Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months - <AUTHOR> http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2013/aug13/08-23AnnouncementPR.aspx <comment><USER2> He'll be remembered as a terrible CEO. Ballmer took over as CEO in 2000. In the 13 years since then, Apple has experienced an unprecedented resurgence. Google and Facebook have gone from being obscure startups to giants. The tech industry went through the bubble, recovered, and today is stronger than ever.

What happened to Microsoft? While the rest of the tech sector exploded and prospered, it stayed still. A MSFT share was worth about $35 dollars when Ballmer took over; it's worth about $35 now. The world moved on, and Microsoft didn't move with it.

<comment><USER3> I agree that he will probably not be remembered for having more than doubled revenue and almost tripled profits. He will not be remembered for transforming Microsoft into one of the most important enterprise software companies. Not for introducing .NET, C# or Kinect either. All of that will be forgotten.

He will be remembered for missing mobile. He will also be remembered for caring a lot about developers and about developers and about developers as well. The VB6 folks will still hate him ;-)

<comment><USER4> It's hard to disagree with sarcasm on the internet. But in this case you are absolutely correct.

Microsoft _used_ to control the future of computing. Now they are yet another enterprise software company with no apparent mission except to make money.

The lay somewhere on a continuum with IBM, Oracle, SAP all the way through to companies like CA. At one end of that spectrum they do research and produce software that people use to do their job 0.5% better than they used to. At the other end they may as well be accounting companies for all the impact they have on the future.

Yes, they make money. And yes, I admit they try to compete with consumer oriented technology companies and have some interesting products. But you are 100% correct - Microsoft is now primarily an enterprise software company.

Meanwhile Apple/Google/Amazon/Facebook/etc look toward the future.

<comment><USER5> There is a tendency to believe that the companies which are doing well right now have 'won' in some sense. We need to understand that this is the state of affairs right now. There is a non-trivial possibility that Facebook/Google etc become lumbering giants just like MSFT.

<comment><USER6> >There is a non-trivial possibility that Facebook/Google etc become lumbering giants just like MSFT.

It might already be true, how do you distinguish between a lumbering giant and not without the help of hindsight? The public consensus on such things lags a few years behind reality.

What signs have you seen in 2013 that Google is not a lumbering giant?

<comment><USER7> Microsoft's approach was different: let others innovate, then we'll dominate. Others would come up with new stuff, and Microsoft would "embrace and extend" whatever got traction in the market by adding it to their near-monopoly OS/app stack at whatever price served the purpose of eliminating the inventor and taking their market.

This strategy always made Gates paranoid, because the risk was that some alternative to the MS stack would take off too quickly to be killed. Without their near monopoly power as a weapon, they would have no special competitive advantage.

What they feared happened in the mid-90's when the Web took off and the browser/Java combo threatened to be a universal VM on top of every PC. Gates fought back with every weapon he had to fragment the universality of the meta- platform. He was able to greatly slow, but not stop, the emergence of an OS- independent Web, because he controlled the majority of the OS market underneath it.

But then the second shoe dropped. Mobile came along and MS was not able to stop its explosive growth. The growth of mobile made MS just another minority OS underneath the Web, and they lost their ability to disrupt the standardization of the Web platform. They were in the position they had always feared: having to support the standards of others or be abandoned by their customers as the Web became the new monopoly platform.

If Ballmer could have created the mPhone and mPad and given away for free an mOS for phones that was a mini, modified version of .Net, maybe they could have kept the Web fragmented and continued their platform dominance, but whether that was even possible (MS did things second, not first, was only a minor hardware developer, and seldom gave things away except when tied to something they sold), I'll never know. Gates got to wield monopoly power; Ballmer didn't.

MS's monopoly-based business model has to be abandoned, but do they have any other? They'll come up with something, as IBM did, but I don't think they'll ever be leaders again, because they didn't really "lead" before, except in market share.

Google's business model (expand the Web platform for free, dominate Web advertising, and employ an army of PhDs looking for something besides advertising to do) is nothing like Microsoft's. If they ever lost advertising, they'd go down harder than MS, and they could lose it if they ever lost much search mindshare.

And Facebook? They're a website. They are completely dependent on the psychological inertia of their users, which I wouldn't bet on long term.

<comment><USER8> > Microsoft's approach was different: let others innovate, then we'll > dominate.

XBox, Surface and ergonomic keyboards would beg to differ. Not mentioning the countless other innovations that didn't become as popular as these ones.

I know the Hacker News hive mind likes to perpetuate the myth that Microsoft doesn't innovate but it innovates at least as much as, if not more than, Google and Apple.

<comment><USER7> I'm speechless. Well, almost. Apple revolutionized the music industry, how music is sold, and how it's listened to. It revolutionized phones. Its iPad changed consumer computing, media consumption, user interface expectations.... Five year olds are totally at home on an iPad and think a screen without touch "isn't working". As they get older, all screens will have to conform to the new reality. They revolutionized shopping for music, movies, and apps. They revolutionized brick and mortar retailing with the most profitable stores of all time.

And Google has changed human access to information so profoundly that I can't adequately explain to my kids what it was like growing up in a world so cut off from things other people knew. Google Earth is something from science fiction. Street View lets me get to know my way around a town before I travel there. I can take my kids for a walk past my old homes in four different countries. Astonishing. And Google's self-driving cars may make driving off- limits to humans in another few years.

Then there's Microsoft, with thousands of smart people working for decades with billions of dollars of resources to work with---the most powerful of them all until what feels like "recently" to me. And the evidence of their innovative power: we have one of several game platforms, a billion-dollar write-off tablet that they can't give away, and a kind of keyboard that accounts for less than 1% of keyboards in use today. Oh, and other stuff that "didn't become as popular as these".

I'm not saying they never came up with anything new. I'm saying that relative to their size and resources, their innovations were trivial. Their huge impact on business, on consumer use of the Internet, on the tech industry, on governments, and so on, came not from revolutionary innovation but primarily from their relentless efforts to monopolize markets.

Of course, the lifeblood of a company is profit, not innovation. Without subsidies from ad revenues, Google's innovations could dry up quickly, and cheap knock-offs could eventually take away most of the markets Apple has revolutionized. But even if their profits prove short-lived, their amazing contributions to society will live on. I doubt many in the future will feel the same about Microsoft's contributions.

<comment><USER9> _Then there 's Microsoft, with thousands of smart people working for decades with billions of dollars of resources to work with---the most powerful of them all until what feels like "recently" to me. And the evidence of their innovative power: we have one of several game platforms, a billion-dollar write-off tablet that they can't give away, and a kind of keyboard that accounts for less than 1% of keyboards in use today. Oh, and other stuff that "didn't become as popular as these"._

This is not really fair, and I'm sure you realise that. As a random selection, and in roughly decreasing order of significance from "world defining" to "things you'd really miss if they weren't there":

We have a standardised desktop operating system that is familiar to nearly every computer user on the planet, with which an array of hardware more diverse than at any point in human history mostly just works, and on which software probably written before some people reading this were born still runs.

We have a history of programming languages that have advanced both the state of industrial practice and the state of the art in research, and both traditions continue to this day.

Until very recently, the majority of web pages were presented in one of a handful of carefully designed, screen-optimised fonts that brought digital typography far beyond its previous standard, which are available on almost all major platforms, not just Microsoft's.

We have a wealth of ideas regarding HCI, from more efficient user interface designs to accessibility techniques to support users with disabilities.

It's not difficult to think of more examples, and of course Microsoft have also participated in numerous collaborative endeavours over the years that have advanced the industry in other ways. No doubt an organisation with Microsoft's resources could have achieved much more in recent years with more visionary leadership, but the idea that their work has produced nothing more than a few hardware devices over the years is just silly.

<comment><USER10> >We have a standardised desktop operating system that is familiar to nearly every computer user on the planet,

And then there's Windows 8.

Also, while we're on the subject, my 8 year old can put together an amazing Keynote presentation on an iPad. She has never used a Windows OS.

<comment><USER11> 8 year olds used to put together and modify games in BASIC. Microsoft BASIC. How low we've fallen...

<comment><USER12> Are you saying there's less 8 year old programmers now than there used to be? That's just silly.

<comment><USER13> Yep. All the good once are stuck playing *craft games.

Find a modern 8-year old, who understand PC circuitry (at analog and digital level), seen manufacturing processes, can re-solder components, can write C/assembly, can develop basic useful applications (like, say MS Paint). I bet you could easily find one like that, back in 70s-90s, particularly here in the silicon valley. Now - I'm not so sure.

<comment><USER12> I'm going to call you on that. First for moving the goal posts and second for generalizing without any backup whatsoever.

From "Basic -> C/assembly"? Wow. That escalated quickly.

<comment><USER14> Is'nt it the logical transition, at least in some schools it was, and i was thought the same way, begin with BASIC, and then as our curiosity increased we moved onto c and 8051 hardware/assembly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What were the key Ballmer era highlights?

== Negatives ==

* Clashes with Gates during CEO transition of power: [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121261241035146237.html](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121261241035146237.html)

* Developer relations / motivational speaking (thanks mathattack): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvsboPUjrGc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvsboPUjrGc)

* Employee retention (thanks JonnieCache, Ziomislaw): [http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/microsoft-ceo-im-going...](http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/microsoft-ceo-im-going-to-fing-kill-google/2005/09/03/1125302772214.html)

* Windows Phone: [http://www.forbes.com/sites/markrogowsky/2013/07/18/if-you-h...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/markrogowsky/2013/07/18/if-you-havent-seen-a-windows-phone-lately-its-because-theyre-practically-disappearing/)

* IPTV platform Microsoft Mediaroom (thanks nixy): [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/03/bt_vision_upgrade/](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/03/bt_vision_upgrade/)

* Vista (thanks balakk, danieldk)

* Internet Explorer neglect and market share declines.

