{"id":1156,"date":"2006-10-14T09:02:04","date_gmt":"2006-10-14T14:02:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nothin-stupider-than-a-man-chasin-his-os\/"},"modified":"2006-10-14T09:02:04","modified_gmt":"2006-10-14T14:02:04","slug":"nothin-stupider-than-a-man-chasin-his-os","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/nothin-stupider-than-a-man-chasin-his-os","title":{"rendered":"Nothin’ stupider than a man chasin’ his OS"},"content":{"rendered":"

Both BizWeek<\/a> & the NYTimes<\/a> run interviews with Microsoft bigwig Steve Ballmer this week. I’m not sure why there’s a PR push just now. Maybe it’s due to the impending release of the new version of Windows, but that’s still months off. Could be to get the business world’s attention away from the Google guys, I guess.<\/p>\n

Anyway, the interviews both have points of interest. The BW piece<\/a> centers on the high valuations for recent transactions (Google buying YouTube, News Corp. buying MySpace, and FaceBook talking a minimum of $1 billion to sell). Ballmer seems to be saying that these businesses just aren’t worth it, and might be hinting that we’re heading to another dot-com bust. (But he hedges his bets by saying that MS might just pay such high prices, depending on the circumstances.)<\/p>\n

The BW interview also addresses questions about Microsoft’s play into consumer electronics, via Xbox and Zune. Several years ago, there was an article in Wired about how Microsoft was rewriting the outsourcing equation by not manufacturing any of the components for the Xbox. The model worked so well, MS was losing about $100 on each Xbox sold. Bang-up job. (With the new Xbox, launch costs led to a $1.26 billion loss in fiscal 2006<\/a>. Given MS’s cash & equivalents of around $48 billion, this isn’t a huge<\/em> hit, but it’s still pretty amazing.)<\/p>\n

The NYTimes interview<\/a> focuses a lot more on the new version of Windows, which is the unsexy part of the MS business. The interviewer seems intent on proving that MS won’t be able to sell an operating system after this generation, since we’ll all be downloading bits and pieces via them thar interwebs or something. Ballmer tries to explain gently that this won’t be the case:<\/p>\n

Q. Doesn\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2t that mean that software product cycles are going to be much shorter, months instead of years?<\/p>\n

A. Things will change at different paces. There are aspects of our Office Live service, for example, that change every three months, four months, six months. And there are aspects that are still not going to change but every couple of years. The truth of the matter is that some big innovations — and it\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s a little like having a baby — can\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2t happen in under a certain amount of time. And, you know, Google doesn\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2t change their core search algorithms every month. It\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s just not done.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I bring this stuff to your attention for two reasons. First, even though this seems like boring business-stuff, it actually is going to have an impact on how you use a computer on a day-to-day basis in the years ahead. As ‘regular’ readers know, I’m interested in how businesses work, and what their choices indicate about the way they perceive their markets. Ultimately, it helps me understand the way they perceive the end-user, providing me with yet more perspectives on human psyches, and what people think we’ll spend money on.<\/p>\n

The second reason for this post is because there’s a Miller’s Crossing<\/a> moment. It comes in the Times<\/em> piece, when the interviewer asks how the company’s getting along since Bill Gates announced his departure in 2008.<\/p>\n

A. With Bill Gates making the transition out of day-to-day involvement at Microsoft, what is the biggest challenge you have to overcome?<\/p>\n

Q. Well, there are sort of two. First, it\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s not like Bill\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s written every line of code or designed every product or done anything like that for many, many years. But Bill\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s been an incredible contributor. If Office 2007 is a great product, give Bill 3 or 5 or 10 percent of the credit. We have to make sure that — whether it\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s 5 or 7 or 10 percent — we get those values someplace else. And second, with Bill people have understood that we\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2re committed to long-term innovation. Bill\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s been emblematic of that. We\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2ve shared that vision all along the way. But I think I have to pick that up. Because people want to know that the buck-stops-here person is committed to continuing to invest and do things.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Maybe it’s because of his shiny dome, but all I could think of was how much Ballmer delivering that answer in the style of Johnny Caspar’s “Leo ain’t runnin’ things!” rant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Both BizWeek & the NYTimes run interviews with Microsoft bigwig Steve Ballmer this week. I’m not sure why there’s a PR push just now. Maybe it’s due to the impending release of the new version of Windows, but that’s still months off. Could be to get the business world’s attention away from the Google guys, … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Nothin’ stupider than a man chasin’ his OS”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-iE","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1245,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/if-only-they-had-bizarro-king","url_meta":{"origin":1156,"position":0},"title":"If only they had Bizarro King","author":"Gil","date":"December 12, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm not a gamer. This isn't because I think video games are beneath me, but because if I had a game console I would play obsessively and ruin my life. The only console I've owned was a Sega DreamCast that was a hand-me-down from my dad. I played NBA2K on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Comic books & strips"","block_context":{"text":"Comic books & strips","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature\/comics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":229,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/hows-that-for-serendipity","url_meta":{"origin":1156,"position":1},"title":"How’s THAT for serendipity?","author":"Gil","date":"May 17, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Last night, I started reading Underground, Haruki Murakami's collection of interviews of survivors of the sarin nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway system in 1995.Today, we find out that there was sarin nerve gas in an roadside bomb\/unexploded shell in Iraq.Just plain weird, is what I'm saying.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4576,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/publishers-at-play","url_meta":{"origin":1156,"position":2},"title":"Publishers at Play","author":"Gil","date":"October 25, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"When I was a pretentious young man (I'm older now; but that doesn't mean I'm less pretentious), the Paris Review Writers at Work anthologies were my Bible. (Or at least my Apocrypha. My Bible was a mash-up of Tropic of Cancer and Inside the Whale.) I'd seek out the collections\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "0-fer"","block_context":{"text":"0-fer","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature\/0-fer"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0802131786","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5728,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-11810-2","url_meta":{"origin":1156,"position":3},"title":"What It Is: 11\/8\/10","author":"Gil","date":"November 8, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"What I'm reading: The Odyssey and the first book of Clyde Fans. What I'm listening to: BLACKsummers'night, Boxer, Barking, High Violet, and a new Mad Mix I'm struggling with. What I'm watching: The first week of season 1 of In Treatment (I'm intrigued enough to stick with it; also, I'm\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=006124418X","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":483,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/writers-out-of-work","url_meta":{"origin":1156,"position":4},"title":"Writers Out of Work","author":"Gil","date":"February 7, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Back to those Paris Review interviews. I don't even remember if any of the collected volumes I pillaged included the interview with Robert Penn Warren. I hadn't read All the King's Men at that point, and had no idea of how mindblowingly good that novel is.Here's a piece of Warren's\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3354,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/0-forum","url_meta":{"origin":1156,"position":5},"title":"0-forum?","author":"Gil","date":"February 4, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"When I was a small press book publisher, I was put on the Comp list at Bookforum. Despite not having published a book since 2003 and closing down the company in 2004, I've remained on the freebie list. The new issue arrived last week, on the heels of my 0-fer\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "0-fer"","block_context":{"text":"0-fer","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature\/0-fer"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1156\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}