

Memoranda (a contrast of Jobs's and Ballmer's styles) - mariorz
http://daringfireball.net/2008/08/memoranda

======
raganwald
_[Ballmer's] mockery of Google’s search as “a white page with 10 blue links”
indicates that he has no idea why Google has been so successful. I’d wager
that if anyone is ever going to gain on Google in search, it will be by
presenting even more focused results — less clutter, fewer distractions, more
emphasis on making the results easily scanned._

Hmmm, reminds me of something Paul was saying the other day about ideas he'd
like to fund...

~~~
aneesh
Take a look at Kosmix.com

Ignoring relevance for a sec, which display of results looks better? Kosmix by
a mile. I think that's what Ballmer means when he says he wants to move beyond
10 blue links. Amidst the aura of "FAIL", one nice thing Cuil had was that you
didn't really need to scroll down to see all the results. There's room to beat
Google in displaying results better, and that's what Kosmix, PG, and Ballmer
are all trying to do, each in their own way.

I don't think the company that beats Google will do it by "out-Googling" them.

~~~
prospero
The home page linked me to <http://www.kosmix.com/topic/In-N-Out> as a sample
search.

Is that really superior? If I were in middle school, doing a research paper on
In-N-Out, I could see the appeal. It seems fairly humming with information.
Certainly it feels like it could fill a poster board.

Mostly, it seems to be trying to anticipate my _next_ search related to In-N-
Out. Did I really mean "In-N-Out videos"? Did I mean "where's the nearest In-
N-Out"? Did I mean "what does 'animal style' actually mean?"

But really, if I had wanted any of those things, wouldn't I have used those as
my search terms? As it stands, I find the page a little confusing; I don't
know where to look amidst all that second-guessing.

------
gaborcselle
There's a big difference between the two memos. Jobs' email is "guys, we
messed up, let's learn from it". Ballmer's email is to fire up the troops.

I think the different purposes of the two memos explain the difference in
styles. It's not a function of the two's personalities.

------
hhm
"which means Microsoft had more revenue and nearly twice the net profit of
Apple and Google combined"

Wow, I thought Google was having more profit than Microsoft already. Why is
everyone pointing Microsoft as dead and Google as the leader then? At least
it's not the case yet.

~~~
allenbrunson
nobody is saying microsoft is dead. but their peak is almost certainly behind
them. they've already lost their leadership role, and their actions as of late
have convinced most of us that they have nowhere to go but down.

they are well on their way to duplicating ibm's progression into a profitable
but not terribly newsworthy tech company.

