How Long Will Ballmer Last?

Bokeh

Microsoft employees rate Steve Ballmer as tech's worst CEO. How long can he last? - Computerworld Blogs

RobertKaucher

Dang, I thought he was "ALL ABOUT THE DEVELOPERS!" Just thinking about those videos makes me happy... LOL.

TheShadow

He LOVES that companyyyyyyy.

A billion here, a billion there an pretty soon you are an ex-MS CEO

it_consultant

He is hard to defend, they have a crap ton of really good products (XBOX 360, Windows 7, Office 2010) that sell like crazy yet their stock prices are continually hammered by apple.

DevilWAH

it_consultant wrote: »

He is hard to defend, they have a crap ton of really good products (XBOX 360, Windows 7, Office 2010) that sell like crazy yet their stock prices are continually hammered by apple.

To be honest all those products date back to Gates. Ballmer has brought very little new to the compnay. A lot of what he seems to be doing is reinventing the wheel.

Or playing catch up to others. Like Bing trying to out do google, or windows mobile competing with apple.

Apple do one thing and do it well, Google is the same, they focus hevely on there core buisness and play with projects (android, crome OS, google wave, driverless cars) almost as a side hobby. And if they break though only then dedicate massive resorces to them.

Microsoft seems to want to be the top at every thing and is in danger of becoming the leader in none.

They should go back to developing the OS and making it the best homeOS on the planet, and follow it up with a good strong server / office platform.

Ok they have got the kindel, but that almost seems like luck. But to be fair they are reacting well, microsoft of past whould have fought tooth and nail to stop people hacking it and using it for there own thing. But they came out and developed a SDK they are releasing. I think that give them some browny points.

But yes micrsoft go back to what you do best, making user friendly OS's. with the cloud comming and OS like the IPOD OS and Crome OS gearing up to take advantage of it. Microsfot is in danger of getting left in the past.

it_consultant

I think we have to give them a BIT of a break - considering the sheer number of products they have on the market plus the huge amounts of cash they have dumped into R&D. That hasn't paid off yet but it takes more than a couple of years to get something out of that investment. I think its natural for MS to contract a little bit. Its up to them to release another set of products that puts them on top again. Otherwise they will be novell.

Slowhand

My guess: he'll last until his heart explodes in his chest during a keynote speech/dance and takes a significant portion of Washington state with him.

tpatt100

DevilWAH wrote: »

To be honest all those products date back to Gates. Ballmer has brought very little new to the compnay. A lot of what he seems to be doing is reinventing the wheel.

That is how I see things (bolded). Microsoft just seems to be always releasing a "me too" product and then uses their Ft Knox cash supply to try and bury the competition and then barely makes a dent. I mean the Xbox they poured tons of cash into and at least they managed to take the "game console" title from Sony who had success with the PS1 and 2 but dang it took a ton of money to do it.

Side note: I don't put a lot of stock into Glassdoors.com. I tend to think anonymous (even registered but still anonymous) sites like this tend to get more of the angry people.