cameo said:
I think we might see the sudden departure of more Windows execs before
that. They would not want to be there when the roof collapses on them.
You're forgetting the company has a mountain of cash.
The execs would be dismissed for arbitrary reasons.
If enough employees were dismissed to reduce cash flow
worries, then more middle management and execs might be
turfed.
But with the amount of cash they've got, they could
"party like its 1999".
Apple has the same capability. A mountain of cash,
not wasted, suitable for prolonged product development.
In an emergency, bad executives squander such piles
of cash, doing "mergers and acquisitions". Some companies
have acquired the knack of doing those right. (Like Apple
acquiring its own processor designers, so they can do
their own ARM processors. Cisco is also good at that,
selecting relatively small companies to acquire.) It's
hard to say, if Microsoft started failing miserably, what
it might try to buy as a "life preserver" acquisition.
Microsoft nearly wasted a fortune on Yahoo, and look
how much they saved there. That would pay for a lot
of staff to sit around and play Solitaire.
What happens at Microsoft, will be both predictable and
unpredictable at the same time. The predictable part,
is mobile devices are a technology, where they're not #1.
They need to respond in some fashion. The business that
remains, if mobile devices stole all the fun, would
not be enough to sustain Microsoft in its current form.
The unpredictable part, is what ineffectual responses
the management will make. That's already started.
Paul
