back to article Is Steve Ballmer (finally) kicking ass at Microsoft?

To lose one business president might be regarded as a misfortune, but to lose two plus your chief software architect looks like rats jumping the ship. Or does it? Microsoft chief vision man Ray Ozzie is retiring from Microsoft after just five years. Ozzie was a big hire in 2005, and a year later, he was billed as the new Bill …

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  1. Graham Wilson
    Grenade

    If Microsoft buys Adobe we'll have to all learn the Gimp.

    If Microsoft buys Adobe we'll have to all have to learn the Gimp.

    Oh dear, shudder!

    Just hope one of those anti-monopolies laws will protect us.

    I feel sick already.

    1. Cucumber C Face
      Joke

      Bring on Super Patch Tuesday?

      An M$ Adobe takeover would mean an effective monopoly on zero-day vulnerabilities.

      A one stop shop for fixing of all your system's critical security flaws? I like it.

    2. jonathanb Silver badge

      anti-trust, not likely

      The Microsoft product that competes with Adobe Creative suite is Expressions, which has approximately zero market share. Similarly, Silverlight competes with Adobe and I've not seen any website that uses Silverlight since itv.com switched from it to Flash. Cold Fusion and Flex Builder, maybe there is a bit more overlap there with some of what Visual Studio does.

      But certainly in the Bill Gates days, Microsoft wouldn't have bought anything as big as Adobe. They would have bought a much smaller company with a good product but a small market share and used their marketing might to expand sales of it, and most likely they would have assembled a competitor to Creative Suite by making a number of acquisitions of different companies.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Jobs Horns

        Silver Blight.... - Puts a shine on Uranus.

        Yeah SOME site like a NASA SPACE site uses it - and demands that you download Silverlight to USE the publicly funded site.

        http://beamartian.jpl.nasa.gov/welcome

        http://beamartian.jpl.nasa.gov/maproom

        "One moment, please, while the current Silverlight installation status is determined...

        Microsoft Silverlight may not be supported on your computer's hardware or operating system. "

        "This site was created under a Memorandum of Understanding between NASA/JPL-Caltech and Microsoft. Contributions also came from Arizona State University and Oxford University's Galaxy Zoo."

        And of course - back to NASA: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/

        I had two objections to that -

        a) It's Microsoft,

        b) They want me to put it on my system,

        c) It's Microsoft

        d) Instead of having a site that offers multimedia that has "Runs on anything" formats, the push for MORE Microsoft vertical integration, on MORE people, an the bullshit that YOU HAVE TO HAVE IT installed on your system to use the site is just that - bullshit.

        e) and I hate Microsoft so much - for all their years of dumping Crapware (tm) on the market, that I am now a full time LINUX user... (Huge sigh of relief) - not that I would use it, or even permit it to be on my system if it was available, - but MS makes Silverlight only to run on MS's OS's... not Linux.

        f) It's Microsoft.....

        g) and I don't like Silverlight, or Microsoft.

        So I put these questions to them.... and I got the usual corporate "spineless NON think" reply.

        So they dump a shitty bit of MS software on their site, instead of the really great "everyone software" and when questioned about why a tax payer funded website has done a deal that forces people to use proprietary software to use it - they go to water (spelled Corporate $$$ Kickbacks).

        It seems to me that there are so very few sites, run by people that demand that you MUST install Silverlight to use them...

        The less of that "MS Naziware" vertical integration (read product lock in = $$$$$), the better.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    now we're talkin

    if only ballmer could get rid of that idiot that kept screaming about developers...

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Yawn

    zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

  4. BozNZ

    Downhill

    What with Bills wife blowing all his money, a stagnant PC Market and VMWare, Apple and Google kicking arse, The Microsoft BORG empire better get its act together and find some new markets and products if we dont want to see 2010 as the year the downfall began.

    Remember DEC and VMS in 1984 as a global titan and remember apple before iPodPadPhone, anything can happen in this game!

    1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

      Re: 2010 as the year the downfall began

      2000 more like. Microsoft's profits are built on DOS, Windows, NT and Office. They've all seen bugger all development in this century, apart from endless re-skinning, Web-2-ifying and XML-ization.

      Is CE (or its phone derivatives) making money? Has the Xbox stuff paid back all the subsidies from its initial launch yet? Is the server market gaining share against Linux? Nope, so that's nothing good to speak of for 10 years or more. Sounds like a decline to me.

      Mind you, much the same could be said of IBM several decades ago and they are still in business. In fact, they probably still hold the record for the largest loss ever posted by a company that didn't subsequently go completely bust.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    For some reason...

    A cartoon, from decades ago, comes to mind...

    The cigar-wielding chief executive is issuing an edict to his close aides:

    "I want you to go through this entire company and find the man that could step into my job at a moment's notice. Then sack him."

  6. Badwolf

    apathy rules

    Does anyone really care what Microsoft do anymore?

  7. asdf
    Flame

    screw video

    Darn this information sounds interesting but some of us at work looking for a few minute distraction dare not run videos. Oh well Mary Jo is such M$ fangirl probably crap anyway.

    1. pan2008
      FAIL

      is this journalist guy blind?

      Where did he get the figure of 80 apps? He is bend on iphone. I can easily count around 1000 in zune!! So iphone had 500 apps, WP7 has more. Someone said 2000-3000 but not so easy to count.

  8. Dest
    Alert

    I don't think Ray Ozzie is retiring on his own.

    He is a brilliant man and he outshines Steve Ballmer by a wide margin.

    Personally I think Ray Ozzie was asked to leave.

    I think Steve Ballmer feels threatened by him because Ray Ozzie is both brilliant and charismatic.

    I read talk of the proposal by some key inverters for him to replace Steve Ballmer as CEO and Ballmer just isn't going to stand for that to happen.

    Something like that would make it appear that Steve Ballmer is a failure.

    Well, he is a failure but he is not going to admit it.

    1. mikebartnz
      Jobs Horns

      @Dest

      Quote "Something like that would make it appear that Steve Ballmer is a failure."

      Well he is isn't he.

  9. Youngdog

    Woo hoo! Comment feature now on m.theregister!

    Great work on the redesign everyone!

    That is all.

  10. JaitcH
    WTF?

    When will the kick the big ass (out)?

    This reminds me of a large Telco that decided to enhance shareholder earnings by trimming staff. The company hired an expert HR termination type and after months of detailed evaluation he prepared a list of names that was submitted to the Board of Directors.

    The CEO, whose office was dark with but a single spotlight illuminating his countenance (older readers might recognise the CEO), remarked the list was incomplete.

    The HR expert had the temerity to inquire as to the missing name. "Yours", replied the CEO. The board approved the amended list.

    When is the MS board going to jettison Ballmer?

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I know this sounds silly, but I just have to ask...

    Does Ballmer actually have any skills?

    1. mhoulden
      Gates Horns

      There is one

      I understand he's quite good at the shot put and discus.

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