Google Glass is finding its way to developers and others and the reaction has been, well, predictable.

So far, there are those who think that Glass will absolutely change the world, that it’s our version of the flying car. Those people are full of shit. On the other side of the coin, there are those who say that Glass will never find a place in the hearts of consumers, that it’s unnecessary and that Google is just trying to be cool. Those people are also full of shit.

The problem is that when new things are introduced, people don’t know how to react, so they go to what they know. There’s either delirious glee or there’s immediate doom and gloom. The fact of the matter is that nobody knows what the future of Glass looks like. Not even Google. This is the very reason why the device was seeded with developers first: Their applications will be what makes the product interesting or not. If iPhone developers had been the only ones with an iPhone, then they would have been called names, too. It’s just the nature of the tech beast.

I was around for the launch of the iPhone, the device that some, including Steve Jobs, said would revolutionize the way we do everything. For the most part, it has in many ways. When it launched, I remember handing my precious cellular device to people who couldn’t wait to take it for a spin. They spent about five minutes tapping around and then handed it back, saying things like “Oh, well I guess that’s cool.” It wasn’t until the App Store was introduced until the real power of the iPhone came into play. Surfing the web, checking stock and weather information and reading your email wasn’t all that amazing and magical.

Here’s CNET’s “Bottom Line” on the original iPhone in 2007:

Despite some important missing features, a slow data network, and call quality that doesn’t always deliver, the Apple iPhone sets a new benchmark for an integrated cell phone and MP3 player.

Is that how you’d explain the iPhone now? Not really.

Then, you had this wonderful moment…

During that clip, Steve Ballmer showed himself to lack the vision to even think about creating a device that could unlock the potential of so many different people, be it developers or consumers. That’s exactly the reaction I’m seeing on the doom-and-gloom side of the coin for Glass.

Just today, Business Insider wrote “The Verdict Is In: Nobody Likes Google Glass.” There were some fair points raised in that piece, but like most things that have been written about Glass, the broader points are being missed. What will Glass do for developers who are looking to stretch their brains, and talents, on a platform that could be on the face of consumers in the next year or so? It’s too early to tell, of course.

There will be a killer app for Glass, mark my words. I have no idea what it will be. There was a killer app for the iPhone very early on, one called Urbanspoon. Get this, you could shake your phone and you’d get a random suggestion on where to eat. That action and experience could never be done on a phone until the iPhone. You’re going to see the same types of applications pop up for Glass, ones that we’ve never imagined.

Until these apps start being built, we’re stuck with people trying to get attention by wearing the device in the shower and swearing to never take them off, or people trying to predict how it will completely bomb and never see store shelves at all. It’s a time that we went through once before, with the iPhone. Apple stayed the course, navigated its way through those bumpy times and came out on the other side. Will Google be able to do the same? There’s no reason to think they can’t, and there’s no reason to think they can.

We’re just going to have to wait.

If you haven’t noticed, waiting isn’t a strong suit of those in the tech space. However, Ballmer should have waited until he shared his opinion on the iPhone publicly, but then again…it was pretty predictable.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Now that Steven Sinofsky has left Microsoft as President of the Windows division, the question now comes down to what happened and the implications his departure means for the company.

Microsoft issue a statement today that Sinofsky and CEO Steve Ballmer mutually agreed to the departure. My bet: Sinofsky does not fit with the company in the aftermath of the Windows 8 launch. He did okay with the development of Windows 8 and Microsoft Surface. But by no means did it cement his place as the successor to Ballmer as CEO.

Further, Sinofsky could be alienating. He was also a bit of an outsider among the executive ranks. He had his supporters for his management style but there were detractors whose comments reflect on what Ballmer said in prepared statements today about Sinofsky leaving.

Here’s what one commenter said on Hacker News:

He was a big fan of the triad- Dev, Test & PM (product management), at every level. From what I experienced, at every level you’d have to get sign-off from all 3 for any features to be implemented. That, combined with Microsoft’s incredibly deep org structure created a massive number of ‘committees’ to go through to get signoff for any work to be done.

