Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
I see this as mostly positive for MSFT. First they won't have Steve Balmer to kick around anymore. Second, the new guy is a virtual unknown. I 'd bet there are a lot of Google searches on his name going on right now. With that said, he has no baggage and no expectations up front.
Anything is better than Ballmer, but I'd rather be in Qualcomm (QCOM) - which I do own and consider a very long-term holding - or a few other tech co's than MSFT.
Was MSFT a disaster under Ballmer? No, but it was like having Cramer as the head of a tech company. A ceo for a company that is supposed to be offering sleek products is famous for a video where he's bouncing around a stage like a sweaty mess, chanting "Developers....developers....developers...developers" again and again.
Listen to the interviews that Steve Jobs gave over time (many of which are available on Youtube - I've occasionally gone back and listened to a number of them) or listen to Eric Schmidt of Google. These people offer real, often fascinating insights into technology and the way that it does (and may in the future) effect our daily lives, as well as society in general. I liked Schmidt's recent book.
I don't remember ever hearing any sort of deep thoughts on tech (or much else) from Ballmer. Interviews often seemed to be a matter of "How can I taunt other companies who are doing better?" or "How can I act like an oaf?"
You have multiple instances of Ballmer laughing at things that went on to be incredibly successful and clearly not getting consumer trends. "You don’t need to be a computer scientist to use a Windows phone and you do to use and Android phone…It is hard for me to be excited about the Android phones." (Meanwhile, Windows phone has what share of the market?)
Ted's link to a Sarcastic Gamer video also reminded me: whatever happened to the original Microsoft Surface? When it was a giant table instead of a poorly selling tablet?
Sarcastic gamer parody vid: Microsoft Surface
XBOX is a success though, and they have "Halo",which is effectively the "Star Wars" of this generation. "Halo 5" in 2014.
I've posted about this before but look at how a lot of people were talking about the decline of the PCs and the surge of Tablets - especially iPads and Android tablets. While this is true - Microsoft has continued to put up excellent numbers.
Why? As I mentioned before - they're not a one-trick pony relying on Windows Desktop OS sales or SQL Server. The focus was too much on the consumer side of things but if you look at the breadth of Business/Enterprise offerings - they're doing good.
The average consumer doesn't realize how big the MS SQL Server business is or Intranets running on SharePoint. You're going to see internal social networking going on within companies and in fact I'm already using it internally and also externally with key vendor partners. Lo & behold, Microsoft owns Yammer and still working on integrating them.
Does the average person know how big MS Exchange is? Does the average person know that their app deployment and/or OS deployment and software metering could be handled on the back-end by Microsoft's System Center Configuration Manager. How many have even heard of that product?
They're still working on building out their Cloud business and still chugging along. As an example - the City of London uses Microsoft's Cloud (Azure) to host the apps that provides GPS feeds and timing information of trains for commuters. I believe they get a million hits or so a day --- let Microsoft take the data traffic hit.
Toyota uses Microsoft's Cloud as well to share engineering apps/data around the world to make collaboration easier.
Office 365 is still battling it out with Google Apps.
Windows Servers are still the main OS Driver in the datacenters including the Cloud.
I see a lot of people implementing Citrix solutions --- which by the way, still rely on Microsoft technologies and licensing. I see some people implementing VMware VDI solutions --- guess what? Still requires a substantial and huge amount of Microsoft licensing for this solution.
Android Phones? Isn't Microsoft also getting royalty for every Android Phone sold?
The Windows Phones have been slow to take off but they had some catch up to do --- but their quality has been pretty good at least from the Nokia line of phones. I switched my wife's phone from a Windows Nokia phone to an iPhone for a couple of days and she told me to switch her back to the Nokia phone.
Tablets? Poor showing for Windows Tablets but maybe finally starting to find some groove as they had to wait for better hardware. Finally some respectable hardware available now in the new Quad-core Bay Trail tablets.
The majority of the reviews have been very good. This is a first for Windows tablet and give credit to the HW performance as well as the new Intel Bay Trail Quad-core Processor. However, it's still based on 32-bit. The new Bay Trail chip based on 64-bit I believe is coming out soon.
Still tough to catch-up but they never had a chance with no solid footing --- but now they do have some solid grounding. Finally, we have seen good reviews for a Windows tablet - and this is a first. We'll have to see where they can go from here. I'm interested myself in a nice Windows tablet for $229-299 and they come with MS Office. Although I may wait for the 64-bit versions.
Reply to @Kenster1_GlobalValue: "The Windows Phones have been slow to take off but they had some catch up to do --- but their quality has been pretty good at least from the Nokia line of phones. I switched my wife's phone from a Windows Nokia phone to an iPhone for a couple of days and she told me to switch her back to the Nokia phone."
And Google is selling Motorola Mobility to Lenovo today, which was cheered. Meanwhile, Microsoft is finalizing its expensive deal for Nokia's handset division (at least Google kept Motorola's patents.) I'm not saying that Nokia's phones aren't good - they may very well be - but I just question Microsoft's ability to gain noteworthy share or at least enough to make the Nokia deal worthwhile.
