
Microsoft reorganizes - jcarney
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/Press/2013/Jul13/07-11OneMicrosoft.aspx
======
YuriNiyazov
[http://taffywilliams.blogspot.com/2011/07/write-3-letters-
yo...](http://taffywilliams.blogspot.com/2011/07/write-3-letters-you-are-not-
that-good.html)

A new CEO was hired to replace an outgoing CEO. The outgoing CEO met with the
incoming CEO for an exit interview. During the discussion, the departing CEO
stated he had placed 3 very important letters in his drawer just as his
predecessor had done for him. He explained that the new CEO would find opening
the letters in order most useful when a serious event took place. He also
stated the letters left for him had really helped him over his tenure.

Several months passed before a major event came up. The new CEO now remembered
the letters and noticed they were numbered 1, 2, and 3. The former CEO had
instructed they be opened in order for maximal benefit. The new CEO opened
letter #1 and the paper inside had the words “blame it on your predecessor.”
The new CEO did as the letter stated and amazingly he was able to avert
serious problems and keep his job.

Several months passed before the next serious event took place. This one was
growing in magnitude and things were starting to get ugly at the company.
There were even calls for the CEO to step down. In desperation, the CEO opened
the drawer and pulled out letter #2. With great fear he, opened it carefully
to read the word “reorganize.” He followed the instructions and just as before
he was saved. The whole company quieted down and went back to business as
usual.

After about a year, a third serious event took place and it was much worse
than the rest. The CEO knew how to get out of the mess because he had a third
letter left to open. With a smile he reached for the letter #3 and opened it
to read “write 3 letters.”

~~~
mcdougle
Reminds me of this:
[http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1995-10-30/](http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1995-10-30/)

~~~
loganfrederick
Just a few comics later, he has this gem about "dotted-line" management.
Frightening how relevant Dilbert is to this memo.

[http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1995-11-01/](http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1995-11-01/)

~~~
drharris
This was the first thing I thought of when I saw the "Dotted Line" bit. Sad
that this thing was already parodied almost two decades ago!

------
cs702
I almost choked when I read Microsoft's new mission statement: _" our strategy
will focus on creating a family of devices and services for individuals and
businesses that empower people around the globe at home, at work and on the
go, for the activities they value most."_

In other words, Ballmer wants the company to "focus" on being everything to
everyone!

Not a good sign for the business.

\--

PS. Compare Ballmer's long, complicated memo to Google's mission statement:
"to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and
useful." (Source:
[http://www.google.com/about/company/](http://www.google.com/about/company/) )

~~~
Metrop0218
This isn't an agile startup here, it's one of the world's largest software
companies. I think aiming to do a lot isn't a big stretch.

~~~
smacktoward
Microsoft has always had big ambitions. Its original mission statement, first
articulated all the way back in the late '70s, was "a computer in every desk
and in every home, running Microsoft software."
([http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/gat0int-1](http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/gat0int-1))
Which was pretty audacious when the state of the art in personal computing was
machines like the MITS Altair
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_8800](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_8800)).

Bill Gates:

 _It 's very hard to recall how crazy and wild that was, you know, "on every
desk and in every home." At the time, you have people who are very smart
saying, "Why would somebody need a computer?"_

Not saying this _new_ statement is audacious (it feels kind of anodyne to me),
just that "hidebound behemoth" isn't the only gene in their DNA.

~~~
prewett
The original statement was pretty clear and short. This new one takes a lot of
words and it's not at all clear to me what they are aiming for. What, exactly,
does "empower" look like when it's implemented? Exactly which are the
activities that people value the most? (Actually, has anyone thought about
whether those activities even require a computer?)

This isn't ambitious, it's meaningless. Not a good sign for corporate
excellence.

------
clavalle
If their new tack is as sharp and focused as that memo, Microsoft is in
trouble.

"We will be all things to all people by getting rid of anything that is not a
huge profit center. Those profit centers will be organized in appropriate
silos. Those silos will assign people to product committees for collaboration
with other silos on individual products. Each committee will have a leader
(Champion) who reports to the layer just below me. This new, tighter,
organization will make us leaner and more nimble."

Sounds -- as good as it could for a large organization I guess but there is a
lot of contradiction. Greater reach through consolidation? Nimble action
through layers of management? We are all One except for these few special
cases? Build on our character as Microsoft but emulate Apple? One Strategy
through rigidly defined feifdoms with their own Champions battling for
influence?

I also love their list of 'high-value activities' "high-value activities —
serious fun, meetings, tasks, research, information assurance and IT/Dev
workloads" Does anyone know what they mean by this?

And all of this couched in such thick Business-Speak that 10 different people
will come away with 10 different messages.

Mr. Ballmer. For the love of all of the brilliant people you employ, step
down. It's time.

~~~
knodi
I honestly think he doesn't realize that he's the problem and people around
him won't tell him the truth. Ballmer is a very intimidating guy both in
physical size and attitude and is always ready to be combative. This make it
very difficult to have a open dialog with him.

Him remaining still as the CEO is not his fault its the boards fault they
should have made moves to genteelly replace him a long time ago.

~~~
incision
>"Ballmer is a very intimidating guy both in _physical size_ and attitude and
is always ready to be combative."

