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1. Comment - I have lost confidence in Steve Ballmer's leadership

   (Jun 21, 2010 - 12:57 AM)

   Agreed, and (having worked at Redmond a few times and maintaining contacts there) it should be pretty clear that the two basic problems are a) the insane depth of policy-obsessed middle management that would drag the company down even without b) the Ballmerization of the company.
   
   It seems that many of the non-India foreign groups are better able to take care of themselves (out of sight, out of mind?), but headquarters? Fuhgeddaboutit. The career growth path for any decent technical folks continue to be the ones below the 'Exit' sign; good technical people are very, very rarely good managers. Great sales guys, which to be fair Steve Ballmer absolutely IS, have trouble as either of the above because the traits that make them good sales people are actively counterproductive in either technical or management roles.
   
   Steve should never have been CEO; he is CEO because and ONLY because he's a Friend of BillG™. The best thing for the company would have been (and might still be) for Ballmer to be President of Unified Worldwide Sales, with the ability to concentrate on what he really does do best. Bring a real CEO in from outside; someone who knows how to inspire and lead large-ish organizations (bonus points for having pulled said companies out of self-inflicted death spirals).
   
   Because that's what MSFT needs most: adult supervision from someone whose management style is more subtle (and effective) than ad-hoc (and ad-hominem) furniture rearrangement; someone who gives the rank-and-file innovators (and how many companies really have those?) reason to hope that their stock values will recover and that their company really has a future in a changed world.

2. Comment - I have lost confidence in Steve Ballmer's leadership

   (Jun 20, 2010 - 1:15 PM)

   We reached a tipping point about two years ago, where the costs and risks of the status quo Microsoft met or exceeded the costs and risks of change. People had been making the move long before — I've been running a business around helping SMEs migrate since Burlington Coat Factory was Big News™ — but up until that point, Microsoft could have still won the war, or at least delayed things for years, if they'd gotten their ducks in a row without shooting them. That didn't happen, for reasons closely related to Mr. Wilcox's points here. Now, even if SteveB magically disappeared from collective memory and the best CEO in the omniverse took over Microsoft, he/she/it couldn't stop the downward trend. And we all know where an unreversed downward trend leads... MSFT shareholders should be prepping the tar and feathers; it's our billions that have been pissed away.

3. Comment - I have lost confidence in Steve Ballmer's leadership

   (Jun 20, 2010 - 1:08 PM)

   I'd be curious as to why you still pay for Acrobat. Even in the Windows space, there seem to be ample alternatives for PDF editing and viewing. What am I missing?

4. Comment - I have lost confidence in Steve Ballmer's leadership

   (Jun 20, 2010 - 1:06 PM)

   My guess would be australopithecus boisei, but it could well be earlier than that. Boisei apparently had more than two functioning brain cells.

5. Comment - Top 10 New Features in Windows Server 2008

   (May 29, 2007 - 9:32 AM)

   "...[that] Microsoft has ever produced". I suppose we could say "welcome to the party; let's party like it's 1999"... but seriously, this is good news - especially if it's not expensively in excess of Server 2003 hardware requirements.
   
   One question: On 2K8 Server Core, can we guarantee that no IE or Outlook software is in the system image at all? I hear the sound of battalions of security Whac-A-Mole pumping their fists in the air in jubilation...