Can Nadella Turn Microsoft Around?
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Nadella took the helm of a ship very much off course. Steve Ballmer and driven the Microsoft machinery practically into the ground. But Nadella appears to be turning the ship around and correcting the problems of the Ballmer era. He has a tough road as the public's impression of Microsoft is heavily colored by Ballmer's mistakes and missteps but Nadella appears to be up to the challenge and making Microsoft more of the company that they used to be and more of the company that their customers want them to be.
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"But from the mainstream consumer point of view, Windows 10 looks like a double or a triple, if not a home run."
Home run? Really? I'm not sure what I'm missing with Windows 10. I find it ok. An improvement of Windows 7, but I'd expect nothing less since Windows 7 is six years old. An improvement of Windows 8, but I'd definitely expect nothing less because Windows 8 was a complete dog.
Are the new features really that good? I have to confess I haven't used them. I use Windows 10 in the same way I used Windows 7, so I don't really notice much difference.
Generally, I still find Microsoft infuriating. I find the licencing infuriating and I find the products generally fairly mediocre. And I've got in a terrible mess with products like ODfB and Office Lens. And I can't stand the Surface.
tl;dr The best I can say abour Nadella is that Microsoft is now a bit less crap than it was five years ago.
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I think that it is important to keep in mind that Nadella is not responsible for any of the current things coming out of MS but only for the direction taken recently. Windows 10 was well underway and could only take so much course correction, which it did, under Nadella. Far more intriguing is where will Microsoft go after this. Now that new development is completely under Nadella and not just "fixing" Ballmer's decisions.
I think the bigger things are not products, though, but corporate direction. Nadella is making Microsoft a company that we want to work with again. Ballmer literally appeared to hate his customers and anyone that wanted to do business with Microsoft.
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So what exactly is Nadella responsible for? What is the new direction that they're taking? That article doesn't say. It only lists large write-offs relating to the Nokia deal, which preceded Nadella; Windows 10, which as you say, preceded Nadella; and slightly better treatment of female employees, which as a customer, I really don't care about.
Gimme some real stuff @scottalanmiller
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A complete about face on code source policy for one. Under Ballmer, using open source was literally called communism. Under Nadella Microsoft is an active open source contributor and took their entire .NET platform and contributed it to the world. That alone is an astounding change of direction that takes nearly every customer from a position of "enemy" to "friend" as barely anyone runs without open source today, some don't know it, but basically all do. Ballmer was scary and actually made you fear having MS in your shop. Nadella makes MS act like a partner in the industry.
Nadella has also changed MS profitability dramatically. They were shrinking before, now they are growing again and growing a lot
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So far, I am liking what I see...some "coolness" factor is coming back...and I am one of the 3% that simply prefer the Windows Phone/Mobile...