

It's Time for Bill Gates to Come Back to Microsoft - hornokplease
http://gdgt.com/discuss/it-s-time-for-bill-gates-to-come-back-to-microsoft-dqz/

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TomOfTTB
The last thing Microsoft needs is Gates to come back.

Comparing Microsoft’s dilemma to Apple and Steve Jobs isn’t an accurate
comparison. Apple was almost out of business when Steve Jobs returned. When a
company is practically out of business you can do things you otherwise
wouldn’t be able to. Like destroy whole product lines (Newton), screw over
partners (all the MacOS licensees) and even toss out your main product (MacOS
in favor of OSX).

Microsoft is still profitable. They still have tons of customers. You
couldn’t, for example, replace Microsoft Windows with a whole new OS and get
away with it.

There is only one company in modern history that has grown to the size of
Microsoft, started failing and then come back to achieve greater glory. That
company is IBM.

If Microsoft is to succeed they need to find someone like Lou Gerstner (who
saved IBM). Gerstner succeeded not because he tried to return IBM to its
former glory but because he saw a value in the individual components of IBM
that no one had seen before. he saw that IBM could do everything technology
wise and realized that opened the door to a successful consulting business.

Microsoft needs that. Someone who can see the individual parts of Microsoft
and combine them in a way no one’s ever thought of before. Someone who
realizes the old vision isn’t working anymore and can move the company forward
without being bound to it. Because being bound to the past is exactly what’s
killing Microsoft right now and Gates is just as guilty of that as Ballmer is.

~~~
pedalpete
I don't read into this that the author is suggesting that Bill come back and
he would just scrap all the existing products. As you mention, Microsoft
doesn't need to scrap it's existing products.

But they do need a technologist at the helm, and that just isn't Ballmer's
world. Bill wanted tablets years go, so he made the Tablet PC. He saw the
future of online collaboration, and bought Groove Networks (which brought Ray
Ozzie as a side benefit). These were clever strategic moves done BEFORE
anybody else was really thinking in these terms. Balmer isn't able to be the
first mover because he doesn't have the vision.

~~~
tjogin
It's true that Bill Gates _saw_ the future very early on, although he never
managed to _make anything good_ in either tablets or the online
collaboration/synchronization space (especially the latter which Microsoft has
attacked time and time again without success, see Joel Spolsky:
<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000018.html>).

Bill Gates, clearly, is a phenomenal technologist, but while he has the vision
and "cluefulness" that Ballmer lacks, I'm not sure he is up to the task of
competing with Google and Apple today.

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blinkingled
Pundits, like people, want easy answers, sometimes to questions that are based
on pure perception.

Microsoft, based on all the facts, is doing just fine for a company of that
size and diversity. They pulled a great Win 7 release, they are doing great in
the Enterprise, doing great on the server, they missed out on the Mobile side
but are on the right track now with Mango and Nokia partnership. Kinect/Xbox
360 stuff is also looking great.

Sure there is not enough glitterati and magic in that anywhere, nor is Ballmer
charming but those are non-important things.

When Bill ran MSFT people hated them - it's easy to forget that. So if we are
talking mind share, even then it doesn't make sense to have Bill come back and
run it the way he did first time around.

So what do people want Microsoft to achieve - look and act like Apple? Have
more mind share? Stop doing uncool things like the Enterprise stuff? Or just
have $600 share value? Unless they define that, I think this is just pointless
blabber.

~~~
astrodust
If you think Microsoft "is doing great" with Windows 7 then it's people like
you that are dragging Microsoft down to an unprecedented level of irrelevancy.

It's not about magic, it's not about glitter, it's not even about wild P/E.
It's about using their massive base of resources to do something other than
crank out derivative products for existing markets and rest on their own
laurels.

Today's Microsoft has no idea how to innovate. Yesterday's Microsoft was
aggressive, produced new products that were competitive, and never shied away
from a fight no matter how bloody. They were the Lance Armstrong of their day,
always winning yet having people suspicious of their methods.

If they're not careful, Computer Associates will beat them at their own game.

~~~
blinkingled
They did Kinect - that's not innovation for you? They took very different
approach to Win Phone 7 - that's not innovation? And innovation doesn't have
to involve stupidity - there is no real reason to, for example, throw away
Windows and start over. At least not yet. And besides, that is not what makes
Microsoft tick - it's hard core engineering and execution that makes them
tick.

