Daily Roundup: Camera buyer’s guide, Droid Ultra review, Steve Ballmer stepping down, and more!

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You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.

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56 Steve Ballmer Photoshops in Honor of His Retirement

56 Steve Ballmer Photoshops in Honor of His Retirement

Microsoft announced today that Steve Ballmer would be retiring within the next 12 months, after decades of service to the company—including the last several as CEO. Ballmer did a lot to and for Microsoft, but the man’s greatest legacy might just be this Photoshop contest we originally ran back in 2009.

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Microsoft: Steve Ballmer stepping down within a year

One thing’s for sure: we’ll certainly miss keynote dances and chants of, “Developers! Developers! Developers!” when Steve Ballmer steps down from his job as the head of Microsoft some time within the next 12 months — no matter who the John Thompson-chaired succession committee picks to fill his shoes. There aren’t a ton of details regarding the decision at the moment — though a press release issued by the company (which you can find in all of PR speak glory below) is certainly positioning the move as voluntary on Ballmer’s part, stating that the exec, “has decided to retire.”

No direct replacement has been lined up, and as such, he’ll remain on-board as CEO until the committee finds the right person. Along with Thompson, Bill Gates, Chuck Noski and Steve Luczo will also take part in the search. Gates had some nice things to say about his successor and old pal, “We’re fortunate to have Steve in his role until the new CEO assumes these duties.” For his part, Ballmer continues to sound bullish when it comes to the company’s future, “there is never a perfect time for this type of transition, but now is the right time. We have embarked on a new strategy with a new organization and we have an amazing Senior Leadership Team. My original thoughts on timing would have had my retirement happen in the middle of our company’s transformation to a devices and services company. We need a CEO who will be here longer term for this new direction.”

Update: Well, ask and ye shall receive. Just like that, Microsoft has revealed Ballmer’s “internal email” to the staff. We’ve included that below, just under the aforementioned press release. The opening of the letter is comprised of the same quote Microsoft issued in this morning’s release, as well as, interestingly, a link to press release itself. Ballmer goes on to praise current senior leadership and adds that the company has managed to balloon from “$7.5 million to nearly $78 billion,” since the 30 staff member days when he first joined up. The note doesn’t shed much more additional light on any future plans, though the executive does add that he will “[continue] as one of Microsoft’s largest owners.” The exit, he explains is “emotional” and “difficult.” No doubt there will be much dancing and shouting in the months to come.

Update 2: The Seattle Times scored interviews with Ballmer and Thompson, revealing a couple of tidbits. First, Thompson notes that the CEO will, indeed, have some input on choosing his successor. In fully reflective mode, Ballmer (not shockingly, perhaps) admits that Vista was his biggest disappointment during his tenure. He also added that he plans to stay in Seattle post-retirement, so that tropical island paradise will have to wait. Also, as plenty have noted before us, the Wall Street reaction to news has been been initially fairly positive, so read into that what you will.

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Ballmer Admits What We All Knew: Microsoft Built Far Too Many Surfaces

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At an internal meeting, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer admitted that the company overproduced the Surface RT tablet, leading to its recent $150 per unit price cut. As quoted by The Verge’s Tom Warren, Ballmer plainly explained that the company “built a few more devices than [it] could sell.”

But we already knew that.

In its most recent quarterly earnings release, Microsoft took a $900 million charge relating to the Surface RT tablet line, essentially admitting that the inventory that it has on hand was not worth its previous internal valuation; you can’t cut the market price of a product that you have in a warehouse and not lower its value on your books. The write down cost Microsoft $0.07 per share. It missed expectations for the quarter.

Microsoft has been on a mission to clear Surface RT inventory for some time. As I wrote earlier this year, through a combination of giveaways and discounts, Microsoft was moving to liquidate what appeared to be mountainous superfluous unit volume of its ARM-based Windows tablet hybrid.

At that time, Microsoft released a bland statement, saying that the offers and handouts were in “response” to the “positive reaction” Surface had enjoyed since launch. That felt a bit backwards: If response had been so strong, why give away a single device or discount? Wouldn’t organic demand be sufficient? Well, as it turns out, reaction hasn’t been overly positive, so the entire argument was logically moot.

