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[Tron 2.0]

It's because they aren't exciting and their big consumer pushes fall flat on their faces. The least profitable division at MS (other than Online Sevices, which runs at a relatively small loss) is the most public facing one, unfortunately for them.

Apple is going to bring in over 100 billion this year and has quarterly revenue growth of 83 percent and profit growth of 95 percent.

That is why the price of MS stock is stagnant: the company isn't growing or becoming more profitable. They seem to have plateau'ed.

Right. I understand why the stock is stagnant.

I guess I'm trying to say that I bet Ballmer is pissed because he doesn't know what else he can do.

 

[Oreoleo]

Ten years ago the stock was trading at ~$35. Yesterday it closed at $24.19.

Is that what those charts are showing? It doesn't really look that bad, but maybe that's just cause of the scale of the Y axis.

 

[Blackface]

Microsoft is in for some tough times. It's strange even when 360 is doing great and Windows 7 is a hit.

Looking at the Balmer Vs Gates comparison, makes me wonder what is groing to happen to Apple when Jobs is gone.

 

[Monocle]

What about the poor developers?

Developers!

 

[Tron 2.0]

Is that what those charts are showing? It doesn't really look that bad, but maybe that's just cause of the scale of the Y axis.

Yeah, it's hard to read the finer points.

 

[Oreoleo]

Yeah, it's hard to read the finer points.

Cool, thanks for answering.

 

[Deadly Joker]

What about Don Mattrick?

 

[Hellsing321]

Microsoft is in for some tough times. It's strange even when 360 is doing great and Windows 7 is a hit.

Looking at the Balmer Vs Gates comparison, makes me wonder what is groing to happen to Apple when Jobs is gone.

Thats when they boot up iJobs.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

Why do people say this? His division only has operated with a profit for the last few years, and even then it is a comparitively small one. I think a head of a larger division like Windows would be much better. Windows 7 was probably the biggest ad and consumer mindshare push Microsoft has done for an OS since 95 and it turned out really well for them in both positive mindshare and money.

I think people (gamers) mention his name because his vision really did change the landscape of gaming. Imagine what online play would have been like without the 360. He and his team thought of things that the competition has yet to equal even 5 years post-launch. The products that his team put out had style AND substance...and some of them probably would have done much better had the bureaucracy at the top not been so slow to committing them to purpose.

I wouldn't presume that this would translate to success for a primarily business-centric company like Microsoft. After all, you're never going to fire up a crowd to see evolutionary upgrades to Microsoft Office. But I think he would have breathed new life into any hardware ventures MS sought to engage, at minimum. Software...I don't know.

Is that what those charts are showing? It doesn't really look that bad, but maybe that's just cause of the scale of the Y axis.

It's showing stagnation. Something investors would not be happy about.

 

[xbhaskarx]

What about Don Mattrick?

smug grin dot gif

 

[Tron 2.0]

What about Don Mattrick?

Oh, god. Could you imagine?

 

[wenis]

I'll take the job!

 

[nubbe]

What about the poor developers?

They just crunch code... fuck em

 

[Shalashaska]

Cool, thanks for answering.

Don't forget about inflation as well, a lower stock price plus your money being worth less.

 

[Dr. Malik]

Oh, god. Could you imagine?

 

[notworksafe]

I think people (gamers) mention his name because his vision really did change the landscape of gaming. Imagine what online play would have been like without the 360. He and his team thought of things that the competition has yet to equal even 5 years post-launch. The products that his team put out had style AND substance...and some of them probably would have done much better had the bureaucracy at the top not been so slow to committing them to purpose.

I wouldn't presume that this would translate to success for a primarily business-centric company like Microsoft. After all, you're never going to fire up a crowd to see evolutionary upgrades to Microsoft Office. But I think he would have breathed new life into any hardware ventures MS sought to engage, at minimum. Software...I don't know.

To be fair, his competition sucked. Sony botched their launch quite badly and Nintendo never had a chance of competing in the online space. I mean, his next project was Zune and it didn't fair quite as well again competition from Apple.