== Mixed ==

* Failed Yahoo acquisition (thanks michaelpinto, seanmcdirmid, throwaway1979): [http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2008/may08/05-03le...](http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2008/may08/05-03letter.aspx)

== Positives ==

* Xbox / games division (thanks benihana)

* Enterprise successes (thanks gregd, facorreia)

* Facebook investment (thanks riffraff)

[edits: updates per reply comment suggestions]

<comment><USER16> Positives: Only threw away 10-20b on pointless acquisitions (aQ, etc.). Successfully avoided buying Nokia, or pulling an HP/Compaq Fiorina fiasco, and didn't buy a big dying services organization to chase IBM. Also didn't do like HP's board with the lawsuits and revolving door CEOs and such. Avoided major criminal activity.

<comment><USER17> How about paying $8 billion for Skype, a zero-profit company, and almost paying $40 billion for Yahoo?

<comment><USER18> Skype is about to pull in 2 billion in revenue. Surely there's some profit there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Huge news! Let's see what happens to the stock today. It edged up a little at the end of the day, suggesting that perhaps news was getting out. It's up 8% in premarket trading. [1]

One interesting thing to note from that chart is their Beta (a measure of link to market volatility) is less than 1, which is very low for a high tech stock. It basically means that the market views them as less volatile to market conditions than an index fund. Or put another way, more like a utility than a high tech firm.

What does this mean for Microsoft? I think an awful lot will depend on his replacement. I don't think they can get Gates to do another round. Who has the breadth of skills to manage it all? Seems like a complex enough beast that finding an appropriate outsider would be difficult too.

Going to another source [2] I see:

"As a member of the succession planning committee, I'll work closely with the other members of the board to identify a great new CEO," said Gates. "We're fortunate to have Steve in his role until the new CEO assumes these duties."

This suggests that he could be gone much sooner if the search goes well. These things don't happen overnight, but it could be by the end of the year or even sooner.

[1] [http://finance.yahoo.com/q;_ylt=AsQ2vnc2OVs8WNqk.WdDwM.iuYdG...](http://finance.yahoo.com/q;_ylt=AsQ2vnc2OVs8WNqk.WdDwM.iuYdG;_ylu=X3oDMTBwdm1qNzVjBHNlYwNVSCAzIERlc2t0b3AgU2VhcmNoIDI-;_ylg=X3oDMTBucmRhZWhqBGxhbmcDZW4tVVMEcHQDcG1oBHRlc3QD;_ylv=3?uhb=uhb2&fr=yfinanceheader_test2&type=2button&s=msft)

[2] [http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2013/08/23/microsoft-ceo- stev...](http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2013/08/23/microsoft-ceo-steve- ballmer-to-retire-in-12-months/)

<comment><USER20> Thank God. (Speaking as an ex-Microsoftie).

Hopefully MS will lose the "we need to put Windows on everything, including embedded systems" attitude. Windows is a horrible bloated mess barely capable of successfully running on a tablet PC, much less smaller things. (And if you've ever had to /build/ Windows . . . OMG. OMFG).

There are core bits of Windows that are great; the I/O system is incredibly well done. Then then are core pieces of Windows which are incredibly shitty -- in fact, there are registry entries that /nobody knows what they do/. No one has had the gumption to clean that stuff up. But until they do, folks like Apple (who seem to have a good handle on their technology /and/ consumer design) will continue to be fierce competitors.

If they pick the wrong CEO, this could go south pretty quickly. They're going to need someone tough, who has a good horse sense about consumers and can't be snowed by engineering management trying to cover up mistakes.

BillG isn't coming back, but they need someone like him.

<comment><USER21> But what could be the future of MS look like a strategic perspective? I am pondering a bit about that. They are somewhat squeezed in between closed system and open source. How can they position themselves for a solid path for the future in that middle-ground.

<comment><USER16> A non-crappy enterprise mobile option alone (basically Blackberry 2013) would be a $100b business. Neither Android nor iOS is that out of the box, and the bolt-on ecosystem of crap doesn't turn either into as good a system as RIM was in its heyday.

Look what phone DIRNSA uses today: a Blackberry.

I'd sell non-core assets (Xbox, Bing, hotmail, consumer stuff in general, etc.), and focus on the core OS/mobile/Azure/Office/MSDN systems.

<comment><USER22> I think you might be underselling the enterprise features of iOS, particularly with all of the Exchange support built in, ability to manage profiles with OS X server, the remote wipe, encryption, etc. It's what I use for work, and a Blackberry 2013 wouldn't get me to switch.

I would grant that there are specialized markets that MS could serve well in the enterprise market, but what do you think the typical enterprise deployment needs out of the box that iOS can't provide right now?

<comment><USER16> iOS devices themselves offer most of the hardware security features Blackberry (old) offers (I actually know zero about BB X; it seemed unlikely to live to adulthood, so I've ignored it). I love iOS for that.

iOS is undeniably a better web browser experience than Blackberry. It also has a viable app ecosystem, but that mostly doesn't matter for enterprise.

The only large OS X Server-managed deployment I've heard of is Apple internally. In Silicon Valley, I'd probably go with iOS-only (I don't believe in BYOD, and crossplatform means LCD and pain) with either a third-party MDM or maybe try OS X server. No way I'd do that in a 100k seat enterprise with high security requirements -- 30-50 person shops aren't really "enterprise".

I am excited about iOS 7, but not at all excited about Apple's lack of any real focus on enterprise. The only reason Apple has stuff like Kerberos support in OSX is that Apple uses it internally.

Apple focuses on consumer (primarily), with iCloud, etc. as the main management tool. There is a little bit more for small businesses and some smaller education deployments, but aside from Apple.com, there isn't much attention given to the enterprise market.

(If I got to pick a job, I'd rather be HHIC of Apple Enterprise Products/Enterprise Security rather than CEO of Microsoft, personally. Either would be a turnaround.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think Ballmer is an interesting case study in perception versus results. He's commonly portrayed as a poor CEO that has led Microsoft in the direction of irrelevance. And yet, to quote oft critic Gruber, "he knows how to make money" ([http://daringfireball.net/linked/2013/04/19/msft-q3](http://daringfireball.net/linked/2013/04/19/msft-q3))

I'd love to sit down and talk to him, and see if his vision is a bit more long range than your average industry analyst, similar Paul O'Neill's vision on worker safety and Alcoa in 1987.

<comment><USER24> I think both are correct. Ballmer was gloriously good at extracting profits - out of existing, successful product divisions. I believe Ballmer has a firm grasp of the enterprise market, and Microsoft's revenue and profitability numbers reflect this.

But new product development, particularly consumer product development, at Microsoft has largely fallen flat in the Ballmer years. WinPhone, Win8, Kin?

So while Ballmer has certainly increased the profitability of Microsoft, critics are IMO right to point out that they've been unsuccessful in developing future products to ensure their long-term survival.

<comment><USER25> Reacting to new market conditions is definitely Ballmer's problem. Under Gates, the explosive growth of the web took them totally by surprise, and he managed to swing the whole company around, producing the market-crushing behemoth that was Internet Explorer 6, and green-lit the XBox on the basis that "convergence" (i.e. computers running your TV) was inevitable. Those two alone are really tough, smart, forward-thinking decisions that Gates nailed.

Under Ballmer, Microsoft had the same pattern repeatedly: Zune, Kin, Windows Phone, Surface, Windows 8 -- they took too long to see the need, took way too long to make the product, and when they did it was either not good enough, too late, or both.

<comment><USER26> Except that IE was just a clone of Netscape and XBox was an attempt to duplicate PlayStation. Neither of these were original or ground breaking products. In fact with IE 6 he so badly misjudged the market that he assumed the game was over and didn't even bother continuing development. IE 7 didn't come out until 4 years later! Gates founded Microsoft's online businesses, which have been losing money ever since. You count XBox as a success, yet MS is in the hole over XBox by over a Billion dollars and will probably never make money on it, taking past losses and write-offs into account.

<comment><USER25> I can't really speak to XBox as it's not my field, but IE 6 was definitely not a clone of Netscape. I hate it with every fiber of my being, but Internet Explorer invented a bunch of stuff we take for granted every day -- the iframe tag is the first one that comes to mind, and they were also the first browser to adopt CSS, way back in IE3. People forget that for a hot second in 1995 Netscape started swinging its weight around as the dominant browser and introduced a bunch of half-baked ideas (the layer tag, for example).

IE6 was a terrible browser, but it was _the best browser at the time_. The anti-competitive behaviour helped, and then of course they sat on their laurels for years, but the best browser won.

<comment><USER27> Don't forget AJAX, which first appeared on IE5. Microsoft more or less revolutionized the Web with AJAX.

Everyone seems to forget the most important examples...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28>
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      | and Wall Street is not responding. |
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      | If you choose to retire the CEO    |
      | immediately, you will lose any     |
      | unsaved cash cows and reboot the   |
      | corporate strategy.                |
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      |     [ Retire ]      [ Cancel ]     |
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      +</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>+

</comment><comment><USER29> Paul Thurrot's comment:

"On a personal note, I'll just add that Ballmer was one of the good guys. Though he was relentlessly mocked for his over-the-top public appearances in years past, Ballmer was also relentlessly pro-Microsoft and it's very clear that the troubles of the past decade were at least in part not of his making: Ballmer inherited a Microsoft that had been driven into an antitrust quagmire by Mr. Gates, handicapping its ability to compete effectively or respond to new trends quickly. While many called for his ouster for many years, I never saw a single leader emerge at Microsoft who could fill his shoes or the needs of this lofty position. Looking at the available options today, I still don't."

