“Kevin Johnson, the president of [Microsoft’s online] division, suddenly and surprisingly resigned late Wednesday, taking over Juniper Networks, and leaving Microsoft’s online business in more disarray than it was already in,” Jim Goldman reports or CNBC.
In a memo to Microsoft employees addressing Johnson’s departure and competition with Google, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer also mentions Apple, pointing out that “Microsoft outsells Apple 30 to 1, but elevates the competition to a new level,” Goldman reports. “He writes: ‘In the competition between PCs and Macs, we outsell Apple 30-to-1. But there is no doubt that Apple is thriving. Why? Because they are good at providing an experience that is narrow but complete, while our commitment to choice often comes with some compromises to the end-to-end experience. Today, we’re changing the way we work with hardware vendors to ensure that we can provide complete experiences with absolutely no compromises. We’ll do the same with phones—providing choice as we work to create great end-to-end experiences.'”
Goldman writes, “It’s an interesting take on Microsoft’s position in the marketplace as it relates to Apple. Microsoft is indeed losing marketshare to Apple (2.5 million Macs a quarter start to add up!) because of all the well-documented problems and challenges with Windows Vista. But rather than focus on Vista’s shortcomings, Ballmer spotlights the strengths of the Mac.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “JES42” for the heads up.]
How “narrow” is a platform that is a much better choice for the vast majority of personal computer users who are not short-sightedly shackled to some Windows-only app? That is really the only reason to run Windows and, if that’s the only reason why people run your OS, then you’d better keep developers from writing native versions of their apps for Mac (which, as market share increases have a funny way of promoting, they are doing in droves) or you’ve got absolutely nothing. For example, if Autodesk came out with a good, sound working Mac version of AutoCAD today, Apple would own the architecture market by next week. Architecture firms don’t pick Windows because it’s better, they’re stuck with it for now. The same for the real estate industry, etc.
Furthermore, there is no way that Microsoft “can provide complete experiences with absolutely no compromises.” Not unless they dump the HPs and Dells of the world and adopt Apple’s vertical integration model (control of the whole widget) and begin producing their own PC hardware. Too many cooks in the kitchen otherwise. Even if Microsoft did that, they’d still be stuck with a bloated, legacy-ridden, mess of an OS. And industrial designers the caliber of Jonathan Ive do not grow on trees. If Microsoft made Windows PCs, they’d end up with another Zune. There really is no good news for Microsoft. They don’t have the leadership, they don’t have a culture of innovation, and they don’t have the winning model. All they have are the vestiges of an illegally-constructed monopoly that they can no longer leverage indiscriminately to run roughshod over the tech industry.
The exact same points above work for iPhone vs. a fleet of clunky, junky Windows Mobile devices from every Tom, Dick, and Harry hardware maker. Just like they worked for iPod vs. Apple’s roadkill who all used to use the now-defunct PlaysForSure for their clunky, junky now-defunct MP3 players. Vertical integration trumps horizontal when it comes the end user experience and, drumroll please… end user experience is all that really matters.
Someday the world will look back on the period where Microsoft dominated personal computing as an unfortunate, wasteful mistake. The Dark Ages of Personal Computing is finally drawing to a close. The Apple renaissance is at hand!
Ballmer’s full memo is here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Rainy Day” for the heads up.]
Two things. First, when Ballmer (who is the ugliest SOB ever to be a CEO) mentions “narrow”, he is speaking of hardware, not the experience. Basically he means that you can install any one of 500 graphics cards. On macs, you don’t have nearly that many choices. Basically, what he should have said is “we cater to both the high and and the cheap POS end, however, mac only caters to the high end. We want to do both, but with the user experience mac users enjoy”.
Second, as far as MDN’s note, the real estate industry can start shifting over to mac (as a Realtor who uses a Mac full time). I won’t ever use windows for Real Estate again. The company, Real Estate Success Tools builds the best realtor business management software. It’s built in FileMaker and it works in all OS’s with unlimited users attached. If you are in real estate, go to getrestnow.com and get their software, it’s well worth it. Hopefully, the software makers for title and mortgage industry follows suit, and we can all drop the window POS’s.
@pDK
The good news is I think BALDmer really believes what he is saying. I hope he never finds out the true numbers until it is too late. That should be in about 3 years I would guess.
Cheers
Shadow
Looks like the seat is starting to get a little warm for Uncle Fester.
