Gates era coming to an end...

[Prrkitty]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,291777,00.html

Well... seems Gates is due to relenquish any and all control of Microsoft sometime next year. He's gonna become a philanthropist.

I honestly wonder if he can be happy letting go of "his baby"?

[AtmaWeapon]

What, when response to the newer programming models is excitement over new features mixed with confusion over why they are needed and the release of the latest version of Windows did nothing but increase sales of the previous version?

I believe he will be quite happy to let someone else take over at this point.

It's not a really big surprise, the man has aged in the past few years and I've heard rumors to this effect for a while. What Microsoft needs is a young guy, basically the equivalent of Gates when the company was founded. Windows needs some serious innovation and that takes someone who is not afraid to take big risks. Instead, what it's going to get is an old guy businessman that will continue to drive feature-tweak upgrades of Windows that do little more than increase hardware requirements. The worst thing that can happen to a software company is for it to be successful.

[Beldaran]

I don't think Gates has been running the company for quite a while. A number of years ago he handed the company off to Steve Ballmer and then hired himself as "Technology Director", which basically meant he hung out in R&D labs and played with new toys. My understanding of this matter may be incorrect, but that's just what I vaguely remember.


The worst thing that can happen to a software company is for it to be successful.

Well, I obviously have to disagree. The worst thing that can happen to a software company is for it to never have any customers and go out of business immediately. The problem with great success though is that it motivates CEO's to expand way out of their area of expertise, and once the company goes public there is an unceasing pressure to grow at all costs... so the company just continues to inflate like a balloon until it either explodes from internal pressure or just collapses under its own immobile weight.

Either that or it digs itself into a comfortable trench and just gets morbidly obese and unable to keep up with smaller, more agile companies. It doesn't die or even shrink precisely, but it is no longer growing.

[Verman]

Everyone eventually retires. Probably alot of headaches to run microsoft with the lawsuits and everything else (xbox red ring). Even gates would get bored you would think. I wouldn't leave somewhere hot or a nice big yaht.

[The_Amaster]

Dang, when I read this title I had hoped that Microsoft itself was in trouble. See, I respect Gates for what he did, it's just his company I have problems with.
It's nice to know that he knows when to quit, when MS needs new blood.

[Prrkitty]

Dang, when I read this title I had hoped that Microsoft itself was in trouble. See, I respect Gates for what he did, it's just his company I have problems with.
It's nice to know that he knows when to quit, when MS needs new blood.

But MS ISN'T getting any new blood... the old blood is just shifting around.

I'm not sure I ever respected Gates (after seeing a few of the movies out about how Apple and MS got started). Didn't they all just shaft each other to build their own companies? Especially Gates over Jobs? (I REALLY wish my memory was better then it is)... <blah>

[biggiy05]

Didn't they all just shaft each other to build their own companies? Especially Gates over Jobs? (I REALLY wish my memory was better then it is)... <blah>

Basically.

That's what companies in America do these days and over seas. Drop the ball on one and cut them out until someone bigger comes to the table and pushes someone else out of the way.

[Mitsukara]

I don't mean to be closed-minded, but I pretty much never really trust- unless given a DAMN good reason to- successful politicians or successful business owners.

Capitalism is a harsh system of every-man-for-himself where the only way to get ahead is to be completely obsessed, lucky, and willing to fuck over anyone and everyone that will inevitably be in your way, like a barbaric game of king of the mountain only the players are guys in suits bossing around lackeys in suits instead of neanderthauls with big throwing rocks bossing around lackey neandethauls.

That said I'm glad he's apparently spending his private fortunes on philanthropic pursuits, at least.

As for Microsoft, bah. Companies suck, unless they're someone cool like Nintendo or maybe Konami or Sega. Big companies sometimes make good products/platforms for other developers, but...

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[Trevelyan_06]

Really, Gates is just planning to do what all the other robber barons on the late 19th and early 20th centuries did. He wants to try to make up for all the unsavory things he did while he was building his empire so now he's going to be a "philanthropist".