I think a replacement has to be someone that knows more about the company's strengths while still being a innovative thinker. That's why I think the head of Windows is a much better call. But then I'm still not convinced that Entertainment and Devices is the future of Microsoft.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

To be fair, his competition sucked. Sony botched their launch quite badly and Nintendo never had a chance of competing in the online space. I mean, his next project was Zune and it didn't fair quite as well again competition from Apple.

I think a replacement has to be someone that knows more about the company's strengths while still being a innovative thinker. That's why I think the head of Windows is a much better call.

I hear you. But to be totally fair, no product was going to surpass the iPod, despite MS fans' suggestions to the contrary. Zune came on the scene 6 years too late. It was a better try than most competitors made. idk.

But I agree on your requirements for a replacement.

And lord, let him have stage presence.

 

[notworksafe]

Gates never had stage presence, so I don't know if that's even a real requirement for a company like Microsoft.

EDIT: I guess a better way to put it is that a nerdy types works well for Microsoft. Let the VPs be the "cool guys", or at least the Entertainment and Devices VP (or maybe put a new person in that made up title Allard had....CXO?)

 

[LQX]

Why did Gates retire? Maybe he will come back into the fold. He is still a young guy and it as always came off crazy to me he walked away.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

Gates never had stage presence, so I don't know if that's even a real requirement for a company like Microsoft.

Gates never needed it because stage presentations didn't really become the "in" thing to do to introduce products to consumers until Gates time was pretty much over. Sure there were conferences and conventions for programmers...but they weren't watched all over the world until this century.

Why did Gates retire? Maybe he will come back into the fold. He is still a young guy and it as always came off crazy to me he walked away.

he's doing much better things with his life.

 

[HooYaH]

I nominate Gabe Newell.

 

[rezuth]

Ballmer is really terrible imo, he has no vision.

He took five years to come up with an answer to the iPod, four years for the iPhone (after initially laughing at it), it looks like Microsoft will be years late to the tablet market too... For a company with the resources of Microsoft (both manpower and money) there is no excuse for them to be so late to the market every time. Microsoft spends $9.5 billion on R&D each year and what do they have to show for it?

J Allard would've been a good replacement IMO but he left the company last year.

MS has some of the worst R&D among tech companies, not only do they spend the most but they got the least to show for it since Ballmer refuses to take chances.

 

[UltimaKilo]

He's honestly not that bad. Microsoft has been doing well and a shake-up right now can be risky with Apple's ridiculous growth.

I ask you Microsoft people, why the hell does Microsoft put out another version of Windows so often these days? Windows 8 is almost out and Windows 7 seems to only now be catching steam. Why not just work on 7?

 

[Hanmik]

so he is going to loose something else on top of his head..?

 

[MCD]

Steven Sinofsky for president.

Otherwise, don't bother, good old Ballmer is good enough.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

He's honestly not that bad. Microsoft has been doing well and a shake-up right now can be risky with Apple's ridiculous growth.

I ask you Microsoft people, why the hell does Microsoft put out another version of Windows so often these days? Windows 8 is almost out and Windows 7 seems to only now be catching steam. Why not just work on 7?

http://www.iphonewzealand.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/a-young-steve-jobs.jpg[/IG][/QUOTE]
They need an OS that can run on ARM and that is flexible enough to put on tablets.

Windows 7 is not that OS.

 

[Slavik81]

Pardon the ignorance but how is that even possible? Judging the graphs everyone is posting, wouldn't it still be about 100k?

On that scale, each doubling in price is of equal size. Look at the distance between 20 and 40. That represents doubling the stock price. We'll call that distance on the graph one unit.

A drop to 70% can be viewed backwards as a rise by 40%. That's a little easier to do math with, since a rise by 100% is one full unit. So, movement of less than half a unit downwards is equal to a drop to ~70% its former value.

Logarithms!


EDIT: Of course, I don't quite understand how the graph reaches zero. Logarithmic graphs get wonky around on the range of 0 to 1...