The problem is, innovation doesn't have a formula. The fascination with
"disruptive innovation" is admirable but building something no one has built
before, doing things better and different than anyone else has before,
creating new markets - these things are rare occurrences whose success depends
on lot of things - timing, market needs, technical advances, some visionary
having the right flash of vision that then is executed flawlessly etc. Point
is it's far from easy and I don't think you can count anyone out because they
haven't been disruptive for some time.

~~~
ericflo
Innovation does have a formula though: create very small passionate teams with
autonomy and proper incentives.

And then the trick is to resist the temptation to tamper with the team once
it's successful (e.g. don't do what they did here
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1870408>)

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nextparadigms
That depends. If he's going to have the same "Don't F&*% with Windows"
attitude like he used to have in the past, when people came to him with such
projects, then I doubt he'll do much better than Ballmer.

Microsoft needs to let innovation get out of their labs regardless if it has
to potential to kill Windows or not. The priority should be to make great
products with no restrictions. Did Steve Jobs get his employees to f$%^ off
when they came with the idea to make iOS that would potentially affect Mac
sales in the future? I don't think so.

The iPhone disrupts the iPod business, and the iPad disrupts the Macbook
business (though it's still too early to see the effects). Microsoft wouldn't
build anything that has the potential to disrupt Windows right now. That's why
they'd rather wait over 2 years since the iPad launched to use the real
Windows for tablets, instead of making a WP7 tablet version right away (which
would have to be about as cheap as WP7 for phones).

~~~
dman
Great points. btw <http://minimsft.blogspot.com/> is a great resource for
things that Microsoft should be doing. Ironically its written by someone who
works at Microsoft and several people from Microsoft participate in the
comments section.

~~~
chollida1
> btw <http://minimsft.blogspot.com/> is a great resource for things that
> Microsoft should be doing. Ironically its written by someone who works at
> Microsoft

I agree that minimsft is a great blog, but can you expand on how an employee
having an opinion on how Microsoft should run it's business is ironic?

Most of the premise of the blog is to have a smaller Microsoft, which is
almost a universally accepted opinion in the company.

~~~
dman
Well minimsft is one employee but his posts receive comments from many other
Microsoft employees. In my mind the irony is that people inside the company
seem to agree completely on what needs to be changed - incentives structure,
more risks, less political infighting and increased agility - however things
are still as they are.

~~~
contextfree
Those are all pretty abstract. Agreeing on a concrete solution, other than
e.g. "less political infighting ... achieved by giving my faction what it
wants and telling those other idiots to shut up!", is a lot harder.

The various points advanced in minimsft comments and elsewhere tend to be
mutually contradictory if you actually think about them. e.g. stop depending
too much on Windows/Office and focus on making totally new products even if
it's risky? or stop wasting time and money on anything not immediately
profitable and focus only on core strengths? I've seen both advocated on
minimsft quite a few times.

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martythemaniak
Gates shaped the PC industry, made a ton of money and left at pretty much the
top of his game. Why would he abandon his much more important (and I'm sure,
far more rewarding) current work to go and have another go at MS?

~~~
kenjackson
He won't. It makes no sense to. But he does need to find a new CEO. I nominate
Tim Cook. It would be a great chance for him to step out of Jobs' shadow. If
Cook stays at Apple its always Jobs' company, far after Jobs' death. If he can
turnaround MS, he becomes one of the giants in the history of the tech
industry, next to Jobs and Gates.

And note, Tim doesn't need the money. He'd be doing this to create his story.

~~~
protomyth
I am pretty sure the legal wrangling on that one would go on for years. Plus,
Tim Cook is pretty much running Apple.

~~~
kenjackson
The other problem with my theory is that it would be kind of jerkish for Tim
to leave with Jobs this sick. If Jobs were healthy it would be reasonable. But
with Jobs sick (or worse) I don't think he could jump ship to a competitor. Oh
well...

