Charlie Rose

charliesheep  04/11/2013 06:14 PM Report

NO HALO; FOR[BOSSES AT MICROSOFT]NOR; WAITING TO BE TRANSLATED-[TAKEN UP TO ?]-LIES AHEAD FOR THOSE[GATES] WHO'S EFFORTS ARE LARGELY OUTSIDE THE BORDERS OF AMERICA! I.E.--BECAUSE THE "FAT DIRTY PIE" HERE! AND, IT IS SO BIG; THEY [GATES] ARE SO NARROW, AS TO;--- NOT FOCUS ON THE 100 YEARS OF FAILURES HERE- SUCH AS E.P.A.--CLEAN WATER--SANS; CHROMIUM SIX--FRACTURING THAT KILLS THE DRINKING WATER AQUAFER FOREVER-I.E. SEWERS THAT DON'T WORK, LEAK,AND ARE FILTHY AND SUBSTANDARD-EVEN FOR 3RD WORLD- WE HAVE A COUNTRY THAT; HAS LIED ITS WAY TO FOR 25 YEARS; TO A-NET- ZERO--FUNDED--NATIONAL EFFORT OR PROGRAM THAT FIXES-ABSOLUTELY-NOTHING, AS TO; INFRASTRUCTURE-I.E. REPAIRS TO ROADS, PUBLIC WATER SUPPLY- WATER SAFETY-STANDARDS ZERO! CHARLIE LOOKS AT HIS WATCH, BUYS BOTTLED WATER-WHEN HE DRINKS IT ? AND YAWNS LIKE ALL THE 1%ER'S WHO DO [EVEN NOW] SIT ON THEIR BUTTS AND DO ZERO!--HEROES ARE; MOST OFTEN, THOSE WHO DO NOT YAMMER--ON, WITH NOTHING OUT OF THEIR TIME FOR AMERICA AND THESE MOST GLARING PROBLEMS- COMPUTE THAT; SOMEWHERE IN YOUR FAKE VEIW OF "GLOBAL" [GREED] REACH !

jason  07/16/2012 02:46 AM Report

this is a typical "halo effect", "monday morning quarterback" business story. trying to tell the reason why the winner won and the loser lost. reality is, there is a lot of RANDOM LUCK involved and minimal human effort as in business strategy, execution, unique innovation or "the vision". books to read are

1. Halo Effect - Phil Rosenzweig

2. Think Fast, Slow - Daniel Kahneman

SharkswithfrikingLazers  07/11/2012 11:14 PM Report

"Suppose you are in a unit with 10 other people. Your boss thinks every one of you is spectacular. Well it doesn't matter because at Microsoft, you have to designate two of them as spectacular, four of them as mediocre, and then the rest as terrible. What you've done is create a system where every employee is not only trying to do their best, but every employee is trying to make sure that their colleagues don't. Creating that environment is the exact opposite of what you want to do in terms of encouraging innovation."

What a stupid system. What idiot came up with this? If Ballmer approved it he should be fired yesterday. It sounds like something from Enron and probably works to ego enslave the nerds.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  07/11/2012 11:09 PM Report

"One of the things I mention in the article is that the iPhone right now, something that didn't exist five years ago, has more in sales than all of Microsoft combined. And you look at that and say what last to cool means is also last to profit."

At Microsoft, last to cool means you let someone else make all the mistakes, then you copy them while fixing everything they did wrong. The problem with this is that Apple doesn't release products with things like the "Blue Screen of Death" so Microsoft can only play this game with a company like Microsoft.

richard-lipscombe  07/11/2012 03:29 AM Report

Kurt Eichenwald was a total let down...He promised to tell us all about "Microsoft's Lost Decade" and for nearly 1/2 hour he delivered arrogant fluff...Perhaps this one should be labelled Charlie Rose's Lost Interview...As a fan of the Charlie Rose Show I really hope this is not a sign of the future quality of Charlie Rose's round table interviews...

This type of hype and meandering chatter might work on morning TV but it will destroy the Charlie Rose brand at night...What at pity that would be for all of us...Kurt must have written a great article in Vanity Fair or else he surely would not have made it onto TV but he gave no inkling of it at the table..Kurt may indeed know a lot about Microsoft (I doubt it, given his bubbling performance here) but I am almost certain that he knows precious little about Apple...

