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Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to Retire 'Within 12 Months'
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Apple fans may very well rue this day.
With the despotic MBA clown gone, if they actually concentrate on their products as opposed to internal politics, the pieces are there for Microsoft to rise again.
One thing I've learned watching Apple over the past couple decades is you can't write-off a company that under all their troubles still has great DNA in their culture and history. And Microsoft is much stronger than Apple was in 1998 - its a testament to how dominant they were that even Ballmer can't make them unprofitable after ten years of trying. Apple fans should not rejoice at Microsoft potentially getting up off the mat; it could haunt Apple ten years from now the way Apple has done to them.
With the despotic MBA clown gone, if they actually concentrate on their products as opposed to internal politics, the pieces are there for Microsoft to rise again.
One thing I've learned watching Apple over the past couple decades is you can't write-off a company that under all their troubles still has great DNA in their culture and history. And Microsoft is much stronger than Apple was in 1998 - its a testament to how dominant they were that even Ballmer can't make them unprofitable after ten years of trying. Apple fans should not rejoice at Microsoft potentially getting up off the mat; it could haunt Apple ten years from now the way Apple has done to them.
He has been there ten years too long. He is captivated by bright shiny objects such as trying to move in years late and "dominate" new businesses while ignoring the areas where MS really has dominance. A strong, innovative MS is good for all consumers and I'd like to see them close their stores, stop chasing rainbows and get back to writing software again.
Ballmer just doesn't understand the user base, which is average people. His company was built around engineer/nerd types why Apple combined those types with designers/usability people. I see it all the time with engineers I work with. Their brains do not work like others (obviously). They don't understand usability at all.
In fact, the Sony CEO years ago actually said something at a press conference about this and their decline in products. He said that Sony had to stop listening to their engineers and going with their views on what is 'cool' or 'game changing' because their views are not the rest of the general publics views on things. What is 'cool' to an engineer is not cool to 90% out there.
He bashed the iPhone and then the iPad...saying both would never get market share. He's still stuck in a past PC world where he doesn't understand any device that can do what you need it to do that is a computer IS a PC. The iPhone is a PC, the iPad is a PC and so on.
He also doesn't understand that MS is a software company. Office should have been made for the iPad and should have been out ages ago. They lost a huge chance to make hundreds of millions there.
He also doesn't understand that they needed to make the hardware move ages ago. With all their treasure troves of cash, they should have become a hardware company and built their own PCs and Laptops and CONTROLLED the user experience and made 1 line of sleek desktops, 1 line of laptops and 1 line of power desktops. It worked for another company. They missed the boat on that also.
He's just clueless and many, including myself as a stock holder are really happy.
Now, can we get OFFICE on iOS please?!?!?!
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Maybe they'll hire Scott Forstall.
That'd be hilarious.
Then they could scrap their entire Modern UI and get some skeuomorphism that everyone loves to hate.
Except they could end up hiring somebody WORSE than him. And he wasn't the worst CEO ever.
It's realism. Ballmer didn't really have to "follow" Gates' act, since he was a big part of it. Odds are, even if Bill Gates had remained in charge of Microsoft (and he is still the Chairman) that company's direction would have been very different. It was under the Gates and Ballmer leadership that the company made the default strategic decision to milk their highly profitable OS and enterprise software businesses and to use those profits to place a bunch of aimless bets on every possible thing.
The company is a corporate tragedy. With all of their resources, knowhow and mindshare, they should have been knocking the world's socks off with innovation. But boldness was never in their corporate DNA, and that goes back to Bill and Steve.
This is what I think kept Microsoft back any more than one man, the culture of the company. It has to change, and it has to change now.
About time... Microsoft wasn't doing well with Ballmer being their CEO. Let's hope Microsoft won't hire Ive to be their new CEO Steve would have never allowed that.
Steve would have never allowed that.
And yet I don't see Gates still being in charge leading to any real computing change.
Edit: I mean as opposed to what happened under Balmer... where he has at least TRIED to change Windows and their mobile efforts. It was a little late, but he tried.
About. Freaking. Time.
Although I am not a Micro$oft fan by any stretch, I do appreciate true competition between Apple and Micro$oft. This helps both companies improve. Micro$oft has been stagnant as of late, allowing Apple to whip the pants off of 'em, without having to significantly improve themselves.
