http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/07/08/kevin_turner_and_the_new_microsoft/
Posted on 07/10/2016 9:47:53 AM PDT by dayglored
Last of Steve Ballmer's old guard heads for the exit
Kevin Turner’s departure as Microsoft’s chief salesman after 11 years marks the final passing of the Redmond old guard.
Chief operating officer Turner - KT, as he was known - was a chief of the old-school corporate kind; sales, marketing and Microsoft’s stores all reported into Turner.
His departure is part of a massive sales shake up that is doing away with the COO’s role.
Judson Althoff, who was president of North America sales is now executive vice president of worldwide commercial sales, and the former head of sales and marketing outside the US and Canada Jean-Philippe Courtois is now executive vice president of global sales.
As expected, Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella was generous to Turner, complimenting his running of a 51,000-strong workforce. Turner is, however, the last vestige of Nadella’s predecessor Steve Ballmer’s leadership team.
A hard talking, zero-sum competitive game-playing, alpha animal, Turner was part General Patton part American football coach; he’d shout you down by way of firing you up. Very last century.
People who were supposed to really matter to Microsoft - partners and employees - were supposed to love him, or respect him in return. Or, at least, get out there and score the big wins.
...
(Excerpt) Read more at theregister.co.uk ...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/07/08/kevin_turner_and_the_new_microsoft/
Microsoft crossed the line with this Windows 10 stuff. One kind of has to go with the program but I do not like the direction the company has been going for the last couple of years. Maybe Ballmer and crew weren’t so bad after all.
The changes have -mostly- been for the better, in terms of the company's survival, even if some of it has been weird. Ballmer and his cohort were driving the company to a point where it would have been obsolete in the extreme in another 2 years. By now it would have been a laughingstock, albeit still alive. In another few years, it would have become moribund.
Does that mean I like all the new changes? Hardly. But survival is the first important step; without that nothing else matters.
I am certain that you know more about the ins and outs than I do, so I am not trying to be a contrarian, but I am not actually sure what you are talking about. Maybe you could give a little more detail. To me it is sad that the company seems to be trying to evolve from a software company whose goal was to come out with new and innovative products to just another content provider. Maybe I have got that wrong?
Microsoft's goal was never really to be innovative, despite their continuous claims of such. Their corporate goal, from about the mid-1980's onward, was to own the entire market for business and consumer software. They would have liked the educational market too, but they conceded that to Apple early on and never really tried again. But there's no question they wanted the entire business market for small computer software, and as much of the consumer market as they could get.
The strategy they adopted for gaining and holding those markets was to make Windows THE platform for applications, and buy up and absorb (and often crush) competing software vendors. And they succeeded, and they held that firmly until around 2007. Innovation was secondary to winning; innovation is hard, whereas winning was easy if you simply crushed the competition through whatever means you could use, including some pretty nasty and/or shady ones.
By 2007 WinXP ruled the desktop market, both at home and in business. But the next release, Vista, was years late, bloated, slow, buggy, and was utterly rejected by both consumers and business. By the time Microsoft recovered and released Win7 in 2009, the iPhone was released and suddenly the desktops and laptops were no longer the only application platforms that mattered.
In many people's view (including mine), Win7 was and still is the best operating system Microsoft ever produced. But then the iPad came out in 2010 and it was clear that tablets were going to take over a huge chunk of the desktop/laptop markets.
Microsoft tried to counter the iPhone and iPad with Win8 and Surface. Surface was pretty cool but Win8 sucked on laptops and desktops -- they completely blew it.
All the above happened under Steve Ballmer's direction. He never got it through his head that the old monopoly strategy was failing. He nearly tanked Microsoft, and if he hadn't been booted out (graciously, of course), Microsoft would have beome powerless in a few more years, because they didn't know how to do anything else.
So with all new top management and new direction, what is Microsoft doing? They're turning that huge ship around. Yes, that involves doing very different things, and some of them -appear- to be like "just another content provider", because that's part of the necessary change.
They never again will own the software market, but they can remain a powerful player in a complex, changing landscape.
I’d love to see a company bring out a version of Windows (old enough to be unprotected by copyright) reverse engineered such as Win2000Pro or XP and kept updated so it has the functionality of W7 but with guaranteed support. Microsoft openly reverse engineered and stole modules from competitors in the DOS/Win2/3.11 era putting them out of business... turnabout’s fair play... Imaging windows properly rewritten without the bloat and memory leaks..
Very interesting if somewhat stereotypical take on Microsoft. I know many people who would strongly disagree with your characterization, some are former Microsoft employees.
On a different note. Many years ago our neighbors gave us some tickets to go see a stupid play, The Grinch who Stole Christmas at the Paramount Theater. They had been buying season tickets for years and had some seats near the front because of their long time commitment.
Some obnoxious kids behind us kept kicking my wife's seat and pulling her hair. Their father was playing with his laptop during the entire performance and wasn't paying any attention to the kids at all. When the lights came up we realized the dad was Steve Ballmer who had just recently become Microsoft's CEO. I had been planning on giving him a piece of my mind but figured that his plate was probably full already and didn't want to cause what little time he probably had to do stuff with his kids to be even less pleasant.
