report over at the Washington Post at least two highly influential Microsoft shareholders are trying to convince the board to get rid of these three products. All three, which they claim, leak money and divert attention and resources away from more profitable endeavors. In essence, these investors are asking Microsoft to focus on cloud and enterprise software first and foremost, as these are the units that are bringing in the most money for Redmond. We do not know Nadella’s position on this, for what it’s worth. But his close ties to Steve Ballmer, and Bill Gates now by his side, it will be rather hard for the new CEO to make such drastic changes and revert the trajectory that his predecessor set throughout the course of these past few months. With ValueAct Capital now getting their man to sit on the company board, along with their substantial investment in the technology titan, there is a now a certain chance that we may have to deal with growing tensions at the company. We have heard these talks before, but now with a new CEO, the investors would want to drive home the point while the iron is hot. Fingers crossed for saner heads to prevail. Your thoughts on this ladies and gentlemen?]]>
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Dream on
I think those are three vital parts of the company. Getting rid of those and not becoming another IBM is important. A smart company who wants to be around and profitable for years to come needs a product in every category. Or risk being phased out.
Well said. Microsoft needs to keep this in mind.
Tell those two investors to go shove it
Amen!
Dude you just read my mind. Although the word I would have used for them would have been censored. Thanks anyway.
You know, if Xbox was just another game console then maybe I’d find some merit in dumping it off to someone else. However, it IS more than just a game console and probably will be much more in the future (which these idiots cannot see past today). It is with Xbox that keeps Microsoft’s footprint in the living room. That alone is worth something.
Bing is the back engine to so many Microsoft products. Why would they dump that? I mean, what else would they use instead? Bing is now far more than just the search engine it started out to be. I could understand if Bing was ONLY an ad-driven vehicle, but it is not.
Get rid of Surface? Hah! Have any of you seen the amount of television shows out there that use Surface within the show? Look at “NCIS”, just to name one (and the most popular show at that)! Talk about product placement. I don’t see hardly an iPad anywhere. Just give Surface a couple of years, and then see how the iPad compares.
And yes, if Microsoft did as these investors suggest, they would become nothing more than IBM as it is today. What next, dump Nokia phones because they’ll never have the market share as Android? May as well make that case to Apple and their iPhones too, then. Do you think that is likely to happen? Anyone?
Spot on dude. I wonder how these ‘investor’ got to making all that money they invested with such porous thinking.
And that’s what they need more of too. More people using the Surface in movies, TV shows, music videos, and media appearances.
Yeppers! If I were Microsoft standing there with all those Surface RT’s that they had to write-off, I’d GIVE those away to every show on TV out there. Now that would be worth a lot of free advertisement, guys.
This is what makes these shareholders so stupid. When you’re a shareholder, you’re basically just an investor. Businesses take time to turn profits. Sometimes investments take even longer. Investments on the scale of Bing, Surface, and Xbox are not going to be big hits over night. When you’re talking about an Internet service like Bing, there is a lot more investment that goes into that than just when you develop a software program. It involves hardware, software, and possibly infrastructure. Almost all 3 of these are beyond the point where they’re starting to turn the corner. Why wait they gain profitability to get rid of them? A real investor understands everything does give them returns over night. Real investors invest for the long term.
Shareholders and politicians, they are all the devil. What do they know about the future for any given company, all they care about is getting rich, drinking wine, and eating expensive bread. It’s like saying get rid of Office. Just like Office… Xbox, Surface, Bing, are all vital for Microsoft’s future. What also makes me wonder if these shareholders are pot heads, is if they want Microsoft to focus entirely on cloud and enterprise software. Then wouldn’t it be logical for Microsoft to keep the Xbox, Surface, and Bing divisions to test their cloud services on? I mean after all Microsoft did just spend billion of dollars on IP releases for Xbox One, 300,000 servers for Xbox Live and etc.
If I was Nadella, I would tell the shareholders, “You want me to remove Xbox, Bing, and Surface?… Not on my watch.”