“Gabe Newell, the co-founder and managing director of Valve, the videogame development and online distribution company, made a rare appearance last night at Casual Connect, an annual videogame conference in Seattle,” Tricia Duryee reports for AllThingsD.
“Newell, who spent 13 years at Microsoft working on Windows, is not well-known outside of the videogame industry, but the company he has built in Bellevue, Wash., cannot be overlooked,” Duryee reports. “Valve is not only a game developer, producing megahits like Portal 2, it owns and operates Steam, which is the largest consumer-focused digital games distribution platform in the industry. By some measures, it may be valued at $3 billion.”
Duryee reports, “[Newell said] ‘I think Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space. I think we’ll lose some of the top-tier PC/OEMs, who will exit the market. I think margins will be destroyed for a bunch of people.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: A catastrophe for everyone in the Windows PC space, he means. The one personal computer maker which has outgrown the PC industry for the last 25 consecutive quarters stands to benefit greatly from Microsoft’s Windows 8 debacle.
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I’d say, he’s got the chops to back up what he says.
Ano hito ga atama ii ne.
What’s wrong with that? I don’t see any downside. All is good.
“..stands to benefit greatly from Microsoft’s Windows 8 debacle.”
LATEST debacle.
NOOOOOO
It’s a great blessing to everyone in the world.
It’s business as usual for people in he PC space.
Actually, Newell is making a gross understatement.
Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone. (period)
All kidding aside, what is happening at Microsoft that they’re set on a course of self-destruction–how does a company once filled with some of the world’s best programmers (I assume) suddenly become a collection of idiots? What must they think of their customers when they release bad product? Or did they sit around in deluded self-congratulation when they released Windows 8?
Microsoft is Steve Bomber. Says it all!
Bombs away! 🙂
Other articles discuss the internal structure at MS. They seem to be running a zero-sum game, where even if they do brilliant collaborative work, people will still be demoted or fired. And that the easiest way to get ahead is to throw a rival group under the bus… Makes me wonder if there are parts of the W8 that deliberately sabotage other parts of the code (to embarass rival programmers).
Opinions like these is what makes for great debate, but in the end MSFT and Apple are not involved in a LoveFest hence Apple disciples will pooh pooh on MSFT and MSFT disciples will pooh pooh on Apple and the beat goes on.
Time will tell, if MSFT and it’s 1.4+ billion users will go way quietly in the Abyss or will MSFT be able to corral enough traction to stay in the game and play on for decades to come.
“how does a company once filled with some of the world’s best programmers”
No. Never. Microsoft has always, for its whole history, been filled with the world’s crappiest programmers. And managed by a collection of idiots.
The only thing they were ever good at was creating a monopoly through dishonest means. But those dishonest means aren’t workin’ too good anymore, which is why their latest crap has been failing.
Calling them the crappiest is a little harsh — I think “uninspired” and/or “ungifted” would be more accurate. I mean, it’s not someones fault they were born a cretin.
Two words. Arrogance & Complacence.
I call it Metro Lash-Back. I officially declare it to have begun this week, months before Windows 8 will even be officially released.
And of course I must add:
“You’re doing a great job Microsoft! Keep it up.” 😆
Or Bash-Lack (punchless). Matches up with App-Lack.
Got to maintain the lexicon.
Yeah, well, I liked the sound of ‘lash-back’ better. It sounds more vehement. No doubt the press will write it up as ‘backlash’.
Reading the article it strikes me that his concern is not how bad Windows 8 sucks to use , but the fact that Microsoft is moving towards a more closed system and how that will contribute to less open computing platforms for innovation.
The guy is hedging his bets by putting steam on Linux. Interesting…
Their internal management structure and compensation methods are what is driving all the good people away.
Have been for years.
No kidding, one need only ask what’s being rewarded?
Ambitiousness, disingenuousness, deviousness, unscrupulousness, Eliotness.
“We think touch is short-term. The mouse and keyboard were stable for 25 years, but I think touch will be stable for 10 years. Post-touch will be stable for a really long time, longer than 25 years.”
Dunno about that. Punch cards were stable for much longer than 25 years, and that crowd certainly thought the mouse would be a flash in the pan. Touch has flexibility as an advantage: it can be view-screen-ish, mouse-like, or keyboard-like, depending an what the user wants at the time.
Here is a paragraph from one ANAList’s post.
At our current estimates, the iPad contributes less than 12% to Apple’s value but a rapid expansion of the tablet market together with margin improvement due to falling component costs can lead to a bigger iPad contribution. Going forward, we see the iPad performing well in the absence of meaningful competitors in the tablet market and the very nascent stage that the market is in. However, a very potent threat in the form of Microsoft’s Windows 8 looms on the horizon.
Potent? Yeah. RUN FOREST!! Windoze 8 is a disease.
Full article…
http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2012/07/26/apples-stock-is-setting-up-for-a-second-half-comeback/2/
…and a hammer is the cure!
Unfortunately, bad moves in the PC hardware space don’t result in more developers moving to macintosh, it results in them producing more substandard console crap. I know I’m in the minority on this at this point in time, but I find the console gaming experience inferior to the desktop one.
The only thing I really miss from PC Gaming was the modifications and level tweaks that would accompany games. You’ve got entire communities that build up around changing a game and adding a lot of long term value.
That is hard to do on a console and I miss that. FPS games were also awesome with a mouse!
Everything else I much prefer console gaming in my living room on a large LCD mounted to my wall.
Shhhh… Microsoft is doing a GREAT job! Ballmer must stay!
🙂
Start buying up and hiding all those magazines! Or at least place a home buyer’s guide on top of the stack! The situation at Microsoft is under control, really! For as long as it takes.
There must be a make-a-petition site somewhere, we could start a petition to keep Ballmer in power if things start looking iffy.
He’s right about the touch going out in 10yrs or so. Lucky I saw that apple patented a device that uses hand gestures down the rd 😉
Self -Serving…. Move on! Ex employees of any company who comment on the current state of affairs at the company they left should be taken with a grain of salt…. Kind of like when the Woz blurts out some idiotic comment on Apple.
I think that he was talking about the business wise. personally, windows 8 is even better than windows 7 as I think. I tested drive for preview windows 8. it was really good. talking about steam, it’s all meant to be gaming. so if you still like gaming, you can’t rule out windows OS anyway. mac os x is the worst OS for gaming. it can’t be any good. there is no accelerated mechanism unlikely windows 7 has. just go to MS windows 8 feature, find out what’ll be good. plus, upgrading to windows 8 will cost only $40. it’s cheapest in history. I will upgrade coming October. enjoy your mac os x. I will do mine.
Well said hence why I use both platforms on a daily basis and they both hold up just fine.
I find a lot of insight in this guys comments. concerning M$, I worked at TI for 8 years. I saw a lot of talented programmers leave due to the HR procedures there. In any group some one had to get a rating of 6 (probation) and someone (the manager got the 8 or 10. The ratings were purely political and very damaging to the long term success of TI. The same thing is going on at M$ today.