Microsoft: Satya Nadella steers Windows giant to recovery
bbc.com
bbc.com
Let's keep the hate aside and forget MS's past. The biggest problem facing MS now is the loss of mind share on the Windows platform. The brightest minds aren't programming on Microsoft platforms if you look at colleges and conferences worldwide. This cannot be reversed; Open Source products are now technically superior, the community is very well organized, and it is free. Interesting research, frameworks, libraries and programming languages spawn on Open Source before they show up (if ever) on Windows. Windows engines have run out; though they will keep going for a while.
MS had a great run for over twenty years because the entire world ran on DOS and then Windows. That gave them enormous influence and power, power to make mistakes, fail over and over, and yet succeed. The real challenge will be in adapting to a future in which Windows is irrelevant. The long-term future of Azure, Windows Phone, Windows Desktop, Windows Server and their overpriced Office Tools looks bleak to me.
There'll be another 5-10% of users who need advanced features. That will not sustain the multi-billion revenue coming from Office products.
Replacing Excel in most large organizations would be like trying to give a human being a skeleton transplant.
http://www.tannerhelland.com/4993/microsoft-money-updated-20...
Edit: The point I was trying to make is that I wonder how important personal use of Office is to Microsoft. Arguably people either want to use what they use at work or they use something other product (in the past one of the competing office suites, probably one of the online offerings these days) - I wonder if the size of the latter category has actually changed over the years?
90% of its users use only 1% of its capabilities. But they all use a different 1%.
At this point in time, MS Office may well be more a RAD than a traditional office suite.
What they have done last week is a massive step, but its just one step and many more need to be taken to catch up on lost ground.
Now, if you start a company and you think you might grow ... which stack will you use?
The thing is, Unix systems (OSX included) are much more developer friendly. Windows doesn't even have a decent terminal emulator yet, you have to resort to things such as conemu.
Now, if Windows can be 'unixified', then I believe the trend may be reversed. As is is, you can't compete with the amount of utilities and server software for all unix flavors.
It can. It has, actually, but Microsoft doesn't want Windows to be a generic unix: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Services_for_UNIX
If Microsoft can make a POSIX layer like OS X did -- one that ships with the OS and feels like it is part of the OS -- I'd be very, very interested.
I've been on OS X since Apple was nearly dead (still have my 10.0.6 CD somewhere around here). Before jumping on, I bounced from the promise of Linux distro to FreeBSD, to OpenBSD -- trying to find something that worked as a desktop environment. Once OS X was released, I knew I found what I had been looking for. It definitely wasn't because it was from Apple (back then, using Apple was being counterculture, if not somewhat risky as the business wasn't doing so well); it was because there was finally a desktop OS that had a POSIX layer and a GUI that didn't feel like a third arm grafted on to /usr/local/whatever.
I'm hoping that MS catches the drift that DOS is dead & can kill that sacred cow; I'd love to get a Surface tablet & develop for Windows Phone, but having to deal with DOS is like moving out of a house and trying to live in a tent. My experiences with Powershell haven't been all that much better. It's definitely not got the same problems as DOS, but in my experience it didn't implement the paradigm of a pipeable set of simple tools to accomplish singular tasks.
I'd love to see a POSIX compliant Microsoft OS. And to me, these recent changes bode well -- it seems that Microsoft realizes it must be a part of a larger ecosystem. The is the kind of OS I want to work with has this kind of thinking at its core.
Are you sure? Facebook and Google both had thousands of servers when they were three year old (they are in the millions now), and facebook already had sizable databases that would have cost a small fortune had they been MSSQL (or Oracle or DB2 for that matter).
I was under the possibly mistaken impression the BizSpark covers your devtools, not your deployment.
And the costs are just the most easily quantifiable advantage - Google, Facebook and Whatsup have all modified their stack (Linux Kernel, MySQL, Erlang VM) in ways that are simply not available with the Microsoft stack.
Granted, not every business is Google or Facebook - but anyone who dreams big enough sees Microsoft's stack does not make sense .... and even when you are thinking small, there are really few reasons to rely in Microsoft except at the edges.
All I see at colleges and conferences worldwide are Macbooks. How is OS X Open Source? It actually seems to be worse, since it's legally tied to expensive hardware.
Also, Open Source products aren't really technically superior for a number of categories. I am sorry but Photoshop, Office, Exchange etc. are definitely technically superior. Software like Windows Server and SQL Server are competing with free products and still doing very well.
Imagine how much marketshare they would have if they were free of cost and MySQL/PostgresSQL and Linux cost the same as SQL Server and Windows Server now. How many would buy them instead of the free MS products? How many would pay the same as Office costs now for OpenOffice if Office was free? How is this technically superior?
