“Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s chief executive, has written a company manifesto of sorts,” Nick Wingfield reports for The New York Times. “His 3,100-word essay, distributed by email to Microsoft employees Thursday morning, is Mr. Nadella’s mission statement and a rallying cry for the staff. Although it contained few specifics, the essay appeared to lay the groundwork for significant changes, to be announced this month.”
“Mr. Nadella said everyone at Microsoft must find ways to simplify and work faster and more efficiently. ‘We will increase the fluidity of information and ideas by taking actions to flatten the organization and develop leaner business processes,’ he wrote. ‘Culture change means we will do things differently,'” Wingfield reports. “Those words seemed to hint at the possibility of layoffs. In most years, around the end of Microsoft’s fiscal year on June 30, rumors swirl among employees about cutbacks in different groups as the company defines its plans for the next 12 months.”
“Mr. Nadella said in his email that, throughout July, senior executives would reveal “more on the engineering and organization changes we believe are needed.” He said he would discuss changes more when the company released its earnings on July 22,” Wingfield reports. “Mr. Nadella said Microsoft was ‘the productivity and platform company for the mobile-first and cloud-first world… We will reinvent productivity to empower every person and every organization on the planet to do more and achieve more.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: A 3,100-word diarrhea stream of corporate-speak laced with kernels of bullshit meant to inspire threatened worker bees (many of whom have been jerked around and reorg’ed to death for at least a decade and a half) to “find ways to simplify and work faster and more efficiently.”
Our smiles couldn’t be wider.
Nadella, who might be nearly as clueless as Ballmer, also found the need to drop the word “empower” seven times during his expulsion. That would, of course, be seven times too many. How many sentences into this interminable crapfest did it take for the average Microsoftie to get that sick feeling in the pit of their stomach prompting them to pull up their resume for updating? This is what happens when a company that desperately needed new direction from new blood instead stupidly and cowardly hires from within (not that is wasn’t too late already regardless).
This is what failure looks like. Apple roadkill.
Revel in the endless beauty of what Steve Jobs and co. have wrought. This vast, growing ocean of schadenfreude shall sustain us forever.
Sleep tight, Satya.
Related articles:
Steve Ballmer to unveil S.S. Microsoft’s new arrangement of deck chairs by July 1 – June 25, 2013
Captain Ballmer working hard on rearranging S.S. Microsoft’s deck chairs yet again – June 3, 2013
Microsoft said to again reorganize marketing operations; may include hundreds of job cuts – February 1, 2012
Ballmer rearranges the deck chairs again; seeks to get engineers into executive ranks – February 8, 2011
Microsoft rearranges the deck chairs again; reorgs cellphone, games division – May 25, 2010
Microsoft rearranges the deck chairs – February 15, 2008
MDN is having too much fun. Pity the worker bees, trained in milking dead cows. Maybe they’ll find work in the carbon extraction industry.
The smart worker bees have probably been finding jobs at Apple, Facebook & Twitter for a couple years.
That could be a part of the problem with some of issues in the latest few OSX updates …
So that explains why Mail in Mavericks is so tricking lame!!
“…we must rediscover our soul…”
or discover that there was never one to begin with?
Ah shit… that sounds like another “Windows Everywhere” campaign to me.
> Mr. Nadella said Microsoft was ‘the productivity and platform company for the mobile-first and cloud-first world…
This time, it’s the “mobile-first and cloud-first” campaign, which is exactly what Microsoft’s core Windows customers do NOT want. They just want a NEW version of Windows that respects users who you use a “PC” (desktop/laptop) that has a keyboard and mouse (and a local drive for storage), and no screen touching.
Ironically, Windows users will feel more “at home” using the a Mac than the latest version of Windows. A fact that they are realizing more and more. This is why Apple has growing Mac sales amid an overall PC industry that is stagnant or in decline. Apple has a HUGE pool of potential new Mac customers called “alienated Windows users.”