Sinofsky, Rudder, Guthrie, Elop. I think, in no particular order, are the four
that could take Ballmer's spot.

~~~
larsberg
Honestly, they don't need to take Ballmer's spot -- one of them should take
BillG's old spot before all that CEO nonsense. That is, the old Chief Software
Architect role, when he used to run around reviewing _every_ product both
creating a longer-term cohesive strategy for the software and instilling the
fear of instant group dismemberment if you were not thinking deeply enough.

While I personally like Guthrie, Rudder was a one-time personal technical
assistant to BillG. That was a role where he basically rode shotgun on a
couple years of BillG reviews. And that happened back in the 90s, when he
wasn't yet drifting off towards the sunset...

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darrenkopp
Seems to me forfeiting ~40 billion dollars wouldn't be a good move, and that's
what would happen if Bill went back to Microsoft. Warren Buffet gave the Bill
and Melinda Gates foundation billions of dollars on condition that Bill stop
working at Microsoft and start working full time for the foundation.

As much as I would like to see Bill back at Microsoft, I'd rather see him
doing the amazing work that he is currently doing with the Gates Foundation.

I would like to see Scott Guthrie become the new CEO and/or chief software
architect at Microsoft.

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crux_
To echo a common opinion, I think the world needs the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation more than it needs Microsoft.

~~~
lotusleaf1987
I really don't think it's a zero sum trade and I think their contributions to
society would be hard to compare. Microsoft although being a corporation, does
facilitate a lot of communication and business processes and make a lot of
things take less time than they once did. Also, I don't think the Foundation
would be possible without MSFT's existence.

~~~
dmix
Either way Microsoft is a well oiled machine that can survive without Gates
(at least for the next 10yrs or so). The charity is not a mature enterprise
that can run itself.

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runjake
I don't agree with the author regarding Gates, but I'd like to see the
Microsoft that fostered innovation and its engineers, again.

I'd like to see them truly embrace open standards and interoperability. They
no longer have the monopoly which made these unnecessary.

A Microsoft that truly embraces (without "extending") & implements truly open
standards is going to be a very potent beast.

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qq66
Tell that to all the blind kids with malaria he's working for now.

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HardyLeung
I admire Bill Gates but I think bringing him back is a bad idea. He's so much
more valuable being _outside_ of Microsoft.

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Apocryphon
My favorite comment:

"There aren't many people in the industry with the full gamut of experience,
wisdom, vision, financial insight, and guts for risky moves. Perhaps they
could offer the job to Woz? He might like the challenge of saving them."

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Hello_Nurse
If they want a true leader they need someone from the younger generation who
knows what our wants and needs are. A company that listens; that delivers a
useful product that doesn't disappoint. As I stare at my 360 rebooting, yet
again, I don't really see it happening anytime soon. We need a champion.

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orijing
Do people here generally think that Bill has been much more valuable to
society now that he's working at his Foundation? I think we need a visionary
leader with his fiery passion and dogged persistence to tackle some of the
biggest problems in the world: things like malaria, education, and energy.

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teyc
Bill Gates hired Ballmer because he needed a good COO, and Balmer was very
good at it. However, MS had a Yahoo sized problem. They needed big hits, and
this means they have to aim square at the middle, and not to the right of the
adoption curve.

Bill had tried being the chief architect thing but as the article alluded, the
problem isn't that MS hadn't enough people with vision, but their product
development/marketing pipeline is broken. They need a CEO with a fresh set of
eyes to fix this process.

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protomyth
Isn't there anyone left at Microsoft who could run the company? I know there
has been some serious house cleaning / fleeing, but isn't there someone who
could take over?

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dstein
I think they need to make some more drastic changes that that.

They need to break up the company, and have several new CEO's. All their cash
cows are tied to the personal computing industry, and it is coming to an end
faster than they can turn the ship around with all the Windows and Enterprise
baggage.

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JMiao
not sure you could classify the xbox effort as "scrappy." also, gates wanted
xbox to run full-blown windows.

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rmason
It's not going to happen but the guy makes a pretty compelling case.

The bigger question is when Ballmer's dismal record begins to exceed Gate's
loyalty to his friend. In the end the one who shows Ballmer the door will be
Gates.

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voidr
Or they could just boot Ballmer and find someone competent, I'm just saying...

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Apocryphon
What's Paul Allen up to nowadays?

~~~
hubb
being a patent troll