He was also one to dictate things from up above and it was extremely difficult to understand the reasoning behind them or offer any form of disagreement. Anyone who didn’t follow exactly what he wanted, was out.

So basically you’d have committees of 3′s (Dev, Test, PM) filtering and relaying every decision. The people who could work the politics would get promoted and the people who understood the details would get frustrated by the top-down ambiguity and falter or leave.

So was Sinofsky just too abrasive and austere? Another commenter on Hacker News said this about his time at Microsoft:

He was always polarizing and that his stock was rising is equally contentious, IMO. Windows 8 was late, Surface seems to be underwhelming and his inability to be a real team player are all likely factors here, as is his rumored disagreement with Ballmer (though I had Ballmer on the losing end of that one)…..

Personally, Sinofsky was one of the biggest reasons I left Microsoft. He was willing to ditch potentially game-changing products/features spanning multiple industries because it didn’t align with his idea of software engineering, which was more suited for boxed software like Office than for rapidly deploying services. He didn’t/doesn’t get services – he’s a boxed software guy at his core. All the Office Live stuff happened after he left Office – arguably he should have seen it coming and been ahead of the game while he was running Office.

These comments are interesting in context of what Ballmer himself said today about the need for better development practices at the company. He said it is “imperative that we continue to drive alignment across all Microsoft teams, and have more integrated and rapid development cycles for our offerings.”

Julie Larson-Green will now lead the Windows engineering group. Ballmer cited skills in her that Sinofsky does not seem to have as much of a strength for:

“Leading Windows engineering is an incredible challenge and opportunity, and as I looked at the technical and business skills required to continue our Windows trajectory — great communication skills, a proven ability to work across product groups, strong design, deep technical expertise, and a history of anticipating and meeting customer needs — it was clear to me that Julie is the best possible person for this job, and I’m excited to have her in this role,” Ballmer said.

The near-term implications for Sinofsky’s departure are not that significant. It’s more about what Sinofsky’s leaving means for the executive direction of Microsoft and the health of the overall organization and its culture.

Ray Wang of Constellation Research said to me tonight that Microsoft has a deep bench. Windows 8 launched and now it’s a matter of rolling it out along with the Microsoft Surface. The company has plenty of people who are more than qualified to do that work.

But at the executive level, there are few people who can replace Sinofsky. As much as he was alienating, he also had his own cult following at Microsoft. He in many respects put Microsoft back on the map with the Surface product. Replacing him won’t be easy.

(Feature image courtesy of Microsoft)

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

At Windows 8 launch event, Microsoft co-founder and CEO Steve Ballmer took the stage to discuss Windows 8 on desktops, laptops and tablets today. According to Ballmer, who was his own energetic self today, today marks the start of a “new era for Microsoft and our customers.” According to Ballmer, the new slate of Windows PCs that’s coming on the market in the next few weeks will be the “best PCs ever.” Indeed, he called the whole Windows 8 experience “truly magical.” Ballmer says users will “love the experience.”

Unlike Apple, which didn’t say ‘magical’ once in its last announcement, Ballmer decided to use ‘magical’ a few times in his keynote. In addition, he focused on the desktop, which, in his view, is “alive with activity” thanks to the new live tiles on the Start screen. Windows 8, he said, “keeps you connected to all of your stuff. The experience is magical. All of your photos will just appear, all of your documents will be available on SkyDrive. It will all be there. Everything and everybody you care about.

Ballmer also stressed Windows 8′s touch capabilities and the fact that touch and support for ARM-based machines now allow Microsoft’s partners to offer a larger variety of devices. This, said Ballmer, will allow people to “pick and choose their PCs based on what’s important to them.” “

touch – there is a huge variety of devices. “Everybody will be able to find their PC.” People will pick and choose what’s important to them. “Are these new designs PCs? Yes. Are these new designs tablets, also? Yes. Some of the flip, some of the dock, some of the attach. The best of PCs and tablets in one form factor.”