Nadella had exactly ONE chance to “undo” Ballmer. He didn’t take it…
“SIDAGTMBTTSH”!!!!
Right Mikey?
“We will reinvent productivity to empower every person and every organization on the planet to do more and achieve more.” Gotta love that corporate zeal. Bunch of friggin’ nonsense.
Yeah how about “empowering” the world by just closing up shop and leaving your sorry ass company behind? (Which is happening anyway.)
First and very simple step — stop producing crap.
Time for a photo of Captain Nadella, Ballmer went under when the bow dove under the waves.
This IS Nadella, I think.
Are they father and son?
Look again, that is Captain Nadella above.
Captain Ballmer here:
http://macdailynews.com/2013/06/03/captain-ballmer-working-on-rearranging-s-s-microsofts-deck-chairs-yet-again/
Dilbert-esque.
Gotta love it.
Hellooo, James Cameron! Forget about making that sequel to Avatar! Your next blockbuster has got to be Titanic II. The vessel is listing to starboard, the deck chairs are skittering around, and the band stumbles but plays on. Titanic II is sinking from the excessive weight of the ironically named Surfaces being used as ballast. Still got those waterproof cameras?
A 3100 word mission statement. Yeah, that is simplicity at its finest!
Boy do you have the perfect piece of Convicting Evidence on this issue.
Which also means “Ooops, don’t need most of you ex-Nokia employees and a good chunk of the Redmond deadwood as we continue to circle the drain.”
We shouldn’t forget that M$ still has the world’s biggest cash cow in Windows and Office. For them it is a blessing and a curse. A blessing since it has enabled them to play around with other products and a curse because the security of guaranteed revenue means there is no drive to make good and innovative products that will succeed.
Apple’s acquisitions are designed to add to the company’s skill set. M$ are designed to make them look good. Apple moves forward, M$ sideways or backwards.
If I were in Satya’s shoes I probably wouldn’t know what to do either. When Jobs came back to Apple he knew exactly how to fix Apple but it took guts to cut revenue generating products. I don’t think anyone at M$ can do that.
Les we not forget when Steve Jobs came back to Apple, he knew exactly what to do. He needed Microsoft’s money to save the HMS Apple from sinking.
Yeah, right. Isn’t this lie ever going to slink off and die?
MS bought $150M in nonvoting stock (which they unloaded a few years later) and publicly announced that they would continue to offer Office for the Mac (and so avoid getting sued for stealing and using Apple IP).
The day before the announcement Apple had a market cap of $2.46 billion, and ended the previous quarter with revenues of $1.7 billion and cash reserves of US$1.2 billion. The $150M deal was purely symbolic; it wasn’t needed to “keep Apple from sinking”.
I would take micky dell’s advice to Apple and just give the stockholder’s money back and shut the thing down.
Microsofts cash cow evaporated when the Metro GUI was unveiled for the first time.
Let’s not be too cocky MDN. Apple still has a long way to go to make it’s cloud offerings up to the standards Apple customers expect. I’m hoping that Apple and Microsoft can find a way to work together to the detriment to Google, Adobe and Oracle going forward.
He speaks a lot about productivity but nothing about making stuff that people would enjoy using.
You got that ‘key word’ right; enjoy.
I went in to the Office 365 site online and quickly recognized that as a MS page. Then I thought, “What makes this automatically think Microsoft?”
There were probably 2 dozen things I could click on the page and they were not necessarily grouped by some common functionality.
haha. A 3100 word upchuckarama. 100,000 eyes roll. Well just a rumor of cost cutting layoffs at MS will move MSFT stock up a tick. The digital rust belt will begin in Redmond. They’ll lay off 10%, and outsource another 40% of their development work to a lower cost center overseas. In five years they’ll wonder why they ever did it. We’ll be offered Win9 and Surface Pro III and rush right out to buy them I’m sure.
This corporate shithole is a model for the inept, bloated and supremely inefficient U.S. government bureaucracy. Or vice versa.
