Ballmer is the New Gates
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Microsoft's CEO is now giving the kind of vision speeches that defined its chairman and co-founder. The transfer of power has started, and the vision is "services." |
July 1 marked the start of Bill Gates last year with Microsoft, as he transitions to philanthropy. I detected today in Steve Ballmer's Microsoft partner conference keynote the kind of visionary tone more often associated with Gates. Ballmer always talks future something, but today it was the way he spoke about the future. Microsoft has a new visionary.
Microsoft's CEO is a much stronger and compelling speaker than its chairman, no disrespect to Gates.
Five minutes into his keynote, Ballmer spoke about sending some Microsoft marketing and technology people to make a plan for the far future.
They came back: "'We've got the list Steve,'" Ballmer explained. "I said, 'What does it have, four or five things? Let me see the list, hand me the piece of paper." They told Ballmer: "No, no, no, the list has 70 things on it...70 important innovations for the future.'"
Ballmer said the list showed what the "future of reading looks like," or the future of television, voice and more.
Like Gates, Ballmer's vision focused almost solely on PC and server software. He spent a long time talking about a "new model of user interfaces." Either we're like minds, or he reads this blog, because he talked about user interfaces much the way I have and in similar context of the migration from the mainframe to the PC to the Web.
Ballmer spoke about "a quest," with respect to user interfaces and laid out his vision for the "evolution and the vision for how the core model of user interface and computation changes over the next few years."
Ballmer's view of the future overlaps that of the Web platform (aka Web 2.0) in just one area. He envisions consolidated services delivered on a massive scale, with businesses moving away from on-premise managed servers. I buy that. Ballmer also is convinced the heavy client will continue to dominate. I think he's wrong, and his consolidated services vision is why.
He went on to describe the Windows Live Platform, which content I have mostly reconstructed in the first slide above from the one used by Ballmer.
"We are in the process today of building out a services platform in the cloud," he said. "The program model remains .NET and Windows, which is great."
The core services model is pretty much what I predicted back in March. Microsoft is building its services platform on top of its other so-called platforms with .NET at the core. Interesting, Ballmer didn't include Xbox, which clearly is another Microsoft platform.
As part of what Ballmer called "Cloud Infrastructure Services," Microsoft will include technologies like Active Directory, MOM (Microsoft Operations Server) and Windows Server—the "the kind of things we deliver to you today in our packaged products," he said.
The slide immediately above is my version of one used by Ballmer to show what services Microsoft most immediately plans to deliver. In both sides, Windows Live has its place; contrary to some blogger speculation that Live is dead or Windows will go away from the Live brand.
Behind all this services work is the new user interface Ballmer talked so much about but didn't so readily explain. What is Microsoft cooking up? The recipe is sure to include heavy desktop software clients, which is where Microsoft is going astray.
That said, Ballmer showed some vision today, like Gates but with better explanation and more understandable application.
Related Posts:
- Channeling Microsoft Hosted Services, Microsoft Watch, July 9, 2007
- Which Comes First, Software or Services?, Microsoft Watch, July 9, 2007
- Is Microsoft's First Customer You?, Microsoft Watch, July 6, 2007
- Live Lives, But How Well?, Microsoft Watch, June 27, 2007
- Microsoft MIXes It Up, Microsoft Watch, April 30, 2007
- Who Pays for Software Plus Services, Microsoft Watch, March 15, 2007
- Tell Me What?, Microsoft Watch, March 14, 2007
- Google Catfight About 30 Years in the Making, Microsoft Watch, March 6, 2007
- What Is Microsoft's Services Platform?, Microsoft Watch, March 1, 2007
- Google and Long Tail Computing, Microsoft Watch, Feb. 22, 2007
- Sorry, but Live Isn't Dead, Microsoft Watch, December 12, 2006
Comments (13)
You mean this guy is the new Gates?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1274983729713522403
Posted by anonymous | July 11, 2007 12:30 AM
No, Ballmer is the new Carly (Fiorina). His "vision" extends about one millimeter past the end of his nose. The sooner the board of directors ousts this buffoon and his cronies like Robbie Bach, the better!
Posted by Ed T | July 11, 2007 9:52 AM
Yeah, yeah. Heard it all before. But can Microsoft actually *deliver*? History says unlikely. It took more than six years to deliver a new OS that's *still* years behind that of Apple. And *no* one does user interfaces like Apple. Microsoft failed to deliver a compelling mobile platform, failed in multi-media, failed in gaming. The "vision" the author speaks of is typical smoke and mirrors, FUD to keep competitors at bay. Microsoft is a dinosaur kept alive based on the momentum of its Windows and Office franchises and its pile of cash.
