Satya Nadella in an email to Microsoft employees:
We are the only ones who can harness the power of software and deliver it through devices and services that truly empower every individual and every organization. We are the only company with history and continued focus in building platforms and ecosystems that create broad opportunity.
Sweet Jesus, it only took him a few hours to say something completely insane.
I sat here trying to think of a “look at it from a different” angle comment, and I’ve got nothing. Boldfaced lie is boldfaced.
I read my wife exact those lines when I saw the letter. Why say something like that?
“If I close my eyes, they can’t see me.”
To be fair though Satya is absolutely 100% correct! They are, indeed, the only ones left who could do it. Everyone else already has…
Why is that “completely insane”?
I think that’s a perfectly legitimate comment. It’s obviously very arguable but nothing is insane about it. Microsoft has a long history of building platforms and ecosystems that are used by millions of users and probably hundreds of thousands of companies small and large. That doesn’t mean they are the “only ones” but he’s the CEO. It’s his job to be proud and speak boldly of his company. Jobs did the same thing. There’s nothing wrong with that. Certainly nothing “completely insane”.
This is pretty weak commentary on an extremely important CEO change for a company that has only had two CEOs and finds themselves in a quickly changing market.
Add something thoughtful to the discussion, Jim. You’re better than this.
If he thinks Microsoft are the “only ones” who can do anything he’s either criminally stupid or completely insane. Jim was giving him the benefit of the doubt.
You said “That doesn’t mean they are the only ones”
But he said “We are the only ones.”
That, and everything else in the quotation is just wrong.
To be overly generous, Apple’s lame dalliances with the enterprise do fail to empower “every organization.”
Sorry but of course Jim’s right to call him out.
Fine for CEO to rally the troops, but this is reality distortion field territory and, frankly, you need a personal history of defiant leadership with a company that continually produces game-changing products to some what get away with playing those cards.
Instead we have a newly minted CEO for a company better known for it a prominent market position based on wiley business practices (see monopolistic lawsuits), abhorrent management styles (see stack-ranking), & for completely misunderstanding its own industry by missing the mobile, tablet & web revolutions.
So insane about sums it up.
I guess Microsoft Azure is a lot bigger than I realized. A LOT bigger. Plus Windows phone, of course, because devices.
Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.
“That doesn’t mean they are the only ones”
Which is exactly why Jim made that comment. Because the CEO did in fact say “we are the only ones.” He didn’t say “we are one of the best at” he said “we are the only ones.”
I was going to correct you and say, “bald faced lie,” but apparently, it’s a bit more complicated than that: http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-bal2.htm
Nice.
Mayhap, but Apple has already made inroads into areas of IT in which Apple was never supposed to be relevant never mind have a significant presence.
I guess 10 billion dollars in the hands of developers and going from ‘0″ to 200 million devices a year in 6 years means Apple has no appeal.
You missed the point entirely Larry. It was specifically the fact that he claimed that they were indeed “the only ones” that could do this that made the comment crazy. The only ones? When Apple has been thriving the last few years building a software/hardware ecosystem that turned the entire industry on its head and ultimately led to Satya even getting this job, it makes it all the more absurd. It’s more of the same Ballmer-esque ‘head in the sand’ speak that people were hoping Microsoft would put behind them.
Indeed. If I didn’t know it was Satya speaking, I’d swear it was Ballmer. Same speechwriter?
Apparently “bat-shit” is the new “competent”.
Seems everyone wants to nitpick on “the only ones” and not see the forest for the trees here. In his world, and with his specific qualifications of work and play, Microsoft are the only ones. Every company claims similar. It’s not “completely insane”.
As as much an Apple fan as the rest of you, but I think Jim is reaching really hard to say something bad about a guy who hasn’t even been in the job a day and that Jim likely knows very little about. Jim just wants to take a potshot at Microsoft and that’s lame.
There are a lot of legitimate, intelligent things he could have said. Instead he resorts to baseless, childish insults that are weak and tenuous at best.
Jobs always used to say how amazing and insanely great Apple products were and how bad competitors are. We don’t think that’s “completely insane” do we? Of course not. In context he’s selling the story of Apple, just as Nadella is selling the story (what he wants the story to be) of Microsoft. We can certainly disagree with what he’s saying, but it’s hardly “completely insane” or “stupid”.
Sounds like the Microsoft board has got the “Puff Puff, Pass” down. They are NOT F-ing up the rotation!
As non-native speaker, can someone please explain to me the last sentence in plain English? What is he referring to?
It’s called rallying the troops – get over it. He’s not the first CEO to talk things up. Hardly on the same level as Jobs’s reality distortion field!
Also, Apple really never gave a hoot, nor tried very hard to make inroads into that space. The company was happier just destabilizing the Enterprise and making them scramble (ie. see BYOD issues because people don’t want to use the MS shit that comes out of IT departments)
Fantastic. I didn’t know that. I guess I am going to se;ll my Apple products and…
Wait, he’s talking about MSFT? Never mind.
