re: Ballmer Is Off The Matrix
Different conversation, I think. Your anecdotal experience merely suggests that for some people, Windows 8 is a good product. That's different than talking about the product's success overall.
Mike Feibus's point isn't about one person's experience, or even one company's experience; it's about the aggregate attitude toward Win8, as measured by data. By almost every standard to which the public has access, Windows 8 has been a poor performer, even if you adjust for circumstances (e.g. Windows 7 had the advantage of following Windows Vista, whereas Windows 8 had the misfortune of following the wildly popular Windows 7). If you throw in the Surface write-down, lost marketing dollars, and all the rest, Windows 8 has been an objective failure. If Windows 8.1 doesn't turn around the OS's trajectory in a major way, "colossal misstep" won't be an unwarranted label.
That's not to say Windows 8.1 won't make necessary adjustments, or that Win 8 doesn't meet some people's needs, even in its current form. I think you can also argue that some people who think Windows 8 is garbage could actually benefit from it, if they'd only learn how to use it.
But a lot of informed people don't like the OS, sales have been dreadful, and usage share among those who have adopted the OS is pretty poor. That Windows 8 has failed isn't a matter of opinion. It also isn't necessarily a dismissal of the OS's merits. Rather, that Windows 8 has failed is simply a statement of the facts.
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8/27/2013 | 9:10:54 PM
I'm still skeptical of stacked ranking, though. A term like "bottom dwellers" sounds like a generalization to me, especially since some groups at Microsoft are comprised almost entirely of people with PhDs. Not that people with advanced degrees can't be lousy workers-- but if nine people score perfectly on a test and you miss only one question, would it be fair to fire you as the "bottom" performer? Seems like some of this stuff should be considered in relative terms, rather than measured by an absolutely scale. Also, managers - even at great companies like Microsoft - don't always invest in the right performance metrics, or the right way of measuring them. I wonder if many perceived "bottom feeders" have been driven out by stack ranking, only to prove after moving somewhere else that they have much to contribute.