Re: Intel rejects Vista, will stay with XP and wait for windows7

On Fri, 27 Jun 2008 09:32:57 -0700 (PDT), Le Chaud Lapin
<jaibuduvin@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Jun 27, 10:41 am, Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealm...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I do not see Balmer as an innovative person, I see him (and how incredible innovative you
would have to be to even come close to what happened in the seventies with Bill Gates
and that OS), as a man who waves his arms around with a lot of energy, the same sort of energy
'of the apes' that you use when running 100 meters, you think you achieved something
and feel really tired, but actually you have moved 100 meters only.
I think he cannot stop a 'bust'.

I noticed the same.

One should not underestimate importance of vision when running a
company like Microsoft. And by vision, I mean the real kind where a
single individual retains precocious clairvoyance in technological
development, not the kind where bunch of me-too's lie on the floor in
a circle staring at the ceiling, "ideating". [This has to be one of
the most ridiculous words I have ever encountered.]

Bill Gates has it. Steve Balmer does not.

Microsoft might eventually go the way of Dell, where the #2 does a #2
on the integrity of the company, until the visionary is reminded that
he is not really replaceable, no matter how much he looks forward to
retirement. Especially in cases where the CEO's compensation is tied
to performance, there are are all kinds of tricks that can be done to
momentarily hit high numbers at the expense of long-term salvation.
Kevin Rollins did this to Dell, and so did 100's of others before
him.

But is it their fault? After all, the visionary/founder always has
history at his disposal. He _knows_ what will happen if the #2 is
allowed to take control. He knows in advance of the character of his
#2, that a brutally objective assessment would reveal the true
proclivity of the person who has shared an office with him for a
decade or more.

So one should probably blame the visionary/founder for making the
mistaking of hoping for the obviously impossible.

In some cases, the visionary CEO will return like a white knight on
black horse to salvage that which he has created, as in the case of
Michael Dell and Charles Schwab. In some cases, the visionary/founder
instictively understands that he must remain at the helm as long as
possible, for it is the essence of his personal character that makes
the company what it is, as in the cases of Warren Buffet of Berkshire-
Hathaway and Dave Thomas of Wendy's.

But all too often, the visionary/founder is to old, frail, too tired
to do anything but lie still and watch his baby get pimped.

-Le Chaud Lapin-

[The opinions herein are mine and mine alone.]

Nemesis inexorably and inevitably follows Hubris, looking for easy
prey.

.

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