Satya Nadella is the CEO of Microsoft.
Terry Myerson is the Executive VP in charge of the Windows division at Microsoft and is the one calling the shots with respect to Windows.
I don't know why people persist in thinking that CEOs are directly responsible for every decision a company makes, particularly at huge companies.
From what I can find online, Myerson was put into his position in July 2013, Nadella into his in February 2014, so it's entirely possible that it was actually Myerson doing these things on his own and it just happened to collide with Nadella's promotion, but I would also assume that a Steve Ballmer would have told Myerson off by now, at the very least for the malware-like upgrade strategy, whereas it seems like Nadella is entirely ok with it, heck from how much the man has said to it, you could assume he doesn't even know that it's happening.
Also, at a company like MS, I think its a naive to think the big decisions in regards to Win10 have zero input from the CEO level. Also the CEO is responsible for the calls of the higher ups. Even if Nadella is hands off with Windows, the fact that he isn't intervening is a sign of incompetence.
I don't know why people persist in thinking the CEO is just a ceremonial role in big companies.
Why should they? What are people going to do, stop using Windows? Why should they give two shits about what users think about the Windows experience?
>I think Nadella's style is just really arrogant and anti-consumer.
Yep, and I like it. It's perfect for MS. They've been coddling customers for far too long; it's time for them to show their customers who's really in control. I think it's funny to see their customers being made miserable by MS's user-hostile policies. These customers have willingly made themselves absolutely dependent on MS, so now they get to pay the price for that choice. The only thing that should be important to MS is profitability, and they can make more money with user-hostile policies which force things like forced updates to Win10 and forced telemetry and advertising. MS really needed someone like Nadella to stop pussy-footing around and force this stuff on their customers.
>I would never never considered a juggernaut like MS going down anytime soon, but MS has always had a strong emphasis on customer satisfaction, especially for business.
Yes, and that was a mistake. Earlier on it was necessary to achieve vendor lock-in, but these days that's long since been achieved, so it's time to tighten the screws. These customers are not going anywhere.
>Nadella has somehow managed to piss of enterprise and consumers with a lot of hard handed tactics.
Yeah, so? Are they going to do anything about it? Didn't think so. Why shouldn't he piss them off if they're going to keep throwing money at him?
>I definitely could see a lot of organizations flirting with OSX and Linux to make a migration.
No, they won't. They'll made some lame threats to their MS sales reps about it, hoping to get better prices, like they always have in the past. But hopefully the MS sales reps have been coached now to not fall for this. Migrating to OSX or Linux is a big change, and their IT minions would all have to be replaced with competent people, which isn't easy to do. These customers aren't going anywhere.
That strategy works until it doesn't, and by then its too late to pivot out of it.
Maybe you're right; if so, I'd be happy to see MS collapse. Or maybe you're wrong, and treating their customers terribly will turn out to be very profitable for them. Either way, I don't really see a downside.
Migrating to OSX or Linux is a big change.
Yeah, for a private individual who just wants a computer at home for surfing the web, reading email, etc., they'd really be much better-served with Linux Mint: no spyware, no advertising, no forced "upgrades" breaking their drivers, no Windows Updates putting their computer out of commission for 30 minutes right when they really need it, etc. But we're talking about businesses here.
I think Nadella's style is just really arrogant and anti-consumer. It seemed everyone was happy there was an alternative to the Gates/Ballmer way of doing things, but he just seems as much, if not moreso, out of touch than they are. I would never never considered a juggernaut like MS going down anytime soon, but MS has always had a strong emphasis on customer satisfaction, especially for business. Nadella has somehow managed to piss of enterprise and consumers with a lot of hard handed tactics. I definitely could see a lot of organizations flirting with OSX and Linux to make a migration. Especially now that so many things can be cloud-ified and that IE6/7/8 requirements are pretty much long gone for most, even in slow-moving enterprise.