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Does Ballmer Need To Go?
Pickens notes a TechCrunch analysis wondering — after Windows Vista and the failed Yahoo bid — whether Steve Ballmer's days at Microsoft are numbered. "Ballmer has been the big driver behind [the Yahoo] deal at Microsoft — some would say to the point of obsession. After the disaster that has been Windows Vista, Ballmer may have realized he needed to redeem himself in the eyes of Microsoft's board. And the 'transformative' deal with Yahoo was the way he was going to do it... If Microsoft's board loses patience with him, it might have to ask Bill Gates to temporarily come back as CEO until it finds a replacement. After all, Ballmer has already made a strong and convincing case for why Microsoft needs Yahoo to make its online and advertising strategy work. It's not clear whether Microsoft can achieve its objectives on its own or through other acquisitions. Maybe Ballmer thinks he can still do the deal by making Yahoo's stock price collapse and come back with a hostile offer."
The yahoo board are more likely to be fired by the shareholders than Balmer.
I don't think anyone is saying people at Yahoo are not going to face some heat either. They're just saying that the whole deal was really pushed by Balmer and since he couldn't make it happen, he may well pay.
For that matter Vista isn't really all that much of a failure in the long run, it gets a lot of bad press, but it's not a horrible OS,
Doesn't matter how good it is if it continues to get horrible press.
Balmer has been with Microsoft for a long time, and given that everyone will think that the Microsoft CEO is a vicious, greedy, vindictive SOB even if they put a saint in the position, they may as well get the benefits of an actual vicious, greedy, vindictive SOB.
But there's the problem. He doesn't come off looking very vicious or greedy when he backs off at the first counteroffer. "Lame Duck" springs to mind.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
He and Gates surely control enough stock to do as they please. After all, if the board hasn't come after them after six billion down the hole for Vista, they aren't going to come after them for anything.
;-)
Both those guys are convinced they're geniuses, too, which is not conducive to stepping aside for someone else. And to be fair, given the corporate culture they've carefully nurtured, I seriously doubt any of those waiting in the wings could do a better job, anyway, so fuck it you know?
I bet they still both wish they were Steve Jobs tho.
expandfairuse.org
The SlashDot Borg Icon for Microsoft needs to be Ballmer not Gates.
In Microsoft there are two sets of crowds, the Gates set and the Ballmer set.
The Gates set is more apt to give stuff to users, do things the right way, and has been the underpinnings of things MS has gotten right or had done right by the IT world as a whole. They tend to take what they do seriously, have pride in Microsoft and want it to continue to succeed for the right reasons, etc.
The Ballmer group are the business minded, make a buck, and screw you type of people. They step on each other, screw over other projects if it gains them something, and could give a crap about the IT world or even Microsoft itself in the long run.
When you see the 4 versions of Vista, this was the result of the Ballmer crowd and OEMs wanting a dirt cheap version. The Gates crowd kept NT as two roles, Desktop and Server, but sadly the Ballmer nuts won that war cause they thought it would make MS an extra buck.
Gates = technology and empowering.
Ballmer = dominance and money.
Sadly Gates assumes that because most businesses think like Ballmer that Ballmer is doing the right thing, when Microsoft could be structured more like Gate's foundation and not only help the IT world more, but be just as profitable.
I would love to see Ballmer retire and the idiots that think like him go as well.
I hope I got that wrong, but that's the first impression I got from reading your post. Although I would agree with you that Gates is less of a bull in a chine shop than Gates is, I don't think I'd trust Gates as far as I could throw him either. We have seen enough charades over the past (and these days with the Foundation) to be pretty sure Gates isn't a fair player either.
:-).
However, Yahoo as well as buying their way through the ISO process are indeed very much Ballmer. Gates would have been a lot more subtle. He'd have worked the buy-in of many shareholders well before he'd approach Yahoo - Yahoo would have been taken over from the inside before the offer would have ever been made. The way it's now done is 100% Ballmer: "do what I say or I'll destroy you", which is soo 90s
Insert
Vista is indeed a disaster. It failed to stop Apple from continuing its growth. Macs are less value performance-wise than PCs, and regular people still buy ever more Macs. I think it is because OS X is easier to use and more secure than Vista. Microsoft is losing its grip on the consumer market, and will most likely end up competing on the corporate market. Oh, and XBox360. I'll give them that - the XBox360 is not so bad.
Stop the brainwash
Bill Gates is still the Chairman, the largest shareholder and founder.
Stevie B is the second largest shareholder.
Between Billy G and Stevie B they hold over 10% of the company (a lot for a large cap company).
Surely the only way Steve gets rolled as CEO is if Bill loses all faith in him, and given their long relationship this seems unlikely.
