Fire Steve Ballmer?
Google, “Fire Steve Ballmer,” and there is a long list of links. This is a hot topic.
Folks just believe Steve has a lack of vision. Who can blame them? Microsoft has innovated very little with the products its produced in the past ten years. Windows 7 certainly regained consumer confidence after Vista put it in the dumper, but with the rise of mobile computing, the relevance of the desktop appears to be diminishing.
I agree. The bread and butter that built Microsoft is history.
However, Microsoft has a ton of resources invested in research and development. It also has strong connections inside the industry with manufacturers and developers, which makes the possibility of its relevance in the mobile space more likely than people might think.
Take a look at Surface. It is a touch screen computer with infrared built into the screen, giving it the ability to actually “see,” not just register input from a user. Sure this is a big computer, costing far more than what people will pay for a PC, but that is this year.
Moore’s law has an economic parallel. Shrinking down and doubling all those resistors, gaining exponential power, also means technology gets better and costs less over time. Screen technology, like with the Surface computer, is probably only a year or two away from being cost accessible in a mobile device.
Microsoft already has everyone excited about machine vision and the Kinect for X-Box. Excited in ways beyond being a controller for a gaming console, as its been hacked and put to use in ways beyond its original intention.
While the analysts ponder Microsoft’s future, even to the point of stating its make-it-or-break-it with Windows Phone 7, I just don't see the need for Microsoft to worry about it as long as they have a presence in the market.
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