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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."
"Everyone is fooled, prepare for phase 2..."
Give it up for meeeeeeeeeee!!!
----- "All right. It was a miracle. Can we go now?"
Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!
(Anyone still have that video?)
This really isn't a troll, it's an honest statement when I sat that it was the "Monkey Boy" video that really put me off Microsoft. I remember thinking "this idiot is in charge of what happens to our Windows PC's?".
It was shortly after that I decided to switch to Macintosh for my primary platform. Obviously I still have a PC but I only use that for games now.
Five years of FUD, but financial success... He is feeling rattled by Linux though, as the recent FUD he's been spreading about patents shows. One imagines this will continue for some time to come, since his style may not be popular, but it's certainly effective.
"Nothing can shake my belief that this world is the fruit of a dark god whose shadow I extend." - Emil Michel Cioran
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.
You'd think Microsoft would/could advertise more. What's up with that?
Everyone thinks that they're a monopoly. Isn't that the best advertising?
You'd think that they could innovate with their $65 billion in cash. Instead, we get a grand total of - not one, not two - but THREE color schemes for Windows XP. It is arrogance like this that will eventually displace Microsoft. Not that color schemes matter, but the company hasn't come up with anything original in a long time. This is just a good example.
And they spend billions on R&D every year. It is like there is some law that prevents them from coming up with something both useful and non-evil. I have about a hundred ideas that they could use right now.
More
Not trying to make fun, but ive NEVER seen a fat man move like that and have that much energy...except Chris Farley
Lets see..
.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.
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
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.
"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).
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
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
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
An A on wallstreet a D for operating system and a F for security... that is still below average to me...
It is interesting to see how this $23 to $36 billion growth compares to the drop of the USD value during those very years. Do the math.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
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.
Well, as far as Microsoft's concerned, these "best people" aren't innovating for anyone else, and that's worth paying their salaries for.
deus does not exist but if he does
Come on, Bill made comment that would make you laugh and think "get real", "whatever" (One day hardware will be free and people will pay for software). Steve, on the other hand, just pisses people off to the point of demonstrating the bird.
What's the deal with Asia's Windows XP watered-down edition. With a continent that doesn't care to much about thier pirate mafias, that is sure going to move the governments away from open source.
Oh yeah, and since it didn't work your going to sue an entire continent over patent infirgements? How about trying that in our country first. Oh, right, you can't becuase you know you'll lose. But I guess Steve must think he can bully those he thinks are ignorant. (If I were you, I won't mess with a peoples that know kung fu).
And how about comparing a copy of $1000+ CD vs a bottle of cognac? I'm sorry Steve, but people paid for the software, not the medium the software was bought on. And since a backup is like less than a dollar, your comment doesn't justify.
So, what does that say about the people who seem to think Steve created a gentler M$? (RLOL) In my opinion, I think Steve is having it REAL lucky right now, or pulling an Enron. The way I see it, more and more people are moving to linux open source. Apple did it. Novell did it. IBM and Walmart are using it. Companies and government agencies are moving to it. Pretty soon the gaming industry, the only driving force that is keeping MS afloat, is going to switch over faster than you can say bubblelusicous. Then we will see a slow horrible death to MS (and their BS).
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.
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
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.
This sig donated to Pater. Long live
Chairman Gates: Lord Ballmer.
CEO Ballmer: Yes Chairman?
Chairman Gates: Rise...
Emper^H^H^HChairman Gates: Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design. Your friends, up there in the Justice Department, are walking into a trap, as is your OSS community. It was *I* who allowed the users to know the location of the source code. It is quite safe from your pitiful little band. An entire legion of my best coders awaits them. Oh, I'm afraid the DRM will be quite operational when Longhorn arrives.