Posted by Raymond from DC | July 11, 2007 1:17 PM
I would imagine the UI stuff Ballmer is talking about is some sort of Windows Live WPF based desktop app.
Posted by Marlon Smith | July 11, 2007 2:39 PM
Good writeup, and unlike the previous commenters, I believe that Ballmer's speech, like Ray Ozzie's interview in Knowledge @ Wharton back in April, reflects a strategic vision that is bigger than the browser wars of the 90's.
Check out the series on my blog titled "Deconstructing Ozzie" and how ISVs can leverage the age of Software plus Services or S+S.
Posted by Joe Bentzel | July 11, 2007 3:31 PM
http://www.redmondista.com
Posted by Joe Bentzel | July 11, 2007 3:32 PM
Balmer is not new Gates. Ballmer is doing exactly what he is doing in Microsoft for years now. Trying to create enthousiasm and motivation. He was doing the same thing, even when Bill Gates was the chief Software Architect. Gates was always a guy staying at the facts and creating with other architects the next vision. He was not the guy choosen to convey the vision. Ballmer always did that, esp. when addressing none technical audiences. Nothing has changed, except maybe Ozzie taking the place of Bill Gates.
And sorry Raymond, but the buffon that you mentioned has been choosen by forbes magazine as the best CEO more times than anybody else, not that he has not made a number of mistakes.
Posted by evan | July 11, 2007 3:43 PM
Hmmm, "best CEO...not that he has not made a number of mistakes".
Indeed. CEOs are supposed to work to increase shareholder value, that is their primary function. Ballmer has presided over six years of flat line performance for share prices, and the dividends paid are ridiculously small compared to the pile of cash they sit on. When a company has nothing better to do with its money than buy back shares, how can you claim that represents good performance by the management team? It tells me they don't have a clue.
So take the clothes pin off your nose evan, Microsoft's executive suite stinks to high heaven. Shills like you only make them look sillier with each passing day!
Posted by Ed T | July 11, 2007 3:58 PM
I did not name him the best CEO Ed T. Forbes did. So maybe you should take it out on them... In addition, I never said that management's performance is good the last years. I mentioned a fact, about somebody you called a buffon. That somebody, whether you like Microsoft or not, deserves probably as much credit as Bill Gates, for what Microsoft is today...
Posted by evan | July 11, 2007 4:47 PM
The question should not be "is Ballmer the new Gates?" But rather the question should be "is Gates really going away and giving up total control?" The answer is clearly no. He is only giving up day to day control, and is still the largest voting shareholder and chairman. Ballmer might get a little more control, but don't expect anything to really change.
As far as M$ goes, the more things change, the more things stay the same. Or to put it another way, at MS, the only thing that changes, is the carpet. Nothing really will change at MS until Gates and Ballmer are gone and have no voting stock or position in the company. Then and only then, might we see a differnet type of MS company, one that perhaps will play better with others.
Gate and Ballmer (yes, even Ballmer) are both smart men, its their business practice ethics that made MS a monopoly that I have many issues with.
Posted by chips b malroy | July 11, 2007 11:28 PM
evan: Please cite any reference where Forbes called Ballmer "the best CEO". If this really happened (which I seriously doubt), it certainly could not have been in the last 6 years while Ballmer has presided over a virtual meltdown of a once great company. The MSFT business model is in shambles, they are incapable of developing quality software that people want (Take my Vista, please!), they've lost $ billions on Xbox even before the recent hardware failure embarassment, the Zune is a total joke, they are being outmanuevered by Google, Apple, and just about every other technology company on the planet... One can go on and on and on. But don't take my word for it--just look at the performance of MSFT stock since Ballmer took over. As a CEO, Ballmer richly deserves an F.
Posted by Tom S | July 13, 2007 5:04 PM
Tom S;
I agree with everything you said. But consider this, while Steve Ballmer was CEO, Bill Gates was in charge of development. Bill Gates is/was the largest voting shareholder, and is the Chairman of the Board. Guess who picked Baller to be CEO. Actually, all the decisions were probably made by Bill. Now Baller was picked by Bill to be CEO because he was (I believe) a college friend of
Bills, and also because they thought a lot alike.
Which is why nothing will change at M$ until these two are gone and have no stock or pull at M$.
Reminds me of lyrics to a song; "meet the new boss, same as the old boss."
Posted by chips b malroy | July 13, 2007 7:55 PM
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Posted by Teddy | September 21, 2007 11:38 AM