While Ballmer stressed Windows 8′s entertainment features, he also stressed that enterprises will also find the right Windows devices for them. In addition, he said Yammer, Microsoft Dynamics and other enterprise tools will also come to Windows 8 soon.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Microsoft capped off decades of regular growth with their first down quarter in history. This news, coupled with a number of stories regarding Microsoft’s bureaucratic malaise and slow Windows Phone handset sales point to the company essentially losing the hearts and minds of their most ardent supporters.

Microsoft had many wins. The Xbox is a notable success and Windows 8 could lead to a sea change in user interface and user experience. However, given the steady stream of duds popped out by MS over the past few years – Zune, C#, Vista, and the Kin phone family (not to mention their insistent failure to capitalize on touch or web infrastructure servers) – it’s not hard to see why the bloom is off the Microsoft rose. The company is huge – 94,290 according to the official ledger – and as Kurt Eichenwald notes in Vanity Fair, the company’s strange bell curve ranking system has frustrated their best and brightest engineers. Freshly minted MBAs and CS majors have been shown, time and time again, that there is no value in going after Microsoft millions when Google and the rest of Silicon Valley is right down the coast.

I won’t go so far as to call for the Balkanization of the company into Microsoft Mobile, PC, and Enterprise companies nor will I call time of death. Instead, I think Microsoft has to rethink its entire approach towards the technology ecosystem and reassert itself. Microsoft may have lost its mojo, but it can get it back.

First, I would seriously consider removing Ballmer as CEO. Bill Gates was the beloved icon of the Altair days, at once giving hope to baby boomers who grew up slinging COBOL and GenXers who saw him as the alpha nerd who would lead them out of a life of swirlies and Prom nights spent playing NES. Ballmer, is at best, ignored and at worst some strange interface between Jim Cramer and an orangutan – he has the business savvy, but you don’t want him debugging your Windows 7 install. Microsoft doesn’t need a visionary leader, but they need something.

Second, self-Balkanization is a must. Unless the Windows group has something to say about mobile that will push the envelope, both parts of the company need to keep out each others’ way. The same goes for enterprise. I shudder to think what is happening to Yammer right now as career Microsofties slowly shamble towards fresh brains to bash out. As evidenced by Windows Mobile, Microsoft once saw itself as an ecosystem-maker, not a series of disparate fiefdoms, and this is wrong. Compete within the company, not within teams on the same project.

The need to support legacy hardware also forces a sort of sclerosis inside the company, which leads me to the third point: force consumer obsolescence. I’ve seen far too many instances of Windows CE installs running on mission critical hardware to think that industry will ever give up their miserly ways. But backwards compatibility with everything and every machine is a fool’s game. Technically Windows 8 is a step in the right direction, but there are plenty of folks who are stuck at XP and ain’t going anywhere. Those same people will complain when Windows 8 won’t run on their hardware, but it will allow them to see Windows in its full, high-end glory on a fresh machine. I’m also not condoning neophilic excess, but forcing consumers to look up from their old machines to the state-of-the-art once in a while is a valuable exercise. It works in mobile, and Apple makes it work on the desktop.

To be clear, Microsoft isn’t going the way of Palm and RIM. They still have plenty of fight and plenty of cash left. However, if they don’t want to be another IBM – eviscerated early on and subsequently respected in some circles and irrelevant in most – they need to rethink the next decade. Or they could just move to Australia.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Vanity Fair is one of my all-time favorite magazines — it publishes loads of incredibly well-written stories about fascinating topics and people. Its regular features, like My Stuff and the Proust Questionnaire, are always entertaining.

