Just saw an interesting rumor that Alan Mulally, CEO of Ford and former CEO of Boeing, may be top contender to replace Steve Ballmer at Microsoft. 

 

Anyone have any good info?  This would be an interesting twist of fate.

 

If it happens: we petition him to bring back FSX to MS! :Hypnotized:

If it happens: we petition him to bring back FSX to MS!

Do you imagine that will have any effect? A CEO ( old or new) won't care a about a discontinued game - it's way below his pay grade.

Thank you yes I have been told I have an odd dry sense of humour.

No way we do not need someone to run Microsoft that almost drove ford almost into bankruptcy. Microsoft needs young blood and poaching talent from google be priority. Lets have UAW and CAW run Microsoft at this point.

As I remember it, Ford Motors, under Alan Mulally, was the *ONLY* US automaker that avoided both bankruptcy and the government auto industry bailouts following the economic collapse of 2008. Maybe, just maybe, there's a guy that understands that sometimes it's the small stuff that makes customers happy that matters as much as the major profit centers...

 

If the UAW/CAW ran Microsoft, we'd still be running Windows 98, it'd cost us $500 a copy, and the MS programming team would be dominated by a bunch of 60-something throwbacks from the mainframe age (because they'd have seniority). :-)

 

Regards

Anyone who has ever worked with Ford will know this is a bad idea. My experience with Ford was back when I was a Manufacturing Engineer with Cummins and we were working on Remanufacturing their 4.6 and 5.4 litre engines. Worst 6 months of my life. Terrible culture at Ford.

 

The culture at Microsoft is nothing like automotive so not sure how this would benefit Microsoft. He is also a former Boeing engineer and again not much to do with Microsoft either. This could go down worse then John Sculley running Apple into the ground. At least Pepsi was a vibrant company.....Ford is not.

 

Microsoft needs the best from the within the Computer industry to run its company because Apple, Oracle, Google and all of Microsoft's competitors recruit the best computer guys out there. An Automotive guy will be a recipe for disaster, and Ford is about the worst culturally to work for.

 

The only reason I can think of for this is the MS Board of Directors want to bring in a goon squad to shake the company up but that is not how you get back to being the best again.  Or the other reason would be the best computer guys out there don't want anything to do with Microsoft anymore.

I suspect both of your speculations last par. are probably on the mark.

 

Last I heard there are 3-4 managers for every programmer at MS. Which is ridiculous. That has to change, and a LOT of people have to go. Always easier to do that with an axe man from the outside.

 

And yes, the real young talent in programming has gone elsewhere: many much smaller companies, plus Apple, Google, Adobe. Facebook, even. MS is far down on the list at this point.

 

Finally, agreed, nothing against Mulally himself, but Ford is frankly way behind GM in terms of innovation, global reach and, for that matter, quality control.

 

You can't get a Mustang newer than five years old whose hood paint doesn't start peeling off a year after purchase, and whose transmission is fraught with engineering mismatches. Sync is pretty much a disaster in the automotive press.

 

If anything, Mulally is probably mainly attracted to moving back to Seattle and doing the relatively easy job of swinging an axe randomly for a few years, which is what these "guys who make the big bux" are mainly good at doing (and not much else).

Last I heard there are 3-4 managers for every programmer at MS. Which is ridiculous. That has to change, and a LOT of people have to go.

 

Yes that makes sense...Too many Chiefs and not enough Indians is what we used to say (Not sure you can say that any more)

 

 

 

Ford is frankly way behind GM in terms of innovation, global reach and, for that matter, quality control.

 

Yes but the biggest problem I find with Ford is it is very difficult for them to attract good talent into the company. If you were a young and upcoming product engineer you could choose to work for a Japanese company with modern design facilities in California, very good package and lifestyle, or move to Detroit and work for Ford.....Ford is a company that is very slow to change. 

 

As a former engine guy I will say the 4.6L 5.4L or Modular Engine is probably the best thing that company has ever produced, but as you said too bad the quality issues are in the cars they put these engines into. Peeling paint is the worst problem that Ford is notorious for....LOL and now they are having so many electronics issues as well.

