“Here’s the latest report from the Iowa antitrust litigation, Comes v. Microsoft, Inc., being held in Polk County District Court [Iowa]. We have excerpts from transcripts of Thursday’s and Friday’s sessions, including a 2004 email from Jim Allchin to Steve Balmer and Bill Gates in which he says Microsoft had lost sight of what customers need and that he himself would buy a Mac, if he didn’t work for Microsoft,” Groklaw reports.
Groklaw reports, “Co-counsel Hagstrom began his part of the Plaintiffs’ opening statement. Hagstrom first began with a quote from Nathan Myrhvold, ‘There is a huge value to a monopoly, and we have the position and skills that it makes sense for us to shoot for it.’ Hagstrom continued, ”Huge value to a monopoly’, think about what that means.’ Hagstrom reviewed the specific ways Plaintiffs believe that Microsoft harmed Iowans. He emphasized that ‘competition is good, monopoly is bad.’ A good example:”
Exhibit 7264. Almost three years ago, on January 7, 2004, Jim Allchin, the senior executive at Microsoft, sent an E-mail to Microsoft’s top two executives, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, and the subject was “losing our way.”
Mr. Allchin says, I’m not sure how the company lost sight of what matters to our customers, both business and home, the most, but in my view we lost our way. I think our teams lost sight of what bug-free means, what resilience means, what full scenarios mean, what security means, what performance means, how important current applications are, and really understanding what the most important problems our customers face are. I see lots of random features and some great vision, but that does not translate into great products. He goes on to say, I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “LinuxGuy and Mac Prodigal Son” for the heads up.]
In a dark windowless room, Allchin is laying on a large flat table with his arms and legs stretched to the ends of the table by ropes.
Hovering over him are Ballmer and Gates and a glaring light shining on his face.
Ballmer: Who do you work for?!
Allchin: (pants) For you guys!
Ballmer: What is the best computer in the world?
Allchin: Dell. (gasp)
Ballmer: What is the best operating system in the world?
Allchin: Microsoft.
Ballmer: I can’t hear you!!
Allchin: Microsooooft!!!
Ballmer: I don’t believe you!! Billy, crank up a notch!
Allchin: NOOOooooo!!!
Gates: Heh Heh Heh!
Ask anyone who is in, or has been, in business and they will tell you that business, especially big business, is risk-averse. They will stay with the devil they know, instead of the devil they do not know, for a very long time and through many difficulties. Risk takers are few and far between in the business world and many more fail than succeed. CEO/CFO/Director types know this as do the IT managers who work for them.
It is this very set of facts, more than anything else, that keeps Microsoft dominant in every market that Windows and Office operate in. This is what they use to leverage new markets and how they keep competitors out of existing ones. They do not have to be better- they just have to be functional and ‘good enough’.
Jim Allchin is a smart man and knows how good OS X is and what it’s potential would be in an open competitive marketplace. Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates do as well. You do not get to that level and stay there by being stupid. But they also know nothing short of a massive meltdown of the Windows platform or an incredibly disruptive technology that they cannot answer will dislodge their market position. That IS the bottom line.
Maybe you know this, or maybe you didn’t. Either way, that is the situation.
“…You do not get to that level and stay there by being stupid…”
Really?
How then, do you account for George W. Bush.
Well, I guess the stupidity has to be taken into account on behalf of the slim majority who voted for George the Chimp (TM) a SECOND TIME.
Actually, Microsoft usually makes more money off a Mac user who buys office than they do off of a person who buys a computer from Dell.
So, Jim, you could have bought a Mac and Microsoft Office and lived guilt-free.
To Spanish Royal Academy:
“No problema”, said this way, is not used in Spanish. It should have been translated as “Ningún problema” or, in a worse translation “No hay problema”
So trying to correct someone? Do it properly, man…please
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If MS staff can use iPods, what’s stopping Jimmy Boy using a Mac in the privacy of his own home?
To Ballmer re: Spanish Royal Academy–
I wouldn’t say “no hay problema” is a ‘worse’ translation, but rather the correct one.
That’s right, if you are going to correct someone make sure you are doing it properly
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honestly, i wouldn’t be surprised if bill gates himself has a mac (running windows of course).
or if half of their 80000 employees used OSX. getting a job with ford does NOT mean i do or ever will drive one.
hairbo – “He probably didn’t get to the top at MS without having serious talent… “
Ballmer’s even higher position within Microsoft demolishes that argument.
To Spanish Royal Academy, Ballmer and Spanish-o, read on.
My Spanish – was correct – being a quote from the movie, “Terminator,” and tagged with a “[sic]” to indicate it was improper Spanish. Parse this:
Frégate los cojones y vete a tomar por culo, gilipollas, que no sabes leer – ni Inglés ni Español!
Why is it that so many people have a reading problem?
Now we know why Allchin wants to retire.
I do not havew any reading problem Mr Less is More.
In fact, I was not addressing to you, rather than to Spanish Royal Academy. Where did you get lost? Following converstion problems anyone?
About parsing your spanish sentence, I’d say that it was very rude and impolite of you. Not going to transalate your phrase, just going to say : “Usted primero, caballero. Vuesa Merced no tiene la más remota idea de lo que yo puedo leer o no”
De vez en cuando no puedo controlar mi Tourettes. Me voy ahora a fregar la lengua. Está claro que el caballero es usted, no yo.
“No problemo” era una frase memorable en Español rota de una película que yo creía que todos lo hubieran reconocido, particularmente como estaba calificada con una “[sic].”
You could just continue the discussion in plain English or e-mail your comments to one another…
Ik begin hier toch ook niet in het Nederlands, hoewel het mijn moedertaal is???
Translation (indeed I DO translate what I say in other languages): I don’t start writing in Dutch here as well, even though it is my mother tongue???
Apart from that, I must congratulate Mr. Allchin on his insight in what an OS should be about. Still, most unfortunately, one has to agree with The Power Of Incumbency (didn’t even need a dictionary to know what incumbency means): M$ will likely still reign the OS market for years to come… As a switcher, I know that you can only convert people one by one, and basically, my parents won’t buy one untill our HP crashes ONCE again… My mother didn’t want to buy a new computer while we still have one at home, so my father is trying real hard to make the system crash every time he uses it. Once OS X takes over about 10% of the market though, Micro$oft would better start focusing on the Xbox, ’cause then they won’t last very long as the dominant OS market player…
I like yoursite.
This comes a bit late, but I did not write the cited story. Pamela “PJ” Jones did. What probably happened was that the folks here never did their research of how Groklaw works, using my first two posts to that article’s discussion as an indication of who wrote it. Those two posts are for “corrections” and “off-topic” items of the day.
Please do due diligence before citing someone who may not have written the original message. Not to mention, Groklaw is a great resource for where the tech, open source and geek topics intersect with the legal world.
–Ian R. Justman, who did NOT write the cited article.