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Scathing Vanity Fair article on the decline of Microsoft
- Thread starter Agent Unknown
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Dont be stupid, if you are in any way trying to pretend that Nintendo would trade the billions they made this generation with what MS made off of the Xbox this gen, you are stark raving mad. Its not even close. This is absolutely not up for discussion, cmon now.
They couldnt possibly be any more blind than you. Considering the way the 360 lost money the majority of this gen and has only recently started to actually make any profit at all. This is really just ridiculous. You must not realize how big the gulf is between the profitability of the Wii and the 360 this generation. Thats the only way I could imagine you seriously trying to argue this.
Yeah, it's basically revisionist history rearing its ugly head again when it comes to Nintendo and Microsoft.
lastflowers
Banned
[MS WP employee here, but know nothing about KIN and all talk is pure speculation on my part]
Correct. I'd say it was a massive misjudgement on the market during the project's inception and contractual stage. However, they still had to put it out. I don't think it was any MS higher-up putting it out to die to get more power....
balladofwindfishes
Member
oh yea, that Wii is definitely a disaster. I'm sure they wished they had another GCN which appealed to the core audience (whatever the hell that even means).
Absolutely. I can see that, Iwata pats his sweaty brow as he worries for his job at the bomb that the Wii has been.
And not the billions he's made over the last half decade...
Funky Papa
FUNK-Y-PPA-4
You start writing for Vanity Fair.
Daydream Sequence
Banned
It's a damn good thing I didn't say that then did I? But thanks for calling me stupid. It's a classy arguing technique. Nintendo would kill to have Microsoft's third party support. I didn't say they'd swap their current first party success to get it. Having one doesn't mean you can't have the other.
Like I said, it's a damn good thing Nintendo fans aren't running Nintendo. Wow.
lastflowers
Banned
Too true. If nintendo could have both, they'd just print money all day.
Dreams-Visions
Member
Saved to Pocket!
ViperVisor
Member
Nintendo has things people liked and probably still will. Software is the key.
Of course MS did better with 3rd parties. Those developers were sure that approx 75% of the market was going to be Sony and MS with their similar power capabilities. When Wii exploded they probably brushed it off but it stayed nuclear for some time. By then they were not in a position to divert themselves laterally. They had to trudge forward.
Of course MS did better with 3rd parties. Those developers were sure that approx 75% of the market was going to be Sony and MS with their similar power capabilities. When Wii exploded they probably brushed it off but it stayed nuclear for some time. By then they were not in a position to divert themselves laterally. They had to trudge forward.
Boom
Agent Unknown
Member
I started taking this little counter editorial a bit less seriously when A)I realized it was a blogger at Forbes.com and B)when they compared the piece to a TMZ story and whined about how it 'focused on human drama.' Bit of an overreach there. How is pointing out Ballmer's stupidity, brazen acting out and lots of quotes from well established former employees (more than a few of them used to be higher ups or execs) a weak TMZ style piece? And of course getting rid of Ballmer and the stack ranking system aren't the only solutions but they'd both go a long way.
While it may only be a couple of metrics, there really is something to be said about this. Its very clearly not nearly as dire as painted. I think alot of the doom and gloom MS has had directed in the last few years (5 or so) has been the insistence in the last couple of years that Desktops are ready to up and vanish into thin air in 'just a moment'.
Its a prediction that I still to this day thing is exaggerated to all hell by folks eager to latch on to whatever new trends are starting so they can "I PREDICTED THIS" once it happens. Its very clear though that while they may not be at the head of smartphones and tablets, they have been doing something right. Despite how Win 8 turns out, Win 7 is the best desktop OS I have ever used. That buys them a pretty big amount of good faith with me.
Yup. Article echoes this. Despite booming profits, they haven't had a breakout product, the stock hasn't budged and they are simply churning out updates of 10-15 year old staples. I think on the second page they discuss profit and revenue being vastly more important than innovation and new designs when it comes to decision making.
