Linked List: August 23, 2013

Friday, 23 August 2013

‘LOVEINT’ 

The biggest problem with the NSA scandal is the lack of accountability.

Why Steve Ballmer Should Have Been Shitcanned No Later Than 2009 

Another one on Ballmer from the archive:

The damning thing isn’t that Apple got there first; it’s that even after Apple revealed it, that Ballmer didn’t get it, that he didn’t see instantly that Apple had unveiled something amazing and transformative. All Ballmer could see was the near future, the next few months where the iPhone was indeed too expensive and where typing on a touchscreen was a novelty.

From the DF Archive: Memoranda 

2008 piece comparing and contrasting two company-wide memos, one from Steve Jobs, one from Steve Ballmer:

Apple employees may not always — or even often — agree with Jobs, but they do believe him. Apple tends to do and achieve exactly what Jobs says they will. (His declaration in January 2007 that Apple would be selling 10 million iPhone per year by 2008, for example.)

Ballmer’s promises, in contrast, defy belief, at least regarding where Microsoft stands against Apple in terms of “end-to-end experience” and against Google in terms of search and online advertising. He’s either ignorant or lying — neither of which is inspiring to the rank-and-file engineers.

Microsoft Forces Steve Ballmer to Resign 

Officially he’s “retiring within the next 12 months”, but that’s just framing to allow Ballmer and Microsoft itself to save some face. This is the axe, and it was long overdue. Ballmer has been a successful steward growing profits from the franchises he inherited from the Gates era — Windows and Office. But he’s been an abject failure at developing anything new. Under his watch Windows has been supplanted by Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. Mobile is the industry’s growth area, and Microsoft is barely a player.

Here’s the hitch though: Ballmer has chased all potential successors out of the company — Ray Ozzie, Robbie Bach, J Allard, and most recently, Steven Sinofsky.

Google Designing Its Own Self-Driving Car 

Amir Efrati:

Google Inc., which has been working on software to help major automakers build self-driving cars, also is quietly going around them by designing and developing a full-fledged self-driving car, according to people familiar with the matter.

They’ve got to be eyeing Tesla, right?