Steve Ballmer just hired Mark Penn to lead “Consumer Initiatives” at Microsoft.
Short MSFT
by @mistermix.bsky.social| 62 Comments
This post is in: General Stupidity
by @mistermix.bsky.social| 62 Comments
This post is in: General Stupidity
Steve Ballmer just hired Mark Penn to lead “Consumer Initiatives” at Microsoft.
Comments are closed.
HyperIon
I live in Seattle.
I loathe Ballmer.
The quintessential business bully.
A moocher
they are well-suited to each other. Bill Gates should be selling his stock, because Microsoft is doomed.
I can’t believe what I was reading in Vanity Fair….I mean, where in heck are the shareholders?
freelancer
Whelp, time to sell the Xbox…
Also, developers.
BGinCHI
I’m sure Penn can’t wait to launch the Fuck Over Democrats Business Suite.
dmsilev
So, how long until Microsoft Windows Latina Aunts Edition? Microsoft Office for Lacrosse Grandmothers?
Gin & Tonic
In other “Democratic” news, I saw a column by Lanny Fucking Davis on foxnews.com saying Willard should release his tax returns. If you’ve lost the bottom-feeding scumbag vote, then there’s not much left.
The Other Chuck
Refresh my memory, who’s Mark Penn?
eric
@freelancer: dude is chris bosh. posing his ass off like he was the one that carried the team to the championship when it was the other guy(s).
kindness
OK, now which one here is gonna be the first one to bash Macs after this?
MattF
This is the corporate equivalent of “no más.” Ballmer has given up.
mechwarrior online fuck yeah
MSFT will do fine. Not even Penn can sink them. Now yahoo on the other hand is screwed.
RP
1. Hire Mark Penn
2. ????
3. Profit!
Brachiator
Now that’s just sad.
Greed Is God
Obama must own Apple stock.
Violet
That’s just sad. Does Ballmer want to tank the company for some reason?
mechwarrior online fuck yeah
@kindness:
Apples big news of the day was losing a lawsuit to Samsung and their new macbook pro screwed up massively and is so non green/non safe disposal they are going to lose contracts that require eco friendly PCs.
So they’ve had some interesting news as well.
I prefer linux myself… though windows works fine for most things. I don’t really care about OSX but apples computers are too cheap/low end for my tastes.
That’s not a bash either.
mechwarrior online fuck yeah
@kindness:
Apples big news of the day was losing a lawsuit to Samsung and their new macbook pro screwed up massively and is so non green/non safe disposal they are going to lose contracts that require eco friendly PCs.
So they’ve had some interesting news as well.
I prefer linux myself… though windows works fine for most things. I don’t really care about OSX but apples computers are too cheap/low end for my tastes.
That’s not a bash either.
Steeplejack
@The Other Chuck:
He’s one of the geniuses behind Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign. You remember how awesome that was, right?
JGabriel
Did Apple’s stock go up with this news?
.
r€nato
@mechwarrior online fuck yeah: Apple rejoined the EPEAT initiative, so your disaster scenario is not going to happen… the only thing Apple lost in court today was, along with Samsung, the ability to keep certain documents secret. So that disaster scenario didn’t even happen.
In court, at least in California, Apple is so far doing quite well against Samsung. There are several Apple v. Samsung lawsuits, to which are you referring?
Apple Derangement Syndrome is, in some cases, far worse than Obama Derangement Syndrome.
PeakVT
Interesting comment from Peter Thiel:
Anne Laurie
If it gets Mark Penn out of politics, Ballmer will have performed a genuine public service.
By which I mean: Probably too good to be true.
Amanda in the South Bay
@r€nato:
No, the judge in the UK requiring Apple to take out an ad to apologize.
You know, after a certain point, you use whatever OS you are most productive and comfortable with. Whether or not its Windows or OS X is irrelevant. Time to move beyond the fanbois phase.
Martin
@mechwarrior online fuck yeah:
They’re going to lose a lot of lawsuits to Samsung simply on account of there being so many lawsuits. The one they lost isn’t any big shakes. And Samsung still has a looming import ban to deal with which is potentially at least slightly damaging. Motorola is under one now due to losing a suit with MS. Apple was just granted a massive patent yesterday and a notable but not earth shattering one the day before (they were granted a few dozen this week, but one is quite substantial) so there will be more suits. This is going to be the new normal for a while. Most of the patents Apple applied for in 2007 when the iPhone shipped are just now being reviewed and granted.
