Investors want Microsoft’s new CEO to kill Xbox, Bing and Surface

[Desmond]

Bing and Surface I can understand but why Xbox? Xbox still has a lot of users and probably is the most popular M$ product.

It's the morning after Satya Nadella's first day as Microsoft's CEO. Now that the confetti has cleared, Nadella faces tough choices about the path forward for the company.

Two influential Microsoft shareholders have been pushing the Redmond software giant to abandon what they view as non-essential product lines so that Microsoft can focus on its core strength: selling enterprise software to businesses. Nadella has spent the last seven months running Microsoft's $20 billion server and tools division, so he could be ideally suited to manage that transition.

But doing so would mean repudiating much of the legacy of his predecessors, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, who have long believed that Microsoft needs to win over consumers, not just corporate IT managers. As a 22-year Microsoft insider, Nadella owes much of his career to Gates and Ballmer.

Nadella's tenure at Microsoft's helm will be largely defined by how he balances the competing visions of Microsoft's future and the strong personalities who will be pushing those visions in Microsoft's boardroom. Having activist shareholders who are urging Microsoft to rethink its vision could give Nadella an opening to face down his predecessors, if he wants to do so. But it wouldn't be easy.
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Ballmer envisioned Microsoft as a "device and services" company and reorganized the company last year to better execute that vision. But now Ballmer is out — though still on the board — and with a new CEO come fresh questions about the fate of consumer tech at Microsoft.

Microsoft's Windows division has been facing shrinking profits; last year, the unit pulled in a net $9.5 billion, down from $11.6 billion in 2012 and $12.3 billion in 2011. Company filings suggest that the drop is largely attributable to declining demand for Windows among consumers, even as sales of Windows to businesses remain strong. The same division also reported a $900 million loss on unsold Surface tablets. The online services division, which oversees search engine Bing, reported a loss of $1.3 billion in 2013 — less than the previous year but still in the red.

Some investors have suggested that Microsoft spin off its money-losing consumer products and focus solely on the enterprise. Even the Xbox deserves to go, Paul Ghaffari, the wealth manager for Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, said last year.

But Robert Bontempo, a management professor at Columbia Business School, is skeptical that Nadella will be able to chart his own course on the matter. "You're asking for Nadella to walk into a board meeting and look Ballmer and Gates in the eye and say, 'The decisions you've made over the past two decades are a mistake,'" said Bontempo. "That's going to take some serious strength of character."

Source : Investors want Microsoft’s new CEO to kill Xbox, Bing and Surface

 

[bubusam13]

Kill Bing and Surface but not XBOX.

 

[$hadow]

Xbox One raised Microsoft revenues and resulted in a good change for Microsoft so why are they suggesting to kill it.

 

[ramkumarvcbe]

Kill Surface and Windows Phone. Don't kill Xbox and Bing. Currently, We've no alternative to Google search except Bing. So, we want Bing as an alternative atleast. I've NO appreciation for Bing though.

 

[snap]

don't kill xbox, consumers need choices

 

[a_k_s_h_a_y]

don't kill xbox, consumers need choices

pc, android, ios, ps4
cricket, tennis, football, the game .. choice enough ?

loss making crap, makes no sense as a business, spin it off..

 

[Desmond]

The decision actually makes sense since most of Microsoft's profits comes from enterprise applications, services and products. Even more than Xbox, Bing, Windows Phone or Windows itself.

Kill Surface and Windows Phone. Don't kill Xbox and Bing. Currently, We've no alternative to Google search except Bing. So, we want Bing as an alternative atleast. I've NO appreciation for Bing though.

DuckDuckGo is a better alternative to Google.

 

[ramkumarvcbe]

But, it's results are sourced from Google right? What it is doing is, just hiding our identity from Google, right isn't? So, i guess, it is not really an independent search engine. And, we can't tag it as an alternative to Google search.

DuckDuckGo is a better alternative to Google.

 

[Desmond]

But, it's results are sourced from Google right? What it is doing is, just hiding our identity from Google, right isn't? So, i guess, it is not really an independent search engine. And, we can't tag it as an alternative to Google search.

No. DuckDuckGo relies on Wikipedia and Yandex.

 

[ramkumarvcbe]

Never heard about Yandex.

No. DuckDuckGo relies on Wikipedia and Yandex.

 

[Anorion]

eh I use bing. it's two letters shorter than google.

 

[Gollum]

eh I use bing. it's two letters shorter than google.

I see we have a lazy in the crowd

on topic, kill bing. surface is a good tablet and xbox does not make that much of a loss, just xbone does. 360 is still okay.

PS: I'm a Playstation fan.

 

[tkin]

Xbox will never die, even if it runs at a complete loss, just like windows phone, its all about market presence.

 

[Desmond]

Xbox will never die, even if it runs at a complete loss, just like windows phone, its all about market presence.

It won't die, but it can be sold. Just like Google sold Motorola Mobility to Lenovo.

 

[tkin]

It won't die, but it can be sold. Just like Google sold Motorola Mobility to Lenovo.

Then Microsoft will lose market presence anyway, Thinkpad is no longer IBM, its Lenovo.

 

[Desmond]

I don't think it would cause much damage to MS. They already have a highly profitable enterprise market.

 

[SaiyanGoku]

Kill bing and surface, and sell xbox to sony nintendo .

 

[Desmond]

Anyone but Sony. If Sony gets a monopoly in this market, they will take a massive dump on the consumers.

 

[flyingcow]

sell xbox to nintendo...

 

[Desmond]

Looking at their revenues, I don't think Nintendo can afford Xbox.