News

Ballmer Analyzes Microsoft's 'One Big' Vista Mistake

Microsoft delays on setting the Vista ship on sail as they took a 'Big Bang' approach and tried to overhaul all of its operating system's core components simultaneously, an approach that eventually led to a fiery development crash, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told financial analysts. "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."

In March, Microsoft announced that it was postponing Vista from an anticipated October release to November for enterprise customers with volume licenses, and January 2007 for everyone else.Since then, Microsoft has repeatedly said it is on track to meet those deadlines while also refusing to commit to those dates. In fact, earlier this month, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates gave Vista only an 80 percent chance of releasing on time.

Trying to persuade analysts to trust Microsoft as it sinks billions into new 'high growth' projects like Zune and its expanding unified communications and business intelligence software lines, Ballmer argued that the company won't repeat its Vista mistakes. "I'm very confident that we have learned the one key lesson we needed to learn from that time frame," Ballmer said. He pledged that future development would happen more modularly and incrementally.

Analysts had mixed responses to Microsoft messaging. The company's stock dropped two percent on the day of the meeting, to close at USD 23.87. It rebounded Friday to close up 1.6 percent. One money manager at the event said he had hoped Microsoft would do more to demystify its 'Live strategy', which he views as little understood on Wall Street. Industry analyst Mike Gilpin, of Forrester Research, echoed that view, saying he thinks Microsoft has not yet explained how its Live services will better those of its rivals. "I would like them to explain the differentiation they'll bring," he said. "How are they going to nail Google?"


print	save	email	comment