Two Major Microsoft Entertainment Execs Depart

I wonder if they are starting up their own businesses?

If they seem to be quite successful at microsoft, wonder why they are leaving?

Seems like a strange thing to do with Natal coming out the door soon.

>> Seems like a strange thing to do with Natal coming out the door soon.

I think this is probably a mutual thing:

Despite the kind words, Microsoft surely wants these guys out so that they can try to shake things up (companies always think that will help, for some reason).

The problem for MS is that they're nowhere near where they expected to be in the entertainment market at this time. Just a handful of years back, Ballmer would have told you that Nintendo's already dead, Sony's death in the console war is imminent, and that everyone will be using Zunes and other devices running Windows Mobile by 2010.

Instead, Zune and Windows Mobile have almost no market share, and despite a YEAR HEAD START and a boatload of money poured down the drain they are now down to a 12% lead against the PS3 in sales for this generation... and so far behind the Wii that it makes your head spin. Amazingly, the total market value of MS the company is now only 11% above Apple's,

What's in the future for MS? Probably loss of console ground to Nintendo's next box, since they'll come up for hardware refresh first... and even more loss of mobile ground to Android and OSX, And, if history continues to repeat itself, the next Windows version will suck so loudly as to give Android/Linux/OSX another few percent of desktop converts.

I think these two guys are smart to get out now, in a time where they will still be perceived as coming from "the" successful company.

I wonder if....Instead of a pink slip they got a Red ring of dismissal?

I don't feel any sympathy for these guys, I am sure they are doing very well. Compared to many others across the country. They will probably have it as easy as hitting save and restart!

3vi1:

>> Seems like a strange thing to do with Natal coming out the door soon.

I think this is probably a mutual thing:

Despite the kind words, Microsoft surely wants these guys out so that they can try to shake things up (companies always think that will help, for some reason).

The problem for MS is that they're nowhere near where they expected to be in the entertainment market at this time. Just a handful of years back, Ballmer would have told you that Nintendo's already dead, Sony's death in the console war is imminent, and that everyone will be using Zunes and other devices running Windows Mobile by 2010.

Instead, Zune and Windows Mobile have almost no market share, and despite a YEAR HEAD START and a boatload of money poured down the drain they are now down to a 12% lead against the PS3 in sales for this generation... and so far behind the Wii that it makes your head spin. Amazingly, the total market value of MS the company is now only 11% above Apple's,

What's in the future for MS? Probably loss of console ground to Nintendo's next box, since they'll come up for hardware refresh first... and even more loss of mobile ground to Android and OSX, And, if history continues to repeat itself, the next Windows version will suck so loudly as to give Android/Linux/OSX another few percent of desktop converts.

I think these two guys are smart to get out now, in a time where they will still be perceived as coming from "the" successful company.

Well J. Allard is not technically getting out. I agree with most of what you said, I think the problem is the fact that Microsoft is notable for making buggy, corporate and copied items and many people just don't see themselves as a customer or would even stick with them through the long term, even in 2010. I mean when the Zune was released, many people thought of it and still see it as an iPod clone, even though it had features such as a better interface, and an FM radio. Even thought the Zune HD has many advantages over the iPod touch, it's still behind because of one thing. The iPod brand recognition and the fact that the iPod Touch has a lot of apps on there that can make iPod touch owners hold on to their iPod touch for basically... forever.

I think it's just the way Microsoft's life goes. They're able to make a product that has some advantages over the the iPod or PlayStation/Wii but they're unable to market it right, even though they have billions in marketing dollars. I think the future for MS would be basically a Xbox 360 refresh with a little bit of those juicy DX11 features built into it, I don't think that the Wii 2 will be much of a threat unless they can think of a way to re-revolutionize the motion controls. But with competition in the motion sensing area, I don't know who's going to lose out. But I do think that Microsoft's Project Natal and Sony PlayStation's eye/wand combo are major competitors.

Well said animatortom, The got out @ the right moment. Better quit when you are still @ the top of ur game.

MS has been steadily losing market in the entertainment sector, something like a Windows 7 boom, is what MS needs right now. I don't see that happening in the very near future!

Small correction to what I said above: Microsoft isn't 11% ahead of Apple in market value anymore. Later, the same day I wrote that, the NYT published an article announcing that Apple has now surpassed MS: $222B to $219B.  Not bad, for a company MS invested $150M in 13 years ago to keep alive as proof MS wasn't a monopoly.  :)

Now, I would not argue against the idea that Apple is over-valued, but I don't think the margin is by so much that this should not still be an eye-opener.

No doubt, MS knew this news would be hitting Wall Street soon, and is part of the impetus for management shakeup.

animatortom:

I wonder if....Instead of a pink slip they got a Red ring of dismissal?

I don't feel any sympathy for these guys, I am sure they are doing very well. Compared to many others across the country. They will probably have it as easy as hitting save and restart!

Sig worthy, I lol'd.

Shaking things up. I was just reading somewhere that two Nvidia Execs just left for AMD.

>> I was just reading somewhere that two Nvidia Execs just left for AMD

Good. Maybe they can convince them to create an ATI fgrlx driver that isn't full of fail.

I spent the last 4 hours swapping cards and giving 10.5 a try under Linux, and it *still* sucks. They fixed enough problems so that now all my Wine games start, but they didn't fix so many as to not have the games lock up after a few rounds.