MS is a bench warmer compared to the ineptitude of the U. S. government.
This Mission Statement will, at this point in time, most importantly, proactively empower and meaningfully impact our . . . Uh, . . . Uh, . . . is this microphone on?
Good gawd ahmighty. “bold ambition and our core focus. synthesize the strategic direction. fundamental cultural changes required. maximize the value of technology. empower every person and every organization.” I especially like this: “They will experience the magic of ambient intelligence with Delve and Cortana.”
Unleash the Courier!
good grief this site is full of a bunch of blowhards that never accomplished anything a day in their life. Bow down to jobs and cook you simple minded peons.
You self-meaningly mean blowHARD. You can excuse yourself now, put the hairnet on and report to work from your van down by the river.
I bet he will fire US workers and move/keep jobs offshore.
Reads like a disjointed high school essay written by a kid trying to use big words.
Masterful utilization of the thesaurus. If ya’ can’t dazzle ’em with brilliance, baffle ’em with bullshit.
Truth be told, I would rather the current version of Microsoft to have some success in phones and tablets to compete a little with Apple, and prefer Google to go down the toilet for all their consumer privacy and data abuse, IP theft, double speak, disregard for security, etc. Google seems like a more unscrupulous version of the old Microsoft.
“We must all understand and embrace what only Microsoft can contribute to the world and how we can once again change the world.”
Here — just two paragraphs in — he appropriates two Apple messages, Tim Cook’s recent “only Apple” line and Steve’s classic pitch to Sculley to join Apple and help change the world. Not surprising, but hardly inspiring either.
Gruber had a great take on the “only Apple” premise here:
http://daringfireball.net/2014/06/only_apple
Keeping snark to a minimum, what things can “only Microsoft” genuinely do? Any ideas?
What things can “only Microsoft” genuinely do?
Create vectors that allow 85% (and declining rapidly) of the world to be easily infected with malware.
Retard world productivity.
Make people truly laugh at a tech company.
Only Microsoft can release product failure after product failure over the last 10 years and still be in business.
I’m trying to think of one successful product in the last 10 years. I’ve got nothing.
Azure is a huge hit. Apple runs its iCloud on the MS Azure platform.
Sorry to disappoint the haters, but Apple couldn’t run its business without MS.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/09/02/icloud_runs_on_microsoft_azure_and_amazon/
Don’t forget the volume 2 and 3 of those failures.
Throw out the deck chairs.
While it’s far from a done deal, it’s not looking any better for them after this essay. Hopefully all the employees that get cut and their family’s can get to their next step. At the end of the day there is only so many chairs at the table and as companies fail big and small, chairs don’t get added elsewhere.
Wow. He quotes Neitszche and Rilke. And re-names post-PC as mobile-first. But seriously- customer-obsessed? Microsoft? Good riddance, what?
This is excellent propaganda for Apple fans. It ignores the realities:
A) Microsoft powers 90% of desktops and laptops and will continue to do so as long as Apple prices 70% of people and businesses out of the market, and 50% of the remaining 30% will see no added value in paying 3 times as much for a Mac that does the same thing.
B) Microsoft is still the #1 enterprise computing company in the world. They can dump their consumer software business tomorrow (actually they won’t because they are still making a ton on XBox) and still be the #1 business technology company. Their cloud business is growing (and Apple is one of their #1 customers by the way) and that is just one example.
C) Microsoft has plenty of opportunities to retool. For example, what if they stop trying to compete with Apple and Android and just start making software for them? They could just shift and become the #1 developer for apps for both Apple and Android.
D) Similarly, what prevents Microsoft from just giving up on Windows and building a completely new OS from the ground up? You know that Microsoft was the first to try to market a Unix-based OS (Xenix) back in the day. Apple and Google simply came along and did it decades later. So make Windows 9 the last Windows release and spend the next 4-5 years making something completely different. Or just spend the next 2 years making a commercial version of an existing Linux distro.