<comment><USER19> "While many called for his ouster for many years, I never saw a single leader emerge at Microsoft who could fill his shoes or the needs of this lofty position. Looking at the available options today, I still don't."

This in and of itself is a failure of leadership. If you can't groom a leader to replace you in 15 years, that's a problem. Some could argue it's deliberate (defending their job) others might argue that he just didn't have it in him to make it a priority. The board should have insisted. I would argue that our last 2 presidents, and the current mayor of NYC have made the same problem.

<comment><USER30> Not disagreeing, just clarifying. . .do you mean that the last 2 presidents and Bloomberg should have been/should be more involved in grooming folks within their respective parties to take their places?

<comment><USER19> Yes. Independent of your political stance, shouldn't Bush have groomed a few successors? You can see Obama's failure to groom the next generation when the top two candidates predate him by 20 years. NYC's mayor took a third term because there was no obvious candidate, and there's still not a good one.

<comment><USER31> I hadn't thought of that Bush failure! I'm adding it to the list as #523.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Since the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has a huge percentage of its wealth still in MSFT stock, I think Bill Gates can make a case to himself that picking the best possible leader for MSFT will save hundreds of thousands of marginal children.

If I were him, there would be two candidates: Qi Lu (insider, obvious choice), or, for the ultimate in turnaround ballerdom: Ben Horowitz (from a16z). Either would be a vast improvement on Ballmer, but Qi Lu would be the "safe" choice, mostly doubling down on trends within Microsoft. Ben Horowitz would put Microsoft solidly at the core of Silicon Valley, plus it would signify that Microsoft views the next 10 years as "wartime" with a CEO to match.

(The other low-odds pick would be Bill Gates Round 2, but that seems unlikely just due to where he is in life. I could maybe see it as "Interim CEO". He'd do an awesome job I'm sure.)

<comment><USER32> > _Since the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has a huge percentage of its > wealth still in MSFT stock, I think Bill Gates can make a case to himself > that picking the best possible leader for MSFT will save hundreds of > thousands of marginal children._

According to its most recent SEC Form 13F, the Gates Foundation Trust does not hold any Microsoft stock whatsoever. About 47% of its stock holdings are in Berkshire Hathaway.

As for Bill Gates himself, he currently owns less than 5% of Microsoft. That's still almost $14 billion, but it's just 11% of Bill Gates + Warren Buffett's combined wealth. (Both of them are giving essentially their entire fortunes to the Foundation.)

<comment><USER16> Wow, thanks for digging that up. I assumed BG had done transfers of stock, but I guess he sold it on a plan and gave the cash to the foundation.

Another amazing thing about the BMGF is that it doesn't want to be permanent -- spending all assets within 20 years of the deaths of Bill and Melinda, and for the Buffet contribution, within 10 years of his death. (Based on age, it's highly likely WB will predecease either Bill or Melinda Gates.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Let me tell you an anecdote why I think Ballmer was incompetent and largely responsible for the sorry state that Microsoft is in at the moment. Yesterday there was a long article in the Israeli newspaper Globes about the success of the Israeli adware companies. Israel has in recent years become a world leader in software that installs unwanted toolbars on your elderly dad and mom's PC and "monetizes" them until they get their son or daughter to come over and fix it.

The list of such companies includes some really big ones, like Babylon and Conduit. These companies are making their profits by degrading Windows users' experience. Not only didn't Ballmer do anything to fight them, Microsoft actually has affiliate agreements with these companies to take a slice of the profits. Screwing your own customers like that cannot end well for Microsoft.

<comment><USER34> Can you provide the source about the part " Microsoft actually has affiliate agreements with these companies to take a slice of the profits"?

<comment><USER35> I remember the Microsoft deal with Conduit [1], but can't dig up anything that links Microsoft with Babylon.

Interestingly, that link implies that Conduit had a deal with Google before they got a better deal for switching to Bing.

[1] [http://allthingsd.com/20101201/conduit-dumps-google- search-f...](http://allthingsd.com/20101201/conduit-dumps-google-search-for- microsofts-bing/)

<comment><USER36> I think that's the point: when Google has refused to continue to profit off browser-hijacking companies, Microsoft is only too eager to step up to offer Bing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> As someone who spent five years working at MSFT under Steve as CEO, my first reaction is sadness. Steve spent over three decades working there, it is an end of an exceptional career, regardless of how his run as CEO might have been.

</comment><comment><USER38> I'm most interested with the "type" of CEO they replace him with. Broad categories:

\- Within Tech: They hire an Apple type key executive whose background is all around getting hardware/software/direct sales to work together. They want to move to be a super tight, integrated brand. \- Outside of Tech: They hire from a GE type of company. This acknowledges that they're a sprawling behemoth and will stay that way. They need someone who can manage a hugely disparate conglomerate. \- Tech vs Sales: Broadly speaking Bill was a product guru with a huge slice of business acumen. Ballmer was all sales and number driven. How we describe the new hire will be interesting. \- Mobile vs Cloud. Do we end up with someone really well known for their mobile background? Or someone who is really well thought of for understanding the cloud? For example Apple has generally nailed mobile and struggled in cloud. MSFT has actually done a little better in cloud than they're given credit for. But it will tell us what they think is more important by the hire.

Any other suggestions?

<comment><USER26> I want to live in a world where they hire Scott Forstall. It'll never happen, he's not an idiot, but oh boy would that be a ride!

<comment><USER39> "It'll never happen"

It would mean he needs to get out of his leather couch, but why not?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> People here will argue that he is the worst CEO ever, that's debatable of- course. But I want to say some good things about him. To me he is a guy in a suit who understood software development. He shouted (in)famous "developers, developers, developers"[1], he knew that LOC is not a good measurement of software development[2], he poured loads of money in MSR ignoring the pressure of shareholders. For these reasons only he is a fine guy in my book. So I thank him for his works in Microsoft.

[1] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8To-6VIJZRE](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8To-6VIJZRE)

[2] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWylb_5IOw0&feature=player_de...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWylb_5IOw0&feature=player_detailpage#t=2338) (go to 38:59 time mark)

</comment><comment><USER16> Wow, this is going to be the best thing for MSFT stock (and probably the company) in the past 10 years. I'm excited about having a real force to counterbalance Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon again.

This, and the other company response to it, might be good for +0.05% GDP growth or something crazy like that.

<comment><USER41> Already up about $2.70 (8%) in pre-market trading. Looking to be very good.

<comment><USER42> What a fabulous present to all of us employees whose stock vests on 8/31!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Funny thing that people tend to prefer Gates' version of Microsoft ( which is full of popular but sub-quality products) rather than Ballmer's version ( with unpopular but more stable products)

<comment><USER44> I only realized what was wrong with Gate's version of Microsoft few years before he retired. It was only then when I learned that Gate's has been the chief software architect of MS all these years.

Gate's is very intelligent guy, brilliant and ruthless businessman and knows software, but he is not software architect. When Ray Ozzie took over, things turned instantly better. Chief software architect is the guy who have to balance between the need to add features and general soundness of the system that translates into quality in long term. Gates clearly did not have that ability. MS products never had general feel of good design principles you get from many other software products.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I feel bad for ballmer. his legacy is going to be pretty terrible because the stock price was flat from when he took over until now. nobody seems to take into account that he took over in the middle of the tech bubble bursting and msft was hugely overvalued at the time. I think profit has tripled since he took over or something like that. following gates was already going to be one of the hardest tasks possible. getting handed an overvalued company in the middle of a bubble bursting makes it all but impossible.

while i don't actually think he was a good ceo, i think he is much better than he gets credit for. they say he missed mobile, but i think windows phone is pretty good and new take on it. it was just a year or 2 late. xbox has been pretty fantastic overall. windows 7 was good. i think windows 8 has potential. azure is pretty good as far as i can tell. sure vista sucked (though not as badly as everyone says), and there have been other failures (kin anyone?).

People act like other good ceo's don't ever fail. Jobs had plenty of failures. Ping, mobile me, etc... Jobs had the "benefit" of taking over an almost dead company. making it thrive meant stock went crazy and he gets to be awesome. Ballmer just got in on the wrong end of the market. Tim Cook might have this problem as well, but at least Apple wasn't wildly overvalued at the time.

</comment><comment><USER46> Steve Ballmer is the perfect example of why a business person should not run a software company. The opinion that "Steve knows how to make money" is a poor indicator of a successful leader. Microsoft has alienated developers leaving only enterprise developers to create boring interfaces for users causing many personal computer users to find something more aesthetically pleasing (OSX/Ubuntu). A company based solely on making money is like a marriage based solely around sex and benefit to social-status. If you're a .NET developer and this offended you; good. Money != happiness

<comment><USER47> >The opinion that "Steve knows how to make money" is a poor indicator of a successful leader

Tell that to the people who, you know, _own the company_.

I'm sure they'd be thrilled with your plan to make pretty interfaces but no profits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Scott Guthrie for CEO!!!! [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Guthrie](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Guthrie)

<comment><USER49> He's more of a CTO.

"CEO of Microsoft" is a prestigious title. They could use it as an opportunity to pull a coup. Like offering to merge with Facebook and giving the title to Zuckerberg. It doesn't have to be with FB, any big guy that would bring a missing market to Microsoft's empire would be a coup.

But the reasonable thing to do is to hire from inside.

<comment> robert-wallis I always believed leaders should do the main thing the company does. Microsoft's new CEO should write software and make hardware. It's hard for me to respect a manager that doesn't understand what I do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> It must really hurt the self-esteem of a CEO when they announce retirement and the stock goes up.

