Steve Ballmer Archives - The Silicon Underground

Why AMD’s turnaround is working when so many turnarounds fail

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 11 Apr 2014 11:00:58 +0000

As this editorial notes, a year ago chipmaker AMD was on the ropes. Today AMD still won’t be unseating Intel any time soon, but they’re profitable again. The problem, it argues, is that changing CEOs isn’t enough. A CEO has

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Deconstructing the healthcare.gov website fiasco

Dave Farquhar — Wed, 13 Nov 2013 11:01:49 +0000

By reader request, I’m going to grab onto the third rail and talk about the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare/healthcare.gov website fiasco. As someone who has been involved in a large number of IT projects, inside and outside the government, successful and

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Bombshell: Ballmer steps down from Microsoft

Dave Farquhar — Sat, 24 Aug 2013 17:54:23 +0000

I’m sure you’ve heard by now that Steve Ballmer is retiring. It’s time. If anything, I agree with the people who say he would have been better off retiring years ago. But I really didn’t expect it. In spite of

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Microsoft’s bug bounty is a step in the right direction

Dave Farquhar — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 11:00:16 +0000

Last week, Microsoft announced it’s offering a bug bounty program. Find a working exploit in Windows 8.1/blue/whatever it’s called this week, and Microsoft will hand over $100,000. Find a mitigation for that exploit, and Microsoft will pony up for that

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UEFI on ARM illustrates why we still have to watch Microsoft

Dave Farquhar — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 14:34:22 +0000

UEFI is a technology that forces a computer to only load a digitally signed operating system. This has some security benefits, as it makes parts of the operating system unbootable if they become infected, since the viruses won’t be digitally

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Maybe this is how Apple does it

Dave Farquhar — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 13:03:45 +0000

Sitting in the stands at a baseball game the day after Steve Jobs’ surprise resignation from Apple, of course the subject came up. “I wish I knew how Apple does it,” I said. “I have an idea,” my friend Tom

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Microsoft sold 400 million Windows 7 licenses; what does it mean?

Dave Farquhar — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 11:00:32 +0000

Steve Ballmer announced today that Microsoft has sold 400 million Windows 7 licenses, but anywhere from half to two-thirds of PCs are still running Windows XP and need to get with the program. He also continues to insist Windows 8

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A snapshot in history of Gates and Microsoft, 1992

Dave Farquhar — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 12:33:04 +0000

Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire is a 1992 autobiography of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. It’s old. But it’s a compelling snapshot of what the industry thought of Gates and Microsoft before Windows 95, before

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Paul Allen’s tearing into Gates seems familiar

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 03:02:23 +0000

You’ve probably heard by now about Vanity Fair publishing an excerpt from Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen’s autobiography, which doesn’t give the most flattering portrayal of Bill Gates, his former business partner. I’ve heard most of these stories before, though I’m

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Cheap hardware won’t stop software piracy

Dave Farquhar — Thu, 21 Oct 2004 23:33:32 +0000

Who's to blame for rampant software piracy? According to Steve Ballmer, AMD and Intel. Oh, and Dell. Charge less for the computer, and there'll be more money to pay for Windows and Office.

Steve Ballmer doesn't know his history.

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