Bottom line: as long as Apple needs Microsoft for iCloud (because as a hardware company Apple is not relevant in that space at all) Microsoft is not going anywhere. And as long as an entry level Apple PC costs $1000, Microsoft isn’t either.
Do you REALLY believe this!? Realities!?
Macs do not cost three times as much as a Windows computer that does the same thing. Nowhere remotely close. Over the years, if actually comparing THE SAME capabilities, sometimes Windows is cheaper, and sometimes Mac.
And that is not even taking productivity into account. Even the pro-Microsoft Gartner Group had to acknowledge that people are dramatically more productive on Macs.
And if you actually know anything these topics at all, you know it has been shown, over and over and over, that the TOTAL COST OF OWNERSHIP of Windows computers is markedly higher than Macs.
And MS does not make a ton of money on Xbox.
And on
“plenty of opportunities to retool”
“what prevents Microsoft from just”
Nice theories. If it were so easy, why haven’t they done it already? Yehhh, they could. I don’t see it happening, though.
Xenix was released in 1980 and Apple Released A/UX in 1988. I am not very good at math but I think 8 years is less than a decade
You honestly sound like an aspiring IT doofus which is a spectacularly dumb move when you stop for a moment to consider the facts:
a) Ballmer instigated stack ranking as his preferred managerial style and encouraged his hardware partners to engage in a similar race to the bottom game that effectively caused them to rapidly bankrupt themselves.
b) Ballmer then introduced a race to the bottom pricing strategy for IT consultants which meant every IT doofus needed to take a pay cut every three months in order to remain competitive. Since the market remains flooded with unemployed mcse’s – IT doofuses worldwide are becoming seriously spooked. Many have huge mortgages to pay and massive monthly payments for a leased car. And every day they’re having to deal with angry users unwillingly sat in front of a Metro GUI designed by steve sinofsky.
c) steve sinofsky no longer responds to email and has effectively abandoned Windows 8 and the user base entirely. He now spends most days anonymously moving between rural towns in Argentina.
Bottom line: Microsoft cannot recover from the catastrophic damage inflicted by Ballmer. Nadella knows this and is already liquidating assets.
Nadella has also succeeded in liquidating employee morale.
don’t even need to argue your points as they are so off base as Sean etc have pointed out.
but I’ll like to ask if you are RIGHT and Msft is doing so well and they have so many opportunities…
THEN WTF IS BALLMER OUT AND NADELLA DESPERATELY WRITING Elop style ‘BURNING PLATFORM” MEMOS??
‘atlman’, there are a few good points made.
But then you threw in some abominable clinkers that lure me into a snark attack. But seeing as it is my dinner time, I will merely point out:
Similarly, what prevents Microsoft from just giving up on Windows and building a completely new OS from the ground up?
Outstanding cluelessness. Do you know ANY Microsoft history? Do you comprehend exactly what they have done to AVOID exactly what your are suggesting? OMFG try again.
…as long as Apple needs Microsoft for iCloud (because as a hardware company Apple is not relevant in that space at all)…
Say WHAT?! At that point in your post, you veered severely out of three dimensional space. I can no longer track you.
♪ Can you hear me Major atlman? ♪
♪ Can you hear me Major atlman? ♪
Next time, try a bit more research before you post.
Productivity increases at Microsoft usually end in more shit hitting the market faster.
LOL!!!!
“His 3,100-word essay, distributed by email to Microsoft employees Thursday morning, is Mr. Nadella’s mission statement and a rallying cry for the staff. Although it contained few specifics”
3100 words, yet manages few specifics? Yep, that’s Microsoft for you. I suspect Balmy the sweaty dancing chair throwing clown must have fully approved Nadella as his replacement.
Microsoft has become a LOST cause célèbre. Move over wreck of Titanic, Microsoft needs a place to rest on the bottom of the ocean too.