 

[notworksafe]

I ask you Microsoft people, why the hell does Microsoft put out another version of Windows so often these days? Windows 8 is almost out and Windows 7 seems to only now be catching steam. Why not just work on 7?

OS's update somewhat often. Windows right now is on 2-3 year cycle for releases just like it was with 95/98/ME/2000/XP. The long break between XP and Vista was actually unusual for Microsoft. Windows 8 is going to be an "everything" OS. Tablets, phones, computers, servers, everything. Windows 7 wasn't made with operating on all those devices in mind.

Apple is on a similar schedule with OS X. Every 2-3 years there's a new one out there.

 

[outunderthestars]

MS has some of the worst R&D among tech companies, not only do they spend the most but they got the least to show for it since Ballmer refuses to take chances.

I used to build custom bicycles for alot of the MS people. What I would hear time and time again is that they had too many different teams all working on somewhat similar products. People wouldn't share information or ideas out of fear of being passed over by a rival team lead. There was no person creating a singular vision for how everything was going to work together. that also led to MS changing direction at an almost absurd frequency.

At one point in time MS had different media playing software on their phone os, pc os, mp3 player, and videogame console. This software came from different teams and was developed and maintained with little to no sharing of code.

Microsoft is the GM of technology. Too big to do anything quickly, too fragmented to do anything together, and too cowardly to commit to innovation.

 

[ReturnOfTheRAT]

FIRE HIM, FIRE HIM, FIRE HIM

It's time, enough is enough.

 

[foodtaster]

Microsoft's New CEO

 

[MechDX]

Maybe the can hire Bobby Kotick.

 

[SlipperySlope]

Gates made mistakes as well. Software under his reign often wasn't cream of the crop. Microsoft Bob, WTF was that? Then you had things like Internet Explorer which is a disaster of a program (and it was late as well). Windows ME was developed under him. Worst OS ever.

In fact, every "consumer" version of Windows sucked balls, yes, even 98. It wasn't until they dropped the consumer version and replaced it with NT in Windows XP that things finally became stable.

So yeah, Gates has had his blemishes. Where he seems to excel though is how to gobble up market share. He just knew how to conquer a market, even ones that were already occupied by another company. So he could come a few years late and still become champion. IE's victory over Netscape. Excel over Lotus 123. Word over, I forget, wordperfect? Heck, Windows over Mac.

He turned each of these late comers into total or near monopolies.

It's for this reason IMO that Gates should come back as CEO. In fact, if he came back tomorrow, I'd buy Microsoft stock the same day.

 

[notworksafe]

It's for this reason IMO that Gates should come back as CEO.

Realistically, this will never happen.

 

[kame-sennin]

I am not a Ballmer fan by any definition, but he has to be annoyed that the company is making as much money as it is and the stock is trading so low.

Unfortunately, that's not the way the stock market works. Being profitable, or even making gobs of money is not enough to make your stock rise. Only growth will increase the stock price of a company. And that's Ballmer's main problem, he hasn't come up with new growth businesses now that Windows/Office has reached the maturation phase of its life cycle.

 

[BothBarsOn]

I can't believe it's taken this long for pundits to start saying this out loud. The word for MS under Ballmer is "lumbering".

 

[reptilescorpio]

Also, I can't believe how much they paid for Skype.

Obviously the investors can't either. About time they stepped up and decided to stop losing money and ground to everyone. Thankfully they waited until the 360 turned around so I doubt it would be at risk now. If anything they may look to bring back some more internal studios. Going to be exciting to see what moves they make to take back the crown.

 

[WrenchNinja]

Wow, I was just listening to the Tested podcast and they were talking about this saying that it would never happen since he's Bill's man. Whoa.

 

[bigtroyjon]

I am not a Ballmer fan by any definition, but he has to be annoyed that the company is making as much money as it is and the stock is trading so low.

He's making about 250 million a year just in dividends from his stock. I don't think he is too worried about the price.