The Yahoo hostile takeover has dragged on all year, and it wasn’t the answer ANYWAY. Now the co-architect of that strategy has bailed (or was pushed, as the case may be). They just lost $488M(!!) in 90 days trying to execute that strategy. Ballmer finally has to acknowledge that Apple has a good end-to-end user experience that M$ does not. The money that M$ has to blow in such large amounts in one business quarter STILL COMES FROM Winblows and Office.
Wall Street is starting to shine the spotlight on the leadership that got Micro-Sloth into this mess. That’s actually good AND bad at the same time. It’s good that Ballmer is about to get exposed as the overpaid charlatan CEO, luckiest dorm-room assignment recipient in the history of business, but it may be bad for us as Apple fan/users.
What if M$ did what Apple did and bring in someone of competence and vision who orders that every ongoing project at M$ be paraded in front of him and instruct them to justify their existence or be eliminated? What if M$ then cut all legacy ties to their old OS and finally built a modern, 21st century OS with security, open standards, and ease of use as the priorities? What would actual COMPETITION instead of copycatting coming out of Redmond look like?
We’ll never know ’cause I just woke up.
Never mind!
Peace.
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Olmecmystic
Apple is thriving because they are focused on what actual users want.
Microsoft is not thriving like Apple is because they are focused on what big business wants.
Question: What does the first paragraph of the story have to do with the rest of the story? It’s unrelated and should not have been included.
Weird.
Excerpts from Ballmer’s email:
“Drive end user excitement for our products.”
“. . . drive developers to create rich applications for Windows.”
“. . . driving change in business models through advertising, subscriptions, and online transactions.”
Steve Ballmer drives to change you to what he needs.
Steve Jobs provides what YOU want ant need, without trying to change you.
Let’s throw Ballmer in the back seat.
Microsoft office is “feminist software”?
I’m totally baffled by your use of that term in this context.
Can you explain in more detail what Microsoft Office has to do with feminism?
The reason a Mac version of AutoCAD doesn’t exist is that AutoCAD is a convoluted bird’s nest of spaghetti code just like Windows. The only way to make a POS like AutoCAD work on a Mac is to rewrite the entire program. Autodesk has no desire to spend that kind of money. They, like MS, would rather spend their money buying all their competitors so no competition exists.
Autodesk needs its monopoly broken up just like MS. If you are an architect or engineer do whatever you can to use something other than AutoCAD and use something compatible with the Mac. I personally find Goggle’s Sketchup a great tool for conceptual 3D drawings.
“denial ain’t a river in Egypt”,as they say, and these poor saps STILL don’t get it. Apple leads because they create and innovate, then have control over the whole execution of the product. No amount of statistical analyzing or copying will ever bring MS the success they desire. They quite simply lack their own vision at the most fundamental level.
This report at least shows that Ballmer isn’t the only deluded monkey on the team. It’s systemic to MS. Long live the MS CEO’s!!
Here’s a nice read from 2yrs ago that hits the nail on the head about Apple, innovation, and user experience
http://switchtoamac.com/site/apples-endtoend-model-leads-to-innovation-and-user-experience.html
@@Harvey
This is totally off topic. Sorry, but I should answer the question.
My use of the term “feminist software” is poking fun at people who abbreviate Microsoft as MS, which is also Ms, which has its origins in the feminist movement. MS Word = Ms Word, get it?
People who Capitalize Seemingly at Random just Because it Looks Pretty and Make Unnecessary Acronyms (UA) drive Me Bats. I do a lot of editing, and things like this take a lot of time–and are annoying–to correct. At least when I’m done, they appear to have the communications skills they claim.
Then of course there are people who use MACs. How they get work done on a media access control address, I don’t know. My Mac has a MAC, but I prefer to use the Mac, and let the Mac worry about the MAC.
@ t
Microsoft won’t drop Office for Mac because they make too much money selling it. That will only happen when Apple builds it’s office suite to be comparable enough that people no longer need MS Office. However, so long as MS controls its formats and won’t let other companies have access to the formats, MS will be in control of office suites. This may be changing with the new Office formats, but it will take time to be fully adopted (5+ years).
Just enough time for Apple to fully build up it’s iWork suite. It’s good, but not a threat to MS yet.
Microsoft does make nice computer mice. I bought one for one of my Mac’s and I do like it.
I’m just not going to use their OS.
As for Ballmer, I don’t think he’s the one to make this work for Microsoft. He’s a sales guy for god sake! Why the shareholders let a sales guy run (or make that ruin) the company is beyond me.