The management and evaluation section scares me. Sounds like a horrible place to work.
The Vanity Fair article was written by a guy with a one-sided agenda from the beginning. It deliberately ignores successes, only looks at the obvious failures that seem about 1-2 years out of fashion to talk about, and was written by a guy who doesn't know anything about technology.
When researching his article, Kurt Eichenwald asked TechCrunch for their fax number.
http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/03/can-someone-send-techcrunchs-fax-number-to-vanity-fair/
When researching his article, Kurt Eichenwald asked TechCrunch for their fax number.
http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/03/can-someone-send-techcrunchs-fax-number-to-vanity-fair/
Really? XBox isn't a break-out hit? Windows 7 (after Vista) isn't?
You're also only looking at the Consumer side of things. Microsoft has never been strong with Consumer trends, outside of arguably Windows 95. But their server products, virtualization products, and other Enterprise-level stuff is both new to the company in recent years, and went from $0/year to billions in a matter of years.
My co-workers and I laugh at how over-blown the stack-ranking hate is. People make it sound like it's in effect over teams of 5-10 people. The truth is that it's applied both broadly across much higher levels of management and teams of hundreds of people (in which it's rarely ever difficult to find a few bad apples), and even then it's only loosely used. The notion of strict forced ranking is fucking laughable.
No matter where you work, you'll find something about the annual review process that sucks. I personally couldn't be happier with getting my job at Microsoft. The people are amazing, I love working on a product used by a billion people around the world, and they treat us extremely well.
Barack Lesnar
Banned
Ballmer seems exactly like how I imagined him -- a corporate bully with a short-fuse, like Tom Cruise's movie exec character in Tropic Thunder. That's exactly how I expected him to be like lol. Will give this a read later, thanks for posting.
Fixed?
Agent Unknown
Member
It was his publicist. Maybe his publicist like a lot of publicists is just kind of clueless?
True, apparently it wasnt the author, but damn that article is hilarious.
Anyway, it struck me as so funny I had to forward the thread along to my colleagues. They responded in kind:
lol
Uhh, the dude knows how to use email, he asked for the fax number in an email. He probably wanted to fax it to make it a little harder to leak.
So how far did you get?
He explicitly points out that addressing those 2 things wouldn't go a long way in helping, and I guess it is my fault for poorly paraphrasing him.
Besides pointing out what Microsoft really needs to be worried about, he points out the Vanity Fair article is badly misleading because people will read it and think MS's focus on sales and pragmatism has no place in the world compared to Apple's focus technology with humanity. And that is completely wrong when you look at what Google is doing with Android and how Apple has been forced to start opening up things. Yeah, there is a too-many-flavors problem that is driving developers to iOS atm, but things will favor Google again when hardware gets fast enough for everyone to run 1 browser app that does most things for them. Then app stores go back to being for games and power business programs. Of Apple, Google, and Microsoft, who has the most experience and presence those 2 type of apps? And why did Microsoft get into those areas and more importantly why did Apple not? Because of the cultural focus of the companies which by themselves are neither right or wrong.
Things are starting to move in Microsoft's direction again, but Google (I'd say Amazon too) is in a much better position to take advantage of the evolution to more open handsets and cloud storage, while Apple will be fighting itself to adjust. You'd never get this by reading the Vanity Fair article which would lead you to conclude that bigger than life people leading a company are the primary reason it succeeds or fails.
Speedymanic
Banned
Pretty sure that's not true. Feel free to prove me wrong though.
Agent Unknown
Member
I read the whole rebuttal, I think he made some decent points but the VF article's points and first hand accounts definitely aren't easily discounted.
Edit: And I really don't see how laying a huge part of the blame at Ballmer's feet and management culture is "unfair." Sounds like a strawman. If the roles were reversed and it was an article about "Apple's lost decade" the same MS defenders in this thread would be singing a far different tune and tearing Jobs and Cook a new one.
balladofwindfishes
Member
right, because your ideas for how to run a game company really worked out well for Sony...