That being said, it's about time. Microsoft has had too much misdirection lately and really needs to either pull it together or drop out of some of its markets.

<comment><USER51> Given that Ballmer has ~400 million shares of MSFT, I think the billion dollar increase in paper net worth probably softens the blow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Good news, this really had to happen. One of Microsoft's biggest problems is one of PR - too many people, particularly in the media have just hated Microsoft for years, and Ballmer is not charismatic enough to ever recover from that position. They need new blood, and to shake off the "old Microsoft" image if they want to win hearts and minds again.

<comment><USER17> Marketing and PR can only do so much to improve the image of a company or product. That company or product actually has to have _great_ core values or qualities.

Microsoft is forcing OEM's to pay licenses for using open sources operating systems, they're throwing mud against competitors in the media and in social media, and there's still this very real feeling that Microsoft hasn't shaken off the "evil" attitude and culture inside the company.

New pretty colors on its OS and hiring better PR people aren't going to help with that. The company need to change from the _inside-out_ , not outside-in.

<comment><USER52> I really don't think Microsoft's main product offerings are that bad. The biggest issue with Metro and Windows Phone is a lack of developer support - and I think a significant part of that is caused by a lot of the best developers being either Apple or Google "fanboys". Office remains excellent, Windows 8 is excellent at what it intended for - office productivity, games, VS development etc.

But the media hates them, OEMs mostly don't seem to care very much about making good hardware for PCs, Windows tablets and windows phones. To me this is at least partly a symptom of their image problem.

EDIT: I say this as an open source advocate - I would love it if Linux based systems became more popular, but I recognize the quality of Microsoft's products in terms of what they are intended for.

<comment><USER53> Bullshit. Microsoft crapped on it's developers, IT and users when it released Windows 8. How are you supposed to develop for a system when the frameworks change every couple of years? Not to mention pissing off independents, dropping TechNet and raising license costs across the board. Price out a decent MS server solution and 60 to 80 percent of the cost is Microsoft licenses. Azure isn't a solution either since Redmond is Yet Another NSA Bitch.

<comment><USER54> You are quite a drama queen :). Windows 8 applications can still be programmed in .NET languages. Given that probably 80% of the application is not 'front- end' code, it can be compiled without changes. On the front-end you can still use whatever was used before, since the desktop still exists. And if you want to go all-'Metro': there is a learning curve, but it is not that steep, since Windows 8 applications are also developed using XAML et al.

Disclaimer: as a OS X and Linux user, I don't know much about Windows.

<comment><USER53> Disclaimer: As a developer and admin primarily on Windows for the last 18 years, I know more than I want to know about Windows. BTDT, got the t-shirts...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> $24 billion. That's the increase in market value as of 15 minutes before the open. This has to be a record for a CEO announcing he's leaving. I've always wondered how much these types of things bruise the egos of the retiring execs.

<comment><USER56> The few hundred million that his own Microsoft shared have appreciated in value ought to at least partially make up for his bruised ego...

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I don't think Ballmer was a crap CEO, but because many people think he is, therefore just the fact he leaves is good for the company.

</comment><comment><USER57> 'It'll be better without Ballmer' is the 'If Jobs were alive' of the Microsoft world. I don't necessarily think that Microsoft has been doing a swell job, but I didn't think they were when Gates was in charge. Mostly it's a disappointment that they're _that_ big and doing _that_ little progressive.

Still, he's not been an awful CEO, business has been good under Ballmer but progression has been awful.

</comment><comment><USER58> Good news, bad news, who knows?

I don't know if current Microsoft issues are in their DNA or not. Personally I was bullish (yes I put my money where my mouth is) of MSFT but I mainly found the following obstacles to be more optimistic:

\- The relationship with developers was deteriorating: I am a MSDN customer and tried to upgrade but they don't give me any discount in the first year of upgrade while keeping with my same subscription level I have discounts. In our company we also have issues with getting new keys (or using the existing ones) for their software and we need to talk to someone personally to receive them.

\- Windows 8 / Office are in the middle of a transition but not there: I think having a hybrid mobile/desktop OS is a good idea. But I don't like to use my desktop in the way I use a mobile device (i.e: the famous start button) or the reverse. If they want to go mobile they must implement an Office that can be used with a new UI.

\- The Microsoft web offerings like Microsoft 365 are slow, difficult to configure, buggy. If they just copy Google/Apple style they would benefit a lot.

Disclaimer: I love Visual Studio and C#.

<comment><USER59> Microsoft's licensing schemes are riddles, wrapped in enigma's and covered with shit. I'm actually surprised that Windows doesn't have In App Purchases. You want to search? It's only 2.99! You want the desktop? It's only .99!

I've never encountered the issues you have with MSDN. I believe you only because the team that dreams up their licensing/key schemes, should be forced to use them.

The jury is still out on Windows 8. Having left my enterprise setting prior to Windows 8 become widely available (hell I left even before we moved to Windows 7), I wonder how Win8 is to manage in an enterprise setting. Most users that I've encountered, would have had a hell of a time transitioning from the traditional Windows XP/7 desktop, to Metro. My office would have been queued with "Where is the Start menu?"

<comment><USER60> Licensing being complex is a feature. It gives Microsoft something easy to wheel and deal on; it also gives OEM salespeople something to hide profit in ("gosh, sorry your enterprise desktops came out $40/seat high, but Microsoft gets all of that" while $35 of that is pure profit for the OEM)

<comment><USER58> MSDN is a different beast. They give you a lot of licenses for development. In our company we have hundreds of VMs that are created and thrashed all the time so having issues with licenses is a problem for QA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Now the question is, whoever will be next at the helm, will he / she be able to reverse directions and steer Microsoft into more relevant and fruitful territories.

Ballmer's Microsoft was always late to the party, overseeing important technology trends and society transformations out of, I'd call it a mix of ignorance and arrogance; maybe they were also too blended by their previous successes. The way he dismissed iPhones, iPads, the way they developed their OS. Or the Zune, or Bing, there has been much criticism over the years. I don't know which moves would have been better (except for seeing the mobile future and the suckyness that was Windows Mobile 6 in time), but Ballmer was always more of a numbers guy I hear, and less of a visionary. I hope their next big guy is going to have more vision.

This may be a good day to buy their stock, if you like 50/50 games.

<comment><USER62> I'm skeptical about Microsoft recovering. They clearly missed the mobile revolution. But let's hope they'll be able to tackle directly the next challenges (wearable computing, etc.)

<comment><USER63> They also clearly missed the internet revolution, but managed to recover. Big companies have trouble adapting to new paradigms, but it's not impossible for them to do it, especially when they have so many resources at their disposal.

<comment><USER64> I don't think Microsoft's response to the web is comparable to their failures in mobile. billg's "Internet Tidal Wave" memo went out in 1995, long before the web had become ubiquitous. They still had plenty of time to (legally or otherwise!) ride the .com tidal wave to dominant marketshare and huge profitability.

A similar memo would have done the most good in 2005, when it was becoming clear that we'd soon all have access to pretty decent wireless networks and high performance pocket computers, but also clear that WinCE and the PocketPC were lousy ways to take advantage of those facts.

<comment><USER62> I don't think missing the Internet revolution was their biggest mistake. If you look at Apple they focused on hardware. What Microsoft could have done too. Instead, they just tried to continue this Windows monopoly and overlooked everything else.

<comment><USER64> My point was they _didn 't_ miss the Internet revolution. In fact, they picked up on it faster than most of the '80's tech companies and radically shifted strategy because billg knew that by, say, 1997, it might have been too late.

I agree that trying to remake the PC space in the PDA and phone worlds was a strategic blunder for Microsoft. OEMs competing to build low-margin devices for a common OS worked for Google because they could afford to give Android away for free and the carriers and handset makers were terrified of Apple.

On hardware, Microsoft had a model to follow: XBox. Imagine if they'd built an "XPhone" in 2005 instead of playing me-too to Apple with the Zune.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Long, long overdue. He should've been fired ( _ahem_ \- retired) after the Vista failure, which was _his_ failure. It took Sinofsky to turn things around with Windows 7, and deliver on time.

Hopefully this means a lot less "Metro" in Windows 9.

</comment><comment><USER65> They could buy Yahoo! and put Marissa in charge...

</comment><comment><USER31> The question really is: who is the best to run Microsoft?

Its a hard choice: too much enterprise for anyone at Google, have to talk to folks outside of Microsoft (partners, enterprise) so that rules out anyone at Apple. So who then?

</comment><comment><USER66> > Steve Ballmer joined Microsoft on June 11, 1980, and became Microsoft's 30th > employee, the first business manager hired by Gates.

> Ballmer was initially offered a salary of $50,000 as well as a percentage of > ownership of the company. When Microsoft was incorporated in 1981, Ballmer > owned 8 percent of the company. In 2003, Ballmer sold 8.3% of his > shareholdings, leaving him with a 4% stake in the company

Wow. How common is it for such a late employee to have so much percentage of a company?

<comment><USER67> It was a very small company and self-financing, so its stock hadn't already been gobbled up by venture capitalists.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> Stock immediately went up 7% on the news.

[http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3AMSFT](http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3AMSFT)

<comment><USER69> It could be the dawn of a new era for Microsoft. The company's stock didn't do anything exciting in the last decade but to Ballmer's credit he did keep the ship afloat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> It will be interesting to see if Microsoft follows a Yahoo like trajectory - and if Apple follows Microsoft's trajectory after a few years of Tim Cook.