MS always says that Google and IBM are their biggest competitors. I find this odd since MS has no meaningful Web advertising, Web apps, mainframe or services business.
While MS don’t sell PC hardware, their biggest competitor and threat to their core business and current monopoly has always been Apple.
Maybe MS are finally admitting Apple as a competitor.
My brother is in Architecture school right now and he has a new iMac, but is forced to run windows so he can use AutoCAD. He then stumbled upon a program like AutoCAD but made for the Mac. Its called ArchiCAD. I am not sure how it works or anything, but at least its a start. Does anybody else have any experience with ArchiCAD? I would really be interested in how it compares to AutoCAD.
Reading the end of Ballmer’s memo:
“As I said at the June 27th Town Hall for Bill,”
Oh my god, the “Town Hall for Bill”…
“we are the best in the world at doing software and nobody should be confused about this.”
Delirium.
“It doesn’t mean that we can’t improve, but nobody is better than we are.”
Egotistical bastards. Conversely, Apple’s drive is to excel at making the best products that people will want to buy. And this is how it expresses it publicly; it never communicates in terms of being better than everyone else.
“Nobody works harder than we do.”
Arrogant bastards.
“Nobody is more tenacious than we are. We’re investing more broadly and more seriously than anybody else.”
Okay, now we’re getting a little closer to the truth. M$ is tenacious like a dog whose jaws have gotten hold of your pants leg and won’t let go. “We’re investing more broadly and more seriously than anybody else” is a euphemism for ‘we are committed to spending our wealth on buying out the competition so there is no competition to compete against’.
“Our opportunities to change the world have never been greater.”
Read: Our competitors are changing the world with their innovations. We have the enormous capital and the monopolistic swagger necessary to buyout our competitors or outright steal their technology to make these new markets our own.
For example, if Autodesk came out with a good, sound working Mac version of AutoCAD today, Apple would own the architecture market by next week.
I’m hoping for an OS X compatible version of SolidWorks (rumors say it is in the works). I don’t know if that will happen at my company, but at least I could install it at home and work from there more often.
I agree with 84 Mac Guy. AutoCAD is a POS; all our old drawings are in that format and I cheer every time we convert one to SolidWorks…
Actually, there was a version of AutoCAD for Macintosh, back in the mid-late 80s. It ran explicitly on the Macintosh II. It’s actually a funny story on how not to do a software release.
AutoCAD for Macintosh looked just like AutoCAD for DOS–it was a straight port. AutoDesk basically told everybody, “We’ll release AutoCAD for Macintosh. If it sells and makes money, we’ll do a ‘hybrid’ version that’s sort of Mac-like. If that sells and makes money, we’ll do a real Mac version.”
What happened? Nobody bought the DOS look-a-like because they wanted a real Mac version and they figured it wouldn’t hurt to wait for it. So AutoDesk never made the money that they thought they would to do the ‘hybrid’ version. After a couple of years, they dropped support and claimed that there wasn’t enough of a market for CAD on the Mac.
Of course, there was plenty of interest. The customers didn’t want a straight DOS port, though. They wanted a real Macintosh version.
By the way, check out Architosh for information on Mac-based CAD programs.
30 to 1 is about right.
Microsoft and Apple sell their products world wide, and Apple certainly has no more than 3% of the world market, probably less.
Rats, sinking ship
Microsoft will never stop selling Office for the Mac as it makes a lot of money for them and they are a Software company so they want to sell software – also it helps solidify all of those Exchange servers.
MDN gets it right!
Again, why can’t Microsoft look at their name and say, oh yeah, we’re supposed to make software!
Apples and oranges, apples and oranges….
If Ballmer believes that MS makes the best software in the world, he’s delusional and should seek professional help. Perhaps a few trips for some shock treatment get him back to reality.
Should MS ever acquire Yahoo, they’d run it into the ground. I’ve heard that some key staff at Yahoo have already bailed out. No
doubt, in anticipation of MS seizing control.
There is NO EXCUSE for Vista’s poor performance. They had 5 YEARS to get it right and they weren’t even close !
I agree that AutoDesk software sucks. Our engineering department uses AutoCad, and accessing a print takes an eternity. I can almost make an ‘E’ size print in the time it takes to come on the screen.
Anyway, I had a thought. I wonder what it would be like if Steve Jobs was given complete control of MicroSoft? I wonder what he would do first – I mean other than shitcan Ballmer.
Do you think that even he could turn MS around? I don’t mean from a profit standpoint.