Although I am not a Micro$oft fan by any stretch, I do appreciate true competition between Apple and Micro$oft. This helps both companies improve. Micro$oft has been stagnant as of late, allowing Apple to whip the pants off of 'em, without having to significantly improve themselves.
Not to mention that Gates is still Chairman of the Board. They both shoulder the blame for where Microsoft finds itself today.
This would never have happened if Jobs were still alive.
Ditto. They need someone who's worked in a number of tech companies, and preferably modern tech companies (i.e not old-hat "Office Space" places like HP, Microsoft, Oracle, Dell, etc.
Really they need someone who has never worked in a OS/large platform environment, just so they can shake it up big time.
Yeah, it's just you. He made mistakes and is arrogant beyond what his abilities justify, but corporations don't put idiots in charge. Anyway, I prefer to use "idiot" to describe people who use tired phrases such as "is it just me?".
Was the furniture removed first?
Was the furniture removed from the room before the board told him he was
"retiring"?
Was the furniture removed from the room before the board told him he was
"retiring"?
The issue is Microsoft's ethic and the way the company runs - its a well known fact that the reason so many of their products fail is due to inter-department hatred. No department will work together properly, and its been that way for years at Microsoft. For them to actually fix that is going to take more than a CEO and some rules. It'll take replacing hundreds if not thousands of staff, and an entire new management team. It's not easy to change a companies working style once its in place.
You've also got the fact that if a CEO comes in and tries to do that, it will result in losses for a good few years before it starts to make good. By that time the shareholders would have kicked the new CEO out and accomplished nothing.
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A failed attempt at one, yes. Just like the Snappier comments - all of them are against the rules and should be reported.
I also agree with the outsider approach but maybe a non-tech CEO might not be so bad. It did wonders for the behemoth known as IBM when Lou Gerstner took over and he absolutely NO tech experience (CEO of RJR Nabisco) and many thought IBM had lost it's marbles. He saved IBM through reorganization and left IBM all the better.
Yes, this is the guy who said iphone would fail because it doesn't have a physical keyboard so it's not good in the corporate world. The problem with this guy is he has no vision, he has no foreseeability. He can't see where the world is going, and a good CEO must so that he can adapt his company to that world before it's too late.
As with most of you, I am excited to see Blamer go. However, I am excited because I think MS will be more competitive. I know a lot of people dream of a world where only Apple products exist, but without fierce competitors, even great companies can get lazy.
I hope that MS improves its products and OSes because that will keep Apple pushing forward. I kind of hate Samsung, but I appreciate the pressure that they are putting on Apple to improve the iPhone.
Plus, until Apple really starts to cater to gamers, I'm going to have keep a Windows system so that I can play games with decent frame rates. So, I want Windows to be a good product since I have to use it for some things.
I hope that MS improves its products and OSes because that will keep Apple pushing forward. I kind of hate Samsung, but I appreciate the pressure that they are putting on Apple to improve the iPhone.
Plus, until Apple really starts to cater to gamers, I'm going to have keep a Windows system so that I can play games with decent frame rates. So, I want Windows to be a good product since I have to use it for some things.
Funny thing
The best thing for Microsoft would have been if they did just like the judge told them after the first monopoly trial: one company, operating system. Second company, software. Third company, hardware. Those three companies could have done very well. The Surface and the Xbox wouldn't be limited to MS software. You could buy Windows and not get Office, bot a competitors' suite. Microsoft is all about getting you to buy one thing if you buy another, including, at the time, over 90% of The computers in the world. Instead, Office would have real competitors, and MS updates wouldn't be about keeping an old monopoly together in the new tablet world that Jobs made.
The best thing for Microsoft would have been if they did just like the judge told them after the first monopoly trial: one company, operating system. Second company, software. Third company, hardware. Those three companies could have done very well. The Surface and the Xbox wouldn't be limited to MS software. You could buy Windows and not get Office, bot a competitors' suite. Microsoft is all about getting you to buy one thing if you buy another, including, at the time, over 90% of The computers in the world. Instead, Office would have real competitors, and MS updates wouldn't be about keeping an old monopoly together in the new tablet world that Jobs made.