Good riddance. Ballmer is ambitious and aggressive, but not inventive. Microsoft’s entire strategy has been to milk existing lines ever harder while the tides shifted to new directions.
The only way a new CEO will get anywhere will be to commit some serious bloodletting at MSFT and ditch/spin off entire divisions.
Something tells me this wasn’t a decision he made on his own.
The board, investors, pundits, etc have been pretty unhappy with his leadership for a while now. There have been a LOT of calls for his resignation.
I’d be amazed if this wasn’t either a “everyone decided it was best for everyone” thing or if he was simply forced out and this is the best way to present it to the public.
That Hannibal Lecter face…
Count how many times the word “committee” appears in Ballmer’s statement and you’ll know everything you need to know about Microsoft’s lack of vision.
A perfect time for Ballmer to leave would have been before they destroyed Nokia, (I am assuming Ballmer was in on the plan with Elop)
…without the charm.
I also remember an interview with him several years back where he explained that Microsoft hadn’t been investing a lot of resources in internet-related tech in the early-to-mid 90s because they were so busy working on Windows 95. There’s a guy who can see the big picture.
Balmer said something, and the stocks went UP.
How about Microsoft itself retires with him. Please?
In that picture he looks a bit like Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter.
Now Elop has pretty much buggered Nokia up as much as possible (are they really going to make a Windows RT tablet?), he can come back to kill off MS too.
Its about time. He has been an unmitigated disaster. My “favorite” management technique at MS is the team ratings system, which forces managers to rate everyone on their team on a scale of 1-10. The catch is that the ratings have to be evenly distributed. Even if a manager thinks all 5 (or whatever) employees on her team are above average, she has to make some below, some average and some above average. This of course sets up an environment where people have to sabotage each other for ratings. What suffers under that framework? The software of course. And let’s not even discuss Ballmer’s retarded strategy of not inventing anything new and just jumping onto the bandwagon after an innovation catches on. Visionary is the opposite of the word.
Would that, when Steve Jobs was in his last hours, Ballmer had prayed on his knees to God saying “No! Take me! Take me!” and God complied.
He gives big oafs a bad name.
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