Being able to make record profits on your own, home developed software is wayyyyy safer and better than relying on support from outside parties. How many 1st party Microsoft games have broken 10 million?
Daydream Sequence
Banned
Yeah, because your assumption that everyone at Nintendo is patting themselves on the back for a fast start but a disastrous final two years is real sound. Intelligent businesses view the losing of marketshare to be a bad thing. But yeah, let's just go with your plan of putting the blinders on and pretending no one else exists, including third parties. That's working out great for Nintendo with the 3DS in the West.
That's not a "counter-argument". What I showed is a direct representation of Microsoft's actual success. Their stock price is a factor of what people think of Microsoft, not the actual reality.
The only thing "lost" about the decade is perception.
I think it's more likely that they were over-valued at the end of the 90s when everyone thought they were going to take over the world, and the "lost decade" is just when perception has caught up with reality. Do you think the stock price should have continued to climb just because their revenue did?
balladofwindfishes
Member
it has actually, so I'm not really sure where you're coming from.
I don't know if you noticed, but the 3DS is making money and doing very well. It's the Wii's final months that's dragging the reports down, and even so this quarter's is better than last quarters.
The Wii is losing marketshare in a market they're exiting. Last generation's consoles is an old market, and MS can pick at the scraps and declare victory all it wants. When the Wii U hits we'll have another half decade of total Nintendo dominance.
Plus it's like you forgot the Game Cube did exactly as you want Nintendo to do and BOMBED. Like BOMBED, one of the biggest bombs Nintendo has ever had. We can't have three consoles that appeal to the same audiences. The market is barely able to support two.
It would be fair it that were the case. This would have been a lost decade for MS no matter who was at the helm just like the 90s were basically a lost decade for Apple no matter who was running it. Along the same lines when Apple stops being as dominant in phones (at some point you can't go up anymore) and isn't as wildly successful breaking into a new market, Cook is going to hammered when the problems are more likely due to market forces with preferences that are veering away from what Apple has always offered.
Dreams-Visions
Member
I don't think you understand what that graph is showing, or what the Log
is showing. Specifically, for those who chose to invest from 2000 on.
Agent Unknown
Member
A piece and a chart today from businessinsider.com which also references the VF story:
http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/windows-7
http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/windows-7
I don't think you understand what that graph is showing, or what the Log
is showing. Specifically, for those who chose to invest from 2000 on.
I know exactly what it's showing - Microsoft's market capitalization, which is directly proportional to its stock price.
I'm not sure why you're bringing up the logarithmic scale of the chart, since we're talking about the last decade, not the previous decades of Microsoft's life which is where they started as a business for the first time ever and literally grew from nothing. Duh? My point was that the actual success of the company has continued to blow away records year after year, quarter after quarter, showing that the stock price doesn't represent reality, but rather perception.
RoadHazard
Gold Member
Very interesting read. MS sure seems like a terrible place to work at. And while I don't exactly think they're DOOMED just yet, I certainly don't see them ruling the world in the coming years either. They'll stay a small-time player in the mobile market (no, WP8 won't suddenly light the world on fire and blaze past iOS and Android no matter how much some people here want it to - it might be a brilliant OS and much better than WP7, but most people simply won't care), and W8 with its tablet UI bolted onto what is essentially W7 with some improvements under the hood seems like a really bad idea (I think W7 is great though, and will continue using it - but that's not what MS wants me to do).
Complaints about the review model exist in almost any company on earth. Equating that to a "terrible place to work" is hilarious.
I've worked at Microsoft for years. I love it. My co-workers are awesome. I worked from home multiple times in the last few weeks, my manager is fine with it. My manager trusts me to simply get my shit done, and it doesn't matter if it means 8-10 hour days to do it, or 6 hour days. If I go on vacation, I normally report it, but a day or two here or there, no one cares as long as I'm not slacking off, and that's with an already nice chunk of vacation time to pick from.
