Stephen Elop Would Kill Bing, Sell Xbox if CEO of Microsoft

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stevejnb

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Seems like a precursor to making MS a smaller company. Since part of the appeal of them for me is how they handle the whole larger ecosystem, I can't say I like this.

Not sure MS is at a point yet where MS has to cut their losses and downsize.
 

JD88

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Elop is a Microsoft stooge with absolutely no insight into where the technology market is heading.

He doomed Nokia by refusing to go Android, then sold it to Microsoft for pennies on the dollar.

Now he thinks selling Office is going to be Microsoft's saving grace? The market is transitioning to free, cloud based alternatives. Thinking you can build a company around selling Office is a joke. Microsoft is going to have to sell devices and the only way that's happening is to include Office free. Without that, the reasons to buy any Windows product in the consumer market starts to dry up. Services are fine, but the vast majority of MS money comes from OS licenses and in order to sell those you need to sell devices.
 

godfather666

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I can't help but feel this man is nothing but a self-perpetuating egotistical a*hole. I sure hope he doesn't become CEO of MS, or any other company.
 

bee144

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Elop is not the answer. While the great CEOs have made major changes that have pushed their companies to the forefront of their field, these changes were to grow their company and not force major layoffs and cutbacks, making the company shrink in size. If the board chooses Elop then they've killed themselves.
 
Bing being the best search engine for porn would be a major loss. With Google image search getting rid of the ability to disable safe search Bing is the only good one left.

Why do company's facing any difficulty always grab new CEO's from the suits club? Career executives do not have the insight to make company's become huge successes. It takes someone with the entrepreneurial spirit to do so. Rockefeller, Jobs, Gates, Carnegie, Ford, &c are the guys that start with basically nothing and create empires.

This is what Microsoft needs. Someone with vision, who is willing to take risks. The managerial types that embed themselves and move from company to company as high rank executives do not have this. All they know is to cut costs and improve efficiency to boost next quarters profits for the best bonus possible at all costs to the welfare of the company. Their motto is to hold the course, stay with what is safe, design by committee, use focus groups and market the hell out of crap products in hopes of fooling enough people.
 

timaahhh

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Outside of desktop based products (windows and office) as well as server based products that are still geared towards desktop style computing (exchange server, various active directory solutions). Xbox is one of the few products Microsoft has developed that Microsoft has significant marketshare in that isn't desktop oriented... The Zune failed, and the Windows 8 phone is struggling along side of surface. Although there have been some serious missteps with Xbox that isn't anything MS cannot turn around. The PS3 when it came out did not fare so well however it did come into its own as a excellent console because Sony didn't give up on it. Microsoft desperately needs a solution that its customers use outside of windows. Xbox has been one of those things and with everyone gunning for them Microsoft really needs to take care of this asset not sell it off.
 

JD88

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Both of these divisions are indeed losing money, but Bing seems like it would be an awful big asset in the transition to cloud based services if Google is any model.

xbox is a different animal altogether. I'm not sure what it accomplishes for Microsoft. It's currently losing them about 2 billion a year. My assumption is they think xbox live subscriptions will create a lasting revenue stream after the initial loss on console sales. Since this didn't work in the past though, my guess is that they are hoping a lot of people run their cable through the xbox so they can collect user data to be sold. Perhaps losses on current gen hardware aren't as heavy as on the 360 so they concept could work.
 


I can understand Bing. While I think its a decent search engine, it did implement some nice features that Google added afterwards, its not going to be easy to grab marketshare because Google has the name that everyone knows.

But Xbox is a very big business for MS. It brings in plenty of money and the XBOne looks pretty decent overall as a replacement for most HTPCs so killing that would be pretty stupid.

Then again he could sell it to Sega then maybe we can relive the mdi 80's to mid 90's console wars. NintenDON'T. Hah, memories.

Not sure I trust the guy since its said he gutted Nokia and then paved the path for them to be bought by MS. I just hope he doesn't kill MS.
 

demonhorde665

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wow if this guy gets in at CEO of MS , he would really screw things up . sure some people have claimed to really hate all the interconectivity between xbox and the rest of MS products. but seriously as a windows 8 user (its really not that bad cept the UI) the direct ability to use my media on xbox or on PC is a boon.. and well splitting every thing up again would just be a major a-- pain. I could see MS getting rid of bing , but for god sakes they've already stepped too far down the xbox/win 8 path to turn back now , killing it would destroy the vast majority of function across win 8 and xbox. basically most of windows 8's good points would be worthless leaving the OS a defunct turd completely whiel leaving the xbox a pretty brick.

this guys does not need his hands on MS.
 


you know, after years of philanthropy, Bill would probably say: 'windows and office? They're awesome you know, and just to prove it to ya I'm gonna give it to everyone for free, cuz I'm a nice guy like that'

not that it's a bad business model :p
 

demonhorde665

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"Please listen to this man. Bing has only brought misery to the user base, and I'd certainly prefer if they kept the Xbox ecosystem entirely separate from the rest of their products. "


I don't see where bing has made people miserable .. it has lost MS money though but are you high one the xbox separate ecosystem thing ??? the xbox only ahs a 25-320 gig HDD at most the xbox one will only have 500 gigs with windows 8 I can offload my movies I buy on xbox to my PC where I have a 2 TB HDD. the xbox ecosystem being cross platform is a god send for people that actually have both . and well if you don't have xbox you can still easily browse and buy movies on your PC. its about having options .. close those ecosystems as separate entities and you loose those nice potions like this. 10-15 HD movies would quickly fill up my 250 gig Xbox HDD. where they only make a slight dent on my PC's 2 tb HDD.
 

amb7247

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I don't like this. This will destroy Microsoft. Bing is turning to be successful on many platforms and many people use being compared to the information google has and some info is better. The integration of windows 8, xbox, surface tablets and windows phones would be severely and badly fragmented. Not to mention if xbox is no longer part of microsoft, they'll also loose a big source of revenue. Instead of hiring this guy, hire someone that will change and innovate to make your current products better. Be more customer oriented and make changes for the customer, not in the interest of the company. I already do not like this guy, and I hope investors will also see this.
 

amb7247

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I don't like this. This will destroy Microsoft. Bing is turning to be successful on many platforms and many people use being compared to the information google has and some info is better. The integration of windows 8, xbox, surface tablets and windows phones would be severely and badly fragmented. Not to mention if xbox is no longer part of microsoft, they'll also loose a big source of revenue. Instead of hiring this guy, hire someone that will change and innovate to make your current products better. Be more customer oriented and make changes for the customer, not in the interest of the company. I already do not like this guy, and I hope investors will also see this.
 

ddpruitt

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Great idea hire the guy that kills companies. With Elop Nokia's sales fell 40% and profits dropped 95%. After he's fire Microsoft picks them up for cheap. You're better off having a monkey do the job.

Cloud services are the future and Xbox make money, I'm no fan of Microsoft but this will be a disaster.
 

chomlee

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CEOs need to be treated like salesmen with pay linked strickly to their performance. If a company does poorly and has to be resold to another company under a CEOs watch, he is partly responsible and shouldn't get payouts and not be eligible to excersize his options.

Why would a company like Microsoft who has been working so hard the last couple of years to work toward the future hire a guy who didn't have any previous success and whos last company had to be sold at a huge loss. Seems to me like he sucks at what he does.

Anybody can come into a company and cut 1/2 the workforce, remove programs and say they saved the company money. What happens as a result of that 5 years down the road is always a different story and usually isn't a good thing (even though stock prices initially go up).
 
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