Elop figures out how to destroy Microsoft

[EarlyMon]

SlashGear: Elop as Microsoft CEO said to consider axing Xbox and Bing.

http://google.com/producer/s/CBIw6oyAnQ4

And move Office away from Windows.

To iOS and Android.

Yes, the quisling that destroyed Nokia is ready to not only bite the hand that fed him all along, he's ready to just knaw off any limb trapped in a good idea at Microsoft.

I expect to see him pitching Windows for BlackBerry very soon.

Few are as smart as Elop.

And that's because not everyone can be a Jar Jar Binks.

That's what it takes to match wits with a giant like that.

 

[EarlyMon]

Meanwhile...

SlashGear: First Xbox One TV and entertainment apps announced.

http://google.com/producer/s/CBIwxNbD0Q0

:rofl:

 

[mikedt]

This could almost be something from The Onion.

Going to be some more "burning platforms" I think. Elop's favourite song... Suicide is Painless.

 

[kate]

Why would he want to sell/get rid of the Xbox?

Isn't it a cash cow?

 

[Hadron]

Well he's not CEO yet, so I guess we'll see whether the board share his "vision".

 

[EarlyMon]

The Cunning Plan!

 

[MoodyBlues]

Hey, anything that hastens the demise of micro$oft is alright by me! :rofl:

 

[Joelgp83]

Eh, Microsoft was still a boon for gaming, considering they were responsible for getting an extremely fast, unified API set into common use (DirectX) at a time when the market was so fractured that nobody could support everything.

Granted, OpenGL, OpenAL, SDL and the like have since taken the torch from Microsoft, being quite competent APIs today. But in the early 90's? DirectX was there to start that trend.

 

[EarlyMon]

Without competition, we're all doomed.

 

[Revenant Ghost]

How in the hell can you ax a gaming juggernaut like XBOX? It's inconceivable! Someone needs to knock some sense into this fool!

 

[MoodyBlues]

Without competition, we're all doomed.

Very true. But m$ need not be part of that! There's plenty of competition without them--and their bloated, buggy, overpriced, virus infested, proprietary software.

 

[EarlyMon]

Very true. But m$ need not be part of that! There's plenty of competition without them--and their bloated, buggy, overpriced, virus infested, proprietary software.

I'm well aware of what Linux can do.

I'm also well aware of how much of the global and local economies are tied to Microsoft, like it or not.

And regardless of how evil or wrong their software is, lots of apps rely on them, and lots of industry relies on those apps.

And by extension, they're still an important competitor for the segment that they began with - individual users.

Microsoft has to be a part of that competition because they are a part of that competition.

Being displaced competitively happens.

It's going to happen to Microsoft, it's going to happen to Apple, and it's going to happen to a lot of open source.

But being removed by implosion caused by stupidity, rather than competitive forces, is simply another matter altogether.

See Nokia.

Per the plan all along, Microsoft stepped in and picked up the pieces from that stupidity implosion.

When Elop succeeds in augering Microsoft into the ground, do you really think it'll just go away?

No, someone is going to pick up the pieces.

And the likely candidates are Apple and Oracle.

I predict that one day after that happens, the old Microsoft will look wonderful by comparison.

 

[mikedt]

Short of him sending out a backdoor kill for all existing Windows based computers, won't matter.

I use my PC for all entertainment/business purposes.
I do not own a TV, as I have no need for one.
Just like I have no need for a xbox/other closed garden pricy piece of garbage.

Let him do his worse, My proud usage of Windows 7 will continue.

They might have already sent out a back-door remote kill switch, could have already been in there from the start. Windows 8 has one. Keep your computer off the internet if Elop has his grubby fingers on the trigger. Apparently he wants you to be running MS Office on iOS or Android, as well as Mac OS X.

 

[mikedt]

Look at what happened to Skype since M$ have owned it. It used to be considered safe from eavesdroppers. I already know that Washington DC(NSA), London(GCHQ) and Beijing(PSB) have complete access to everything that passes through Skype, and probably any other govt. and spook that wishes access. I could get worse for for Skype with Elop in control.

 

[MoodyBlues]

I see what you're saying, EM, but I'm looking at things in a more historic manner, not just from a place of personally despising micro$oft.

Historically, companies come and go. Products come and go. Companies that don't act quickly enough to adapt to changing consumer needs/wants can and do fade away. Think about some of the big-time brands we grew up with that are now either distant memories or just shells of their old selves: Polaroid, Montgomery Ward, TV Guide, various [print] newspapers and magazines, etc.

Five years ago, who could've foreseen a mobile OS called Android becoming the most-used OS in the world? Who could've guessed that M$ would falter, miserably, in the mobile phone market?

Things change. That's all.

 

[EarlyMon]

Yeah, companies come and go due to competitive forces.

No big deal.

But that does not make all coming and going okay.

We have anti-monopoly laws and other legislation because bad things happen when you leave the boundaries of the game.

We can't and ought not even try to legislate everything.

On the positive side - breakthrough technology that changes the game. See - top buggy whip maker vs. Ford automobile production.

On the negative side - implosions. Very disruptive and can't be legislated either.

A lot of financial corners held their breath when Jobs passed away. Fortunes and employment were on the line, waiting to see if Cook could handle the reigns.

An entire country was thrown into financial disarray when the Nokia implosion began.

You can't legislate against stupidity.

Saying that history only teaches that companies come and go, so it's ok, really oversimplifies in my opinion.

In a hundred years, all of the adults living now are likely to be deceased, according to historical trends. But that doesn't make casualties of a war today ok.

In the same fashion, citing market history and saying that it's ok if Microsoft implodes ignores the central point.

Time will tell if Microsoft implodes. If so, and if Elop is involved, a lot of apologists will say he was the messenger, not the cause.

Just like at Nokia.

But he was the cause there.

Look up my posts here from before he took the reigns.

We were getting heavy Microsoft trolls out of Scandinavia when everyone thought they might go with Android.

I predicted from that they were going with Microsoft.

And as soon as his name came out, I predicted the takeover.

You don't just get to be a Microsoft CEO candidate and announce publicly that you might mess with the killer app suite of all time and you might jettison the heaviest player in the gaming industry, ho hum, but maybe not.

Those are opening moves.

And the player was a quisling before.

I'm surprised that in all this time, no one here has questioned the term quisling, while in real life, I've rarely met anyone lately familiar with it.

It was a proper name. Look it up if you don't know the history.

 

[MoodyBlues]

Great post, EM.

BTW, I had to look up quisling. I knew I'd heard it, but it just wasn't clicking.