Free drinks at work, amazing choices for food (though sadly not free) both on campus and off-campus, extremely intelligent coworkers to bounce ideas off of, working on ambitious projects, getting paid very nicely, getting top-notch benefits, all while living in the Pacific Northwest, an awesome part of the country.
You're looking at an article started with the premise of "What happened to Microsoft", ignored every positive, dug into every negative, while ignoring little things like "oh they started a huge number of businesses that are now multi-billion dollar businesses leading industries that they only recently entered."
I've worked at Microsoft for years. I love it. My co-workers are awesome. I worked from home multiple times in the last few weeks, my manager is fine with it. My manager trusts me to simply get my shit done, and it doesn't matter if it means 8-10 hour days to do it, or 6 hour days. If I go on vacation, I normally report it, but a day or two here or there, no one cares as long as I'm not slacking off, and that's with an already nice chunk of vacation time to pick from.
Free drinks at work, amazing choices for food (though sadly not free) both on campus and off-campus, extremely intelligent coworkers to bounce ideas off of, working on ambitious projects, getting paid very nicely, getting top-notch benefits, all while living in the Pacific Northwest, an awesome part of the country.
You're looking at an article started with the premise of "What happened to Microsoft", ignored every positive, dug into every negative, while ignoring little things like "oh they started a huge number of businesses that are now multi-billion dollar businesses leading industries that they only recently entered."
reggieandTFE
Member
Are you arguing that faxes still aren't used? That's strange, because I received three documents from the labor board yesterday and faxed a proposal to contractor yesterday.
Lol this is getting ridiculous. Tons of companies use stack ranking and there are flaws with all performance management systems. Companies like IBM use even harsher and more competitive versions of stack ranking and they're still incredibly successful.
And let's not kid ourselves... Almost anyone here would jump at the opportunity to work at Microsoft.
And let's not kid ourselves... Almost anyone here would jump at the opportunity to work at Microsoft.
I noticed one little thing about the preview, the MSN messenger on the right hand side of the screen has the "status" thing that the guy talks about in the article, the one that the senior exec said he didn't see a need for and that messenger was lacking.....
-Pyromaniac-
Member
Great read but the sad part is I find absolutely none of it surprising.
Tim the Wiz
Banned
If Google's OS expansion keeps up, the flat-line really could turn into a decline. MS has been late on way too much in the last decade.
That doesn't make sense. In terms of market share and profit, the 360 doesn't compare. Do we really have to pull out the profit breakdown of the three console manufacturers over the past two decades? But, yes, it's dominated the field in the US in the tail-end of this life-cycle and done particularly better with third-party developers. Will this translate into actual full-scale domination with the next release of consoles? Now, there's the rub, although I'm sure Nintendo is doomed.
That doesn't make sense. In terms of market share and profit, the 360 doesn't compare. Do we really have to pull out the profit breakdown of the three console manufacturers over the past two decades? But, yes, it's dominated the field in the US in the tail-end of this life-cycle and done particularly better with third-party developers. Will this translate into actual full-scale domination with the next release of consoles? Now, there's the rub, although I'm sure Nintendo is doomed.
Reaching back to before MS was even in the console business? What kind of metric is that? They built the business from the ground up in the last 11 years and they've turned it into a success.
The 360 qualifies as a breakout success and so does Kinect.
And as dlmn8r points out MS has moved into a BUNCH of new areas in the last decade and have found a lot of success in them that are not consumer focused. We're very focused on the consumer side of tech here and even there MS has done well.
This article provides some very interesting glimpses inside Microsoft. The conclusions it attempts to draw from them are not well founded though.
ArtaxLives
Neo Member
While i don't think that Microsoft has blown anyone away with innovation in the last 10 years, excluding maybe XBL, everyone saying they are doing poorly and should get rid of their CEO is crazy.