Also, Azure runs Linux and other open source products quite well.
It isn't, but a lot of people develop on open source environments running on OS X. E.g. Python/Django. Because OS X is a Unix, moving between it and Linux for web development is easy.
> Azure runs Linux and other open source products quite well
This may be the case, but there is the perception (possibly an unfounded one; I've never used Azure) that Linux will always be a second-class citizen on Azure.
I know anecdotal evidence does not equal real data, but I'm a sophomore/junior (switched majors) in college and I prefer to use Linux over OS X or Windows.
Also, IMO open source products are usually better than their closed source counterparts. I know what is actually running on my computer. I can alter the program how I need. Everyone who contributed to the project did so out of their own enjoyment. Being open source means experts in different fields can make the product better, safer, further optimized.
Gimp does the job for me, I personally use Google Docs because I switch computers a lot. Microsoft Office is just as bad LibreOffice in terms of usability, so I wouldn't call either superior. Don't quote me on this, but I'm sure lots of technically superior closed source products are developed with the help of open source software.
If Linux came at the cost of SQL Server... that's a weird question. How does something open come at cost to the consumer? I can see donations being greatly appreciated, but not required payment. There's to many rabbit holes I could go down here.
But I could be completely wrong, I'm just a 20 yr old dude trying to figure out if Computer Science is even the right degree for me.
Even if that past is very much part of Microsoft's present? Such as threatening companies with patent lawsuits at a rate that has never been seen before in Microsoft's history, or its continuous collaboration with the NSA [1]? (especially after it bought Skype, and built lawful intercept technology for Skype [2] - before actually buying it).
I'm almost certain Microsoft keeps some vulnerabilities on purpose to the help the NSA, and only patches them when other parties report those bugs. In fact, I think the recent "WinShock" or whatever they're calling it, with the remote execution for its TLS library was known by Microsoft. This sort of thing is so much easier to use as an "effective backdoor", than something nefarious NSA would have to implant into Windows such as a key escrow or whatever (not saying those don't/won't exist in TPMs).
[1] - https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B2mWqX0CQAAqKxP.png:large
[2] - http://www.computerworld.com/article/2509604/data-privacy/mi...
Oh, you mean like Google [1]?
Name one open source IDE which is superior to Visual Studio. Or an open source database that is better than SQL Server. Not to mention C# which imho is the best language out there (arguably .NET though isn’t that good). I won’t argue that there are aspects of the ecosystem that can’t hold a candle to open source solutions especially in the administration tools area.
As for community, have you bothered to take a look at MSDN? There is an insane amount of free information online for their APIs. In terms of documentation MS is light years ahead of everyone.
Lastly, the “Windows/Microsoft is irrelevant” argument is very prevalent amongst our ranks but only there. MS might be irrelevant in our industry but in the enterprise, where by the way the big bucks are, they’re dominant.
OK I'll name two: SQLite and MongoDB. I suspect that both of these are better than SQL Server on criteria I care about: ease of deployment on Linux systems, lack of issues around licensing.
Midnight Commander or Emacs is better than SQL Server if those are the criteria you care about.
I'm probably working in different environment than you, because I have never seen SQL Server used, when we want something with support we use Oracle.
Have you ever used SQL server and do you know what type of problems it aims to solve?
Erm... PostgreSQL?
Or at least on par with.
Here's a list in no particular order of open source editors/IDEs I would use over Visual Studios.
1. Vim.
2. Atom.
3. Brackets.
4. LightTable.
5. Codebox.
6. Slap.
> Or an open source database that is better than SQL Server.
Depends on what you mean by better and what compliance you need I guess? MongoDB can provide benchmarks better than SQL Server.
> Not to mention C# which imho is the best language out there...
Language preferences obviously change based on the needs of the developer. I prefer javascript just because I need a language that can run anywhere and I prefer prototypal inheritance over classical.
> In terms of documentation MS is light years ahead of everyone.
What about MDN?
Nonetheless, I agree that Nadella made a good start, and that (despite the good impression) it's certainly not enough for now, but - unlike you - I don't think it's a lost cause. Not yet.
You might not realize it hanging around on HN, but a huge portion -- dare I say a majority -- of developers don't give a hoot about this.
New languages don't matter. They've already seen a bunch. Their employers aren't interested.
New frameworks especially don't matter. If they ignore the new frameworks, 90% of them will be gone in three years, and most of what's left that's useful will be pulled into .NET or Java.