As larger than average person I'm fascinated/frustrated by the way physical
presence affects people.

Most troublesome for me have been people who apparently feel intimidated and
project it back as something intentional, as I'm _trying_ to intimidate them
or have intimidated others into agreement with me.

~~~
300bps
>Most troublesome for me have been people who apparently feel intimidated and
project it back as something intentional, as I'm trying to intimidate them

I am 6'7" tall and weigh 220 pounds. I've also been in IT for about 20 years
in a corporate setting. Are you bigger than I am? I ask because I have never
had anyone say that I intimidated them nor have I heard of anyone telling me
that someone else is intimidated by me. I'm curious as to whether people are
intimidated and just aren't telling me.

~~~
incision
> _" Are you bigger than I am?"_

I'm your height, 60+ pounds heavier and no stranger to the gym. I've been in
IT for going on 16 years.

I've had many people admit they were initially intimidated after we've gotten
to know each other - women a bit more than men. I've had several problems
arise from superficial assumptions/accusations by people who'd never fully
interacted with me.

About your situation, there are a couple things I think can help/hurt:

* Build. I can remember being 220. I'm definitely perceived differently now, more "big" than "tall" or "slim" previously.

* I'm pretty quiet. I get the impression that people assume negatives before positives when they can't read a person.

* Jobs. I've done a lot of work in the public sector where things always seem to be contentious. In a place with less infighting and political maneuvering I'd hope for less assumption and undermining as well.

------
ChuckMcM
This is the change : _" This means we will organize the company by function:
Engineering (including supply chain and datacenters), Marketing, Business
Development and Evangelism, Advanced Strategy and Research, Finance, HR,
Legal, and COO (including field, support, commercial operations and IT). Each
discipline will help drive our overall strategy. Each discipline will also be
charged with improving our core capabilities in its area. We must improve in
all aspects of the business."_

So in the past each part of Microsoft seemed to operate both as a independent
business (and sometimes competitor with other parts of Microsoft) and part of
the whole. This re-aligns the company as a systems company focused on
delivering a specific solution.

A number of interesting thoughts ran through my head here. Perhaps the most
profound was that Microsoft has basically said "Oh by the way, the PC is
dead." and by that tacit admission they fulfill the prophecy of this being the
'post PC' era. Microsoft's reorganization is more about serving customers
through a fusion of device + OS + product and less about serving customers as
the supplier of "OS" or "Backend business management" or "gaming platform".
That makes them a lot more like Apple and really puts Dell and HP in a sticky
place. One wonders what the world would look like if Apple embraced people
making cloned hardware.

So if I read the tea leaves correctly, Ballmer is attempting to capture
Google's Android strategy for Windows with the inclusion of the desktop/laptop
component where the monetization comes not from the OS but from the
environment.

I don't know if Microsoft can pull it off but it reads like they want to be
what Google and Apple would be if they merged.

I give it top marks for aggressiveness, and it seems they are ready to step
out of the shackles the monopolist next door, painting Google with that
particular scarlet letter in the US and elsewhere.

If I were Michael Dell, my first step after taking the company private would
be buying Canonical and installing Shuttleworth as EVP of OS.

~~~
bad_user
> _Perhaps the most profound was that Microsoft has basically said "Oh by the
> way, the PC is dead." and by that tacit admission they fulfill the prophecy
> of this being the 'post PC' era_

All this talk about the "Post PC" era is misguided, with people leaving out
the elephant in the room.

It's not PCs that are dead - PCs are fine, you can find one in most homes and
most people interact with PCs daily. This isn't going to change for a long
time.

Something else is dying - the traditional licensing model for software.
Software is becoming a cheap commodity, due to open-source, due to the
freemium model on the web, due to piracy, due to the $0.99 or ads-enabled apps
that are so popular lately.

By contrast, there's been a lot of innovation in hardware / devices. Skipping
over the obvious innovations, like smart-phones with touch-screens, for
example Samsung's Chromebook is amazing - a good looking ultra-portable with
good battery, that does 90% of what people need and that's so cheap that you
can replace it should you break or lose it.

Let's think about what the Chromebook is, because it's fascinating - all the
apps you run on it are web apps. The just released Firefox OS does the same
thing and I'm sure it's going to be a success. Apple themselves, before
releasing their iPhone SDK, were telling devs to build web apps.

So where is Microsoft in this picture? Nowhere. Their empire is built on
Windows and Office and without these in the picture they are fucked. And they
can't rely on the current PC market for upgrades, because PCs are more than
good enough, so people don't feel the need for upgrades, unless they buy based
on sex-appeal. Many companies are still on Windows XP and Office 2003.

This isn't a " _Post PC_ " era. This is the " _Web Era_ ". Furthermore, all
the mobile app stores are just passing fads.

~~~
Silhouette
_Software is becoming a cheap commodity, due to open-source, due to the
freemium model on the web, due to piracy, due to the $0.99 or ads-enabled apps
that are so popular lately._

 _Cheap_ software is becoming a cheap commodity.

It's relatively easy for any competent software developer to write a diary app
with a pretty UI skin, or a basic text editor and formatting engine to drive a
lightweight word processor, or a simple puzzle game. I could write a
relatively good application in any of those categories in a weekend, and no
doubt so could thousands of other people on HN today.