Back to the original topic. I am still using a couple computers with Windows 7 and am very reluctant to upgrade them to Windows 10. I do have a computer with Windows 10 installed and am used to it, and it works, but there are things that I do not like about it, especially not having control over the update process.
My first experience with a Microsoft product was in 1984 when I purchased a Spectravideo SV-328. I was given my first digital experimentation kit by my 5th grade teacher in 1971. If I remember correctly it had an IC chip and a two digit display to experiment with. I have to admit that at that time and the through junior high school I preferred building normal electronics projects such as radios, amplifiers, and tone generators. But I became really excited about computerized electronic music projects.
The SV-328 is the design on which the MSX standard was based which was a failed attempt by Microsoft into the “home computer” market. I already had years of experience with other home computers such as the TI-99/4a, Timex Sinclair, Atari, Commodore 64, Apple IIs, and various TRS-80 computers.
I became a computer lab assistant at a community college working with students on IBM XT computers helping them mostly with BASIC programming, Lotus 123 and Word Perfect. At that point I put together a XT clone from parts using MSDOS and the Spectravideo and other home computers mostly went by the way side. I still have most of the old home computers although I lost some of the stuff when our home was burglarized.
I really didn't understand what the big deal was with Windows and other graphical operating systems when they first came out. I set up very good and reliable menu systems in DOS and they seemed fine to me. And could run well with very limited processing power.
I didn't actually put together a computer to run Windows until Photoshop 2.5 for Windows became available and I purchased a scanner and digital camera. I am someone who never had any real complaints with any version of Windows until Windows 8. Windows ME and Windows Vista never gave me any problems.
I think that your characterization may be accurate in some ways, but it seems a little like an oversimplification. I have more knowledge of Microsoft's “ancient” history than more recent developments however.
Microsoft has employed some of the world's best software engineers. There are many brilliant people there. Many of them -- the majority, according to some -- are very frustrated by the internal politics and lack of vision. Microsoft could have been a major innovator; they certainly came out with a number of new-under-the-sun products over the years. But on average, they preferred to acquire new technologies rather than develop them. And a lot of potentially great internal developments were dropped because they didn't fit with Ballmer's "Windows First, Last, And Always" view. That's why I say they preferred to win, rather than innovate. But opinions may differ.
That said, the recent changes since Ballmer's departure appear, to me, to be valiant attempts (some might say desperate) to redirect the company's focus toward the things that will let it flourish in the tech world as it is now, not as it was 10-15 years ago. I fervently hope Microsoft's management can pull off this massive redirection, since it would be a shame to lose so much technical value.
You obviously have longer and more professional experience with Microsoft and their products than I do. I have no direct experience with the company. My experiences have strictly been as a consumer of their products, an electronics enthusiast from the dawn of the microcomputer era, and since I have always lived in the Puget Sound Region, someone who had acquaintances and classmates who became Microsoft employees.
I tested well for a local fire department before I finished my schooling and spent my career working as a firefighter and hazmat officer.
The employees that I have known have not expressed to me the frustrations with internal politics or the lack of vision that you have mentioned, although I am certain that some experienced situations that they were less than happy about. Many of those that I knew were fortunate to have joined the company early enough that they became quite wealthy because of the companies rising stock prices. Their enthusiasm for their employer may have been skewed toward the positive regardless of their views on internal politics or lack of innovation.
As a consumer of Microsoft products I have been very appreciative for what they provided for the “micro-computer” industry. Most importantly they provided the foundation that others were able to build upon with their dominating operating systems. But they have gotten their hands into almost all aspects of computer and mobile devices at one time or another whether through acquisition or home grown innovation.
This has always been a rapidly developing area which has taken many unpredictable twists and turns. This is why so many innovators have been able to come out of the shadows and rise to the top.
I remember reading essays in the book “Cd Rom the New Papyrus” in the library in the mid 1980s with a great and enthusiastic forward by Bill Gates. It is interesting now how miraculous Cd Rom technology seemed at the time. But it is even more interesting now how the impact of Cd Rom was so soon eclipsed by the internet and other technologies and innovations. At the time email and online bulletin boards were still quite amazing as well. Many developments that were just around the corner were not discussed by the essay writers in the book.
The book has good articles that still make interesting reading, but at this point it also demonstrates how little insider experts who think they know the direction that innovation is taking us really do. Do any large companies run by high paid corporate executives really come up with revolutionary new innovations?
Large corporations are always more likely to be squashing revolutionary innovation to protect their investment in existing technologies. It is always like that. Was Apple more innovative than Microsoft in the beginning... by some measures yes. Does it matter at this point? They are all dragged kicking and screaming down paths they never wanted to go. Apple is not an innovation company at this point, they are a marketing company. And Microsoft doesn’t seem to know what they want to be at this point. I am sure that your insight into this situation is accurate. Chairman Ballmer was no doubt living in the past, but is his replacement any more likely to lead Microsoft to new glory. I don’t know. Look at IBM, they are still around but its not the glory days anymore.
Thank you for your insight. Please excuse my long and rambling post.
On the contrary, FRiend! :-) Thank YOU for your insights, and FWIW I found your post most interesting.