 

[To Far Away Times]

I don't think Bill Gates would ever come back to Microsoft. He's made his billions, and I think he'd rather be remembered for his charitable work than for MS to be honest.

Balmer really should step down. Microsoft has squandered so many opportunities in the last decade.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

He's making about 250 million a year just in dividends from his stock. I don't think he is too worried about the price.

:-O

 

[Plasmid]

Einhorn is stuck in the future.

 

[jambo]

It's for this reason IMO that Gates should come back as CEO. In fact, if he came back tomorrow, I'd buy Microsoft stock the same day.

He's off ridding the world of Malaria and other such glorious things.. I wouldn't want him to step down from something so noble to run a software company.

 

[SlipperySlope]

I'll add one more to the Gates market take over. Visual Studio over Borland. As far as revenue goes, it's still the monopoly I believe. At least in the non-Enterprise arena.

 

[Tron 2.0]

Unfortunately, that's not the way the stock market works. Being profitable, or even making gobs of money is not enough to make your stock rise. Only growth will increase the stock price of a company. And that's Ballmer's main problem, he hasn't come up with new growth businesses now that Windows/Office has reached the maturation phase of its life cycle.

I understand, I understand.

I didn't make my point well, obviously.

All I'm trying to say is Ballmer and his supporters are going to say: "Hey, we're making record profits! The stock shouldn't be so deflated!"

He's making about 250 million a year just in dividends from his stock. I don't think he is too worried about the price.

Well then he's the worst CEO in the world.

Of course he's worried about the stock price! Especially if he loses his job over it.

 

[dc89]

If he leaves does that mean that I can finally buy this?

"How are we going to communicate with this, we don't want to carry around a mouse right? So what are we going to do? Oh a stylus right? We're going to use a stylus... NO. Who wants a stylus? You have to get them and put them away and you lose them, yuck. Nobody wants a stylus."

Steve Jobs, MacWorld 2007.

 

[linsivvi]

sorry, I meant/was thinking about hardware. Keyboards, mice, webcams, Zune, Kin, WinMo, WinPhone7, etc. No really successful hardware products outside of the 360.

Hardware, yes. But Microsoft has never been a hardware giant even during their best days.

Of course, the game has now changed since mobile OS are usually tied-in with hardware. And without good hardware, they are losing out on that market big time.

But what you are talking about is the consumer market. Like IBM, the B2B market is very important and profitable for Microsoft. Microsoft is very dominant in server tech, development tools, etc. IBM survived because they have mostly ditched the consumer market and transformed themselves into the largest IT consulting business in the world. It is a very high profit margin business compared to the consumer sector.

So I'm not sure hiring a hardware guy as the CEO is really that good of an idea.

 

[Xun]

Good.

Microsoft needs a huge overhaul.

 

[Korey]

I used to build custom bicycles for alot of the MS people. What I would hear time and time again is that they had too many different teams all working on somewhat similar products. People wouldn't share information or ideas out of fear of being passed over by a rival team lead. There was no person creating a singular vision for how everything was going to work together. that also led to MS changing direction at an almost absurd frequency.

At one point in time MS had different media playing software on their phone os, pc os, mp3 player, and videogame console. This software came from different teams and was developed and maintained with little to no sharing of code.

Microsoft is the GM of technology. Too big to do anything quickly, too fragmented to do anything together, and too cowardly to commit to innovation.

ie the Kin.

 

[Enkidu]

"How are we going to communicate with this, we don't want to carry around a mouse right? So what are we going to do? Oh a stylus right? We're going to use a stylus... NO. Who wants a stylus? You have to get them and put them away and you lose them, yuck. Nobody wants a stylus."

Steve Jobs, MacWorld 2007.

Completely different case here though. A stylus is great for things that a pen is great at, such as taking notes or drawing a diagram or something. Personally, I'd be very interested in a Courier and so far I've got zero interest in an iPad. The iPhone is different because it needs to be small and portable and fit in your pocket. You don't want to fiddle with a stylus just to make a phone call.