The real problem is that it’s all just canned buzzwords. That might be fine when talking to the clueless on Wall St., but this is meant for his own troops. Only the CEO in a place like that can signal that it’s time for frankness, which is what these folks really, really need right about now.
You need to parse it very closely to see that he’s plausibly telling the truth, in a roundabout way.
Remember, to “truly empower every individual and every organization” includes niche markets Apple doesn’t serve, like super-cheapskates and Very Specialized And Controlling Enterprise Users*.
He’s not actually claiming that Microsoft is better at “empowering” most users, though it’s easy to skim and miss that; just that it’s the only organization that serves every available user and organization [within any sort of reason].
The second half, about “broad opportunity” and “platforms and ecosystems” I take as essentially content-free rather than false, though I’m sure one could generate plausible readings that make MS fit better than any competitor [Apple, since nobody else even tries].
This is anodyne morale-building mush, not “completely insane”.
(* “Apple can’t cope with Enterprise” is – as it’s normally used – a damned lie.
But Apple doesn’t have something that can compete with SQL Server clusters, for instance, and I don’t think iOS does some of the more psycho ActiveDirectory stuff, etc.)
Who else has done exactly the thing he said?
He did not claim MS was the only company that could do “anything”, he said MS was the only company that could do two very specific things.
He might be wrong in practice, but he’s not “obviously wrong” at a glance in a crazy way; the only other competitor that comes close is Apple, and Apple is “not empowering” some minor but REAL markets that Microsoft has a lot of clout in, in the server/enterprise/cloud computing world*.
Don’t make the mistake of skimming the comment and rewriting it as “only Microsoft can do anything important or useful”, because that’s not what he actually said.
As I commented above, this is a “rally the troops” email, not marketing material. Microsoft has some strengths, and it’s his job to emphasize them.
(*Apple doesn’t have something to compete with Azure, for instance. Or SQL Server. Or the crazier Windows Enterprise stuff, to the best of my knowledge.)
So?
That debunks the “Apple Can’t Do Enterprise At All” myth, and good.
But Nadella’s point about “Every Organization” includes groups that Apple still doesn’t serve and probably never will, which are places Microsoft really has serious expertise and influence.
Is he not allowed to bring that up to Microsoft employees?
Apple doesn’t have to “win” every possible market to be brilliant, and Microsoft can be superior in some enterprise niches without it being a foul.
(I mean, Jesus, I’d shake the hand of anyone who could usefully replace Exchange with something that isn’t an existential horror.
But until then, it’s incomparable.)
It’s OK.
No, that is all BS.
If things are so great at Microsoft, why is Ballmer out, why is this new guy in, why is there so much consternation at the board level?
If Apple is behind Microsoft in today’s computing markets, then why is Microsoft working so hard to become more like Apple?
The hottest enterprise technology right now is iOS. Not only are big companies buying the devices, they are making in-house iOS apps.
One of Microsoft’s biggest problems is apologists like you who are always willing to figure out a twisted way to say everything is just great at Microsoft.
That is part of the Microsoft religion. They want to deny they are cloners, so they cast themselves as being the forefront of “integration.” Technologies don’t matter until they are liberated from their inventor and integrated into the package of bits that Microsoft licenses to large companies.
So, the tech sector’s number one echo chamber birthed another blind-as-a-bat true believer? Color me surprised.
Not.
Better vocabulary.
If only “rallying the troops” relied less upon bombastic generalizations.
“Broad opportunity,” indeed.
“The subscription model of buying music is bankrupt. I think you could make available the Second Coming in a subscription model and it might not be successful.”
Steve Jobs
“People don’t read anymore.”
Steve Jobs
“If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it’s worth — and get busy on the next great thing. The PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft won a long time ago.”
Steve Jobs
CEOs say dumb things to prop up their company or put down their competition, help their current product line or put down their competitors’. It’s fair to point this out, but I hope Jim will use the same kind of language (“Sweet Jesus, completely insane!”) the next time Tim Cook says something moronic.
What they hell are they drinking in Redmond?
Concur. Heard him quoted on NPR, and not only was that snippet rife with buzzwords as well, it was also the wrong advice as well, I think. Something about “reinventing yourself every second of every minute of every day.”
How about just having a sense of style, knowing what you want, and executing?
Step back and consider the author and the primary audience.
This is someone who worked his way up in Microsoft’s growing Server business, addressing all of Microsoft’s employees.
Given that context, I would take this as someone who is reassuring employees that the other parts of the company remain relevant, even if some (windows client) are in decline others are struggling (win phone, bing), and others (Xbox) are decidedly outside of Microsoft’s core strengths.
It is also a signal to outsiders that he isn’t in a rush to rip apart the company.
It is also a reminder that even though Microsoft is more vertically integrated than they ever were in the past, their success still depends on enabling the success of others. Interesting point to emphasize, given that loosing sight of that fact is what ended up bringing antitrust scrutiny down on Microsoft.
