Lou Gerstner (who saved IBM). Gerstner succeeded not because he tried to return IBM to its former glory but because he saw a value in the individual components of IBM that no one had seen before. he saw that IBM could do everything technology wise and realized that opened the door to a successful consulting business.
Microsoft needs that. Someone who can see the individual parts of Microsoft and combine them in a way no one’s ever thought of before. Someone who realizes the old vision isn’t working anymore and can move the company forward without being bound to it. Because being bound to the past is exactly what’s killing Microsoft right now and Gates is just as guilty of that as Ballmer is.
What would keep this someone from just taking the page from the Jack Gerstner playbook for IBM?
Simply moving Microsoft down the Enterprise/Consulting road would be a huge waste of that opportunity and would piss off any number of partners and third party developers.
[1] It wouldn't involve screwing over partners, just clearing away the internal backbiting nonsense.
I can see how Steve Jobs could do this in his old company, especially when his old company was on the ropes, and with the support of the "reverse-merger" NeXT crew at his back. How feasible is such a political assault in a Microsoft that's still prosperous?
But they do need a technologist at the helm, and that just isn't Ballmer's world. Bill wanted tablets years go, so he made the Tablet PC. He saw the future of online collaboration, and bought Groove Networks (which brought Ray Ozzie as a side benefit). These were clever strategic moves done BEFORE anybody else was really thinking in these terms. Balmer isn't able to be the first mover because he doesn't have the vision.
Bill Gates, clearly, is a phenomenal technologist, but while he has the vision and "cluefulness" that Ballmer lacks, I'm not sure he is up to the task of competing with Google and Apple today.
Am I the only one to challenge this ?
What about Coca-Cola ?
Microsoft, based on all the facts, is doing just fine for a company of that size and diversity. They pulled a great Win 7 release, they are doing great in the Enterprise, doing great on the server, they missed out on the Mobile side but are on the right track now with Mango and Nokia partnership. Kinect/Xbox 360 stuff is also looking great.
Sure there is not enough glitterati and magic in that anywhere, nor is Ballmer charming but those are non-important things.
When Bill ran MSFT people hated them - it's easy to forget that. So if we are talking mind share, even then it doesn't make sense to have Bill come back and run it the way he did first time around.
So what do people want Microsoft to achieve - look and act like Apple? Have more mind share? Stop doing uncool things like the Enterprise stuff? Or just have $600 share value? Unless they define that, I think this is just pointless blabber.
It's not about magic, it's not about glitter, it's not even about wild P/E. It's about using their massive base of resources to do something other than crank out derivative products for existing markets and rest on their own laurels.
Today's Microsoft has no idea how to innovate. Yesterday's Microsoft was aggressive, produced new products that were competitive, and never shied away from a fight no matter how bloody. They were the Lance Armstrong of their day, always winning yet having people suspicious of their methods.
If they're not careful, Computer Associates will beat them at their own game.
The problem is, innovation doesn't have a formula. The fascination with "disruptive innovation" is admirable but building something no one has built before, doing things better and different than anyone else has before, creating new markets - these things are rare occurrences whose success depends on lot of things - timing, market needs, technical advances, some visionary having the right flash of vision that then is executed flawlessly etc. Point is it's far from easy and I don't think you can count anyone out because they haven't been disruptive for some time.
And then the trick is to resist the temptation to tamper with the team once it's successful (e.g. don't do what they did here http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1870408)
Microsoft needs to let innovation get out of their labs regardless if it has to potential to kill Windows or not. The priority should be to make great products with no restrictions. Did Steve Jobs get his employees to f$%^ off when they came with the idea to make iOS that would potentially affect Mac sales in the future? I don't think so.
The iPhone disrupts the iPod business, and the iPad disrupts the Macbook business (though it's still too early to see the effects). Microsoft wouldn't build anything that has the potential to disrupt Windows right now. That's why they'd rather wait over 2 years since the iPad launched to use the real Windows for tablets, instead of making a WP7 tablet version right away (which would have to be about as cheap as WP7 for phones).
I agree that minimsft is a great blog, but can you expand on how an employee having an opinion on how Microsoft should run it's business is ironic?
Most of the premise of the blog is to have a smaller Microsoft, which is almost a universally accepted opinion in the company.
The various points advanced in minimsft comments and elsewhere tend to be mutually contradictory if you actually think about them. e.g. stop depending too much on Windows/Office and focus on making totally new products even if it's risky? or stop wasting time and money on anything not immediately profitable and focus only on core strengths? I've seen both advocated on minimsft quite a few times.
Anybody who takes over is going to encounter resistance to change on the Windows and Office front. I think that is actually by far the strongest reason that Bill could be the best person: authority. As you say, unless he recognizes the need for it it's pointless, but assuming he does, he's by far the best person for the job.
If you're going to piss off people all up and down the company you need something special to bring the majority along with you. No outsider can come in and do that. Bill could, because he, unlike anyone else can legitimately lead from the front with genuine authority and vision.
And note, Tim doesn't need the money. He'd be doing this to create his story.
Sinofsky, Rudder, Guthrie, Elop. I think, in no particular order, are the four that could take Ballmer's spot.
While I personally like Guthrie, Rudder was a one-time personal technical assistant to BillG. That was a role where he basically rode shotgun on a couple years of BillG reviews. And that happened back in the 90s, when he wasn't yet drifting off towards the sunset...
As much as I would like to see Bill back at Microsoft, I'd rather see him doing the amazing work that he is currently doing with the Gates Foundation.
I would like to see Scott Guthrie become the new CEO and/or chief software architect at Microsoft.
I'd like to see them truly embrace open standards and interoperability. They no longer have the monopoly which made these unnecessary.
A Microsoft that truly embraces (without "extending") & implements truly open standards is going to be a very potent beast.
"There aren't many people in the industry with the full gamut of experience, wisdom, vision, financial insight, and guts for risky moves. Perhaps they could offer the job to Woz? He might like the challenge of saving them."
Bill had tried being the chief architect thing but as the article alluded, the problem isn't that MS hadn't enough people with vision, but their product development/marketing pipeline is broken. They need a CEO with a fresh set of eyes to fix this process.
They need to break up the company, and have several new CEO's. All their cash cows are tied to the personal computing industry, and it is coming to an end faster than they can turn the ship around with all the Windows and Enterprise baggage.
The bigger question is when Ballmer's dismal record begins to exceed Gate's loyalty to his friend. In the end the one who shows Ballmer the door will be Gates.
And failing at it.