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.
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 …
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.
"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.
>"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]
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.
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.
> 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".
>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...
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
... 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.
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.