So, I was pretty excited to get an email from one of Vanity Fair‘s publicists this morning, offering an advance copy of a story that will run in the August issue. Written by Kurt Eichenwald, the piece is promised to be an unflinching deep dive into the past ten years at Microsoft while Steve Ballmer has been at the helm — specifically, I’m told, Eichenwald uncovers the stifling bureaucracy and “astonishingly foolish management decisions” that have held Microsoft back while Apple ascended to dizzying heights in the eyes of global consumers and the stock market.

It sounds like a doozy. People have already begun Tweeting and blogging about the teaser that was published today on Vanity Fair‘s website. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on the full piece. So I emailed the publicist back within minutes: Yes, yes, yes, please send the entire thing over! This was the response:

Now, that’s a question I certainly never thought I’d encounter from someone pitching a story to TechCrunch — unless we were being punk’d once again, or perhaps if it was a piece that required crazy sensitive court documents or something. Who faxes anymore? OK, besides Karl Lagerfeld and Anna Wintour (maybe it is a Condé Nast thing.)

Anyway, it struck me as so funny I had to forward the thread along to my colleagues. They responded in kind:

The thing is, I would have fired up TechCrunch HQ’s fax machine if I could have. But like many reporters often do, I’m working remotely today (right now I’m about halfway through a 5-hour flight, with another 2-hour flight to go after that one. In-flight Internet for the win.)  Faxing is just not going to happen.

I explained this to the publicist, and asked if she could perhaps use her own fax machine to scan the document, which she could then send along to me as a PDF attachment. I pretty much provided step-by-step instructions. That was five hours ago, and I haven’t heard back yet.

But I still really wanted to read this thing! So, I earnestly took to TechCrunch’s internal Yammer to ask if one of my coworkers could please figure out what our fax machine number is, receive the document, scan it, and send it to me. No one was up for it, but I did get assigned a different story idea:

Now I’m following the orders of my editor. Well, actually, two of my editors.

I’m not sure that there is a big takeaway here, but it is amusing — and also maddening. The whole thing is just ironic, or at least Alanic: The distribution of an apparently awesome article about one company’s old-fashioned business habits and suffocating bureaucracy is slowed down by the old-fashioned business habits and suffocating bureaucracy of the company that published it. It’s also a sign of how far new technology still has to go before it becomes really mainstream.

(And yes, in case you’re wondering, it is also a slow news day.)

So. I still want to read all about the Ballmer dirt. I want to write a post with a scathing excerpt and tell all the TechCrunch readers out there to run and pick up a Vanity Fair, pop some popcorn, and read all about it themselves. But at this rate, I might just have to wait until it comes out on the newsstand myself.

Image of fax machine credited to Michael A. Keller/Uniphoto via Britannica.com

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

One of Microsoft’s core strengths is their Server and Tools Business (STB). In fact, it’s a $15 billion a year business for the giant. CEO Steve Ballmer cited that number today in an email to employees announcing the departure of the head of that division, Bob Muglia.

So why is Muglia leaving such a successful endeavor he built? Because Ballmer decided it was time for a change.

“The best time to think about change is when you are in a position of strength, and that’s where we are today with STB – leading the server business, successful with our developer tools, and poised to lead the rapidly emerging cloud future,” Ballmer writes. “Bob Muglia and I have been talking about the overall business and what is needed to accelerate our growth. In this context, I have decided that now is the time to put new leadership in place for STB,” he continues.

Translation: it’s time to get serious about the cloud before it’s too late.

Not surprisingly, rather than accept a demotion, Muglia will leave Microsoft. That will happen this summer, Ballmer says.

Actually, it is a little surprising because Muglia had been demoted before within the company — but worked his way back in 2009. As we noted two years ago:

Capping a comeback from a demotion in the wake of Hailstorm’s failure to survive a privacy challenge led by bloggers, Server and Tools senior VP Bob Muglia was promoted to President of the Microsoft group. Muglia now commands a Microsoft unit with some 22% of the company’s $60 billion in revenue.