There's nothing quite like attempting to make up for all the unethical and mean spirited things you've done over the years by giving some money to charity.

[Pineconn]

The worst thing that can happen to a software company is for it to be successful.


Well, I obviously have to disagree. The worst thing that can happen to a software company is for it to never have any customers and go out of business immediately.

Actually, I have to agree to Atma's statement. If a company is so successful and they nearly monopolize their market, they will have no reason to be innovative and create newer technology. Look at Internet Explorer. For the longest time Microsoft produced IE 6.0, until Opera and other web browsers came along. Then, Microsoft had no choice but to improve on it, so then came IE 7.0.

Obviously, I also agree that if a company is not successful at all, then it will die. ;)

[Beldaran]

I admire successful businessmen and I think it's highly ignorant and hypocritical to just dismiss them as "greedy" and "distasteful". If it wasn't for business and capitalism, we would be living in squalor.

Capitalism is just the mutually beneficial exchange of value between parties. It is the only moral way to accomplish anything. Anything else is some form of robbery.

[AtmaWeapon]

Beldaran everyone has a different viewpoint of "worst" and I was mainly speaking of it as an artist speaks of art. I do agree that going bankrupt is a no-brainer bad situation, but I think you miss a point.

When Vista crunch time was approaching I'd stumble from dev blog to dev blog, reading what I could in an attempt to get an idea of how the company worked internally. It is my opinion that they are locked into maintaining a codebase that was designed using software engineering techniques that have been vastly improved since they were made. However, Microsoft has no choice but to support these mistakes because if they were to make breaking changes to the Windows API there would be plenty of disasters, both for them and their customers.

When you stroll through the Windows API you tend to notice oddities and things that don't make any sense. Some of them end up on The Old New Thing (http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/) and once you understand why they are made the way they are it makes a little more sense. Often, it turns out to be a backwards compatibility issue where a VIP customer hoodwinked MS into not fixing a bug for their advantage.

The OS could benefit greatly from a renewed codebase, written from scratch with a very strict and inflexible feature specification and, most importantly, no release schedule until a significant number of milestones are reached. Unfortunately, chairmen of the board and stockholders don't like to try and figure out the earnings forecast in the face of "Hey guys we plan on scrapping our 10-year plan and dropping support for all current versions of Windows within 5 years. We are going to work on a completely new version that will be, at best, only partially compatible with previous versions."

It is what the OS needs, it is what the consumer needs. However, it is not what the stockholders need and therefore we will continue to be disappointed as the exciting features are dropped, one by one, as the release date of the new product moves farther and farther away.

No, I still believe the worst thing that can happen to a company is for it to be successful. Investors demand percentage increases, and the bigger you get the harder it is to meet that quota.

[Beldaran]

B
No, I still believe the worst thing that can happen to a company is for it to be successful. Investors demand percentage increases, and the bigger you get the harder it is to meet that quota.

I still disagree, I think. It sounds like the worst thing that can happen for a product (windows) is for its manufacturer (Microsoft) to become successful. Becoming successful is good for a company by the very definition of "successful", otherwise "making lots of money" would be renamed to "wasting time".

I completely agree that products and services suffer horribly because of the wishes of stockholders, which is why I do not trust public companies at all. However, there are many great software companies (and companies in general) that are still private, and I don't think you can make the case that being successful is bad for them, because it just means they are making lots of money.

[AtmaWeapon]

I'll agree with that argument, making any statements against it would be nitpicking and silly since it's well-reasoned. I worded what I meant to say wrong I guess :)

[vegeta1215]

I am not a fan of Microsoft, but they have done a lot of good work. At this point though I think they need to task some risks with Windows, as Atma said. Their biggest strength is their legacy in terms of application compatibility, but it is also their biggest hurdle in taking the next big step.

Apple was pretty smart in how it migrated to OS X - having the Classic 9 environment for backwards compatibility while shifting over to OS X. And I feel confident in saying no one's ever going to look back. I would think MS would have to do something similar eventually.