<comment><USER71> I would bet on it. This seems to be the cycle of tech companies: Innovate when small, rake in profits for years, lag behind, and slowly die. What has Apple produced under Cook? A couple small improvements to current products, and nothing new or noteworthy. There may be a couple innovations still in their incubator from days past, but in 5-10 years people will be saying the same things about Apple.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> I guess he finally opened the '3rd envelope'

<comment><USER73> I opened the thread just to post this comment. :)

Glad you did!

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> Anyone else thinking Bill Gates might be "chosen" to be the next CEO of Microsoft?

It might sound ridiculous but he's been involved with his foundation work now for several years so it should be running well. He could probably leave the foundation to others to run now. So, he could return to Microsoft to try to lead it's resurgence. It's a challenge I wonder if he's up for.

</comment><comment><USER75> Ironically, the roughly 7% increase in MSFT share price due to his retirement announcement, has added nearly $1B to Balmer's net worth.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This story is Developing, Developing, Developing...

<comment><USER76> Or, perhaps: Retirement! Retirement! Retirement!

(to the cheers of investors)

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> I think the main problem with it's leadership is that Microsoft lost it's innovative spirit. I think the main reason for that is that Ballmer is a business and marketing guy, and not a tech guy. All the giants today are led by tech people and that's effect the entire culture of all the company.

<comment><USER78> Tim Cook has an MBA and a BS (earned in 1982) in industrial engineering. I was in college in the years leading up to 1982 and I socialized with industrial engineers. It is likely that Cook took only one course that involved programming (excluding programmable calculators). And the descriptions of his jobs ("chief operating officer (COO) of the computer reseller division of Intelligent Electronics", "12 years in IBM's personal computer business as the director of North American Fulfillment") suggest strongly that he did not do any programming once he left school.

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> Scott Forstall is available last I heard.

<comment><USER80> People may scoff at this - but why not? His experience from Apple and NeXT should transcend into an organization like Microsoft. He will be an extremely useful asset, although perhaps a bit dictatorial from what I've heard.

<comment><USER81> and bring skeuomorphic user interface to Windows 9? That will totally brainfuck the whole UX industry.

<comment><USER82> That'd be the day that I introduce my fist to the monitor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> Finally, it was time for Ballmer to go.

<comment><USER84> Exactly. My reaction, and I imagine everyone's reaction, upon reading the headline was, "finally."

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> Microsoft isn't going in the opposite direction that it should be going on. Instead of integrating more, it needs to make more software for Android and iOS. If it weren't tying everything into Windows all the time Office and other Microsoft software would be dominating App Store and Google Play, ensuring its success for the next generation.

Instead it's tying everything back into Windows and Windows phone. Those things should stand on their own feet. Microsoft can create great versions of its software for all platforms, but instead it handicaps itself to no great effect. Limiting Office to just its own platform hasn't really made much of an impact.

</comment><comment><USER86> Some people are claiming Balmer deserves some credit for keeping Microsoft profitable/status quo, but it seems like they're forgetting the stranglehold Gates had on computing when he left. It's not hard to keep the gravy train flowing. This is part of Balmer's problem, is that Microsoft thought it could stay current by essentially continuing its model of releasing new, sleeker versions of the same software every few years, ignoring that the fundamental way in which we interact with computers has changed drastically over the part decade. By the time they do innovate, they're too far behind to matter.

</comment><comment><USER87> Congrats to Microsoftians! Hope the future holds better leaders and brighter days...

</comment><comment><USER88> In honor of this news: developers, developers, developers, developers...in techno.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6ZarKIKpSA](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6ZarKIKpSA)

<comment><USER89> Of course, he was right any platform needs developers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER90> Ironically, their CEO search process reflects the bureaucratic nightmare that is today's MSFT. Why not just park Gates in an office and interview the 10 best MSFT senior execs?

</comment><comment><USER91> Terrible CEO or not. Under his leadership Microsoft stopped becoming a software leader. They stopped leading and started following. Yes. Great products were launched. Windows Phone 8 (really cool interface), the Surface tablet, the xBox, Azure, various improvements to Bing. But they were outdone by competitors in almost all of these areas. Microsoft has to keep innovating, they have to become the disruptors. Right now, they're just busy playing catchup.

</comment><comment><USER92> [https://twitter.com/spolsky/status/370917100593762304](https://twitter.com/spolsky/status/370917100593762304)

</comment><comment><USER93> If you think about it, what does the "within 12 months" part even mean? Like, if the deadline hits, they'll just take whoever they can get?

<comment><USER94> > If you think about it, what does the "within 12 months" part even mean?

I'm not sure what part about that is confusing. In case you are ESL it means that Ballmer will retire before one year has elapsed.

> Like, if the deadline hits, they'll just take whoever they can get?

Running one of the largest, profitable and most prestigious companies in the world is a pretty good job. I'm pretty certain that there will be no shortage of qualified people willing to become the CEO:)

No one makes an announcement like this without planning ahead, they've already got either a new CEO or a very short list of people who they've already vetted.

<comment><USER93> I mean, a much more common way to do this is something like "has informed the company of his intention to retire as soon as a successor is announced." Or "announced he will retire at the end of the year and that the company's board of directors has approved the promotion of X to CEO."

Throwing a deadline in there is just odd.

<comment><USER30> It may be more common, but I think that if it's stated the first way, it seems less planned and deliberate and it's more likely to rattle the market - or at the very least, send the media off looking for nefarious, non-business-related reasons for the retirement. It's almost as bad as suddenly retiring to "spend more time with the family".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER95> Ballmer's Microsoft really did have some intensely great research and development going under the hood, but the management was completely unacceptable for such a large company. There needed to be individual units so each team could work at their best, but unfortunately, the piss-poor management that Ballmer headed didn't allow this, and resulted in the up-down nature of Microsoft's product releases.

</comment><comment><USER96> Help!

On the off chance anyone at Microsoft reads this, my Microsoft account got deleted by a bug in Live Domains and I haven't been able to successfully contact anyone to report it or fix it. The forums have been useless and now I can't do anything MS related without my account including my phone!

My e-mail is in my profile.

(Apologies for posting this as I know it doesn't add to the discussion but I have no idea how else to contact an MS engineer.)

</comment><comment><USER97> We've hit the Ballmer peak!

</comment><comment><USER98> Microsoft successfully won the battle of the desktop computer. It's amazing how this monument of achievement actually gave Microsoft a long-term disadvantage as desktop computing slowly became irrelevant to laptops and mobile. Failing now promotes success in the future. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next 10 years, especially with DIY and web dev on the rise.

</comment><comment><USER99> My biggest hope from all of this would be for Microsoft to enhance its current products. They have been trying to get into too many fields while at the same time forgetting to make their main priority products perfect.

Considering the rising impact Linux has been having over the past few years, I'd only be glad to see Microsoft try to come up with a superior operating system.

<comment><USER71> > They have been trying to get into too many fields while at the same time > forgetting to make their main priority products perfect.

And when, pray tell, did they do that?

</comment></comment><comment><USER100> Time to write three letters.

</comment><comment><USER101> About time. I hope that he picks someone that can take MSFT from the boring and problematic company that we have no choice but to deal with, to a company that is producing products that actually make it easier to use things and more powerful (Windows 8 was a huge step back).

They need someone who will innovate and continue to innovate.

</comment><comment><USER102> I know the stock price isn't everything, but this is quite telling about Ballmer's reign: [http://tinyurl.com/ballmerballmer](http://tinyurl.com/ballmerballmer)

I didn't include AAPL, because that would have destroyed the others. And GOOG wasn't around in 2000.

</comment><comment><USER103> If anyone sees this as anything other than him FINALLY getting canned, then I have a bridge to sell you.

</comment><comment><USER104> Microsoft _stifled_ innovation. For a twenty year period, they held market dominance and used their monopoly power to maintain the status quo. They did a huge disservice to our entire industry. I say good riddance to bad rubbish.

</comment><comment><USER105> Not that it will happen, but I would like to see what Marissa Mayer could do with MSFT.

<comment><USER106> THAT would be in interesting...

</comment></comment><comment><USER107> tl,dr; Board of Directors, "Buddy time to go, it's not working out."

<comment><USER108> "Steve, we feel you should spend more time with your family"

</comment></comment><comment><USER109> Just after piracy hit all time lows. Good timing really.

[http://fakevalley.com/microsoft-pirated-software-sales- also-...](http://fakevalley.com/microsoft-pirated-software-sales-also-at-all- time-low/)

</comment><comment><USER110> i wonder if his last day will be as awesome as this: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1M-IafCor4](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1M-IafCor4)

</comment><comment><USER111> As of right now the stock is up 6.5% upon the announcement of Balmers departure, that certainly can't feel good. (Other tech stocks appear to be down or holding level today)

</comment><comment><USER112> I wonder what is bill gates thinking or planning now. Or what happened between him and ballmer from his nomination.

Just looked after the reasons Bill Gates Stepped down, could not find a lot

</comment><comment><USER113> He is suffering from [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle)

</comment><comment><USER114> They got awesome ideas but a really awful implementation of them - Tablet PC and Pocket PC devices/mobile phone (MDA anybody?) are two examples...

</comment><comment><USER115> Well, Mr. Apotheker, formerly SAP, formerly HP is available.

He could give away the XBox, windows and office for free and migrate Microsoft more to enterprise software.

</comment><comment><USER116> $500 for a phone????

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywi0h_Y5_U](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywi0h_Y5_U)

</comment><comment><USER117> Maybe Bill will make a Steve Jobs style comeback?

<comment><USER118> That's highly unlikely. Bill Gates is busy with his foundation.

