Microsoft To Unveil Major Restructuring Thursday

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Raise your hand if you think Microsoft is just going to shuffle a few execs and call it a day.

According to numerous sources close to the situation, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is poised to unveil his plan to drastically restructure the tech giant this week. And, while timing might change, sources said that the current plan is to make it public on Thursday.
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If Steve Balmer shuffled himself out of the company the stock would pop the same day.
 
I just think its funny that the Ribbon Lady is going to end up running both Windows and Xbox

If they ever decide to give her DevDiv then I will quit Microsoft
 
Someone is getting fired. There is no way that they are just going to Shuffle execs around if one division isn't pulling it weight. I smell a consolidation under certain people more than moving them around.
 
Given the fiasco of the last year, I dont hold a hope that this will be positive for the consumer.
 
the only thing that save Microsoft is balmer steeping down so the gates resumes his role as supreme overlord. hey i can hope cant i
 
The only beneficial restructuring that Microsoft can do is Balmer submitting his letter of resignation.
 
lol @ wannabe apple.

Yo Ballmer: MS is not perceived as cool and you're not helping change that.
 
Give us what we want. Not what you want us to want.

We'll want you for it.
 
Seventyfive said:
If Steve Balmer shuffled himself out of the company the stock would pop the same day.
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maxius said:
the only thing that save Microsoft is balmer steeping down so the gates resumes his role as supreme overlord. hey i can hope cant i
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bigdogchris said:
The only beneficial restructuring that Microsoft can do is Balmer submitting his letter of resignation.
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pxc said:
lol @ wannabe apple.

Yo Ballmer: MS is not perceived as cool and you're not helping change that.
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pretty much this.

Ballmer is the worst thing to happen to microsoft.
 
Bamboo said:
Give us what we want. Not what you want us to want.

We'll want you for it.
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Depends, if they could actually come up with something truly visionary then that is the wrong approach ... remember the famous quote from Henry Ford, "If I'd asked my customers what they wanted they would have said a faster horse" ;)

That said, MS really needs to rattle some cages to get more innovation out of their team ... the new XBox was innovative in some of its features (whether that aligns with a successful gaming platform remains to be seen) but poorly handled in its presentation ... the Surface was extremely innovative in its premise but poorly executed and marketed

There are still tons of opportunities in the mobile space and in home automation ... a good reorg could give MS a shot at being competitive ... a bad reorg could send them into the doldrums for years (cough cough "Apple in the 90's" cough cough) :cool:
 
So if Microsoft were to get a tech visionary CEO, what should be the first thing he or she does?
 
Based on the comments in this thread, you'd think MS was close to shutting its doors and crumbling.
 
I don't know what a new tech visionary CEO would do, otherwise I'd be getting paid the millions.

What I do know is that Ballmer has made a mess of the company and this past year was a disaster. Other senior execs have been leaving the company in droves lately, which makes me think that it has just become a Ballmer sycophant echo chamber at the top.
 
LeninGHOLA said:
Based on the comments in this thread, you'd think MS was close to shutting its doors and crumbling.
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I don't think there is any danger of that, MS still owns the enterprise market and no one else is close. Where they do seem to be in increasing danger is losing the consumer market and pissing off the small tech people that have always been their biggest supports. They are trying to eek every cent possible out of xbox and windows via data mining and advertising, which hasn't gotten really out of control. The 360 is more of an advertising platform than a gaming platform now and the XBO is looking even worse for that. Adding adds to Windows search seems to be another braindead move to grab a few more bucks.

I could go on, but seriously I can't really say anything positive about their direction lately and I've pretty much been a lifelong MS fanboy.
 
LeninGHOLA said:
Based on the comments in this thread, you'd think MS was close to shutting its doors and crumbling.
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Windows 7 will be another XP.

Windows 8 will NEVER be in an enterprise workstation. Vista was 7 with a few hiccups. 8 is something else.

Xbox one, has lost a lot of peer support from its customers because of how it was presented. It will pull another xbox 360, and be strong in the states while being underwhelming in the rest of the world.

Office has gone to a "subscription" based model, they want you to pay yearly for something, while begrudgingly selling you a standard edition.


I seriously doubt businesses will want to move past 7, and if microsoft ends support for 7 without releasing another down to earth system, i'm pretty sure businesses will look elsewhere to provide for them what microsoft wont.

Can you remember when XP was released? nobody want to move to it. it wasn't until sp3 that it was even useable. and now 12? years after its released my government is about to roll out 7 for the first time.