It is also, arguably, true.
At this point, I think it is a safe bet that more money has been made by non-MS companies selling PC software and hardware than has been made on iOS and MacOS devs, combined, more than has been made by developers building on AWS, publishers using Google AdSense, maybe even advertisers using Google.
Moreover, while Apple has a much better position in mobile devices, they don’t have Microsoft’s presence on business desktops/laptops. They have no presence in server rooms or datacenters, and they don’t really play at all in developer-focused cloud services. Google has a growing set of cloud services, and a strong position in mobile operating systems and a growing desktop/notebook business coupled with a growing productivity apps business, but their grip on Android is somewhat tenuous, and they are still behind microsoft in infrastructure and apps for business. Amazon has coopted Android to buikd their own device business, but that business is primarily around content consumption. They have a great cloud sevices business in AWS, but Microsoft has Azure, and a huge installed base in datacenters and server rooms.
So, no one really has Microsoft’s breadth and depth, today. In the future, some may get there faster than Microsoft can pull things together, but today Microsoft’s position is unique, and not without its merits. Now they just have to make a future of it.
Clever, but not remotely true.
Balmer should be gone, and he is. Time to move on buddy.
Apple isn’t making claim to empowering ‘every organization’ or even ‘every individual’
Microsoft is claiming that. That in the end they will stand as THE only name because they have the keys to doing this and no one else, not even companies like Apple and Samsung that are leaps further down that road, can do it.
It’s an insane comment to make because the world is too dang diverse to cover all needs. Even just focusing on businesses you can’t do it all, to many variations. Well you can but you will have to get into tons of different industries and create a lot of different items to satisfy everyone and there is no way that can be successful
You raise a good point. Apple has never been about making EVERY happy. They pick who they want and let the others go to someone else if they wish. It’s not a zero sum game to Apple.
It is to the other players.
But where jobs comments that insane. He said MIGHT not be successful. He was willing to admit by inference that it might be.
And look at the last comment. Apple’s value didn’t soar until they ditched trying to beat MS. At the PC game and released the iPod, iPhone etc.
I think you’re nitpicking Jim’s “completely insane” comment.
“We are the only ones who can harness the power of software and deliver it through devices and services that truly empower every individual”
not true. apple has been doing a fine job of exactly that.
“We are the only company with history and continued focus in building platforms and ecosystems that create broad opportunity.”
also not true.
“We are the only ones who can harness the power of software and deliver it through devices and services that truly empower every individual”
theres no other way to interpret this, other than “not true”.
“We are the only company with history and continued focus in building platforms and ecosystems that create broad opportunity.“
again, no other way to read this. not true.
“No compromises.” – microsoft. oops…
you misunderstand Jobs’ RDF — what he did was ask people to do things they thought were impossible, but which he insisted were not. and then, much to their surprise, they believed it and did it….thus his reality distorted the rest of reality. when he wasnt around neither was his RDF, so people would go back to being pessimistic about what could be accomplished.
thats the Jobs RDF.
my last org was a UNIX shop — those MS could not empower that organization. there goes every. ah, but you say it’s every available org — meaning those in a certain subset of every. well, apple (or anyone) can use that same out…. so MS is no longer the “only one”
theres nothing dumb about the third quote — Jobs was right. apple’s profits come mostly from “the next thing” — iOS devices (which itself was preceded by iPod, now also on its way out). the Mac is being milked for all its worth, appropriately.
They both take forever to say absolutely nothing.
I read both your comments, and I struggle to see what point you’re trying to make. You state that they are indeed “the only ones”, “in his world”. WHat the hell does that even mean? I guess I’m a billionaire in “my world”, so it must be true, right? There’s only one world, the real world. Noone gives a shit what the reality is in this CEO’s world, if it does not accurately reflect the real world.
Jim mocked the comment because it deserved mocking. You call that childish, but at least he made a point, unlike your posts, which you’ve failed to do, other than fruitless trying to defend the definition of “only ones” by pretending it can exist in someone’s mind, and thus hold truth.
“We are the only ones who can harness the power of software and deliver it through devices and services that truly empower every individual and every organization. We are the only company with history and continued focus in building platforms and ecosystems that create broad opportunity.”
Apple raked in close to $60,000,000,000 last quarter doing just this- and extending their platform to places and industries that noone even dreamed of (iPad), and most of the time replacing Microsoft’s solutions. So yes, using the qualifier of “only ones”, with that very specific statement, is utterly absurd, for those of us who live in the real world- Apple fans or not.
Yes, this was part of it but a key component was also the blatant bending of the truth. If you don’t believe this to be true you should learn more about Jobs through the various books and articles that have clearly articulated this aspect of his personality.
We are the only company that can go from a loved version of windows to a disgusting hated version of windows in one release. We are the only company that has infinite income yet we nickle and dime everyone to death for apps. We are the only company that can go from a trustworthy vendor to a complete NSA spying program in one release.