Perhaps this interview is just a further example of the decline of America - when a person with nothing to say can command a 26 minute interview on Charlie Rose there is so decline in standards somewhere...If so then how quickly and how far America has fallen...

Lift your game Charlie - it is simply not good enough to recycle your morning interview talent through to your round table interviews...Best wishes Richard.

mutex  07/10/2012 07:56 PM Report

What Eichenwald lacks in facts he makes up for with arrogance and smugness. He has no idea what Microsoft's P/E is. No idea that Microsoft made over 23 billion dollars in NET profit last year and has over 50 billion dollars in cash on hand. 385 million PCs (almost all of them with a Windows operating system) will be sold this year. The VAST majority of people who own iPads ALSO use PCs (with a Windows operating system AND MS Office) in some capacity...whether at work, home, public libraries etc.

I get so tired of this myth that Microsoft is dead and Apple has 'won' because EVERYONE has switched. This is unadulterated hogwash and repeating it over and over doesn't make it any less ludicrous. The only thing Steve Jobs accomplished that is worth commenting on is that he found a way to market computer-related devices to people who don't like technology but are interested in status symbols and being trendy.

There are billions of people who have never used an Apple product and never will.

About the only factual statement viewers heard from Eichenwald was when he (fearful the interview would be replayed someday) said, "What did I know".

codymr  07/10/2012 06:24 PM Report

REMant,

The quote that is incorrectly attributed to Charles Holland Duell, "Everything that can be invented has been invented," has had longevity in the public zeitgeist because there is a good lesson to be learned there.

You make some good points, but there is a reason the iPad does not run Flash: Adobe was unable to get the technology to run properly on mobile devices. That is why Adobe has killed Mobile Flash for ALL platforms, even Android and Windows. Flash was old tech that has been surpassed in recent years. It was originally made for media rich web pages and it was poorly implemented as a video streaming software.

Also, yes Jobs was an excellent salesman, but what Balmer and others failed to realized is that Apple has a knack for mainstreaming computer technology. The desktop GUI was not created by Apple, but they bought it and developed it past the R&D stage and made it marketable to consumers. They did not invent the MP3 player, smart phone or the tablet computer, but all of these devices are designed in a way that took the original concept and innovated them past the prototype stage. And because Apple was first in, their form factors for smart phones, tablets and ultrabooks are the industry standard that all competitors are emulating for better or worse. One day Apple will probably be surpassed by another, more innovative company, but for the moment they are the ‘Microsoft of the 90s’ for the last 10 years.

"I'm not overly fond of MS, nor certainly Balmer, or even many ppl in the Northwest, but the co has done a lot more for the computer business than Apple, Google and Amazon put together." An excellent point and the crux of this interview with Kurt Eichenwald... considering that MS was at the forefront of the computer revolution, why have they not been able to keep that momentum in the mobile computer age and as a result, why have they have been in relative decline? Gates was a big supporter of the tablet computer, but MS never capitalized on their CEO's early interest. Why? The Kin was a poor entry-level media phone and the Zune was not the iPod killer it was touted to be. Why? MS has done well with the XBox because it is a well-built gaming, and now a broader, home entertainment system. Why?

It has become clear that Windows was adopted early by enterprise and government because the computers Windows was paired with were relatively inexpensive, and therefore, made for easy bulk purchases by IT divisions within the private and public sectors. However, while MS has dominated this sector, the business model does not lend itself to innovation. Unlike the consumer market, enterprise/IT departments take a long time to adopt new tech because they simply can't afford for new software or hardware not to work. That is a hard business model to work within if your primary clients, by their very nature, are reluctant to adopt anything new unless the older version breaks even when thousands of man hours and capital are used to develop, manufacture and market the latest and greatest software or hardware. It turns out it even may be a broken business model for MS.