Microsoft may not be having fire sales, but the future isn't as bright as you might be painting either
 
darkpaw said:
Adding adds to Windows search seems to be another braindead move to grab a few more bucks.
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I think sometimes that some don't want so much a visionary as a return to the good old days. There's been a lot of talk about the optional integrated search in Windows 8.1 and having used it constantly for the last two weeks there's a great deal of misinformation about it. This notion that it's flooded with ads is pretty silly from my perspective given that the there are no ads but search related ad links and then almost always in the context of doing a commercial search like on a company or product name. There there's the slick integration to other services like the Search Hero provides for musicians and the integration with Xbox music.

I understand that some have privacy issues and integrating local and web search, but what is a driving force behind consumer computing today? Local file search or web search with tight integration between services, apps and the cloud? We can debate about the defaults and the options but there's NO CHOICE but to have these connected capabilities on the PC and have it remain a relevant consumer platform.
 
heatlesssun said:
So if Microsoft were to get a tech visionary CEO, what should be the first thing he or she does?
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Make Visual Studio a free product on a continuous release cycle. I couldn't care less about the Team Foundation products being free, and there are valid reasons to charge a fair bit a of money for an MSDN account, but the days of charging thousands of dollars for products to develop software for Microsoft's own platforms really need to end.

The cost of entry to developing for Microsoft platforms at the highest end needs to be zero. If you give developers your best tools at no cost, they're going to make investments elsewhere that have the potential to more strongly benefit their customers (investing in, say, additional static analysis tools or additional test platforms). Microsoft's shortsightedness in this regard only hurts the third-party software ecosystem they need to improve.
 
heatlesssun said:
I think sometimes that some don't want so much a visionary as a return to the good old days.
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Uggg. That argument is crap. If you dislike a change, that doesn't mean you want a return to the good old days. It could mean that the change sucks. Things don't always change for the better. It's not because people want a return to the good old days, they just don't like the changes that have been made.

New Coke sucks? Nah, you just want a return to the good old days. It couldn't be that New Coke was just shit.
 
SomeoneElse said:
Someone is getting fired. There is no way that they are just going to Shuffle execs around if one division isn't pulling it weight.
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Which divisions aren't pulling their weight though? Microsoft's last quarterly earnings saw sharp rises across the board, $20B+ quarterly earnings and $6B+ in profit. So, unless there is some huge bomb in earnings for this quarter....

PR we posted in April:

REDMOND, Wash. - Apr. 18, 2013 - Microsoft Corp. today announced quarterly revenue of $20.49 billion for the quarter ended March 31, 2013. Operating income, net income, and diluted earnings per share for the quarter were $7.61 billion, $6.06 billion, and $0.72 per share.

These financial results reflect the net recognition of revenue related to the Windows Upgrade Offer, Office Upgrade Offer and Pre-Sales, and the Entertainment and Devices Division Video Game Deferral, partially offset by the European Commission fine. The following table reconciles these financial results reported in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) to non-GAAP financial results. We have provided this non-GAAP financial information to aid investors in better understanding the company's performance.

"The bold bets we made on cloud services are paying off as people increasingly choose Microsoft services including Office 365, Windows Azure, Xbox LIVE, and Skype," said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer at Microsoft. "While there is still work to do, we are optimistic that the bets we've made on Windows devices position us well for the long-term."

The Microsoft Business Division posted $6.32 billion of revenue, an 8% increase from the prior year period. Adjusting for the net recognition of revenue related to the Office Upgrade Offer and Pre-Sales, Microsoft Business Division non-GAAP revenue increased 5%. During the quarter, we launched the new Office, enhancing productivity and the user experience through new mobility, social, and cloud features.

The Server & Tools business reported $5.04 billion of revenue, an 11% increase from the prior year period, driven by double-digit percentage revenue growth in SQL Server and System Center.

"Our enterprise business continues to thrive," said Kevin Turner, chief operating officer at Microsoft. "Enterprise customers are increasingly turning to Microsoft for their IT solutions and as a result, we continue to take share from our competitors in key areas including hybrid cloud, data platform, and virtualization."

The Windows Division posted revenue of $5.70 billion, a 23% increase from the prior year period. Adjusting for the recognition of revenue related to the Windows Upgrade Offer, Windows Division non-GAAP revenue was flat. During the quarter, we added to the Surface family of devices with Surface Pro.

The Online Services Division reported revenue of $832 million, an 18% increase from the prior year period. Online advertising revenue grew 22% driven by an increase in revenue per search.