<comment><USER117> It was very much a tongue in cheek comment but either way not only its unlikely, Bill can actually do good things with his foundation. Taking Microsoft out of the pit its in would be very difficult

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER119> I hope they find the right leader to take over, and avoid a fate similar to what happened to HP over the past decade.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Is it too soon to start discussing who is going to replace him? Any thoughts? I'm guessing not Sinofsky...

<comment><USER59> Bezos

</comment></comment><comment><USER120> So, are they getting rid of that company destroying stack ranking at last?

Or did Ballmer got into the 10% stack at last!?

</comment><comment><USER121> And there was dancing in the streets!

</comment><comment><USER122> About time. He should have retired earlier.

I would not wait twelve months; just pretend he died, and move on.

</comment><comment><USER99> From Vista to Surface RT, was it? I am just glad. A much needed change for Microsoft.

<comment><USER16> The recent "strategy memo" really should have been the last straw, where "creating shareholder value" was their mission.

<comment><USER99> Indeed. His reign over the past 10 years not only resulted in not much progress for microsoft but also hampered its reputation. Would be really interesting to see how the new management takes over and brings about some real changes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER123> Microsoft shares up in value in 5,4, oh it's already happened.

</comment><comment><USER124> I wonder: is this bad news or good news for Windows Phone?

<comment><USER125> windows what?

</comment></comment><comment><USER126> Maybe now they'll stop harassing me.

</comment><comment><USER127> Meanwhile, down at NASDAQ: BUY BUY BUY!

</comment><comment><USER128> Share price is up ~6.5% haha.

</comment><comment><USER106> It's about time....

</comment><comment><USER129> Very sad news

</comment><comment><USER130> ABOUT time!!

</comment><comment><USER131> it may be good for microsoft?

</comment><comment><USER132> "retire"

<comment><USER133> It sounds better than "spending time with family" I suppose. He is almost 60.

</comment></comment><comment><USER134> Amen

</comment><comment><USER135> Nice. Microsoft does some really awesome research work and can easily come out to position themselves as _leading_ the tech space again. Though some would argue they already do, but that's not correct looking at the growth other companies have demonstrated.

MS has had some massive misses, a couple of super bungled opportunities in the past decade only because of the ageing 'bored' (pun intended) that thought marketing is the only thing to drive innovation. I hope they find a replacement that's good and that his/her selection is not _too much influenced_ by the existing board or its psyche.

</comment><comment><USER136> Hmm , so who will be the new boss ? I think it should have been Sinofsky. He delivered W7 which the best Windows ever period ( and i'm a linux fanboy ). W8 was not that great but i dont think he designed that whole Metro fiasco, Metro came from the top. Anyway good luck MSFT.

<comment><USER137> [http://hal2020.com/2013/07/12/doing-the-successor- speculatio...](http://hal2020.com/2013/07/12/doing-the-successor-speculation- shuffle/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER138> PeterMartin_IG It's a bit damning that Microsoft is up 6% after CEO Steve Ballmer announced he's retiring in 12 months. $MSFT

</comment><comment><USER139> All hail the destroyer of Nokia.

</comment><comment><USER140> I'd like to officially announce my candidacy.

</comment><comment><USER141> i hope its not to late

</comment><comment><USER142> I predict Marissa Mayer, will take the mantle.

<comment><USER142> What? I guess people don't like my prediction. Mad down votes.

<comment><USER143> I don't understand. Marissa Mayer would be a great choice for this job. I doubt she would take it, because Microsoft is totally invested in the dying PC business and she'd have to put up with whiny old Bill, but, hey, Yahoo didn't look very good until she got there.

<comment><USER67> Apple bought Next and (accidentally) re-hired Jobs. Microsoft could, finally, buy Yahoo and get Marissa Mayer. But I don't think it's going to happen ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER144> I don't have a resume that could even begin to get a second look for CEO for a company this size, but boy oh boy would i love to take this position. CEO of Microsoft or CEO of HP is something i'd absolutely love to do! Two companies I think i could really fix - as I'm sure could a million others, but just in case the recruiting firm is reading this and have decided to try a novel approach and try someone with no former Fortune 500 CEO experience. You never know. lol.</comment>


Our Cities Could Get a Whole Lot Smarter - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/blog/our-cities-could-get-a-whole-lot-smarter

<comment><USER2> I saw this title and immediately thought of the Alpha Centauri wonder, The Self-Aware Colony:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwqN3Ur- wP0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwqN3Ur-wP0)

Probably not the connotations the author wanted.

<comment><USER3> But how can anyone be against 50% savings on maintenance for all your base facilities?!?! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> also this: [https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/solar- roadways](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/solar-roadways)

<comment><USER5> I thought this was a fairly convincing takedown of the solar roadways project:

[http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/183130-solar-roadways- pas...](http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/183130-solar-roadways- passes-1-4-million-in-crowdfunding-just-short-of-the-56-trillion-required-but- not-bad-for-a-crazy-idea)

<comment><USER4> Take down seems to forget that we have to replace road surface sometime and _if_ the claim that the solar roadway is net cost cheaper, then it seems to be the best choice. We dont have to dump $51T all at once, or even over 51 yrs timespan. Plus, doing it incrementally has the advantage of evolving in response to field reports/experience.</comment></comment></comment>


Mastering Coffee Delivery, One Tray at a Time - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/the-dispatcher/mastering-coffee-delivery-one-tray-at-a-time-c5081e525f48 <comment><USER2> Cool insight, thanks for that.

How long (on average) does a delivery take once you pickup the processed order from Starbucks? Have you guys measured any significant differences in temperature?

<comment><AUTHOR> It really depends on the order distribution of distances for a specific store but on average its ~7 minutes from pickup to dropoff. Regarding difference in temperature, the coffee travels in insulated bags and so we aren't seeing significant differences. We are monitoring customer satisfaction scores on these orders and will tweak as we go along as we find opportunities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I don't get how this was such a last-minute, all-nighters-all-round thing. Would it really have been so bad to take 4 weeks and do it properly?

<comment><USER4> This is complete speculation, but I'm guessing that the Starbucks deal happened late (as does any deal between higher executives that don't have to implement it), and the dealmakers wanted it running as soon as possible.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually, Postmates & Starbucks have been working on this partnership for a while now. We began operationally testing this in the last couple of months. As with all tests, there were kinks that needed to be worked out and new problems to be solved. Transporting coffee, spill-proof, at scale was one of those.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> How much did these trays cost?

<comment><AUTHOR> We were optimizing for speed so didn't really shoot for optimizing costs as much. It cost us about $6.61 in material costs and $5.25 in laser cutting time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> First world problems

</comment><comment><USER7> Feels like it should be 5 five cups, with another one in the center. Unless you know you need to keep them a fixed distance from the perimeter.

<comment><USER8> More complicated to manufacture.</comment></comment>


Overcoming burnout - <AUTHOR> http://www.onebigfluke.com/2012/04/overcoming-burnout.html <comment><USER2> This isn't bad advice; though I feel it's only a small part of the picture.

My desire to work on side projects definitely increases as I head towards burnout in whatever I'm supposed to be working on.

And giving myself permission to work on something completely different for a day definitely improves my mood, which can give me the energy to address whatever's bothering me.

But after that, I _still_ have to fix the original problem -- usually one (or many) large, poorly-defined tasks that I've been dreading, or some personal interaction that frustrated me and was never resolved; usually compounded by weeks at some level of sleep debt.

So if I stay up all night working on the side project, then I'm worse off the next day, not better -- more sleep debt, and one pleasant day of escapism, but the same old problems still sitting there (but deadlines one day closer).

If I can spend a restful day or two, clear my head and just free myself to think about things, solutions start to bubble up, I can make some concrete plans to handle whatever's been dragging me down, and I can catch up on my sleep -- that's great.

The times this has worked really well, I generally _don't_ work on side projects either. Filling my head with more interesting problems is pleasant, but my mind is still spinning at high velocity.

The better solution is to find a way to clear my head, reset my sleep cycle, and then take advantage of the clarity that follows.

<comment><USER3> I've been finding lately that the side projects are where I push new ground. The best part is putting those aside when I've learned enough and coming back to the main project with new skills and code to borrow from. Though it takes a good 30-40 hours. (3-4 weeks of tinkering.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Distancing myself from my computer for at least 72 hours lowers my coder's block, but I've found that working on a personal novelty side-project works equally well. The trick is distancing yourself from your usual work, which can be hard if you have only a single workspace. Working in a different milieu, like a coffee shop, helps.

(edit: grammar, distancing trick)

</comment><comment><USER5> Some similarities to Feynman's solution to burnout <http://www.physics.ohio- state.edu/~kilcup/262/feynman.html>

</comment><comment><USER6> This doesn't explain how to overcome burnout, it explains how to stave off burnout a bit longer.

Burnout is when you hit that actuall wall and slowing down a bit doesn't help, slowing down a lot doesn't even help and those two weeks off feel like just a drop in the bucket.

<comment><USER7> I agree. At that point I think it's best you start looking at improving your quality of life over the course of the year rather than finding that 'immediate relief'.

And try different things. For me it was yoga. Someone else I know loves bowling with her husband. Another friend of mine enjoys hiking, another painting. And not everything has to be a masterpiece, that goes for both your hobbies, your startup, and your job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I was starting to feel some burnout a week ago after a couple of months of 10+ hour days 6 days a week. Refurbishing my roof worked wonders for me. Spending 3 days pressure cleaning, replacing tiles and painting did wonders for me. Obviously not the kind of advice that applies to everyone but it worked for me. Plus my roof looks great now :)

<comment><USER9> I don't want to offend you, but from all I understand about the burnout syndrome it's hard to 'feel some burnout' (either you crash or not. Struggling with work/life is a different thing) and next to impossible to get back on track in 3 days, whatever those involve.