And importantly, that's just fine. There are very many people who will get
some value from a fun puzzle game or a simple personal organiser, and who will
pay a small amount in return, and so there are many software developers who
make a decent income writing just that kind of software.

But what about the next level up? When I had to write a serious document for
an organisation that normally used an on-line "office suite", I gave up and
switched to more traditional software. It turns out that things like footnotes
and cross-references and tables of contents and careful page layout matter if
you're producing something that many people are going to spend a lot of time
using, and at the time Google Docs could do exactly none of those things while
Word could do them all easily. At the rate they were paying me, with the time
saved by using the more powerful software, the cost of that software was
probably recovered in days, if not hours.

The reality of modern web and mobile software is that a lot of it _is_ cheap,
and it _should_ be cheap, because it adds only a little value and it isn't
very hard to create it. The trouble is that some software does add a lot more
value and is hard to create and shoudn't be cheap, but companies like
Microsoft have inadequately defended their ground and so even software that
could save a customer $1,000 a week gets comments like "$10? No way!" on app
stores.

 _This isn 't a "Post PC" era. This is the "Web Era"._

Not until Google Docs does footnotes and cross-references and tables of
contents and careful page layout, it isn't. Some people just got the wrong
memo.

~~~
bad_user
> _Not until Google Docs does footnotes and cross-references and tables of
> contents and careful page layout, it isn 't._

LibreOffice does footnotes and cross-references just fine and LibreOffice is 0
USD. Here's the thing - MS Office is innovative and still the best at what it
does. But it's old and like anything old, it becomes a commodity.

Adobe Photoshop is also innovative and still the best at what it does (by
far). The problem that Adobe has though is that many Photoshop licensees are
not professionals and can be served just as well by cheaper or even free
software. Companies like Adobe also benefited a lot from piracy, as a lot of
people ended up using Photoshop, even though not that many people can afford
it.

Also, what you're seeing here unfolding with web apps is only the begging. In
relative terms, the concept of a web app is still young. Even in early 2000,
people had no idea that they can have apps running in their browser and
broadband / 3G / 4G is still not a reality in many parts of this world. The
combination of cheap and easily accessible on any platform, without any lock-
in whatsoever, is extremely powerful. Couple this with devices that are
designed to be portable and always connected and you've got a killer that will
cannibalize everything else.

> _The reality of modern web and mobile software is that a lot of it is cheap,
> and it should be cheap, because it adds only a little value and it isn 't
> very hard to create it_

Things like Google Docs / Google Calendar / Google Maps / Twitter / Wikipedia
give me a hell of a lot more value than anything a desktop app could. Are you
saying that you could build these in a weekend?

~~~
Silhouette
_LibreOffice does footnotes and cross-references just fine_

Sure, and it's a set of desktop applications that run locally on your own
computer.

Did you realise you're supporting my position here?

 _The combination of cheap and easily accessible on any platform, without any
lock-in whatsoever, is extremely powerful. Couple this with devices that are
designed to be portable and always connected and you 've got a killer that
will cannibalize everything else._

We've seen thick client vs. thin client before, and no doubt we'll see it
again. Today, however, we're still a long way from the utopia you describe.

 _Things like Google Docs / Google Calendar / Google Maps / Twitter /
Wikipedia give me a hell of a lot more value than anything a desktop app
could. Are you saying that you could build these in a weekend?_

Well, you're obviously picking contrived examples, because most web
applications aren't in that class. And of course no individual could literally
build a replacement for those services in a weekend. However, it is
interesting to consider some factors that would stop them:

1\. Hardware resources and network bandwidth to serve so many users at once

2\. Large volume of data behind the UI

3\. Many import/export options, in some cases

Notice that of those, only the third has anything to do with how hard it is to
write the software itself, and even then it's not core functionality.
Providing compatibility with existing data formats is often extremely
expensive in terms of developer effort, which is part of the reason that
competing with the likes of Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Suite is such
a high barrier and why incumbents tend to change their file formats every five
minutes.

On the other hand, if you were asking whether I could create a Twitter clone
to share with friends at first and grow as friends-of-friends joined in, then
sure, about a million people here really could write that in a weekend. The
core functionality for most of the other services you mentioned could be
implemented by a small team in times ranging from a few days to a few weeks,
too.

The most interesting thing about this, IMHO, is that it means the core
functionality for software with a completely different approach to solving the
same problems might also be implemented fairly quickly, and isn't the factor
limiting competition and the advancement of the technology. We're being held
back by lots of other factors, but most of them are driven by commercial or
marketing considerations, not the technology itself.

------
kvb
If you want to understand Microsoft, you could do a lot worse than reading
[http://hal2020.com/](http://hal2020.com/), by a former General Manager at
Microsoft. I learn something from pretty much every blog post he writes.

For instance, in his most recent post he discusses how the lack of
coordination between the divisions after the 2005 reorg can be viewed as a
feature rather than a bug, but also something that now needs to be changed.

------
venomsnake
Is there a reason CEOs cannot use normal English but have to dilute the
language so much?

For me the TL:DR after struggling to read it was - full steam ahead to the
biggest walled garden on earth. We are still the Borg. Someone correct me if I
am wrong.

~~~
bornhuetter
I don't understand how anyone in their right minds can consider Windows to be
the "biggest walled garden on earth". There is plenty to criticize about
Microsoft, but when you descend into completely nonsensical arguments you lose
all credibility.