The open-source community simply refuses to do the work necessary to harm Microsoft on the desktop. Developers would rather fork another version of open office, create a new Linux distribution, or start a new window manager.
The only way the Microsoft monopoly will be harmed is if Google turns Chrome OZs/Android into a real competitor.
http://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qpri...
Microsoft still gets paid for its 90% market share. Developers still target it, and often release the best versions of their apps for Windows. Office isn't available for Linux. Adobe products? AutoCAD? Games? Nope!
Microsoft makes a lot more money than it did five years ago. The only real difference is that Apple and Google have grown a market and Microsoft has been unable to gain traction. Give them long enough and I'm sure they will. After all, the can afford to because Windows and Office are huge cash cows, and they've got the money to burn.
That's the thing with Microsoft: I doubt they will go out of business or anything; in fact I think they will continue to have lots of success.
But they don't dictate anything to the rest of the computer industry anymore. And that's a big transition because for decades, their business model and culture were built around their ability to do that.
But hey, you feel good because people have smartphones that aren't Windows based.
I work in a corporate job; almost everyone has a Windows PC on their desk. Here are the stats for our Sharepoint intranet:
IE- 47%
Chrome - 47%
Firefox - 5%
Safari - 1%
Open source doesn't need to dislodge Windows from the desktop. Instead they just used the server/client model to commoditize desktop OS's in general. Heck, Microsoft is the only company still trying to charge money for their desktop OS at all.
When computers were large, and only government and fortune 500's could afford them IBM was a dominate force. When they got cheaper/more common. They still participated, but Microsoft came to dominate this new particular market. As Bill gates himself said, the hardware was now a commodity (but not for IBM's customers) it was the software that was valuable. It took a different company culture to rule that market.
In mobile, hardware has not been successfully made into a commodity. Apple as a mobile company looked more like IBM as a mainframe company. So far they've done a great job at sticking to their niche. They excel at making consumer friendly hardware devices, with supporting software.
Google obviously has mastered building free cloud services for consumers, however they seem to fail in every endeavor that's different. They struggle to understand people as people, and really haven't developed a company culture to build great products for them.
I think Microsoft is making progress on reducing the scope of sub optimal market's they are attacking, and is currently in the process of defining a culture to attack this new narrower scope. They may just be successful.
Has any American tech company been able to successfully pull off, making markedly different products aimed at very different consumers and still corner a large market share in those areas?
Companies abroad don't seem to have this problem. It is not very uncommon to find the same brand selling sewing machines and precision optics and a whole host of other products, in the same market, without much brand dilution.
Is there something uniquely limiting about the American market that prevents an Intel or HP from making medical imaging equipment, drill bits for the petroleum exploration and a slew of other things, leveraging the same brand but in self-composed business units?
Critics have even called for Microsoft to be broken up in to two - consumer and enterprise - divisions. But why?
Samsung sells everything from rice cookers to acoustic equipment.
Yamaha sells everything from motorbikes to soundbars.
If push comes to shove, why not just have multiple CEOs for the same Microsoft, like a Deutsche Bank? [1]
The American way is about focusing on your core competencies and what you're good at. Banks outsource their IT services, real estate and etc to free up capital to focus on their banking services. This is what they've taught at my particular business school and this is how business "should" be done. It's just not efficient to spread yourself into other markets.
Asian businesses sometimes form large conglomerates because of the lack of infrastructure in place in emerging economies. There aren't many smaller companies that can make rice cookers. There aren't many entrepreneurs that will want to make innovative rice cookers. Access to capital and VC money, I would assume, is really tough in Asia. Samsung makes chips but there's no buyer for those electronic chips so they start to make products that use those chips and handle every aspect of the supply chain all the way to the end-consumer. You'll see that in North America, many companies are broken up to focus on just 1 part of the chain. Other parts of the chain may be less profitable and often gets divested or spun off. Shareholder pressure sometimes dictate that.
Historically, was there ever a period when American companies - tech or not - ever dabbled in this sort of thing, I describe? Or they simply haven't experimented in conglomerates, even prior to the WWs.
I am trying to see if this was a measure, reactive to some historic event or if American makers from day one, have always preferred specialization in vertically siloed businesses.
Increasingly, software companies like Amazon (with Kindle, Fire phone, Fire TV, Echo etc) are finding that they are having to foray into things like hardware which they are ill-suited for, even if ideally they'd very much like to remain software companies.
These new developments are interesting to watch.
The truth, however, is that they have continued to be a very healthy and well run business for far, far longer than any of their peers can ever claim.
The "Microsoft is in crisis" meme has always been popular but has never even remotely come close to being true.