And there won’t be any appreciable lost sales over the new Macbook. It’s no less ecofriendly than the IPhone as it uses precisely the same manufacturing techniques as it, and that’s selling just fine. There’s no real issue there either. The other OEMs will almost certainly be following Apple down that path soon enough anyway – the only way to keep reducing the thickness of these devices is to eliminate orthogonal connectors. That means glue. All the mobile phones, all of the tablets, all of the thin laptops are inevitably going down that path.
Ben Cisco
NOOOOOOOOOooooooooo…
TenguPhule
There’s still the Republican base of 27% left.
Uncle Cosmo
@JGabriel: Might be a good time to short Microsoft.
Martin
@PeakVT:
I don’t agree with that. I agree that they don’t know what to do with it, though. The age of conglomerates is largely over. That’s what you used to do with profits – just push your product/service borders out a bit further until you looked like GE or Samsung – building everything from clock radios to nuclear reactors. These new tech companies are much more vertical and incorporate content, distribution, as well as tech.
But I don’t know how you can possibly argue that an Apple or a Microsoft isn’t a tech company. That argument might work a bit better with Google because they aren’t a search company at all. You are what you sell, and Google sells ads. In fact, they pay for search – they pay browsers and phone makers to make them the default search. But they’re an ad company that uses tech to sell more ads.
I can’t speak to why Google or MSFT aren’t returning more cash because I don’t follow them as closely, but Apple quite literally doesn’t know how to spend it faster. Or I should say, their management structure doesn’t have enough bandwidth to do that, without changing the structure, which they are loathe to do. At some point they may buy out a truly large company – something that they are uniquely positioned to do – and that no other company has ever had the option of doing. They have enough cash to buy entire industries. They could buy every US credit card company. Every PC manufacturer. Every mobile phone maker. They could buy Intel. Or Verizon. Or Amazon. And if they stay on this path, in 18 months they could buy AT&T or Google or Microsoft. It’s sorta mind-blowing.
TenguPhule
Next, the FEC will hire Karl Rove for the “Fairness in Elections” review board.
burnspbesq
OT, but extremely cool: the Pentagon is allowing service personnel to march in uniform in Saturday’s San Diego Gay Pride Parade.
Gin & Tonic
@burnspbesq: I’m sure we’d have reached the same point with President McCain.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@The Other Chuck: The dude that cost Hillary the ’08 primary
burnspbesq
@PeakVT:
Peter Thiel lecturing people about intellectual honesty?
snicker
Davis X. Machina
@Gin & Tonic: We would have reached it earlier, because President McCain would either have done it through executive order, or rammed it through Congress by sheer bullyarmfiresidetwistingpulpitude.
Black Jack Shellac
Hmmm, hires Mark Penn announces $745M quarterly loss? Connected or just karma?
Odie Hugh Manatee
Windows 8 (Metro) sucks ass and MS hires Penn. Coincidence? I think not.
SELL! SELL! SELL! ;p
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Amanda in the South Bay:
And Apple has to put the apology to Samsung up on their web site for six months…lol!
The patent troll gets nailed to the wall.
burnspbesq
@eric:
Erik Spoelstra says that Battier was the difference-maker.
http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/48094/shane-battier-prototype
Somebody once asked Coach K what position Battier played. K said “he plays winner.”
burnspbesq
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Doesn’t matter. The train left the station, and Samsung was standing on the platform.
MazeDancer
@Gin & Tonic:
Certainly not in the Republican Party. Or alleged, but never actually seen, Swing Votership.
Laughed very hard.
Would have spit out wine except was also contemplating my tiny, but now oh, so, much more valuable shares of Apple. Lawsuits are nothing compared to that Penn hire.
Martin
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
I don’t think you know what ‘patent troll’ means.
Apple hasn’t sued anyone over any patent that they haven’t personally implemented and are selling products based on. Further, not one patent that Apple has sued based on is a patent they bought – it’s all been actual in-house development. And Apple hasn’t sued using a single FRAND patent, unlike everyone except I think Microsoft.