I agree that all companies that reach a very large size (IBM, Microsoft, Apple for starters) become less endowed with vision, less capable of innovation, more interested in maintaining their hold on what they've achieved and gathered, and often lose direction. It has always been thus.
I don't mean to disparage Microsoft; mainly you see my frustration that a company with such vast resources and technical talent could lose its way, and not even realize that it had done so, for a decade or more. I look forward to whatever improvements the new management brings, even if they come at a cost of some mistakes. When a big boat is coming about quickly, a lot of heeling and some water over the gunwales is to be expected... :-)
WHat’s the difference between Exec. VP of Worldwide Sales and Exec. VP of Global Sales?
How much did I just save MS by identifying duplicate managers?
"Worldwide Sales" are sales all over the world, whereas "Global Sales" are sales all over the globe.
Is that clear now? :-)
No Wait!! The first is "Sales of Worlds":
while the second is "Sales of Globes". Yes, that's it. "Microsoft Globe":
You are extremely knowledgeable and gracious. I appreciated very much the article that you started the thread with. And your perspective on Microsoft is very interesting to me.
I was more frustrated with Microsoft than ever before after being forced to use the Never 10 program on several computers. We started having problems with computers starting the update and us losing work after we had repeatedly and consistently refused all the nag pop-ups. As far as I am concerned no matter how much of a Neanderthal one might consider Steve Ballmer and his minions to be... I don’t believe that they would have tried to pull something like that. If that is a sign that Satya Narayana Nadella is turning the ship around I am not sure that I want to remain a passenger.
Personally, I don’t really care all that much about the operating system. I have a core set of programs that I have depended on for decades. The program that originally caused me to purchased a computer that I could run Windows on was Photoshop. I still use it the most for photo editing. The primary program I use for editing video is Sony Vegas. And I still prefer to use Microsoft Office. The alternatives for these programs that I have tried on Linux have not had the usability, features or the dependability that I have grown accustomed to.
These latest adventures with Windows 10 convinced me to begin experimenting with Linux builds and video and photo editing alternatives once again. Probably casual users and folks who don’t like to get into the nuts and bolts will appreciate Windows 10 for its one-size-fits-all features and its integration with numerous devices. My wife loves the touch screen on the one computer we have that has Windows 10 installed. And my mother likes Windows 10 as well except that we haven’t been able to get it to work with her $8000 embroidery machine yet.
I've run Windows, OS X, and Linux/Unix together, both at home and at work, for so many years, that I sometimes forget that most folks don't. I encourage you to experiment with Linux. My favorite has always been the RedHat/Fedora/CentOS family, but I use Ubuntu at work and run it in my Amazon cloud servers, and it's fine too. I don't much like the others: SuSE is an oddball, and the Debian and Arch families seem to unstructured and wild-west.
> And my mother likes Windows 10 as well except that we haven’t been able to get it to work with her $8000 embroidery machine yet.
You MUST tell me more about this embroidery machine. It runs with an external personal computer? Please, do tell...
Well you asked for it... so sorry here we go again. I don't actually know the specifics on my mother's embroidery machines. Her hobby is sewing, quilting and embroidering. We have also have an inexpensive Brother embroidery machine. We hook it up to our laptops using a USB cable to transfer embroidery files to the machine. My wife makes vintage military uniforms and often there are patches and insignia that are nearly impossible to find. If I can find an image of the patch we need I can digitize it using software and a whole lot of patience.
Our machine is limited to 4” x 4”; my mother's embroidery machines can use much larger hoops and embroider over a much larger area. Ours can only embroider one color of thread and then we have to change the thread manually. Some machines hold several spools of thread. The problem my mother has is that she has to use a dongle to use her expensive embroidery software and transfer files to her machines.
The software and dongle wouldn't work with her new Windows 10 laptop. So she still was using her old laptop with the embroidery machines. After the old laptop inadvertently took the upgrade against her wishes the dongle and the software got screwed up and doing a system restore back to Windows 7 didn't fix them. I doubt that Windows 10 is compatible; I need to do a little research and probably reinstall the software on the old laptop to get the dongle and embroidery software to work again. I have been too busy to look into it for her, so she is not a happy camper.
I have tried several versions of Linux in the past and also run OSX in a virtual environment. I too was most happy with Ubuntu. Linux always reminds me a little of Windows 3.11 days where you had a graphical environment running just on top of a command line environment. Or actually even earlier times using Commodore GEOS environment which was kind of the poor man's Macintosh. Not that things are in reality so different with current Operating Systems, but Linux in the past always felt a little like one is roughing it.
I used to dual or multiple boot on some machines, especially during the time when we were transitioning from Windows XP to Windows 7. The first laptop that I upgraded from XP to Windows 7, I had triple booting Windows 98, Windows XP and Windows 7. It was a long time ago and was mostly just for fun. In the end I figured out work-a-rounds or retired all the hardware that didn't have Windows 7 drivers.
I have never had good performance experimenting with photo or video editing software in any virtual environment but especially using OSX. I couldn't claim to be an expert on using virtual machines however, so it could easily be a problem with how I have had my resources allocated.
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