MacDailyNews Take: It’s time for the annual Microsoft reorg!
Wingfield continues, “The Redmond, Wash., software company could announce major organizational changes at its Entertainment & Devices Division as early as this week, those people said. The division includes Microsoft’s Xbox videogame business and Windows Phone, an operating system for mobile phones. One executive in the division, J Allard, the chief experience officer and chief technology officer of the group, is expected to leave that role following Microsoft’s recent decision to shut down a tablet PC development project known internally as Courier, that Mr. Allard was overseeing, people familiar with the matter said. But the organizational shakeup is broader than Mr. Allard’s departure from his role, these people add.”
MacDailyNews Take: The Apple wannabes at Microsoft are legion: Windows wants to be a Mac, Zune wants to be an iPod+iTunes, Windows Phone wants to be an iPhone, Allard wanted to be Steve Jobs, etc. None of them ever enters the same solar system, much less ballpark.
Wingfield reports, “Microsoft’s woes in mobile phones are particularly troubling for the company. Although it was an early player in the market for the sophisticated wireless phones known as smartphones, Microsoft has stumbled badly in recent years with its Windows Mobile operating system for handsets. The company’s software has lagged behind cutting-edge technologies found in Apple’s iPhone… During the first quarter, new shipments of handsets based on Microsoft’s mobile software fell to 6.8% of the worldwide market from 10.2% during the same period the prior year, according to Gartner Inc. Google’s Android operating system jumped to 9.6% from 1.6% during those same periods, while Apple’s iPhone rose to 15.4% from 10.5%, Gartner estimated.”
Full article here.
Mary Jo Foley reports for ZDNet, “Over the past mont or so, I’ve been asking around about Allard’s whereabouts. One of my sources who has been a pretty reliable tipster in the past told me that Allard is on sabbatical and is unlikely to return to Microsoft… Word inside was Allard was none too happy about the killing off of Courier and has finally made good on his (what sounds like they may have been regular) threats about leaving the company all together. (Another person with whom I communicated claimed CEO Steve Ballmer showed Allard the door because of disagreements regarding the Courier’s potential.)”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Courier’s potential was nil. It was even more vaporous than HP’s fake slate. Even Balmy could see Courier has no potential, so it had to be pretty obvious to just about everyone. Oh, but J Allard, with his oh-so-cool name, is supposedly a genius, you say? Uh, Zune.
Still, with Apple about to leave Microsoft in the dust, we’re getting worried for Monkey Boy. This is at least the fifth major reorganization at Microsoft in the last five years! Even Microsoft shareholders have to wake up eventually, right? So, let’s offer up our toast: May Steve Ballmer remain Microsoft CEO for as long as it takes!
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]
They are reorganizing the chairs now when everything seems to going so well, what’s going on? I think this has something to do with Steve M.B. Ballmer and his chair throwing habits.
…what? of course the courier had potential! Everyone and everything has potential, it’s just that so few act on it.
The problem is MS bloated bureaucratic groupthink … the surest way to ensure potential is never realized. Badmouthing Allard because he isn’t Steve Jobs is particularly poor taste. None of us in would ever be able to produce an innovative hit product if we were sailors on the sinking MS Ballmer either.
Allard is/was by far Mafia$oft’s most important employee. He’s the only one that could have possibly brought them even close to competing with Apple. Good move, Ballmy.
“May Steve Ballmer Be CEO For As Long As It Takes!!!”
@ M159,
“Bill Gates doesn’t know any more about technology than Steve Ballmer.”
That is utter nonsense. Why only 10 years ago he told us everyone would soon be using tablet computers.
He was right, everybody will be using tablet computers. Billy’s only problem was taking 10 years to get Windows out of the tablet computer equation.
The man is a genius as long as you forget about Windows.
This division includes the xbox, which is often pointed to as a success because they made some profits on a couple of games. However, xbox development costs were astronomical and they sold the hardware at a loss for years (and maybe even still). The xbox is in such a deep hole, break-even is a fantasy.
m159 – this is true, but never underestimate the power of innovative accounting. MS will always claim they learned something, and the investment was worth it.
I suppose Apple could claim the same thing about Lisa or Newton – lots of R&D;spending that didn’t really find a profitable market. However, the difference between Apple and MS today is that Apple knows when to cut off the losses and focus on delivering top-quality integrated product ecosystems with constant innovation keeping it fresh (not just patched software chained to 3rd-party kludged hardware). MS R&D;spending (or what they claim is research spending) is always significantly more than Apple spends, but they don’t really have any good new products to show for it (not for the last 8+ years, anyway). MS has no focus.
Apple sells to people who _have_ money and demand quality. MS deludes itself that it can and should be the primary computing system for everyone with an IQ over 50, letting the cheapest hardware vendor make the devices at the full array of price points. It doesn’t seem to be working well anymore – nobody recognizes Microsoft as a premium quality brand, or customers can always buy cheaper knockoffs.
Xbox and Zune and Kin are simply attempts to get kids excited about the MS brand again. We see this is failing; MS relies more than ever on its corporate accounts to fund all these loss-leading ventures. It’ll get worse for MS before it gets better.
You’d think Gates would have learned something from his pal Buffett after all these years — don’t keep investing in something that loses money!
Gap between MSFT and AAPL now below $2bn
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