I do not think he is the best but his performance is nowhere near bad.
The share price is very stable, and currently rising, albeit very slowly, and as has been shown their profits have been continuously rising. Do they really need to shake things up?
Companies like Apple would probably wish to have such a secure income base that Microsoft has, with Windows and Office they are, and for at least the next 10 years, will have a guaranteed market for their products, as much as everyone seems to wish for it, Excel and Word are not leaving the corporate space for a long time, and in turn neither is Windows.
Apple knows that if they make a big misstep with the iPhone or iPad, they are going to post huge decreases in their profits, they cannot fall back on their Mac and iPod lines to support them. And their stock price will dive quickly.
Their best other source of income currently is the App store and iTunes but without their hardware product no one will need or use the stores.
I'm not saying that would happen, but its easy to criticize a company for being stagnant but what really is the problem? They are definitely not a RIM or Nokia...
I do not think he is the best but his performance is nowhere near bad.
The share price is very stable, and currently rising, albeit very slowly, and as has been shown their profits have been continuously rising. Do they really need to shake things up?
Companies like Apple would probably wish to have such a secure income base that Microsoft has, with Windows and Office they are, and for at least the next 10 years, will have a guaranteed market for their products, as much as everyone seems to wish for it, Excel and Word are not leaving the corporate space for a long time, and in turn neither is Windows.
Apple knows that if they make a big misstep with the iPhone or iPad, they are going to post huge decreases in their profits, they cannot fall back on their Mac and iPod lines to support them. And their stock price will dive quickly.
Their best other source of income currently is the App store and iTunes but without their hardware product no one will need or use the stores.
I'm not saying that would happen, but its easy to criticize a company for being stagnant but what really is the problem? They are definitely not a RIM or Nokia...
open_mouth_
insert_foot_
Windows XP, Windows 7, and Xbox 360 were all awesome for me so this article can go suck it
I disagree with the article on some points. Balmer is a definitely a buffoon and has no vision for the future. But at the same time I think MS has really turned things around in the past few years. They are still not innovating, but they are working their asses off and putting out good products.
I switched to a Mac when they introduced the first Intel laptops because at the time it was just so far ahead of XP (I believe that was Tiger at the time). MS totally fucked up with Vista. It was late and it did not bring almost any of the core features that were initially promised. But you have to give MS credit for Win 7. They caught up to Apple and knocked it out of the park. To such an extent that I could see myself switching back in the future if Apple fucks up. You also have to give MS credit for the 360. That was one piece of consumer tech where they were cutting edge and saw where the market was going. I think Kinect is shit, but it was obviously a big hit and unlike anything else I had seen before it so they should get credit for that as well.
I can't say whether Win8 is going to be a success or what it means for the tablet markets (I have never been into tablets, Apple, Google or otherwise). But to me this last decade was not all failures for MS. Balmer should have been fired for whatever the fuck they did to the Windows phone division while Apple and Google came in and ate MS's lunch, but you can't say that MS did not get a few things right in the past 10 years.
I switched to a Mac when they introduced the first Intel laptops because at the time it was just so far ahead of XP (I believe that was Tiger at the time). MS totally fucked up with Vista. It was late and it did not bring almost any of the core features that were initially promised. But you have to give MS credit for Win 7. They caught up to Apple and knocked it out of the park. To such an extent that I could see myself switching back in the future if Apple fucks up. You also have to give MS credit for the 360. That was one piece of consumer tech where they were cutting edge and saw where the market was going. I think Kinect is shit, but it was obviously a big hit and unlike anything else I had seen before it so they should get credit for that as well.
I can't say whether Win8 is going to be a success or what it means for the tablet markets (I have never been into tablets, Apple, Google or otherwise). But to me this last decade was not all failures for MS. Balmer should have been fired for whatever the fuck they did to the Windows phone division while Apple and Google came in and ate MS's lunch, but you can't say that MS did not get a few things right in the past 10 years.
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