Ballmer Hits 10th Anniversary As Microsoft CEO 185
bednarz writes "Ten years ago on Jan. 13, 2000, Microsoft's Bill Gates turned over the CEO reins to Steve Ballmer. Back in 2000, Microsoft was still under threat of being broken up by the Department of Justice. Today, Ballmer is trying to meld enterprise and cloud computing. He has spent the past decade working through lawsuits, mergers, acquisitions, competitive battles and, of course, new software including Windows 7, which could become the legacy of his leadership at Microsoft. Not that we'll ever forget Ballmer's 'developers, developers, developers' rant."
The other creepy Steve (Score:3, Interesting)
I've seen "people I'd like to have a beer with" lists that some people make.
I wouldn't even want to ride an elevator with Steve Ballmer. He seems like a real prick.
My campus office used to be adjacent to the Business School at my institution, before they built a shiny new building for the b-school, and I used to have lunch in the cafeteria that was in their basement. I used to observe a lot of the over-amped business students that had similar grating mannerisms as Ballmer. Smelling of cheap cologne and flop-sweat, they were part obnoxious frat-boy, part desperate grasper, and part arrogant sociopath.
That's what I think of Steve Ballmer.
Re:Chairs??? (Score:5, Interesting)
Or flying chairs.
After Bill Gates resigned, many of the Microsoft middle managers came up to Steve Ballmer's office to talk about all the problems they had under Gates. Sensing the opportunity for change, nearly all of them said, at some point, "I simply won't stand for this anymore". Ballmer just got tired of this after a while and decided to manage more efficiently.
Re:but..... (Score:5, Interesting)
Funny how Vista is oddly missing in that list of achivements. But then again, there are times when a hole in your CV is preferable to being truthful.
Re:but..... (Score:4, Interesting)
Did they mention his important work in the field of chairodynamics?
Some things speak for themselves.
Microsoft's revenues, $56 billion.
Its profit margin 24%. Debt $6 billion, cash-on-hand $33 billion. MSFT Key Statistics [yahoo.com]
Re:but..... (Score:5, Interesting)
Does anyone have numbers to compare from 10 years ago?
Revenue should scale up with inflation and standard growth. I'm particularly curious about profit margin, and market share.
In this past decade Microsoft lost market share, presided over the Xbox's massive hardware failures, and the massive failure of Windows mobile. IE went from utterly dominating (95% plus) market share to having less than 50% market share in some areas. Most people expect Firefox to overtake the majority of market share in all markets. Microsoft has also lost market share in search, got blasted by the EU, and had to back-pedal on several key strategies.
All those things go on his resume.
Microsoft also has to look where the future takes them.
A linux netbook with a random distro without many packages, and no big brand name behind it may not set the world on fire. But when Best Buy starts selling Chrome OS netbooks with a big Google brand on it, Microsoft will start shitting themselves.
Google has a lot of pieces they've yet to put together, but when they do, Microsoft's business model in several markets may suddenly shrivel and dissapear. Microsoft won't disappear overnight because they're diversified, but a company can rule a specific market one day, and then disappear the next if they're not careful.
Re:but..... (Score:3, Interesting)
Unless things change severely, I doubt much will really happen.
When netbooks first came out, salespeople were warning that they didn't run Windows and you can't expect your applications to run on it. (I got the whole diatribe trying to buy my Acer netbook with Linux). Heck, the market didn't really take off until Windows XP ("ultra-low-cost-PC") was introduced and everyone lock-stepped the Microsoft requirements.
Unless the ChromeOS netbook is insanely cheap (like, under $150), it'll be a case of "this one works for the Internet" vs. "This one for internet and your applications like Office and Outlook".
Re:Moron (Score:2, Interesting)
That reminds me of the following joke:
A boy goes to his dad and tells him "Dad, when I grow up I want to be a fucking loser".
The father surprised and a bit angry asks his son "Why would you want to be that?"
To what the kid answers: "Well, every time we are on the street, if you see a guy with a great car you say 'what a fucking loser'. When we see a guy with to girls you say 'look at that fucking loser' and last time we went to the supermarket and you fought with the manager you said 'I hope that fucking loser rots in hell' after they kicked you out of the place".
Or something like that...
Re:The wrong ceo (Score:3, Interesting)
And they wouldn't realize that if it wasn't for Ballmer ?
I say Ballmer did what he could to avoid it. He killed Netscape. He fucked up Windows by integrating a web browser in it. People we so pissed about it they would buy utilities to remove it (98lite). He did succeed for many years. What happened then was inevitable. But give the guy proper credit.
Re:Also titled (Score:2, Interesting)
That's the best you've got? "I know you are, but what am I"?