Now, you might argue that the patent system is broken, but that just means that if Apple hadn’t applied for the patent then MS or Google or Samsung, etc would have patented the same thing and used it against Apple.
Foxhunter
Ballmer and Co just fucked over the SMB market by dropping their Small Business Server
Product in a push to get everyone in the cloud.
Perhaps he hired Penn to smooth customer relations in the under 75 user market with polling plus analysis plus action plan.
/snark
Amir Khalid
@HyperIon:
I have met Ballmer, and I concur.
dr. bloor
@dmsilev:
This post isn’t getting nearly enough love.
dr. bloor
@mechwarrior online fuck yeah:
This wasn’t worth posting once, much less twice.
That’s not a bash, though.
Rick
Ahhh–so that’s why MSFT is down 2% after hours….
Amanda in the South Bay
@burnspbesq:
WTF? Not doubting you, but that’s extremely surprising. I’m happy, but normally the military is pretty strict about people wearing uniforms to things that can even remotely be construed as political.
different-church-lady
As a longtime Mac user who lived through the Redmond Reign of Terror, I have to say that seeing articles with titles like “How Microsoft Lost Its Mojo” just tickle me to no end.
different-church-lady
@The Other Chuck: Isn’t he the guy who kept Hillary from being president?
WereBear
@different-church-lady: Did it ever have mojo? Market share, sure, but mojo?
They were never, ever, sexy or innovative or even desirable. Their superhero power was ubiquity.
0tto Schmidlap
Maybe there’s room in the budget to hire Bob Shrum too.
Bago
I run win 8, and I like it. Given that it’s going to be on my phone and Xbox as well, just makes development that much more interesting.
JoeShabadoo
@Martin:
A lot of people have been buying into this “Google is an ad company” meme. Television stations, radio stations, magazines, Fox, search engines, Facebook, my local movie theater and even Balloon Juice make money through ads but they are not advertising companies.
Media companies would almost all be called advertising companies by this definition. Its ridiculous.
Lawnguylander
@different-church-lady:
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
No, the dude who cost her the election was Obama, though hiring him didn’t help.
Walker
@JoeShabadoo: U
The reason they fall into this meme is because Google spends a crap load of R&D money on ad algorithms (it is their next major division after search). They do not just place the ads. They sell expertise in delivering them to the correct audience.
Mnemosyne
@Walker:
So do TV networks. They can tell you down to the minute how many people from which demographic are watching a particular show and what the people in that demographic buy.
MFA
@Martin:
“And if they stay on this path, in 18 months they could buy AT&T or Google or Microsoft. It’s sorta mind-blowing.”
Ah, that explains the Mark Penn hire. It’s a poison pill.
different-church-lady
@Martin:
Thank god they’re not interested in any of that.
daveNYC
@Amanda in the South Bay: That might be the point. Now that DADT is gone, a gay pride parade isn’t political, at least not in any way that impacts the military.
Gemina13
Right now, I’m sure my two former housemates/best friends are cursing Ballmer’s name and thanking God on their knees that they cashed out their MSFT stock when he was named Gates’ successor. Yes, they’re employees. No, they have little control anymore over product. Ballmer’s reign has instituted a regime of nitpicking, micromanagement, and constant pushing to get out substandard product.
My friends loathe him for the mess that was Windows Vista, the mess that will be the new MS tablet, the wreckage of the Zune and other nifty toys planned for the market (but delayed until Apple had time to corner the market themselves), and his general Corporate Asshole style. Pretty soon, shareholders may have good reason to start cursing Ballmer, too.
NCSteve
*facepalm* I swear, Ballmer’s just Carly Fiorina with a penis and a much bigger pile of cash to burn down before the shareholders can see the train wreck it was hiding.
mainmati
@The Other Chuck: Hillary Clinton’s chief strategist and pollster in 2008. Has his own firm and has a giant ego. Bill Gates is actually one of his clients so there was a Microsoft connection already. Coincidentally, today Microsoft announced its first ever quarterly loss since it went public nearly 30 years ago. Hiring Penn suggests we may continue to see more losses in the future.