Out with a big fat golden handshake  no doubt...   with FS the furthest thing from his mind.

 

We'll see. I bet money your wrong... FS at this point is not a pet project when you have applications like Google Earth which covers the whole world and Level-D manufactures begging for a standard to their graphic engines. Lockheed wouldn't have touched the product if it was a 'pet' endeavor. It's time we stop short changing our hobby and this outstanding piece of software...

 

LM is a defense contractor and there's a lot of money to be made in that area, agreed. But I can't imagine that MS will want to compete with LM.

 

As for a new consumer-oriented flight sim made by MS: I can't think of a way that MS will make money of it.

I thought that the most interesting fact about this announcement was the fact that MS shares jumped almost 10% on the news!!!

LM is a defense contractor and there's a lot of money to be made in that area, agreed. But I can't imagine that MS will want to compete with LM.

 

As for a new consumer-oriented flight sim made by MS: I can't think of a way that MS will make money of it.

 

They did for 20+ years and copies of FSX and FS9 are still selling. If XPlane can keep going so can Flight Simulator.

 

The short changing of the software that fuels our hobby by our own is amazing...

 

 

CNN Quote:

 

No successor for Ballmer was named. Bill Gates, Microsoft's founder and chairman, will be involved in the hiring process.

 

Maybe Tom or Nels can apply for this one...

If anything the only way I see them back into flight simulator is taking or leasing whatever LM produces from its original fsx and publishing it as MS FS 14 or something being the consumer entertainment side of P3D. They wont spend money on the development when they allowed LM to do it in the first place.

 

The only exception is if our aviation buddy with a big clout comes in to stipulate otherwise. Aka Bill Gates. And we know that's not happening. Bill might be buying P3D V2! LOL.

Interesting article concerning the climate at Microsoft almost a year ago:

 

http://www.winrumors.com/microsoft-employees-allegedly-left-in-droves-during-ballmers-company-meeting-speech/

 

 

Another great read:

 

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100984388

 

Quote of the day:

 

"The most notable investor who wanted Ballmer out was probably Gates, Niles said.

"The only way Steve Ballmer is gone is because Bill Gates wants him gone, in my opinion. There's no other way this happened," Niles said."

This is good news, but only from the standpoint of the precarious health of the Windows desktop, which is only thing preventing prosumer flight simming from a complete collapse. I would be shocked if MS had any interest in FS as it a niche market. They have a lot more serious issues to contend with and if anything it's more likely IMO that MS would sell the entire license to LM and be done with FS for good. MS is an enterprise software company first and a gaming console company second. They have blundered badly with phones and tablets and in the process weakened their core products.

 

The computer industry is extremely volatile. What is big today is toast tomorrow. Look at IBM, HP or Xerox. Look at Blackberry or Yahoo. Look at Apple now that Google has cleverly marketed Android to the masses.. Whoever takes over the CEO position at MS better be a superlative innovator, or the company is not going to be anything more than an also ran in a crowded field.

 

You know what they say. Make new products and keep the old. One is silver and the other is gold.

Ballmer dropped the ball pretty bad as CEO.

 

He's the Captain of the ship, and he's ultimately responsible for the endless screw-ups.

 

I don't think we'll ever see a new Flight Simulator from MS, but you never know.  

 

What amazes me most about Ballmer is how he even got to be CEO in the first place.

 

I just can't see him and Bill Gates being in the same room together; talk about opposite personalities.

 

Mild mannered tech intellectual on the one side, over-the-top high school football coach on the other.

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvsboPUjrGc

Ballmer was not terrible CEO just to timed in terms of vision and foretellibg trends. Microsoft became big and bloated because 2000s was go go years people were buying xboxs, microsoft products left and right. when rhe deep recession hit microsoft was caught flat footed they moved too slow on stemming losses and revamping thier product lines. Would closed aces too, but would spin off and Xbox sell the division. Also, would took flight sim fsx and made it free like google earth and intergrated vitural earth features into it just make sure google earth does not dominate vitural globe. Development of fsx would of been open source, but allow 3rd party to sell products long mircosoft got small cut.

I wandered in to see if there was a thread on this and how many hundreds of pages it was. Plesantly surprised by the relatively restrained reaction.

It's a little too late, but I there again, Apple came back from nothing (in a much worse state than MS) ... so there is hope.

 

But I would NOT bet on any new plans to bring FS back.

 

It wasn't just "Ballmer" that got them into this mess, a lot of really bad executive decisions over the past 13 years that Ballmer didn't "manage" ... which is what a CEO is supposed to do.

I don't see a return of flight simulator from Microsoft either. Their problems go well beyond flight sim and it would be no priority for them. Future flight sims will come from someone else. Unfortunate it will take significant resources to kick start something new and start fresh with a 1.0

 

 

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Best news from MS since they announced FLIGHT. Let's hope things turn out better for MS than FLIGHT...