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Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to Retire 'Within 12 Months'
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About bloody time, maybe we will now get a true challenger to Apple and get them innovating again!
If they really want to find a replacement, I think it will take longer than a year. Finding an idiot who misses the mark as often as he does will be really difficult.
Troll troll troll your boat? Why would you wish ill on Microsoft when they provide so much software for the world?
I find it really odd that Ballmer would initiate huge reorg and then a month later decide to retire. Everyone is saying Microsoft needs fresh blood. But isn't the new CEO going to have to implement Ballmer's "One Microsoft"? How is implementing the outgoing CEO's vision fresh blood? 
Not sure about that considering that same board kept him around as long as they did.
That might work if they split the company and Allard ran the devices (i.e. consumer) company. Not sure what his experience is with enterprise and cloud though.
They're a software company when it comes to the PC market. Outside of the PC market, they got their hand in every pot - consoles, peripherals, cloud services, cloud platforms, mobile, etc. Some are hits, some are misses. They are an eroded brand though, which makes them seem like a dying company even though they've been consistently profitable year after year.
They're attempting to do that now - Modern interface on everything with Skydrive + Skype integration. Even the XB1 is gonna run a W8 kernel with snap interfaces. The only dumb thing is RT, which I don't know why they won't kill.
Their answer was to port their software products to the cloud and tablet market to offset shrinking PC market. With their latter, the execution was terrible, mostly because of RT and bad marketing. With the former, it's still early but it looks promising.
With services like Bing and gmail, Google is ahead. On Cloud based Office, Google and MS split the market 50/50. On pure infrastructure and PaaS/IaaS offerings, MS is second to only Amazon.
I find it really odd that Ballmer would initiate huge reorg and then a month later decide to retire. Everyone is saying Microsoft needs fresh blood. But isn't the new CEO going to have to implement Ballmer's "One Microsoft"? How is implementing the outgoing CEO's vision fresh blood?
Simple, this was not Balmer's idea and he was told to go by the board, he did not have a choice.
I read jcrMBP's post several times because I was trying to find the part where he wishes ill on MS. What I got from his post was that MS board will not have a hard time finding someone else that is a better CEO. To paraphrase, the MS board will have to hunt hard, for a long time, to find another CEO that is as bad or worse then Ballmer.
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LOL. I was just thinking the same thing.
Exactly. If you don't like Microsoft you should be sad, not celebrating. This is bad news for Apple. Microsoft still has a huge amount of clout and power, and that power in the hands of someone with even half a clue almost certainly won't be good for Apple.
Not a safe bet.
Microsoft becoming a powerhouse again will depend on Ballmer's successor. Unfortunately, it seems like grooming a Microsoft Padawan was given little thought.
This is in contrast to SJ... who made it clear a year before stepping down that he had a clear successor. Tim might not have been the Padawan that many Apple fans wanted to see, but he is still the clear successor to Steve, and Steve was able to hand over the reigns of power in a relatively smooth fashion.
Microsoft? Their best bet now is probably to find someone from outside the company. It's a total crapshoot. They might get lucky and find someone brilliant. Or they may end up with another corporate business-suit talking head bean-counter dud.... like that Retail VP that was fired from Apple.
P.S. --- I do hope that Microsoft does well. Not because I even use any of their products (I no longer have any need to use their products). Rather I want Microsoft to stay healthy and thriving because it keeps Apple competitive and on its toes. And a strong MS also might help to prevent a total World Domination by an arrogant Google.
Yes, but for the rest of us who simply want good products, this is merely an interesting sideshow and a small lesson on economics and business for those interested
. You shouldn't like or hate any one company, they all have tons of products. Some you may like, some not. Coke is a helluva drug. Seriously though, there's no way he wasn't on something like that on that day.
But I thought he was in Gates back pocket? Unless the board pressured Gates to have him retire early...