Five Years of Ballmer -- the Effect on Microsoft

An anonymous reader writes "In the five years since Bill Gates surprised the technology world by announcing he would give up his title as chief executive at Microsoft to Steve Ballmer, the company has changed significantly. Ballmer is largely credited for tripling the company's cash balance, with sales growing from less than $23 billion in 2000 to $36.8 billion last year. Critics claim that today, we see a much 'gentler' side of Microsoft and Ballmer seems to have received an "A" in Wall Street's eyes."

Comments

Re:I notice they don't advertise as much

[frankthechicken]

Why should they advertise?

When was the last time they had a major product rollout?

Most of their software is so well known that they do not need to advertise. If you buy a computer, you get Windows, if you want word processor/spreadsheets etc., you buy Office. They are not a convicted monopoly for nothing.

Wait until Longhorn rolls out, then you'll see the major advertising campaign. As was the case with the X-box.

If Balmer rocks, then why doesn't the stock?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets see..

Now in the past 5 years of Balmer the stock of Microsoft has dropped maybe 50% or so in value.

Now of course since 5 years ago we had the .COM bubble burst, but while it seems that the the dow jones and Nasdaq have had a bit of a rise in profitablity, they seem to be leaving MS behind.

I figure it has to do with no new OSes for people to buy and MS's inability to profitable merge into other tech markets.

Of course if you invest 10 years ago, then you would of rocked the house.

But if you invested 5 years ago you would of lost almost half of your investment and if you invested your money in them anytime between now and then you would of been better off keeping your money in a savings account.

Hell you would have at least had some profit if you invested in Apple...

hmm....

You know you can go for a very long time in the stock market without rising or falling much at all. Could it be that when you have 95% of hte market your prospects for growth don't seem to hot to investors?

So 5 years of mediocre performance. What will be the next 5 years? Even them returning a large part of their cash reserves to their investors had little to no effect on their stock... Unless it prevented it from falling further.

It seems to me like nobody in Walstreet gives a shit about Balmer, but PC and financial magazines sure love that ad revenue!!!

look fer yerself.

Re:If Balmer rocks, then why doesn't the stock?

[suchire]

Let's look at this a little differently, shall we?

Now in the past 5 years of Balmer the stock of Microsoft has dropped maybe 50% or so in value....I figure it has to do with no new OSes for people to buy and MS's inability to profitable merge into other tech markets.

It's not that Microsoft is doing badly; it's just that it's "hi tech" stock valuation has finally given way to a more normal business evaluation. Instead of trading at 70 times earnings, it's now trading at a more reasonable 35 times earnings. Considering that it's a huge, huge, huge company, it's a good bet that it can't grow like, say, Apple or the rest of NASDAQ can. Would you expect, say, Proctor & Gamble to grow 70% a year? I doubt it.

i wonder for how long

[koekepeer]

"Ballmer is largely credited for tripling the company's cash balance, with sales growing from less than $23 billion in 2000 to $36.8 billion last year."

their main revenues are form selling the OS and Office suites, right? well, he was still in the luxury position of building on a monopoly. i'm pretty sure it won't stay like this as competition gets more stiff.

and yeah, OSS and/or Free software are a big competitor in the fields where MS wants to make money in the future (embedded space, servers, for example).

A from wall street, F from developers.

[kahei]

It is precisely because of Ballmers orientation toward marketing and finance that MS's real potential is WEAKER than it was in 2000. For every temporary balance sheet win he has made, there has been permanent 'hearts and minds' damage.

Communication is the issue; MS no longer listens to clients at the tech level. Up until a few years ago I rated MS very high in terms of listening to the marketplace and creating technology to match -- in fact, where governmental bodies and cross-industry standards groups constantly failed, and giant companies simply didn't give a good gosh damn, MS habitually actually listened to people who knew technology and produced what the world needed. This might have been more striking in my area than in some others, but it was certainly a general rule.

Fast forward to the present day. The world asks MS , "What is your .NET product anyway?" and MS NEVER ANSWERS. Ballmer chants "XML! XML! XML!" for six months while programmers, managers and investors across the globe stare blankly at him. That was the quality of communication, on the subject of MS's own product.

So financially, I agree that Ballmer has really done a lot. But putting the emphasis on extracting money from clients, rather than delivering benefits to clients, can only work for so long :(

an "A"

[micmast]

An A on wallstreet a D for operating system and a F for security... that is still below average to me...

Re:A confession

[danheskett]

Really?

Hmm.. you know, as an actual developer of software, it really actually had it's intended effect.

The tools MS is providing for developers now are really great. Such an improvement to five years ago. The resources available are just pretty great.

Software sells systems, and MS is doing a good job getting and retaining great ISVs for their platform.

The man is OK

[MPHellwig]

What do you expect if you where the CEO of world biggest software company?
Ofcourse he is out there to make money and to sell Windows.
He would say anything to make sure his biz stays in biz, just like any other CEO but besides that he is perfectly reasonable, in real live.
That man is not stupid neither evil, he sells his product in which he believes.
The only "crime" he would be guilty of is the crime of commerce.

Re:How long does R&D take?

[kubrick]

Well, as far as Microsoft's concerned, these "best people" aren't innovating for anyone else, and that's worth paying their salaries for.

Re:Gentler side huh?

[lowe0]

I couldn't care less what histrionics Ballmer goes into on stage - his monkey dance neither amuses nor disturbs me. I judge Microsoft's committment to developers by looking at their current and upcoming tools, their developer resources, etc.. And their committment seems pretty good to me.

Re: Developers like .NET

[dantheman82]

I beg to differ with those who say Microsoft treats developers like crap. For developers, there are so many more people than Balmer to listen to. If you want the PR, fine, go with Balmer. But if you explore your options just a little, you will see what I mean.

However, need I mention Channel 9, which is run by 5 Microsoft employees. They interview a lot of people within Microsoft and you really get a feel for the stuff they deal with. There is the *free* ISV Buddy Program, a Microsoft employee assigned personally to help answer questions/issues you have with many of their products.

And I could go on for quite awhile about .NET and the ways they link up with developers on that:

There is INETA, which has over 300,000 members worldwide and is promoted a lot by Microsoft.

There are many, many community websites put out or suppported in some way by Microsoft, like GotDotNet, MSDNAA (for students), Free ASP.NET starter kits, etc.

There are the helpful Shows and Webcasts highlighting and explaining new Microsoft products, which are especially helpful for .NET developers here.

There is the Student Ambassador (to Microsoft) program where a student serves as the liason between Microsoft and students and provides software, information, and community for students. This is run by Microsoft, and I play a small part as one SA among ~146 on college campuses in the US alone.

There is the Imagine Cup contest, which is geared for students which provides a programming competition for anyone interested. The website for that is here...

There's more, but you get the point.

As far as previous stuff (MFC, COM, etc.) I have not been involved at that stage, and a specific business may have had a different experience.

Re:Gentler?! Who's kidding who.

[Feztaa]

Hardware is a commodity, but software is quickly becoming so as well. This is how it should be.