~~~
sbierwagen
He's talking more about Windows Phone, the Windows 8 apps, and Xbox.

~~~
bornhuetter
Is Windows Phone more of a walled garden than than iOS? Is the Xbox more of a
walled garden than the Wii U? The argument is still complete hyperbole.

~~~
AndrewDucker
Windows Phone is more of a walled garden than Android.

~~~
bornhuetter
"bigger walled garden than Android" I would agree with.

------
JOnAgain
Azure will not catch AWS because it's not a first class division. It's an
offering in a broader context. Contrast with Amazon who has an SVP of AWS (and
he's considered one of the "more important" SVPs). Any chance I had of
considering Azure just evaporated.

And there's nothing that screams "ownership" like having a VP's reports
"dotted-line" report into someone else, and to have that called out in a
company-wide email.

Then if you read it, every product MS comes out with will need strong
cooperation from 3 SVPs. New Phone? Get the hardware guy, OS guy, and apps guy
to coordinate. Recipe for disaster.

~~~
ethomson
There's a division called "Cloud" being headed up by Executive VP Satya
Nadella that encompasses Azure and the apps that build on top of it (Office
365, visualstudio.com...)

That seems pretty first-class to me.

~~~
JOnAgain
No, there's a division called "Cloud and Enterprise Engineering Group". This
suggest that either it encompasses non-cloud offerings specific to enterprise
or the cloud they're building is targeting specifically enterprise.

Either way, they will not be focused on making Azure a product I wouldn't be
interested in: 1 of 2 focuses or targeting someone I'm not.

Furthermore, looks like they've split sales/marketing from engineering which
will probably help them build more features which are irrelevant to me and put
as many PMs between the clients and engineers as possible.

~~~
ethomson
That you're condemning Azure based on the name of the business unit its
produced in and the location of sales and marketing people in a company makes
me think that even if we'd named it "JOnAgain's Special Cloud!" that it would
be unlikely to have been of interest to you.

(Edit: obviously by "we" I mean "my employer Microsoft", not that I had
anything to do with any of these decisions.)

------
bornhuetter
I think this is a positive move for Microsoft. In particular, having all OS
development work (including desktop, phone and XBox) looks like a good idea,
as I've heard there have been a lot of problems with Windows Phone being
managed on the periphery.

~~~
astrodust
I'm not sure this is such a great idea. Doesn't the OS for the XBox have
entirely different concerns than Windows for Enterprise? You cannot make an OS
that works just as well for Billy the 10 year old gamer, and Mega Co. with
400,000 employees.

Apple's recognized this and decided to pretty much abandon enterprise. Linux
has fragmented into different distributions (server, desktop, mobile) each
with a different focus.

Microsoft, instead, has doubled down. They all even _look_ the same.

~~~
gecko
You answered your own question the second after you asked it.

Look at Linux first. Note that it happily goes from cell phones to
supercomputers. The reason that works is because "Linux" doesn't actually that
much. Really, it means the kernel and (usually) the GNU userland. (Though note
that Android proves that you can swap out the entire userland and still get
something that people will call Linux.) Supercomputers don't have GUIs.
Desktops run X or Wayland or Mir or whatever Ubuntu is doing these days, or
sometimes just Chrome. Mobiles tend to run Android, although there's also
Maemo and others. Meanwhile, a supercomputer would likely have no UI at all.
In all cases, when we say these devices all "run Linux", we're really
referring to the driver model, the kernel, and (when applicable) the user
space.

The same happens with Windows. Windows Phone 8, Windows 8, Windows Server
2012, and the Xbox One all are Windows. They all run the Windows kernel, they
all have the Microsoft CLR, and they all have (a lot of) the same APIs--
especially at the driver layer. But while Windows 8, Windows Phone, and Xbox
all run DirectX and have GUIs, Windows Server prefers to run headless. Windows
Phone 8 and Windows both use WinRT, but Windows Phone 8's UI stack is slightly
different from Windows 8 proper, mostly to facilitate power consumption and
allow for the wildly different form factors. Xbox pretty clearly has a lot of
Win 8 UI internally, but games mostly just code against DirectX. But of
_course_ these all count as Windows, because they all are Windows. Just sliced
and diced in different directions, exactly like Linux does. And unlike Linux,
there's actually a lot more in common that can legitimately be shared.

I don't think unifying all the OS here is really a big deal. It's been proven
to work just fine with Linux (and actually, I'd argue, with OS X, but we can
save that for another time).

~~~
astrodust
The Linux _kernel_ is used in a lot of different devices, this is true, but
it's also a lot leaner than the Windows one. Although efforts have been made
to pare down what Windows is, it's still got a footprint gigantically bigger
than Linux. Where Windows can squeeze on to an ARM system, Linux runs on
embedded systems that are even smaller.

The thing that's the most broken about Microsoft's strategy is it's not just
the kernel being thrown everywhere, but the user interface. That's the most
incoherent part of their strategy. Does the accounting department need to use
the same UI as the Xbox? It's so confused.

OS X and iOS are similar, but not the same thing, although not as different
as, say, Ubuntu is to Android. It's possible that the Ubuntu phone project
might blur this distinction in time, it seems possible.

What I mean mostly is that just because Windows and it's user interface _can_
run on all these different platforms doesn't mean it's an optimal approach.
Then again, Microsoft has never shied away from monoculture. They're the
Monsanto of software.