 

 

 

Mulally is probably mainly attracted to moving back to Seattle and doing the relatively easy job of swinging an axe randomly for a few years, which is what these "guys who make the big bux" are mainly good at doing (and not much else).

 

Yep....Gets to leave Detroit and move back to Seattle, gets to swing an axe and get a big bonus in the process. Life looks good for Mulally if this happens. And I am sure he won't care about the bad press he will get from the Computer Insider magazines and forum chatter as people will come down harder on him then they ever have on Ballmer (At least Ballmer was a computer guy). Mulally won't care about any of that I am sure as this is not his culture in the first place.

 

 

Last I heard there are 3-4 managers for every programmer at MS. Which is ridiculous.

 

Where did you hear that?

Cummins and we were working on Remanufacturing their 4.6 and 5.4 litre engines

Didnt know Ford ever used Cummings engines. All my older ones have had International Navistar Power strokes and the newer ones are built by Ford. I know Dodge does!

Didnt know Ford ever used Cummings engines. All my older ones have had International Navistar Power strokes and the newer ones are built by Ford. I know Dodge does!

 

I will give a bit of a history lesson on this one as a lot of people didn't know Cummins produced Gasoline Engines as well.

 

Their was a Volkswagen Factory that opened in Toronto back in the 1950's that used to handle dealer support for engines that needed replacing. This facility grew to handle Chrysler products as well as many people can remember the days when Chrysler was putting Volkswagen engines in some of their vehicles as well. That factory was sold to Cummins and they relocated it to Markham, Ontario. 

 

When I worked there Cummins was producing about 100 OEM/OER gasoline engines daily for the dealerships that would replace your engine under warranty or otherwise for the following families:

-Volkswagen/Audi

-Chrysler

-Mitsubishi

-Saturn

-Subaru 

 

My time there they were working on growing the business with Ford to handle the 4.6L and 5.4L engines, which is big business as those are the engines used on many fleet vehicles. We produced some but this never really unfolded as Volkswagen pulled out of the factory and moved that business back to the former East Germany where their was still high unemployment. Cummins then decided to move their gasoline engines production to Juárez, Mexico where they also handle replacement engines for their Diesel engines as well. Ford decided to keep their 4.6/5.4 business in Texas instead of using the Juárez facility. Been about 10 years since I worked for them so I am not sure how many Gasoline engines Cummins still produce. They may have expanded or abandoned the gasoline engines today, but I am not sure.

 

The highlight for us in my time there was we manufactured four 426 cu in Hemi Engines that were sold out of Chrysler Dealers as OEM for about $40,000. We sold them to Chrysler for around $20,000. That was about the coolest engine line I have ever seen. Four guys worked on it and each guy assembled one engine every day from start to finish. Even the $20,000 we were selling them for we weren't really making any money off them, it was more a cool thing to show our visitors that came to the factory. Lots of visitors used to fly in and see it as we were the only ones in the world making Hemi's OEM at that time, and this was just before the New Hemi came out.

 

 

The culture at Microsoft is nothing like automotive so not sure how this would benefit Microsoft. He is also a former Boeing engineer and again not much to do with Microsoft either. This could go down worse then John Sculley running Apple into the ground. At least Pepsi was a vibrant company.....Ford is not.

 

The Big 3 aren't exactly the first place I think of when it comes to visionary leadership in the hi-tech world. About the only auto company executive that I think would work would be Elon Musk from Tesla Motors. However he got his start in the software world, and he seems a little busy right now to take on cleaning up Microsoft.

If they hire Ex-Motown exc to run microsoft time to short Microsoft stock all the way.

From a flight Simmers point of view it doesn't matter who is running Microsoft.

They are out of the Flight Sim market forever.

Lockheed Martin own that bag of tricks now

and that's a good thing!

No way we do not need someone to run Microsoft that almost drove ford almost into bankruptcy. Microsoft needs young blood and poaching talent from google be priority. Lets have UAW and CAW run Microsoft at this point.

 

You need to read up about Ford and Mulally if you believe what you just wrote.  It couldn't be more wrong. 

 

Mulally is a genius and Ford has been doing very well with him at the helm.  M$ better be ready to bring the money if they are going to pull him away from Ford.