"There hasn't been the "thrill of innovation" out of anyone else either and I think we have to face the apparent fact that the "tech revolution" is largely over." This is the one point I disagree with. Remember, tablet computing is still in its infancy and smartphones are relatively new as the dominant mobile phone design. In the early 80s, not everyone had a computer at home or at the office overnight either. In retrospect the computer revolution too time, but in reality it took 30 years to reach maturity.

Max83  07/10/2012 05:33 PM Report

I agree with REMant that the ''tech revolution'' is probably largely over, and I do not mind that and I also do not mind that MS is trading like a pipeline company. I like pipelines hahaha, especially water and data pipelines. I am a little biased on those oil pipelines though, but they have their places at least for now hahahahah

In my opinion the most important aspect that everybody is over-looking is that we are coming to the end of the for profit era of business. Businesses and companies will soon not be only evaluated through their profits anymore, but how profitable and beneficial they are for humanity and planet Earth as a whole. We will still have commerce and money, but the definition and evaluation of market capitalization of corporations will change and not be solely based on monetary value and profit margins. I think this is very healthy. I know it is really hard to imagine for a lot of people to have a world without either winners and losers and with limited growth, but it is my impression that we will either become a society and planet where we are all winners and where we share and sustain the finite resources of our planet or we will keep on competing and fighting with each other for the resources that are left and be all losers in the end and probably not be able to sustain human civilization on the planet. Cooperation is the key, but not for profit motives but for morale and positive evolutionary motives. Imagine what it would be like if Google and Microsoft decided to combine and share their technologies to provide the best possible internet search experience to humans possible and decided to share the profits evenly amongst them. Innovation would happen out of benevolence and the desire to advance and evolve humanity instead out of the fear or greed that a competitor might outsmart you or that you want to be the company that rules it all an is the most admired and most hyped by the media etc. This kind of evolution however can only happen from the top down. Only the biggest and most influential companies like Microsoft and Google could do this and really change the business paradigm that way. It is somewhat of a joint venture but it is way more than that.

Our and the growth of our corporations has reached its limit and we can either accept that and evolve or not accept this and not cooperate and destroy us and our or others' companies in order to be the number one.

I feel Bill Gates has already evolved by putting his focus on his foundation and I see Microsoft actually as a provider of capital to support and sustain his philanthropic business model and as nothing much else at this time and in order to do that it does not have to be the number one and its stock price does not have to double every two years. Of course it still has to provide good and quality products, but it does not have to be on the cutting edge in every field and out power and out innovate all the competition.

Business and profits in a way are just a means to an end, that end being philanthropy, human evolution and humanitarian innovation.

I don't know if I was able to phrases these concepts and ideas properly and understandably, but I just wanted to say that I feel that Microsoft is doing exactly what it needs to do and that there is nothing to worry about, like Bill Gates said in his recent interview here on the Charlie Rose show, he has enough to eat at the moment and does not see himself starving in the near future and I think that goes for all other share holders and employees of Microsoft as well hahahaha

REMant  07/10/2012 02:08 PM Report

There hasn't been the "thrill of innovation" out of anyone else either and I think we have to face the apparent fact that the "tech revolution" is largely over.

As I've said several times, MS makes stuff, even if it is software stuff; the others use it to sell stuff. Hardware mfrs have been stalled for some time, improvements in speed and capacity notwithstanding. Apple was among the first to go. Jobs was basically a salesman.

How could Gates be wrong about the question of timing? iPad didn't or doesn't have the power to run Flash. Early on no one wanted Internet appliances, but the improvement in broadband, wireless, CPU power and storage capacity changed all that, as well, of course, the drop in the price of everything as a result of economies of scale and Chinese production. Just look at AOL's trajectory.

I'm not overly fond of MS, nor certainly Balmer, or even many ppl in the Northwest, but the co has done a lot more for the computer business than Apple, Google and Amazon put together. The universe in which those cos are operating was created by MS. IMHO Google IS a house of cards. Share prices don't very often reflect real value, or even dividends. Google does have its hands on the ad revenue, but most of what it's done has been poorly done. And I suspect Apple and Google will increasingly become the target of regulators.

Computing will undoubtedly be further disseminated into various devices and become just another part of the machinery, but I sincerely hope the Internet doesn't degrade into oligopoly.