~~~
angersock
So, the Windows kernel probably is pound-for-pound as lightweight as the Linux
kernel. Whenever people talk about Windows they always drag the UI and such
along, whereas with Linux they seem to merrily ignore all the chrome.

Any Windows kernel folks care to confirm/deny this?

~~~
marshray
I work at MSFT and while not involved with kernel stuff directly I interact
with them from time to time. The sentiment among kernel people is they'd put
the NT kernel up against Linux in efficiency any day of the week.

The challenge is that it's difficult to get _just_ the NT kernel and minimal
support libraries. There was an internal project called
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MinWin#cite_ref-
zheng2007_10-0](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MinWin#cite_ref-zheng2007_10-0)
Without watching the entire video, Wikipedia mentions something like a 25MB
footprint for a usable NT kernel.

Windows installed OS features are a lot more a' la carte these days. It annoys
me that there's not a ntsd.exe or telnet.exe on every box by default, but I
suppose it's worth it for the greater goal. There's a lot of focus on Windows
Server Core, Hyper-V, and Azure. Cloud is bringing everybody back to thinking
about OS footprint again.

I think the Windows-sans-(stuff not everyone needs) approach is only going to
become more normal.

------
InclinedPlane
Hmmm, well, this seems to be some marvelous buzzword bingo / word salad. It's
looking more and more like MS is well and truly clueless. They don't
understand the market. They don't understand their strengths. They definitely
don't understand their weaknesses. And Ballmer isn't going to leave until he
has a heart attack or maybe two.

Edit: fine, I'll add some useful details. What are Microsoft's _actual_
biggest advantages/disadvantages, how should they embrace the market?
Advantages: the PC platform is still enormously powerful, and open, and
they've still got huge ins with corporate computing. They could own the market
on business oriented tablet form-factor computing but they don't have the
vision. Disadvantages: stack ranking is poisonous to morale and retaining
talent, the company is too monolithic (they used to be monolithic in multiple
silos, now they're becoming monolithic in one giant silo, that's not better),
and they still struggle with agility. The market? Android is the MS of the
mobile generation, is it really so crazy to imagine that MS becoming the MS in
mobile as well could be a route to success for them? And that's just what I
could type in about 2 minutes.

~~~
kyllo
_the company is too monolithic (they used to be monolithic in multiple silos,
now they 're becoming monolithic in one giant silo, that's not better)_

Exactly, they are too big, and this reorg is going to make that worse, not
better. I think they would have been better off actually spinning off their
business units into separate companies, each with a clear product category and
a clear organizational mission.

~~~
InclinedPlane
One of the things that Surface, Xbox One, and Windows Phone 7/8 has shown is
that MS is scared but not hungry. They're still arrogant. Much more so than if
they were a bunch of separate companies rather than one huge empire.

------
DrJokepu
_The frontier of high-value scenarios we enable will march outward, but we
have strengths and proven capabilities on which we will draw._

What a sentence!

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Ballmer is a sales guy, not an engineer. No surprise he would write like that.

~~~
mhartl
Ballmer isn't exactly non-technical; he has a degree in applied mathematics
from Harvard.

~~~
keithpeter
I take both points (marketing, maths education) but can the man not pay a
speech writer?

OK for JFK, LBJ, Obama _et al_

------
the_mat
Was that cut and pasted from some kind of template for empty, verbose
corporate-speak?

~~~
mrgreenfur
It's a word-template for "Reorganizational Memo - Large Software Business".
While I'm here: "I see you're trying to reorganize your company, would you
like help with that." \- Clippy

Tip your waiter/waitresses, try the lamb chops.

------
Zigurd
All the critical decisions have already been made: Microsoft branded hardware,
running Windows, everywhere. No courier. Bring XBOX solidly into the Windows
fold. It's all Windows.

Why reorg? Who would accept the job of telling Ballmer that, when Nokia goes
under, the "devices" part of that story is a fable? On top of that, the press
release was apparently written by a student of Vogon poetry.

~~~
WayneDB
Did Nokia build their Xbox, keyboards, mice, Surface, Surface Pro, Kinect or
any of the other devices that Microsoft offers?

~~~
Zigurd
Seems like a rhetorical question, but it actually has an answer: Game console
unit volume, even two generations ago when it was still growing, is less than
5% of mobile handset unit volume.

That said, walking past the Microsoft store at the Pru last night, the only
display drawing a crowd was the Kinect darts game.

~~~
WayneDB
Yes, but is _Microsofts_ game console unit volume less than 5% of Microsofts
mobile handset unit volume?

------
JonFish85
What is one good thing that Ballmer has done for MS? He's ridden the momentum
left by Gates, and since then..... what? Nothing new & good. If I'm an
investor in MS, is he really the best option? Not that Microsoft isn't a good
company and does some great work (Microsoft Research labs are amazing, I don't
care what people say), but honestly it seems like as a company, Microsoft
hasn't really done anything new & better in over a decade. He's kept a steady
course with the golden goose(s) of Windows/Office, of course.