That promotion put Muglia in a “Gang of Four,” as we wrote at the time. That include a power combination of Entertainment chief Robbie Bach, Office Business czar Stephen Elop, and Online Services Group head Qi Lu. All but one of those men (Lu, who had just joined) is now gone from Microsoft just two years later. (Also gone, of course, is Ray Ozzie.)

You may recall that Muglia got himself in a bit of hot water in the press once again a few months ago when comments he made suggested that one technology he was in charge of, Silverlight, was being pushed out in favor of technologies like HTML5. The backlash was fast and furious and Microsoft had to respond, and backtrack.

“[Muglia] will continue to actively run STB as I conduct an internal and external search for the new leader.  Bob will onboard the new leader and will also complete additional projects for me,” Ballmer writes.

Below, find Ballmer’s full email to the troops:

From: Steve Ballmer
Sent: Monday, January 10, 2011
To: Microsoft – All Employees
Subject: STB – Building on Success, Moving Forward

There are very few $15B businesses in the software industry, and Microsoft is the only company that has built three of them.  While Windows and Office are household words, our Server and Tools Business has quietly and steadily grown to be the unquestioned leader in server computing.  We have driven the industry forward and established the foundation for an entire generation of business applications.  We have overcome significant competitive challenges.  Over the past twenty years, the outstanding leadership from everyone involved in STB has made it a $15B business today.

We are now ready to build on our success and move forward into the era of cloud computing.  Once again, Microsoft and our STB team are defining the future of business computing.  In October, we completed an incredibly successful PDC where we detailed the future of the cloud, outlining Platform as a Service and demonstrating the rapid advancement of Windows Azure.

The best time to think about change is when you are in a position of strength, and that’s where we are today with STB – leading the server business, successful with our developer tools, and poised to lead the rapidly emerging cloud future.  Bob Muglia and I have been talking about the overall business and what is needed to accelerate our growth. In this context, I have decided that now is the time to put new leadership in place for STB. This is simply recognition that all businesses go through cycles and need new and different talent to manage through those cycles. Bob has been a phenomenal partner throughout this process, and he and his leadership team have the right strategy in place.

In conjunction with this leadership change, Bob has decided to leave Microsoft this summer. He will continue to actively run STB as I conduct an internal and external search for the new leader.  Bob will onboard the new leader and will also complete additional projects for me.

Bob has been a founder and leader of our server business from its earliest inception.  He has led our Developer, Office, and Mobile Devices Divisions, and key parts of Windows NT and our Online Services business.  I’ve worked with him in many capacities over the years and I’ve always appreciated his customer focus, technical depth, people leadership skills, and his positive energy. I want to thank Bob for his hard work, many accomplishments, and his focus on putting Microsoft first for 23 years.

We enter this new decade with STB providing the platform for today’s business solutions, and uniquely well-positioned to drive the future of cloud computing.   I believe STB will continue to lead the industry with outstanding products and services for our customers and exceptional results for our business.

Thanks,
Steve

The 360 is turning into more of an all-purpose living room machine, and the Kinect is blowing up. That’s the takeaway from the Ballmer keynote here at CES. They’ve sold a huge amount of Kinect — 8 million, far more than the 5 million they predicted, and which we were all skeptical of. But it’s a surprise hit and I think that’s indicative of both its unique appeal (even the haters have to admit it’s unique) and the growing importance of a powerful box in the living room.

Avatar Kinect? I’m not buying it. But I’m not the target audience. I’d rather have it for the hands-free media control. Either way, though, it’s more stuff the 360 can do, and the central hub for media, games, and communication is obviously becoming a popular and contentious product category.

Continue reading…

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

On the “How To Get Acquired” panel here at Le Web, Microsoft Senior Director of Corporate Strategy and Acquisitions Fritz Lanman admitted to Loic Le Meur that Microsoft did try to acquire the social network Facebook. The Microsoft/Facebook acquisition talks were first reported by David Kirkpatrick in his book “The Facebook Effect.”

