back to article Ballmer now flings out work rivals, rather than chairs, claims ex-Microsoftie

An ex-Microsoft chap has accused potty-mouthed CEO Steve Ballmer of throwing any possible pretenders to his chieftainship out of the company. At least it's no longer chairs being tossed around. Joachim Kempin, who left the Windows giant under a cloud in 2002, has written a tell-all book about his time at Redmond that is less …

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  1. Code Monkey
    Windows

    He'll destroy MS

    Ballmer will do what Apple, Google, linux, whoever else you care to mention. And best of all, we can all point and laugh while he does it.

    1. mrweekender

      Re: He'll destroy MS

      Bought a copy of Windows 8 the other day just to play games of course. I've read pretty much everything I can about it before buying and I have to say it's not all bad. That said the interace is not intuitive on a desktop and it needs rethinking. I think it's going to push people away. On tablets it's probably going to be a different story but the competition is strong there.

      On a related note, Steam on Linux (Ubuntu) is outstanding. If the developers support it Microsoft is most definitely going to lose quite a bit of market share. Interesting times.

  2. southpacificpom
    Paris Hilton

    Nothing new to see here people, move along...

    1. dogged
      Meh

      Better headline

      ex-MS employee tries to sell book.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    2002 is hardly up to date

    So while Balmer may not have changed it can't really be said this is how the company is now.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Innovation

    "Kempin claimed that Microsoft did foresee the tech world's lurch into tablets and smartphones, and the rise of social media, but it didn't follow up on them after he left."

    Absolutely nothing new there with Microsoft. How many times have Microsoft been in denial about the potential success of a technology only to finally produce their own (much) later on - sometimes successfully, othertimes not.

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Re: Innovation

      >"the tech world's lurch into tablets and smartphones, "

      >How many times have Microsoft been in denial about the potential success of a technology only to finally produce their own (much) later on

      MS have been doing smartphone and tablet OSs for years... they just weren't great. [XP Tablet Edition, 2002] [Windows Pocket PC]

      1. Ramazan
        Facepalm

        Re: XP Tablet Edition, 2002

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_for_Pen_Computing, 1991

    2. Paul Shirley

      Re: Innovation

      I sense selective memory from Kempin. MS have been trying to sell slates (AKA tablets) for a very long time now and been in the phone biz for some time.

      They didn't ignore the tablet, they repeatedly tried and failed to sell them. Gates regularly used to tell anyone that would listen that slates were going to be the next big thing. Admittedly when hardware finally made iPad possible MS didn't move fast enough to dump classic windows on their devices but that's years after he left MS!

      Phones, again they had a large share of the smartphone market right up till tech allowed iPhone. And again MS didn't adapt quickly enough. But they were in the market and for a change not really failing.

      Social media is more of the same. MS have bought company after company chasing a userbase, they just seem totally incapable of creating their own social platforms. But they certainly acted to get in the game.

      To the extent it's even possible to foresee the massive changes, MS didn't sit back and do nothing, they forged ahead but mostly did the wrong things.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ballmer isn't a technology visionary, he's a numbers droid. This is the real problem.

    1. Giles Jones Gold badge

      Contrast that with Apple and Jobs. Jobs had a good idea and then told everyone to do something to realise the idea.

      With Microsoft the ideas fight their way to the top to get a decision from Balmer. This is why you really need someone who is looking to the future in charge.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @Giles Jones

        Steve didn't have good ideas, he saw other people's ideas and made products with them. There is nothing wrong with this, it's just what Edison did, but don't think that Apple are some sort of new ideas house.

    2. Eponymous Cowherd
      Windows

      Actually, the real problem.....

      Is that he's a numbers guy who thinks he's a tech visionary.

      1. IT Hack
        Pint

        Re: Actually, the real problem.....

        More like he's a sales guy who has a bit of numbers talent who thinks he understands technology and has the vision to take us all there.

        Pint - just to celebrate his chucking someone out of a window...har! I slay me. :/

  6. Benjamin 4

    "Ballmer is the best person to lead Microsoft"

    I think I just saw a pig fly past the window, probably on its way to show Ballmer how he should run Microsoft.

    1. TheOtherHobbes

      Re: "Ballmer is the best person to lead Microsoft"

      Pretty much any pig would be better at running MS than Ballmer is.

      Then again, pretty much any squirrel, amoeba, prokaryote, pine tree, or brick would be too.

      1. Dave 126 Silver badge

        Re: "Ballmer is the best person to lead Microsoft"

        There was a good programme on the radio yesterday, In Business. Basically, the conclusion was that people get to the level of CEO by a mixture of politics and good luck, and sometimes by displaying a tiny pinch of good judgement. Once near the top, they come to believe that they deserve their status, and award themselves. They feel that they must be seen to be 'dynamic', and therefore indulge in things like acquisitions- which rarely add value but do make a lot of noise, cause a distraction and make them look like they are doing something.

        1. dogged
          Meh

          Re: "Ballmer is the best person to lead Microsoft"

          You can criticize Ballmer for many things but "award themselves" isn't one of them. His salary's the lowest of any tech CEO (including stock options and other cheats) by his own choice.

          1. Raumkraut

            Re: "Ballmer is the best person to lead Microsoft"

            > You can criticize Ballmer for many things but "award themselves" isn't one of them. His salary's the lowest of any tech CEO (including stock options and other cheats) by his own choice.