~~~
mehrzad
Windows Azure? 7? Those were under Ballmer's reign.

~~~
JonFish85
Ah, good point on Azure, that's fairly big. Windows 7 I guess I don't really
see as anything more than iteration. It was an honest question, so I
appreciate a good answer!

------
famousactress
_"...his product leaders will dotted line report to..."_

Okay, so still fucking broken. Moving along.

------
jaynate
Complete and utter lack of focus is what I read:

"Going forward, our strategy will focus on creating a family of devices and
services for individuals and businesses that empower people around the globe
at home, at work and on the go, for the activities they value most."

~~~
apalmer
I really was intrigued by comparing this vision to the previous vision of
putting a computer in every home...

The previous was while completely open ended at least on some level
measurable. The current is basically saying, we will make stuff to help
customers do whatever wherever.

~~~
jaynate
Agreed. And across business and personal use. "We will be all things to all
people." If I'm a Microsoft employee there is not much here for me to get
behind.

------
firegrind
A fellow had just been hired as the new CEO of a large high tech corporation.
The CEO who was stepping down met with him privately and presented him with
three numbered envelopes. "Open these if you run up against a problem you
don't think you can solve," he said.

Well, things went along pretty smoothly, but six months later, sales took a
downturn and he was really catching a lot of heat. About at his wit's end, he
remembered the envelopes. He went to his drawer and took out the first
envelope. The message read, "Blame your predecessor."

The new CEO called a press conference and tactfully laid the blame at the feet
of the previous CEO. Satisfied with his comments, the press -- and Wall Street
- responded positively, sales began to pick up and the problem was soon behind
him.

About a year later, the company was again experiencing a slight dip in sales,
combined with serious product problems. Having learned from his previous
experience, the CEO quickly opened the second envelope. The message read,
"Reorganize." This he did, and the company quickly rebounded.

After several consecutive profitable quarters, the company once again fell on
difficult times. The CEO went to his office, closed the door and opened the
third envelope.

The message said, "Prepare three envelopes."

------
canistr
It wasn't immediately clear in Ballmer's statement, but is the Office division
moving under the Cloud services group? It's interesting that they are putting
their money-making operations (Office + Server&Tools) under Cloud with Satya
Nadella instead of moving it over to Application Services under Qi Lu. Which,
given the name, you would think Office would move under Applications.

~~~
awa
Office is indeed moving under Qi Lu. (Applications and Services group)

------
czr80
Wow, re-organising the company by function. They're going all in on copying
Apple. Who knows if it will work, but it's a fascinating experiment.

~~~
astrodust
I wonder if they can still preserve the "culture" of having as many as
fourteen superiors in one long, risk-averse chain.

~~~
venomsnake
If they lose it they could always import some from the EU commission excess
supplies. Seems that there is no global shortage for spineless inefficient
bureaucracies.

------
gesman
One Strategy, One Microsoft, One Ballmer

~~~
lulzcraft
Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer.

~~~
venomsnake
Windows 8 could be Stalingrad then?

------
Pxtl
This seems horribly vague, except that they've been using the word "devices" a
lot. Are they going to expand on the Surface thing and work closer with
hardware vendors to make a complete suite of Microsoft-branded hardware?

It really sounds like they're embracing the cloud + hardware model that is
becoming standard in the mobile space - you have devices purpose-built for
your OS and sold with your company's blessing and you have a suite of 1st-
party web-supported cloud services. Google's various webapps and Android and
their pseudo-first-party Nexus gizmos, Ubuntu and their new Ubuntu phone OS
and their Ubuntu One services, Apple and their iOS devices and their own
iCloud services, and MS with Win8/WP8/Win8RT and their various SkyDrive/Live
services.

My big problem with this huge move to cloud services is that interoperability
has freaking _tanked_. Every consumer exists in one walled garden or another
depending which infrastructure they bought into.

To me, this statement implies a hard push on the WP8/Win8RT devices as well as
SkyDrive/Live services... which is going to be a hard fight, since winphone is
_really_ late to the party, and the confusing branding of Win8RT (is it
Windows 8? What?) has basically resulted in every vendor and manufacturer
avoiding it like it's radioactive.