The Entertainment and Devices Division posted revenue of $2.53 billion, an increase of 56% from the prior year period. Adjusting for the recognition of revenue related to the Video Game Deferral, the division's non-GAAP revenue increased 33% for the third quarter. Xbox LIVE now has over 46 million members worldwide, an 18% increase from the prior year period.
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Ur_Mom said:
New Coke sucks? Nah, you just want a return to the good old days. It couldn't be that New Coke was just shit.
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The analogy is somewhat poor, as New Coke wasn't actually a bad product. In fact, in taste tests, it was generally preferred to the original formula. It was Coca-Cola's poor marketing campaign that led to significant backlash and consumer desire for the return of the original formula.

In a sense, a very vocal minority of consumers wanted Coke to return to the "good old days" of the old formula. Which is what happened with Coca-Cola Classic.

Note that this isn't in any way an endorsement of Microsoft nor should it be construed in any way to be.
 
wonderfield said:
The analogy is somewhat poor, as New Coke wasn't actually a bad product. In fact, in taste tests, it was generally preferred to the original formula. It was Coca-Cola's poor marketing campaign that led to significant backlash and consumer desire for the return of the original formula.

In a sense, a very vocal minority of consumers wanted Coke to return to the "good old days" of the old formula. Which is what happened with Coca-Cola Classic.

Note that this isn't in any way an endorsement of Microsoft nor should it be construed in any way to be.
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Ok, yea. Bad analogy. Maybe Crystal Pepsi? That stuff did suck.

But, the point was similar. If you go backwards in quality (or perceived quality), people will not accept it because of the quality, not because of nostalgia and the good old days.

As far as Ballmer.... I have a love/hate feeling for the guy. I don't like a lot of his decisions with Microsoft. But, he has done a good job. Not as good as Gates, IMO, but I do wonder how Gates would have performed during the same time. Seems like a decent guy personally, though. Cut throat as a manager, though.
 
The Ballmer comments here are idiotic.

Ballmer is the one orchestrating this re-org. The Microsoft board is also going over the details this week to give their final blessing... and we all know who the Chairman of the Board at Microsoft is.

I always bet on Gates.
 
ServerKing said:
Crystal Pepsi was good dont hate, now Pepsi Free was crap lol
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I thought it had a bad aftertaste. Of course, I was in high school at the time and didn't drink a lot of soda. Mostly gatorade and water. I was a bit more healthy back then..... Well, other than the dozen donuts for lunch about once a week...
 
risqu3 said:
Ballmer is the worst thing to happen to microsoft.
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This.
He killed their innovation and is slowly moving them into a poor-man's version of Apple, aka, no enterprise and all media consumption.

Sad.
 
Red Falcon said:
This.
He killed their innovation and is slowly moving them into a poor-man's version of Apple, aka, no enterprise and all media consumption.

Sad.
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What innovation? Name one thing MS has created without copying or buying the idea?

The only original idea they ever had was the BLUE Screen.
 
HardUp4HardWare said:
What innovation? Name one thing MS has created without copying or buying the idea?

The only original idea they ever had was the BLUE Screen.
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You don't have to be first with an idea to be innovative, remember the old saying, "The early bird may get the worm ... but the second mouse gets the cheese." ... Microsoft also holds thousands of patents (enough so that they are making more money off of Android licensing fees paid them by Android manufacturers than they are making off of their own Windows Mobile OS) ;)
 
HardUp4HardWare said:
What innovation? Name one thing MS has created without copying or buying the idea?

The only original idea they ever had was the BLUE Screen.
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Wow, first I get flamed for hating Microsoft.
Then I get flamed for crediting Microsoft.

Seriously guys, make up your freakin' minds. ;)


Well, yes, Microsoft did do a few innovative things when Gates was in power:
bill_gates_tablet_pc.jpg
 
Terminus said:
I just think its funny that the Ribbon Lady is going to end up running both Windows and Xbox

If they ever decide to give her DevDiv then I will quit Microsoft
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quoted for truth. god help us.
 
heatlesssun said:
I think sometimes that some don't want so much a visionary as a return to the good old days. There's been a lot of talk about the optional integrated search in Windows 8.1 and having used it constantly for the last two weeks there's a great deal of misinformation about it. This notion that it's flooded with ads is pretty silly from my perspective given that the there are no ads but search related ad links and then almost always in the context of doing a commercial search like on a company or product name. There there's the slick integration to other services like the Search Hero provides for musicians and the integration with Xbox music.

I understand that some have privacy issues and integrating local and web search, but what is a driving force behind consumer computing today? Local file search or web search with tight integration between services, apps and the cloud? We can debate about the defaults and the options but there's NO CHOICE but to have these connected capabilities on the PC and have it remain a relevant consumer platform.
Click to expand...

*Brought to you by Microsoft
 
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