“Yeah we tried to acquire Facebook” Lanman responded to Le Web founder Le Meur, Facebook had a lot of similarities to Microsoft back in the day.”

Kirkpatrick quotes Steve Ballmer offering Zuckerberg $15 billion, also alluded to by Meur onstage. Microsoft ended up investing $240 million at that valuation instead because Facebook would not sell. While onstage, Lanman speculated that Facebook’s valuation could one day be as high as Microsoft’s.

Microsoft and Facebook currently work together in a search partnership where Bing users can view information about their friends’ Likes. Facebook’s new messaging service also has deep Microsoft Docs integration.

Full anecdote from the Kirkpatrick book below:

“Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer had flown to Palo Alto to visit his young counterpart twice. As Zuckerberg is wont to do, he took Ballmer on a long walk. Zuckerberg told Ballmer that Facebook was raising money at a $15 billion valuation. But Ballmer had come with something more sweeping in mind. “Why don’t we just buy you for $15 billion?” he replied, according to a very knowledgeable source. Zuckerberg was unmoved even by this offer. “I don’t want to sell the company unless I can keep control,” said Zuckerberg, as he always did in such situations.

Ballmer took this reply as a sort of challenge. He went back to Microsoft’s headquarters and concocted a plan intended to acquire Facebook in stages over a period of years to enable Zuckerberg to keep calling the shots. But Zuckerberg rejected all the overtures. What Ballmer finally agreed to instead was an advertising deal that included a provision for Microsoft to pay a huge amount, $240 million, for a sliver of Facebook, 1.6%. Microsoft’s investment gave Facebook an implied value of $15 billion.”

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Well, Steve Ballmer certainly had a productive week.

Over the past three days, the Microsoft CEO has sold 49.3 million shares of his company stock, Reuters reports. With the share price hovering around $27, the sale has made him about $1.3 billion. Not bad for three days.

And he’s not done yet. Ballmer apparently intends to as much as 75 million of his shares in total by the end of the year. At the current prices, that would earn him about $2 billion, all told.

Microsoft and Ballmer are both quick to say that people shouldn’t read too much into the massive stock sale. He called the move a “personal financial matter,” in a statement. But that won’t stop most from doing just that. As The Next Web wonders, why is Ballmer selling these shares right now with two buzz-worthy products, Kinect and Windows Phone, just hitting the market in time for the holiday shopping season? Does he not think they’ll help propel the company’s stock price?

Truth is, despite their huge financial success, not much has helped moved the company’s stock price over the past decade. In November of 2000, the share price was in the $30s. The highest it has gotten in that span is just about $37-a-share almost exactly three years ago. The price has gone as low as $15-a-share, but that was during the most recent economic collapse. Microsoft did split the stock in February of 2003.

Compare that stock performance to rival Apple, which has gone from around $7-a-share a decade ago, to $317-a-share today.

Others will wonder if this means Ballmer is on his way out as CEO. Again, despite the bottom-line success, there have been no shortage of calls for his ouster, partially because of the success rivals like Apple and Google have had during his tenure. ”I am excited about our new products and the potential for our technology to change people’s lives, and I remain fully committed to Microsoft and its success,” was Ballmer’s statement on the matter.

This news also comes just a month after it was revealed that Ballmer earned only 50 percent of his yearly bonus in Microsoft’s last fiscal year. Despite huge numbers for the year, Microsoft performance in mobile and tablets — or lack thereof — knocked his million-plus bonus down to about $670,000. But that’s chump change compared to what we’re talking about here, obviously.

And despite the massive sale, Ballmer will remain the second largest shareholder in the company behind only Bill Gates. He currently owns a little over 4 percent of Microsoft, compared to Gates’ 7 percent. That means on paper, Ballmer has been worth about $10 billion. And now he’s converting a nice chunk of that to cheddar. Ballmer. Baller.

[photo: flickr/orcnid]

Article courtesy of TechCrunch