Personally, I'd love a Win8RT HDMI stick device, but I'm weird that way... and
Microsoft wants me to buy an XBox One so I'm guessing Win8RT HDMI sticks are
off the menu.

~~~
freehunter
The problem is Microsoft's short attention span. Their products are usually
better than the competition, but either no one uses them and MS kills the
product, or people start using it and MS lets the product stagnate until it's
not better anymore (or significantly worse).

Windows Mobile was amazing, the best thing to ever happen to the mobile
devices world. But it had grown stale long before Apple joined the market.
Windows Phone debuted as a refreshing change in the marketplace and in some
ways, ahead of Apple. And then the lack of continued innovation has stalled
what little progress it was making. Then they killed Windows Phone (7) just to
relaunch Windows Phone (8) as "mostly compatible".

The Zune software was miles ahead of Apple's spreadsheet program. Then they
killed it. The Zune Pass was and still is miles ahead of anything else in the
music subscription space. But it hasn't just stagnated, it's actively become
worse. You used to pay $10/mo and get 10 DRM-free songs per month, making the
subscription part completely free. Now that's gone. But still, Google Play
Music All Access Pass is the only thing remotely competing with it.

I love Skydrive and you get massive amounts of space and massive amounts of
integration, but how many times can they rebrand the same service? I started
using Skydrive back when you would log into it using your MSN ID, then your
Windows Live ID, then your Microsoft Account.

It's the ADD-style lack of focus that killed Sega, and Microsoft just rides
that train for all its worth.

------
jimray
I dug up Apple's reorg announcement from 1997, where Steve Jobs was officially
brought on as an "advisory" role to then-CEO Gil Amelio.

[http://web.archive.org/web/19990128084705/http://product.inf...](http://web.archive.org/web/19990128084705/http://product.info.apple.com/pr/press.releases/1997/q2/970204.pr.rel.structure.html)

Obviously, Apple and Microsoft are different companies and looking back 16
years with the benefit of hindsight is a bit unfair.

And yet, even in the announcements, you can see a difference. Apple's is
shorter, more direct, bereft of details but not trying to be everything to
everyone. Most important is an emphasis on getting back to basics, whereas
Microsoft is promising "one strategy, one Microsoft" and then immediately
rattling off a laundry list of "core products". When every one of those
products is core, it's clear nothing is.

------
oscargrouch
If they want to start to "be cool" again, they definitely need to start to
opensource at least the "client" stuff.. and could remain with the "cloud
ones" closed. (including office here)

i think that if microsoft opens up some of its own software it would be a good
sign .. things they dont monetize on.. like IE and the windows NT kernel (at
least).. and with a bonus.. people would start to contribut to those
projects..

This is a part of the strategy that has maded google cool.. and for the old
timers to become cool too.. they need to learn some moves from the new boys in
town.. just saying..

------
telcodud
Surprised that no one has mentioned Asymco or Horace Dediu and his recent
podcasts and blog posts:

[http://www.asymco.com/2013/06/27/preempting-the-
praetorian-g...](http://www.asymco.com/2013/06/27/preempting-the-praetorian-
guard/) [http://www.asymco.com/2013/06/27/the-critical-path-90-the-
pr...](http://www.asymco.com/2013/06/27/the-critical-path-90-the-praetorian-
guard/)

where he goes into a lot of detail about how functional organizational
structure might be relevant to innovation in a large company.

------
rdl
That whole memo seems like a parody of Microsoft -- it was pages long,
included less than one page of actual content (and even that was confusing),
was peppered with stock phrases (almost as bad as "our goals are to synergize
using our core competencies, involving all stakeholders at the table in a
comprehensive decision making process aimed at maximizing quality and
correctness...".

I kind of hate Microsoft even more after reading it, even though the changes
(were there any?) may be good.

------
codex
Mediocre CEOs have only three levers to pull: "acquire," "layoff," and
"reorg." Eventually Ballmer will pull all three levers in every order.

------
podperson
Seems to me like the emphasis is on XBox.

"Terry Myerson will lead this group, and it will span all our OS work for
console..."

Interesting, because I think XBox One (from One Microsoft) is a bit of a Hail
Mary. It's not clear to me that the "next console" is going to be that big a
deal. (My secret hope is that Apple has a really juicy Apple TV up its sleeve
with iOS dev support, etc., and is just waiting to announce it when it will do
the most good / damage.)

------
danbmil99
This sounds suspiciously like the beginnings of a death rattle.

What impressed me most about MS (worked with them around '97-2000) was that
the company was divided into small divisions that had very precisely defined
goals, and were able to operate somewhat autonomously (as long as they didn't
conflict with core MS goals).

Moving from a federated empire to a Soviet-style, run-from-the-top
dictatorship is not likely to end with much success.

------
jroseattle
How, exactly, does this top-level re-organization change what happens on the
ground, where products are built? I fail to see what an organizational change
does here that improves product creativity and collaboration across teams.

I can't imagine their chief problem was "if only our superiors had different
reporting structures, then we could get along with ABC team from 123 group."

~~~
Spooky23
I've lived that situation.

In dysfunctional organizations people are sometimes not allowed to talk across
org silos. It's horrific.

------
suprgeek
I have much respect for a certain Mr. Tatarinov, who might be forgiven for
dreaming about dotted lines all night long...From the Report

"Kirill Tatarinov will continue to run Dynamics as is, but his product leaders
will dotted line report to Qi Lu, his marketing leader will dotted line report
to Tami Reller and his sales leader will dotted line report to the COO group."

------
cykho
This is going to be a disaster. Managing teams that large (thousands) is near
impossible. Microsoft needs to become more fragmented with lower level P&L
accountability to really innovate. This is understandably difficult when
everything revolves around Windows and you have a shared salesforce. However,
imo this is the only way forward for Microsoft.

------
brador
What does 'dotted line report' mean?

~~~
kvb
See for instance
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_management](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_management).
Basically there's a solid line to your primary manager but a dotted line for
secondary relationships.

~~~
dman
I guess this is why you have to file multiple TPS reports?

------
Klaughton
I have to give MSFT some credit in this situation, for once. The acquisitions
of Yammer and Skype, and evolution of the Azure and Office 365 platforms, are
cornering the cloud collaboration market in the enterprise. MSFT has set a
clear strategy in the cloud collab market up and down the stack, and it's
paying off.