            AFAICT, "lowest [salary] of any tech CEO" is right up there with "most honest politician".

            1. Dave 126 Silver badge

              Re: "Ballmer is the best person to lead Microsoft"

              >You can criticize Ballmer for many things but "award themselves" isn't one of them. His salary's the lowest of any tech CEO (including stock options and other cheats) by his own choice.

              Fair enough. Obviously the programme wasn't speaking about Ballmer, it was more generic than that... but the mention of acquisitions being a way way to be seen to be doing something did chime with a few tech firms in recent years. For all I know, Ballmer may be competent, but if so then it isn't communicated well... the message isn't as clear. And then all you have to do is throw a couple of chairs and it's all people talk about.

              MS have had products that have been premature, or late to the game, or else haven't set the world on fire. Media Centre Extenders, the Courier (Sony have since used the form factor, Samsung the finger+stylus combo), using the Windows brand in a confusing way (8, 8 Phone, 8 RT etc), using the Surface brand for first a coffee table then a tablet, killing off HomeServer...

        2. Toothpick
          Happy

          Re: "Ballmer is the best person to lead Microsoft"

          "which rarely add value but do make a lot of noise, cause a distraction and make them look like they are doing something."

          That's called creative inertia

        3. Paul Webb

          Re: "Ballmer is the best person to lead Microsoft"

          Actually, it was Analysis on Radio 4: "Just Deserts" and very good it was too.

          http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01pzqx9

  7. Charles Calthrop
    Thumb Down

    2002

    he left before vista, the iphone and a whole host of other shifts in computing. he may be wrong he may be right but he's hardly current

    1. DJV Silver badge

      Re: 2002

      He may not be current but he is certainly adding to the continuous story of how Microsoft has been mismanaged over the years. More tales can be found here:

      http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2012/08/microsoft-lost-mojo-steve-ballmer

      and in the book Barbarians Led By Bill Gates - another "not current" book, but well worth a read:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbarians_Led_by_Bill_Gates

    2. W.O.Frobozz
      Pint

      Re: Pressing further

      And he waxes lyrical about Ricky "The Rat" Belluzzo, the guy who tried to cripple HP, and successfully destroyed SGI before gaining his ultimate goal over at Microsoft. Glad to see that Ricky got the boot by Ballmer, proving that Ballmer isn't a total ass.

  8. Greg D
    Flame

    Cringe

    I cringe every time I see his neanderthal face and sweaty flab. Then I cringe some more when he opens his mouth and sounds come out.

    Steve Ballmer = cringe

    1. DJV Silver badge
      Meh

      Re: Cringe

      Don't insult Neanderthals - apparently, they were quite intelligent!

      1. Dave 126 Silver badge

        Re: Cringe

        >Don't insult Neanderthals - apparently, they were quite intelligent!

        They were- they just weren't as nasty as us!

        Still, some of us Europeans have up to 5% Neanderthal DNA... amazing really, that interspecies breeding went on before beer was invented!

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Trollface

    He was a visionary

    Joachim Kempin, who left the Windows giant under a cloud in 2002

    -------------------------------

    Spotting the cloud potential in 2002 a full ten years before it came mainstream. Microsoft need visionaries like him

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Someone who thinks Ozzie knows about software...

    ... should not be trusted when he talks about what CEO MS needs. Ozzie may have had the idea of groupware tools, but Notes was (and I guess it still is although I've been lucky enough to have not being using it for years) a dreadful implementation of it, and eventually brought Lotus to death (hey, we can make a lot of money from this, who cares about the other software we have? Just deliver some crappy releases to those who didn't migrate to Office yet!). And when Ozzie joined MS, it just tried to reinvent his wheel over and over. Sure, MS lacks someone with a "vision", but you he (or her) is not someone like Ozzie.

  11. Mikel
    Windows

    My hero

    I can't think of a better person than Steve Ballmer to lead Microsoft to where I want them to go.

  12. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Trollface

    Paging Leonid Breshnev

    LET THE CLEANSING BEGIN!

  13. dssf

    priceless?

    " "They need somebody maybe 35 to 40 years old, a younger person who understands the Facebook Inc generation and this mobile community. They don't need this guy on stage with this fierce, aggressive look, announcing the next version of Windows and thinking he can score with that." "

  14. Sirius Lee

    Sounds like gripes to me. Another way of looking at Ballmer's behavior is that he's making space at the top for new faces, new ideas. It's the board's job kick out Ballmer and arrange a succession plan. As they don't seem to have done that, presumably they don't think it is necessary.

    And by whose measure is it a 'lame duck' board? This is a company which returns billions to shareholder (mainly pension funds) every year. Sure the stock price doesn't move much but that not the way Microsoft are making friends with the finance community (not just Wall St). When you hear the pension funds getting restive then its time to question the board.

    And those pension funds do not want a 'Facebook generation' guy at the helm. Microsoft is a vast company that spans the globe. Not only does it make cash for shareholders it make *many billions* for other companies around the world from it Windows and Office and Xbox franchises. Stick some muppet from Facebook up there? No, the shareholders will not love that.

    So this article is about a book by a guy with a bunch of complaints who didn't make it. Get over it. He was not up to the task or it was not the right time. Next.

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