Good that it helped you and I second the advice of stepping away from the machine and doing something involving manual labor.

<comment><USER8> No offence taken. Sounds like burnout was the wrong term to use. Maybe I staved off actual burnout from developing later on by taking this time off. Either way some manual labour felt good :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I do this. Every now and then I decide I'm "claiming the day in the name of fun" and just work on an interesting coding project. Having unofficial projects is necessary to survival.

</comment><comment><USER11> Variety, use different parts of your brain (even if you aren't good at it), engage in physical activity if you are mainly sedentary, cut yourself off from the world every one in a while and just..... _decompress_.

Take hikes, go to a strange city and just _walk around_ and _exist_ there. Try drawing or sculpture, learn an instrument, try baking, or needlepoint, play video games.

Just don't do _all_ of these things all at once.

Moderation.

</comment><comment><USER12> There's been a steady stream of "burnout" trip-reports, and without trying to sound condescending, most of them sound like luxury. Almost all "how to avoid burnout" advice is based on the assumption that YOU are fundamentally in control. I have yet to read the burnout story involving 3 competing jobs, 2 urgent deadlines, 1 screaming infant, a bout of flu and a sick relative. Well, sometimes you just have to knuckle down and get on with it. "Burnout" doesn't exist -- it's just a bunch of Stuff That Happens In Life. It's normal, it doesn't make you special, get over it, its boring.

<comment><USER13> This sounds like what people who don't understand depression or drug addiction say to the depressed or addicted. It's always "just pick yourself up by your bootstraps" and "grow some balls and quit using" but it's not that simple. Maybe people are complaining about a lot of first world problems but it's not the problems themselves that should be the focus but the feeling a person experiencing burnout gets. That feeling is uncontrollable and it's debilitating and it can happen to anyone, first world problems or not.

If you've ever experienced burnout you'd be more sympathetic I can tell that you haven't and that's good. It's not a matter of will power or moral fiber that keeps you from burning out or gets you out of it though so be careful, no one is immune.

<comment><USER12> Depression and addiction are both medically recognised conditions. Burnout, it appears, can mean almost anything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I believe the implicit claim here is that regardless of whether the computer system is a contributory factor to burnout that association does not imply that it cannot be a factor in restoring one's self. Let's say, "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water."

I suspect it is a response to a future decision the author intuits large groups of computer laborers may make: that computers, in general, establish a unique, more intensely stressful baseline type for burnout cases. Usually the standard response (or rather "therapy") to burnout, even in the professional, occupational setting, in engineering and technical jobs involves doing something unrelated to that type of work. It is Feynman's point made official through the history of its adoption in business and corporate settings. But _physics_ isn't tossed out; a particular _institution of physics studies_ is tabled. This point is going to be made for _computer systems_ as well; perhaps the author is now asserting it. Web building will soon become a respectable science, wherein its general idiom becomes abstracta that support true, albeit horrifyingly misleading, statements like "My Internet does not work" or "I read ten articles on the Internet today" which people use in everyday conversation.

As Wittgenstein would say,

"I launched the ball!" "He recoiled at the thought." "She exploded with joy." "The Sun gave me a sun burn." "My grandmother is a dinosaur." "Astrology is not a true science." "She turned at a right angle."

Is there anything essential as a response to burnout that involves stepping away from the computer system? What does it truly mean for us if "Internet" becomes a household name? How are people thinking about it? What are their statements about it? Why does most advice seem to suggest "stand up and go smell a flower, seek pleasure". Is the Web not pleasuable? Seeking _it_? Working on _it_? -- It seems clear to me that the author is making a very simple point: whence come hedonism of the craft? -- To me, it sounds like: "step out of the machine!" I believe this is what motivates the couched "freedom of will" discussion (burnout is a "wall"). Intuitions about Robert Nozick's Experience Machine are what are stake here.

Let's assume that "go outside and smell a rose" is the description of a machine. Our author, I suggest, argues that "write code for pleasurable project" is another description for a machine. What is assumed is that one can choose, regardless of practicality (that your project may be even less successful because of your choosing is irrelevant here, being compelled to make the decision does not necessitate that one should make it). What is at stake here, again, are intuitions about the machine, and namely what it affords at all. Choosing to take an experience of another sort involves concepts of continuity, roughly, I believe, Nozick's discovered intuitions of we have:

1\. (Here I can only hope my analogy fits, but I believe it motivates, essentially, any apologetic position toward burnout:) "we first want to do actions" which gives any consequent desire for the experiences of those actions. In development and engineer jobs, technical jobs in general, we call this "burnout"; experiences (stress) eventually overwhelms desire to work (want to perform those actions). The storehouse of experience (one's work history) becomes nothing more than the description of some machine (a set of experiences one has had). So, there is an imperative to reject that machine. My follow-up is: Why does this response to burnout logically resemble Nozick's discovered intuition/response of: "Do not enter the machine"? -- "Step out of the usual." 2\. (Again:) Whether it is choosing to code a fun side-project or going out to build a doghouse, we are enjoying our freedom. What's not important here are practical considerations, the limits of one's autonomy cannot be defined only in terms what one perceives as one's own limits; one's autonomy is not established through the capacity of one's epistemtic assessment. Going with the flow because the current is strong only establishes the acceptance of a machine-like existence. So "go fly a kite" to assert one's freedom. 3\. (Again:) One's reality is limited to workflows and projects. "Leave the machine."

My general point here is that the structure of the argument: "go do something different," to me, looks very similar to our intuitions as to why one would reject the machine.</comment>


Show HN: MetaFetcher – URL meta-data fetcher for Node.js - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/RocktimSaikia/meta-fetcher <comment><USER2> Very nice. Good work. I wrote something similar recently for an internal project. You should look into fetching JSON-LD as well. It's a pretty neat little format. Once you have JSON LD you can then use jsonld's various APIs or something like jq to get the data from it.</comment>


New iPhones might be forced to have a removable battery - <AUTHOR> https://www.techradar.com/uk/news/all-new-iphones-might-be-forced-to-have-a-removable-battery <comment><USER3> They _are_ replacable. It's _cheap_ to replace them. They just don't have a user accessible hatch.

I wouldn't want to have a battery hatch and perhaps worse water sealing, just so I could change a battery myself instead of paying $20 for it _once in the lifetime of a phone that is maybe $500 to $1500 to buy_!

Sure if it came at no cost in terms of size, weight, price, waterproofing etc then sure. But otherwise I'd rather just pay the cheap replacement once after 2-3 years.

If people throw away their phones because the battery has gone bad, I think it's because they think it'll be expensive or impossible to change it.

<comment><USER4> I just replaced the battery in my iPhone a couple months ago. I ended up paying Apple over $300 because the glass on the bezel had a small crack on it and they wouldn't touch it unless I replaced the entire screen too. It's not "just $20" to replace an iPhone battery.

<comment><USER3> Apple might be stingy about conditions vs warranties (understandably). But you can always go to a third party. Your warranty isn't much good anyway if you have damaged it I'd assume.

I meant the work portion of the cost, (at a third party if required e.g. because apple don't want to touch it) is probably around €20.

<comment><USER5> Honestly surprised that Louis Rossman hasn't been mentioned yet. If you need an iDevice repaired, he's a good guy to handle them, and some of your proceeds will likely be spent fighting for right to repair legislation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If having a user-removable battery makes my phone not water resistant, then I don't want that. I have never had an issue with an iPhone battery. As things are, the battery is replaceable by any skilled technician so the cost of having it done is low. Perhaps they could enforce a standard battery form factor, if that.

<comment><USER7> What are you doing with your phone? My phones were never water resistant but they survived humid rooms, wet hands and rain just fine

<comment><USER8> Won't lie, I love watching videos or listening to podcasts in the shower.

<comment><USER9> And grabbing them back from the loo

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Are there "even" any examples of Android phones with user replaceable batteries that are comparable to current iPhones. I.e, with same/similar IP- ratings, similar battery capacity, similar ish power consumption, similar weight/thickness, similar screen size etc.

I think a smarter legislative move would be to enforce cost and accessibility measures for replacements, then manufactures could decide on the trade-off between design and cost.

E.g if EU said that all (new) phones could have their battery replaced for 30€/3% of purchase price/something else, within $arbitrary days, Apple could do that instead of making their phones (in my view) worse, while lower-end Android vendors without service infrastructure could make their phones thicker or less waterproof with an old school battery.

<comment> GuB-42 There are no high end phones with removable batteries.

Today, the closest would the new Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro, but they it is in a completely different market. The iPhone is a high end consumer product while the XCover Pro is a mid range rugged smartphone.

For a more relevant comparison, we have to go back to the Galaxy S5 (2014). It was a flagship and IMHO, a very good one. It had a removable battery, IP67 rating, and was on par with iPhones specs-wise. The main downside was its look, and it is probably the reason why Samsung switched to an all glass design.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> So if the EU is so worried about planned obsolescence, are they going to force Android OEMs to match Apple's support when it comes to iOS upgrades on older phones and security patches on even older phones?

The iPhone 6S released in 2015 is still running the latest version of iOS. I can replace the battery and still get a fully supported phone.

<comment><USER12> Right?

The fact that Apple releasing new phones every year is considered "planned obsolescence", when they're still providing support for them 5 years down the road, for free, when android phones are shipped without even the current OS let alone _any_ updates is absurd.

Are they also going to do something about planned obsolescence in cars? New models of those are released every year, they stop getting free service after a year...

<comment><USER11> Actually it's longer, not only does the latest iOS run on the 2015 iPhone 6S, Apple released an update to fix some bugs July of last year to devices that go back to the 2011 iPhone 4s.

