You can not make money on a desktop OS if the end-user functionality is moving to the cloud... that is why Office as a cash-cow moved to cloud and non-Microsoft platforms are embraced. I think the strategy and products of the current MS company is in the edge of technology and vision, and the reason why Apple is facing a hard time as they arrived on the point missing the boat for products other than iPhone. On the other hand, that could be a strategy as well (as one could see signs of it like making the MacBook Pro less "pro" than people expect) but an ecosystem consisting of just Android and iOS does not seem healthy to me in the long run
Forget about mistakes in making or not making own hardware. Hardware mistake can easily be remedied in the next iteration every year onward.
The problem with this guy was he practically took the entire Wins engineering team to the abyss and buried them. For 10 years since Vista, MS under this man's leadership blew chance after chance to make Windows viable because of their collective mindset. They are and still so paranoid about piracy of their OS. Piracy happens no matter what, if one consider 70% of future growth of the platform is forever going to be in China and India, where people simply cannot afford $99 for a mediocre OS.
Had they implement their own hardware with Windows and make Windows usable across desktop and their mobile devices, things would have truned out more positively. They could have sold vanilla Windows cheap for system builders but keep premium features free of charge on their own devices like everyone is doing now. Windows is still very prominent worldwide because of Office. The potential financial gain is still enormous. Yet now their OS is solely imprisoned on desktop only with no parole in sight.
For a company that once owned 92% of desktop in the world that now is losing battle of the mobile technolgy is sad. Writing a OS is no walk in park. Google with all their money has tried so for years but yet succeeded. They will keep trying because they own the mobile platform. But hey, they have decided to invest heavily in making their own gears now.
Ballmer, Balmer, Ballmer! Maybe you're just meant to be an owner of a sports team. Huh, the jury is out on your management of the Clippers.