------
akoumjian
I wonder if this will make any tangible difference in hiring and the volumes
of contractors they have on payroll.

------
consultutah
Interesting that the guy that said, "Developers, developers, developers,
developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers,
developers, developers, developers, developers", didn't mention where the
developer tools end up in the re-org...

~~~
ethomson
It's easy to miss specific units when they enumerated so many of the
organizations of such a large company. We haven't really moved:

> Cloud and Enterprise Engineering Group. Satya Nadella will lead development
> of our back-end technologies like datacenter, database and our specific
> technologies for enterprise IT scenarios and _development tools_...

(Emphasis mine)

------
ChrisNorstrom
Something must be wrong at Microsoft...

Either A) Windows 8 is not selling very well. B) Windows Surface is being
ignored C) The Microsoft stores aren't doing too well either D) Windows phone
is dying or E) all of the above.

Anyway they can start by adding a left and right padding to their footer.

------
taopao
WHY are they keeping Lisa Brummel? MS' HR department is _notoriously_ bad at
recruitment and performance management. It's rotten at the core. I'm very
disappointed that they didn't use this opportunity to nip the problem in the
bud.

------
soupboy
"The frontier of high-value scenarios we enable will march outward, but we
have strengths and proven capabilities on which we will draw." What does that
even mean? The letter is filled with nonsense sentences like this.

------
ams6110
That heap of verbal diarrhea reads like any random enterprise reorganization
effort I've seen in the last 20 years.

What do failing, bloated organizations do when they have no other ideas?
Reorganize!!

------
azinman2
I was kind of hoping Ballmer leaving would be part of the reorg.

They seem quite lost, and this reorg a sign of desperation. Maybe Billy G
should take on Microsoft as part of his new charity arm.

------
Kurtz79
Pity that Dilbert's Automatic Mission Statement Generator is not online
anymore.

This is not bad :

[http://cmorse.org/missiongen/](http://cmorse.org/missiongen/)

------
NirDremer
A quick reminder of Ballmer being visionary:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywi0h_Y5_U](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywi0h_Y5_U)

------
shmerl
One thing won't change - they'll still remain complete jerks when it comes to
software patents, vendor lock in, closed standards and other junk like that.

------
znowi
"One Microsoft: Company realigns to enable _surveillance_ at greater speed,
efficiency"

------
JeremyMorgan
TL;DR:

We're firing a bunch of people, giving more new jobs and focusing on phones
and tablets finally.

------
chavesn
Can there be a "one more thing" where Ballmer retires, please?

------
sdfjkl
This memo would only have been relevant if it had come from a new CEO.

------
X4
Microsoft
[http://maxcdn.fooyoh.com/files/attach/images/3004/144/040/00...](http://maxcdn.fooyoh.com/files/attach/images/3004/144/040/008/lazyass.JPG)

------
teeja
Meet the new Snow White. Same as the old Snow White.

------
Macsenour
Did I miss something, what happened to games?

------
knodi
Lets if anything changes.

------
tmandarano
It's about time.

------
michaelochurch
What look like complex failures in organizations are often rooted in simple
causes. In Microsoft, it's stack-ranking and Enron-style (that is, visible in
transfer packet) performance reviews.

When you have stack-ranking, you never get harmonious teams and "all-star"
sub-organizations are out of the question. When performance reviews are part
of the transfer process, people become largely immobile and teams become
permanent camps and you get warring departments. Closed allocation, at that
scale, is cultural toxic sludge in general.

Simple causes. Simple fixes. Wordy say-nothing emails that inject political
_complexity_ , when simple solutions are available, are really not helpful.

~~~
kvb
This seems simplistic to me. Doesn't Valve, your favorite poster boy for open
allocation, also stack rank? There seem to be several sub-organizations at
Microsoft that are harmonious, at least to an outsider's view (e.g. Azure
since Scott Guthrie's involvement). As I understand it there's not too much
pressure to hit the stack ranking curve until you get up to the several-
hundred-report levels.

~~~
michaelochurch
Valve stack-ranking is for compensation only-- not a "fire the unluckiest X
percent" system. That can still be damaging, if low rank results in permanent
underclass status, but that's a human problem that I have no insight into as
it pertains to Valve.

I don't know enough about Valve to know how it works, or even if the culture
lives up to the press. So I'm not going to try to comment on that.

In general, though, stack-ranking is destructive even if no one gets fired. In
companies that use it, it becomes impossible to transfer without a top-10%
political success review (sorry, I mean "performance" review) history. But if
you're doing that well politically, then you don't _want_ to transfer because
it entails rolling the dice again. The result is that people become pretty
much immobile.

Closed allocation actually forces engineering ladders (with their attendant
negatives) into existence because unsuccessful/persecuted people can't move
and successful people won't move at all unless they can get a permanent
credibility bump (promotion). But that leads to an arrangement where managers
avoid promoting their best people because they know it might cause them to
transfer.

------
cheery
What did Ballmer actually state there? I barely could find any message from
that wall of nice words.

How the reorganization is going to differ from the earlier one?

------
xradionut
Looks like the Devices and Studios Engineering Group is doomed...