One minute it was playing catchup all the time, but still a major player in office software, the next, it was just gone.
They can't afford to be complacent of course. They need to be able to crack new markets and execute effectively on their current products. Their failure in mobile and two botched updates to Windows are very worrying. But Satya was instrumental in building their Azure business, a very successful new revenue generating product in a space not generally seen as an MS strength.
If Mocrosoft were not in crisis, Steve Ballmer would still be CEO.
The crisis is that the once dominant markets of Windows and Office are now becoming marginalized as PCs become dwarfed for mobile devices. The iPhone - laughed at by Ballmer in 2007 - by itself makes more annually than all of Microsofts businesses combined. Microsoft was an early mobile device player and yet was almost completely out-competed.
Microsoft's only remaining stronghold, as with IBM, is the enterprise. And that's also under heavy attack by Amazon, Google, and the Linux/BSD development ecosystem.
Of course, we know better now -- the one-two punch of standards-based web browsers and mobile computing revolution saw off that. Microsoft aren't an unassailable gorilla any more. But let's be clear, their "crisis" is one of future relevance; it's certainly not existential.
Are you sure you're not talking about Apple circa 2001?
I think this is a win-win-win situation for Developers, Enterprises and Microsoft.
From the article "In desktop, the upcoming Windows 10 promises to fix the damage wrought by Windows 8, appealing to both desktop users, as well as the "corridor warrior" tablet devotees."
I have run every Windows OS since 3.1 and used all of the "duds" exclusively (as did almost the entire PC world).
I'm currently using Windows 8 and if you get beyond the "surface outrage" repeated insistently by the tech media, it's the same Windows that you use (and love - gasp!) exactly like Windows 7, or Vista, or XP, or 2000 or 98.
We all need to look beyond the "2 hour" blog review which all to commonly throws an entire product under the bus when the author spent all of a couple hours using it.
Therefore, I feel that I can unemotional say: the patent lawsuits are a massive issue when it comes to talking about a "new" Microsoft. It's a major issue for me. Software patents are bad, and as long as they're using them offensively (and at this point, it would take a very long time before I trusted them to use them defensively), I'm not sure how justified the celebration of "open" and "new" is.
The only thing I'm aware of is that HTC used Google patents to counter-sue Apple a while ago, but that seems to fall under the "defensive" usage.
At one point Microsoft was vocal about its patent portfolio being only defensive. Then mobile happened. I'm not sure if Apple, Samsung and others also did such an about-face.
Basically no one company's hands are clean, whether it be "defensive" in nature or not, patents are a necessary evil.
Some highlights relating to Google which I guess if you were to pick a favorite, Google comes out decently as most of their patent buys were defensive.
2011, Jun 30: A consortium of companies made up of Apple, EMC Corporation, Ericsson, Microsoft, Research In Motion and Sony win against Google[50] in an auction of over 6,000 Nortel mobile-related telecommunications patents for $4.5 billion USD.[51][52]
2011, Jul 11-12: Google acquires 1,029 Patents from IBM for an undisclosed amount.[64][65]
2011, Aug 15: Google announces its intention to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion USD. Eighteen of Motorola's patents could potentially be used for defense or countersuits against Apple and Microsoft, and may influence the smartphone war. These patents may change the balance of power, and force the various players to settle their lawsuits.[71][72]
2011, Aug 17: Google acquires 1,023 more patents from IBM for an undisclosed amount (not revealed until 13 Sep 2011).[75]
2011, Sep 07: HTC countersues Apple using nine patents from Google. The move is seen as a possible first step for Google giving direct support in lawsuits involving manufacturers using Android.[81][82][83][84]
2013, December 23: Google initiates legal action against Rockstar Consortium with a countersuit filed in San Jose, California.[141]
The only reason this is a popular topic right now, is because the stock is at $50, thanks to the stock market bubble. The CEO had absolutely nothing to do with that. That's purely multiple expansion, not earnings growth. Apple is currently enjoying the same exact multiple expansion, which has pushed its stock back up despite zero earnings growth since fiscal 2012.
Where do you see "multiple expansion" and "no earnings growth"?
MSFT:
Year ~P/E EPS
2010 20.24 $2.10
2011 12.09 $2.69
2012 9.70 $2.00
2013 14.50 $2.58
2014 13.94 $2.69Think why Whatsapp/Facebook is really valued at such 'billions' of dollars? They are going to have user-engagement for a decades!
I am not disagreeing with your point, but lots of tech companies target this 'mid-twenties' and 'early-thirties' bunch, at least today.
Microsoft might be the only player in it's court, and that isolation might become a tax on them.