Maybe this is yet another example of why it's crazy to want government intervention of tech when politicians don't understand the issues.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> While I fully support right to repair, hack and alter - I really think this is design decision that should be owned by designers and not politicians. There are N number of devices without removable batteries and there are M reasons why designer might not want them. Politicians should just ensure that manufacturers must respect the right of customer to open the device and alter it in anyway they see fit.

<comment><USER14> design decisions come from marketing, not designers. Replaceable batteries are as much a business/product strategy decision as it is a design decision.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I wish people who want to design iPhones would apply for jobs with Apple, supplying a design portfolio showing relevant competence, like normal sane & polite people – instead of attempting to use state power to impose their product preferences on others.

</comment><comment><USER16> A user-removable battery imposes a significant cost. As devices get smaller the cost is correspondingly higher. Adding a compartment means extra weight to strengthen the device. Plus a cover strong enough to keep out water.

Then the battery itself needs to be encased to protect it, lest putting it in your pocket causes a key puncture that sets your pants on fire.

Those costs are mostly fixed and would be a larger proportion of the overall thickness and weight in a modern phone.

It also means you can't use a split battery, L-shapes battery, or exploit any other spatial dimensions to pack in more battery... at least not to the same degree.

Is having half the battery life, or a phone 60% thicker worth it?

</comment><comment><USER17> I don't really want a user removable battery and make it less water proof. The devices are pretty good and last several years if the batteries are well taken care of. I'm also fine with Apple replacing the batteries with its own certified batteries where I don't have to worry (much) about the quality or longevity or even stability of the power source.

The bigger issue with all lithium batteries on devices is that even third party replacements are available only for a limited number of years. I'd rather have Apple and similar companies be forced to provide paid battery replacements for longer than their self-defined device obsolescence cycles (which are quite short for phones, tablets, and even for laptops). That's how you can make sure that devices remain (kinda) usable for the long term, even if they're handed down to someone else.

If Apple is indeed forced to do something, I'd rather have a better way to load apps outside of the App Store and increase competition for Apple.

</comment><comment><USER18> Please keep in mind E911 "pinging" is being abused and even being sold as a service. There have been malware that turn off the screen when you hit power and simulate a shutdown/startup routine. So long as the battery is plugged in a mobile phone, regardless of the OS, is a device that can be used to listen in on conversations,record video,location data and much more from gyroscope,accelerometer,wifi and more.

Please don't say to yourself that you would never care. If you don't care for others who have a legitimate need to fear for this then don't you complain a word when they come for you and you are forcibly put in a situation where either the authorities or someone with money is using your phones against you.

I hope all countries that call themselves free pass legislature to force user accesible battery removal or hardware kill switches.

</comment><comment><USER19> Five eyes wont like it to be so easy to disable your tracking device. Removing the battery or other kinds of signal blocking is the only way to know it's off / not transmitting

<comment><USER20> or just... don't bring your phone with you?

<comment><USER19> Possible for short periods, but unreasonable for all of life. Also privacy is a right and I shouldnt have to discontinue the legal use of something in order to avoid tracking.

Some people's job requires them to have a phone on them, should they have to choose between a job and privacy?

<comment><USER20> >Some people's job requires them to have a phone on them, should they have to choose between a job and privacy?

How would being able to take out the battery help? I don't think your boss would be pleased if you were on-call and your work phone's batteries were taken out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I can't shake off the thought half of the comments defending Apple are written by people working at/for Apple. Or earning 300k+

1 - 2 hours are required [https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone+11+Battery+Replacement/1...](https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone+11+Battery+Replacement/127450) That's 2 hours of a technician + 2 houurs + driving there/back.

115,00€ [https://www.ifixers.be/en/repair/smartphone/apple/iphone- xr](https://www.ifixers.be/en/repair/smartphone/apple/iphone-xr)

105,00€ [https://www.ifixers.be/en/repair/smartphone/apple/iphone-8-0](https://www.ifixers.be/en/repair/smartphone/apple/iphone-8-0)

For newer models battery replacement is not even offered.

Samsung is not any better at €95 [https://www.ifixers.be/en/repair/smartphone/samsung/galaxy-n...](https://www.ifixers.be/en/repair/smartphone/samsung/galaxy- note-9-sm-n960)

Cheaper at the original store [https://www.samsung.com/be/reparatie/mobile/](https://www.samsung.com/be/reparatie/mobile/)

With Note 4 battery replacement took 10s and involved popping the plastick back off the phone.

Tangentially, changing a H7 lightbulb in my Ford involves taking out the front harness and the whole reflector - meaning light realignmen at the shop is needed. Replacing the car battery is even worse, cant imagine doing it myself. At some point some manager must have invented a user story "as a user I want to spend €500 in car service to change the battery instead of the usual €0".

<comment><USER3> An original battery change (at an apple store) in expensive Sweden is €77 and that's for the new/more expensive models. Previous models are even cheaper than that. Buying an original apple iphone 11 battery is almost that much for the battery alone (if you can find one). Quick googling shows they are around €70 though it's hard to say how "original" a battery really is online.

So you really aren't paying much for the replacement work itself and that's what matters. One needs to factor the _battery cost_ out of the cost of _battery+replacement_ to discuss the benefit of user replacement. You can buy third party batteries for as low as €30 for some models and you then have to replace it or find someone to do it. No matter how you do, you'll likely never be paying more than say €30 for the replacement (work). and this replacement service is something that is needed either zero times or _once_ for a product that costs around €1000 new.

(Edit: original replacement by apple is €55 or €75 in Belgium too - <USER2> prices everywhere effectively) [https://support.apple.com/nl- be/iphone/repair/service/batter...](https://support.apple.com/nl- be/iphone/repair/service/battery-power))

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Easily removable battery equals no water proofing. Would be an interesting study to see which is a more environmentally friendly solution.

</comment><comment><USER23> Apple don't sell spare parts to consumers, so what use is a removable battery going to be vs the current system?

</comment><comment><USER9> Lets give apple something to flex their muscles on. I'm sure they can spin this positively too.

</comment><comment><USER24> Hope so, planned obsolescence is morally wrong for a company making world record profits.

<comment><USER25> Is it not morally wrong for non-Apple or non-Apple/Google companies?

<comment><USER26> Tricky question. As an extreme example, Is it as morally wrong for a homeless mother to steal baby food from a convenience to feed her starving baby vs a rich kid stealing from a store to impress his friends?

<comment><USER25> That's a wide difference. The other phone companies aren't equivalent to a homeless mother wanting to feed her baby. Or any one who is homeless.

If you had done something of a middle class vs rich person. Or a homeless vs in debt and barely living paycheck to paycheck person then those would make more sense. And in those cases. The morals are close to the same for both scenarios.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Sounds like a good idea for the environment

<comment><USER28> People replacing their own batteries will most likely throw them in the garbage. Not really good for the environment.

<comment><USER29> By that weird logic, better their battery than their entire phone battery included.

In France any store selling electronic products is mandated by law to accept your used batteries and electronics, and I'm sure most of europe has a similar thing. So this is neither better or worse in any way on that front.

<comment><USER30> Yeah, its the EU Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive. For any item covered by it made after 2005 it's the producer or distributor's responsibility to recycle it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> The battery is removable, you just need a screwdriver.

This seems like a bad thing, any changes to make battery replacements significantly easier will almost certainly come at a significant cost. And in any case, it's already really easy to replace the battery if you can get your hands on one.

<comment><USER32> This guide suggests 44 steps. [https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone+11+Battery+Replacement/1...](https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone+11+Battery+Replacement/127450) I think one could use a/the screwdriver as opener or instead of the tweezers lately but replacing the battery is not something everybody can do. Compared to how easy it was 10 years ago to swap a battery.

<comment><USER3> Everybody who buys a $500-1500 phone can pay $20 at a corner shop to change a battery. A battery hatch to make it completely "end user replacable" won't make any difference.

<comment><USER33> At least here in Australia, corner shops doing repairs are a dying breed - there's no money in it once you factor in rent and electricity and wages. An online search replacing a popular Samsung was $AU99.

My current 3 year old phone is also a dying breed where when the time comes, I can buy a genuine Moto battery for $AU16 delivered and replace it myself in under 30 seconds.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Instead of forcing companies to make removable batteries. Slap on a 20% tax to companies that have batteries that don't retain 80% charge after 4 years. If the device is to new to have real world testing, company can forgo the tax by allowing free battery changes for 4 years.

<comment><USER35> "Tax companies unless they break the laws of physics"

<comment><USER34> Batteries retaining 80% capacity after 4 years of use is defying the law of physics? I am pretty sure battery longevity isn't constrained by physics. Lithium batteries in the Tesla last more cycles than the ones in your phone. Why because, Tesla warranties the battery for 8 years. Cell phone manufacturers just need the battery to last 1 year so they don't care.

And for people who downvote me, the reason we removed mercury/cadmium from batteries was during 90s government threatened to heavily tax batteries. Car industry in EU is also heavily influenced by penalties around gas mileage.

<comment><USER36> The difference is that Teslas are much much larger than a phone which gives ample room for advanced cooling systems which prevent the heat buildup that kills lithium ion batteries.

The only way to get a similar number of cycles with a phone battery would be to put a large heat sink and possibly a fan on the phone's SoC and battery or to permanently throttle the SoC so that it never gets hot, even when all cores are maxed out. Essentially, the choice would be a brick-like phone or a phone that runs like it's a decade old. Neither seems like the sort of compromise consumers outside of a small niche would buy.

Of course in the future we may see battery chemistries that aren't so sensitive to heat, but no such battery is on the market currently.</comment></comment></comment></comment>