The Biz of Coding

Microsoft Corp.’s CEO Steve Ballmer Admits Big Mistake on Vista

by Ujwal Tickoo on August 3rd, 2006

Vista has faced shipping delays. One obvious reason is that Microsoft Corp (MSFT) is trying to do too much at the same time in this release. Not necessarily for customers. Primarily to take on several competitors in one sweep. Grand. But Impossible.

Adobe (ADBE), Google (GOOG), Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO), Symantec — all have closely watched the development and announcements on Vista — because theoritically with Vista Microsoft would kill a big chunk of competition and the IT industry and rule the world with increased market share in Web Search, e Paper, Graphics, Content, Multimedia, Security etc. Its all quite easy to dream it up. Its an Economics and Common Sense truth, that no one firm can serve the entire world. It would become uneconomical and impossible to grow a business beyond a certain size because decreasing returns to investment start after some point of time.

Steve Ballmer began by acknowledgeding that doing everything at the same time doesn’t work:

We made an upfront decision that was, I’ll say, incredibly strategic and brilliant and wise — and was not implementable," Ballmer said. "We tried to incubate too many new innovations and integrate them simultaneously, as opposed to letting them bake and then integrating them, which is essentially where we wound up.

Whats funny is how well he wove in the contradictory words "wise" and "not implementable" in the same sentence. I am a wise man but I talk about impractical, im-implementable stuff? Hmm…Then. Am I *really* wise?

Continued… Why Analysts are not Buying Microsoft Corp’s Vista Story

POSTED IN: Adobe, Google, Vista, Yahoo