EightBlack.

At first, I found this article amusing.

It’s a summary of an interview with Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft. Or as John Battelle refers “USS Microsoft”. Which is actually quite pertinent - as the company is really like an aircraft carrier in the sense that it takes a decade to turn around.

Anyway, I re-read the article. Then I went from being amused to pissed off.

It’s typcial MS arrogance.

Ballmer says:

“The [search] experience leaves a lot to be desired. Something like 50 per cent of searches don’t actually result in an answer to the user’s question … the average search I think is 2.1 words. Isn’t that odd? Why don’t people type more into search queries? Because they have learned the more you type, the more false positives you get.”

This is strange coming from a man who leads the world’s most dominant software company (for the time being) and one which takes 5 years to upgrade an operating system. That same system is about as user friendly as a cockpit of a 747. Where the user, when wanting to turn off the computer, has to click on the “start” icon.

The new version of Vista is even more complex.

Try and find out how to simply turn off your new pc, and you’ll be presented with buttons and icons - but no simple “turn off” logo.

I know - I just installed Vista and Office 2007.

There are only 2 ways Microsoft will make a dent in search. First, they need to spin off the search business, hire the best guy they can find (who’ll accept the job) and I mean absolutely disgust the markets, shareholders, institutional investors and the press with his/her package (hell, Gates should pay for it himself).

The second way is they need to acquire Yahoo! and then a host of others.

They can’t afford to miss the next acquisition. You Tube was a mistake (although they wouldn’t have known what to do with it anyway).

Microsoft’s M&A guys should be living on Red Bull and espresso’s and scouring the world for the best talent, start-ups and bold faced ideas.

Ballmer and Gates need to take a back seat. If they are to even have a chance in search, they need to get out of the way. The only job they have to do is to provide the tools and environment for their team to compete.

John Battelle finishes his post on this better than anyone. He says. “I’ll check back in 3 years and see how they’re going because that’s roughly how long it takes to get anything done at Microsoft”.

Enough said.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, February 3rd, 2007 at 6:10 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.