Ballmer said something else during the meeting that is a non-surprise: Microsoft is not selling as many Windows devices as it would like. We knew that, too. The figures released quarterly that describe the PC market are brutal — and dropping. Even Apple is suffering from declining Mac sales in the face of nearly insurmountable headwinds that it helped to create with its leadership of post-PC product categories.

Next-generation Surface devices are being designed and tested. I suspect that Microsoft learned its lesson regarding production volume: Prove product-market fit first, and then kick the afterburners.

Top Image Credit: BUILDWindows

Steve Ballmer’s Buying the Sacramento Kings and Bringing Basketball Back to Seattle

Steve Ballmer rules and now he rules even more because he’s supposedly about to buy the Sacramento Kings, and relocate them to Seattle. We’ll now open the floor to team name ideas. More »

Gaming company derides Microsoft Store: ‘We’ve made the princely sum of £52’ (update: retracted)

Gaming company derides Microsoft Store 'We've made the princely sum of 52'

UK gaming outfit Rubicon has castigated Microsoft after claiming a Windows RT port of its Great Big War Game made a meager £52 ($83) in its first week in the store. The company was particularly incensed at Redmond’s lack of promotional features to help the title’s visibility, claiming that “if you’re familiar with (its) new store, this means our app is forever consigned to the garbage bin.” The company added that the iOS, Android “and even RIM” stores have promoted the app, which it said was widely lauded, and felt that after investing £10,000 on the port, “we got spat on” by the software giant. The developer punctuated its blog statement by saying it won’t work with Microsoft again, and “that store is going to look mighty bleak for a long time to come” if it doesn’t change its policy. No doubt there’s some sour grapes getting squeezed here, but it’s fair to say that RT is much in need of some sweeter news.

Update: Having a good ol’ moan sometimes does the trick. Rubicon has deleted its original blog post, saying that Microsoft has “graciously decided work with us to iron out the problems and get us past this incident.”

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Via: Games Industry

Source: Rubicon Blog

Microsoft CEO Ballmer braces us for a ‘fundamental shift’ in strategy with more Microsoft-designed devices

Microsoft CEO Ballmer braces shareholders for a 'fundamental shift,' more of its own devices in the future

Microsoft’s Surface tablets could already be considered warning shots across the bow, signalling that a change in strategy was underway. For anyone who was in doubt, however, CEO Steve Ballmer has clearly spelled out in a shareholder letter that Microsoft now sees its own devices as crucial to the company as anything else. There’s a “fundamental shift” in how the Redmond-based crew works, he says, and investors should expect that Microsoft will periodically make “specific devices for specific purposes” (like Surface or the Xbox) that show off services in the best light possible. Ballmer adds that plans in the long run focus on new device types and learning interfaces. The message is ostensibly a rosy one for the company’s future, but there’s also a subtext for hardware makers that have complained about competing against their OS partner: get used to it. Ballmer sees Microsoft-designed hardware like Surface as complementary to what third parties do, and his company isn’t about to reverse course anytime soon.

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Microsoft CEO Ballmer braces us for a ‘fundamental shift’ in strategy with more Microsoft-designed devices originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Oct 2012 19:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Steve Ballmer says Microsoft won’t ‘leave any space uncovered to Apple’

Steve Ballmer delivered a fair bit of news during his keynote at the company’s Worldwide Partner Conference in Toronto yesterday, but it looks like he saved some of his stronger words for an interview he gave to CRN following his talk. In it, he boldly said that “we are trying to make absolutely clear we are not going to leave any space uncovered to Apple,” adding, “not the consumer cloud. Not hardware software innovation. We are not leaving any of that to Apple by itself. Not going to happen. Not on our watch.” Asked if that included a change in its smartphone strategy, Ballmer said that “right now we are working real hard on the Surface. That’s the focus. That’s our core,” although he did add a “look, we’ll see what happens” before talking up its current partners. He also reaffirmed that Microsoft’s retail stores and website will be the primary sources for Surface tablets initially, noting that the company’s focus was on putting “one foot in front of the other” and getting it out the door, although he added that there’s nothing stopping partners from ordering them from Microsoft.com and selling them.

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Steve Ballmer says Microsoft won’t ‘leave any space uncovered to Apple’ originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 10 Jul 2012 12:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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