Ex Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer, was less than jolly at the annual shareholder meeting of the company, after a discussion over financial performance and app implementation.
He pointed out that the way in which the Redmond-based company reports the financial results for hardware manufacturing and cloud business gives a skewed image of reality.
Ballmer thinks that one "key metric" of business is the revenue, and any enterprise that wants transparency should report it. Microsoft, according to Ballmer, does not disclose profit margins or sales figures. Instead, the Windows OS developer reports yearly revenues run rates - which means that they approximate how much the company's revenue might be if current sales levels extends for 12 months.
"Bu**sh*t. They should report the revenue, not the run rate," Ballmer commented on the procedure, according to Bloomberg.
Apart from revenue value, margin is another essential indicator for a company. Software margins are traditionally high, as they can be replicated at zero cost. However, hardware and cloud margins are lower, as they involve additional and often significant investment. Microsoft began to shift its focus from software solutions to cloud services, and this hints at the fact that margins will modify. What Ballmer advocates is that these margins be made visible, so that all shareholders have a clear grasp on how the company fares.
During the meeting where Ballmer harshly underlined Microsoft's poor choices, CEO Satya Nadella received a question regarding the absence of important apps for Windows Phone.
Nadella noted that Microsoft has been working for some time now on a universal-working ecosystem. The theory goes that it would make it easy for developers to write apps compatible with tablets, phones, Xbox consoles, PCs and HoloLens, thus reaching far beyond the scope of Windows Mobile users.
"[It] won't work," Ballmer said referring to the all-platform strategy.
In his opinion, the success of Windows Phones will happen when they will "run Android apps." Microsoft even had the idea on the drafting board: dubbed Project Astoria, the concept was a subsystem that would allow Android apps to work on Windows 10 Mobile.
As more and more apps can be found on Apple Store and Google Play, but not on Microsoft Store, it becomes clear that Microsoft needs to work on its app-related strategy.