I don't disagree that Microsoft has positives. Hopefully a new executive can do a far better job highlighting them, not to mention a better job being aware and anticipating technology trends.
Comments
Regards,
Ted
In the fullness of time...
Was MSFT a disaster under Ballmer? No, but it was like having Cramer as the head of a tech company. A ceo for a company that is supposed to be offering sleek products is famous for a video where he's bouncing around a stage like a sweaty mess, chanting "Developers....developers....developers...developers" again and again.
Listen to the interviews that Steve Jobs gave over time (many of which are available on Youtube - I've occasionally gone back and listened to a number of them) or listen to Eric Schmidt of Google. These people offer real, often fascinating insights into technology and the way that it does (and may in the future) effect our daily lives, as well as society in general. I liked Schmidt's recent book.
I don't remember ever hearing any sort of deep thoughts on tech (or much else) from Ballmer. Interviews often seemed to be a matter of "How can I taunt other companies who are doing better?" or "How can I act like an oaf?"
You have multiple instances of Ballmer laughing at things that went on to be incredibly successful and clearly not getting consumer trends. "You don’t need to be a computer scientist to use a Windows phone and you do to use and Android phone…It is hard for me to be excited about the Android phones." (Meanwhile, Windows phone has what share of the market?)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/24/top_10_steve_ballmer_quotes_from_microsoft_history/
Just kidding.
Sarcastic gamer parody vid: Microsoft Surface
XBOX is a success though, and they have "Halo",which is effectively the "Star Wars" of this generation. "Halo 5" in 2014.
Why? As I mentioned before - they're not a one-trick pony relying on Windows Desktop OS sales or SQL Server. The focus was too much on the consumer side of things but if you look at the breadth of Business/Enterprise offerings - they're doing good.
The average consumer doesn't realize how big the MS SQL Server business is or Intranets running on SharePoint. You're going to see internal social networking going on within companies and in fact I'm already using it internally and also externally with key vendor partners. Lo & behold, Microsoft owns Yammer and still working on integrating them.
Does the average person know how big MS Exchange is? Does the average person know that their app deployment and/or OS deployment and software metering could be handled on the back-end by Microsoft's System Center Configuration Manager. How many have even heard of that product?
They're still working on building out their Cloud business and still chugging along. As an example - the City of London uses Microsoft's Cloud (Azure) to host the apps that provides GPS feeds and timing information of trains for commuters. I believe they get a million hits or so a day --- let Microsoft take the data traffic hit.
Toyota uses Microsoft's Cloud as well to share engineering apps/data around the world to make collaboration easier.
Office 365 is still battling it out with Google Apps.
Windows Servers are still the main OS Driver in the datacenters including the Cloud.
I see a lot of people implementing Citrix solutions --- which by the way, still rely on Microsoft technologies and licensing. I see some people implementing VMware VDI solutions --- guess what? Still requires a substantial and huge amount of Microsoft licensing for this solution.
Android Phones? Isn't Microsoft also getting royalty for every Android Phone sold?
The Windows Phones have been slow to take off but they had some catch up to do --- but their quality has been pretty good at least from the Nokia line of phones. I switched my wife's phone from a Windows Nokia phone to an iPhone for a couple of days and she told me to switch her back to the Nokia phone.
Tablets? Poor showing for Windows Tablets but maybe finally starting to find some groove as they had to wait for better hardware. Finally some respectable hardware available now in the new Quad-core Bay Trail tablets.
Pretty good reviews so far for the 8" Dell Venue Pro tablet on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Dell-Venue-Pro-Tablet-Windows/dp/B00FEE7B1I/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1391131093&sr=8-2&keywords=dell+venue+8+pro
The Lenovo 8" tablet has also received pretty good reviews as well:
http://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-IdeaTab-Miix2-8-Inch-Tablet/dp/B00F2ENTYI/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1391131219&sr=8-2&keywords=lenovo+miix+2
The majority of the reviews have been very good. This is a first for Windows tablet and give credit to the HW performance as well as the new Intel Bay Trail Quad-core Processor.
However, it's still based on 32-bit. The new Bay Trail chip based on 64-bit I believe is coming out soon.
Still tough to catch-up but they never had a chance with no solid footing --- but now they do have some solid grounding. Finally, we have seen good reviews for a Windows tablet - and this is a first. We'll have to see where they can go from here. I'm interested myself in a nice Windows tablet for $229-299 and they come with MS Office. Although I may wait for the 64-bit versions.
And Google is selling Motorola Mobility to Lenovo today, which was cheered. Meanwhile, Microsoft is finalizing its expensive deal for Nokia's handset division (at least Google kept Motorola's patents.) I'm not saying that Nokia's phones aren't good - they may very well be - but I just question Microsoft's ability to gain noteworthy share or at least enough to make the Nokia deal worthwhile.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-30/google-s-moto-sale-casts-doubts-on-microsoft-s-nokia-plan.html
See also: http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-57601162-75/microsoft-acquisitions-its-biggest-hits-and-misses/
I don't disagree that Microsoft has positives. Hopefully a new executive can do a far better job highlighting them, not to mention a better job being aware and anticipating technology trends.