I doubt very much that in the face of a hostile Bill the board has any hope of removing him even if they, and their institutional shareholders are unhappy with his performance.
It seems exceedingly unlikely that on the back of these problems they'd get rid of him. If it ever got remotely near that, he and Bill would have a word and he'd "retire to spend more time with his family".
--Q
whether some of these fiascos are Balmer's fault. Particularly, what happened with vista. It's very plausible that Vista died of feature bloat because Balmer didn't pay enough attention to it in the beginning; however, it's hard to tell from the outside who was really responsible.
Either way though, It's clear that some kind of shakeup needs to occur for Microsoft to continue to compete. I just don't see Microsoft being able to expand into new markets using the clumsy "throw money at the problem" approach that post-gates Microsoft has used. Money's an important tool for a company the size of Microsoft, but it can't cover up underlying problems, like a project that suffering feature creep, or a corporate culture that suppresses bottom up innovation.
Bill Gates seemed to run a much tighter ship overall, with a supposedly fairly "hands on" management style. However, it is true that Microsoft was a much smaller company under Gate's tenure, and I'm not sure he would be the man to put back in charge of the new Microsoft.
Considering that Google has only been gaining marketshare, it's likely that you just got a ranking change on MSN once you redesigned.
I used to get a ton of traffic from Yahoo, but that was only because I had the number one spot on there for a relatively common term (something I barely ranked on in Google).
If I crapped a turd out of my ass and it spoke, I would take what it had to say over Michael Arrington's word. The guy's rapidly becoming the John Dvorak of the 2000's. He just sits there and speculates wildly and makes stuff up with no sources, and everybody repeats his gibberish as if he had ever actually been right about anything.
*sigh* No, no it didn't.
To be honest, the only reason I go to Slashdot anymore over programming.reddit & news.ycombinator is because the comments and moderation are better and I get a higher %age of stories relevant to my interests. But then I see this epitome of lazy editing...sigh.
Here's the link for your reference:
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/5/battered_yahoo_caves_admits_it_overplayed_hand_now_open_to_new_microsoft_talks
As the url would imply, Yahoo is caving. Ballmer is thus (much to my dismay) validated.
Your point about the stock price is still valid, but there is the dot com bubble burst that affected MSFT as much as everybody else that you need to factor in.
A more accurate assessment would be:
- Net income has gone up from 8 billion to 14 billion per year
- Headcount has increased from 35,000 to 80,000
- Revenue has increased from 25 billions dollars to 51 billion dollars per year
From what you read about MS on this site, you'd think it's demise is pretty imminent. The numbers tell a different tale, and they don't make Ballmer look too bad either.
The 'demise being imminent' part isn't too far fetched of course -- MS is under threat from all directions (linux, apple, google, adobe, sony, ibm, ...). But most importantly it isn't clear how much longer their current business model is viable. That's what the yahoo offer was about. Most companies would be in denial about it, if they were able to continuously generate the sort of numbers MS does. Upper management would be full of back-slapping, and big bonuses. MSFT is very aware of the problems facing them, and the credit needs to go to the top dog -- Ballmer.
I left at the peak. Not just luck of course. Also not just smelling the coffee. It was a feedback effect. By leaving, someone not quite as talented took my place. And soon more people decided it was time to leave. Of course, it didnt just happen to me, but I really do feel if I had stayed things could have been different. Its just that, well, too many parasites and glommed on and it just wasn't worth fighting them anymore.
While I think Ballmer is certainly responsible, the problems really started much earlier. I blame Melinda for taking the edge off Bill, seriouly, he was a changed man after he got married. Balmer picked up the slack and quite frankly, hes an overbearing personality with no technical knowledge.
One of my heroes, Chris Peters had said that in order to have a successful product, you must reduce all dependencies. After he left, Ballmer changed the strategy: he actually told everyone to increase their dependencies on other teams. I think he must have been influenced by some of those self-help gurus who talk about the stages of maturity (dependence,independence, inter-dependence) and misapplied the lessons. Whatever it was, working at MS became a real chore and jerks, megalomaniacs and scammers began get power and the BS built up.
I doubt MS can ever recover from this period, its stock will never rise significantly again.
There are so many different Twitter accounts, maybe you're confused. I can count on one hand the number of distinct Slashdot posters who predict that and I have fingers left to spare.
Personally, I have no opinion as to whether Balmer stays on or not, as there is nothing Microsoft "sells" that I find compelling to lease on a computer, and I find their system ugly and non-productive and choose to use something different.
Microsoft has set back innovation in computer software by decades, but hey, the market place has "chosen".
Of course Ballmer is largely Gates fault and responsibility, without Ballmer's succesful manipulation of Gates, Ballmer would never have made to CEO of M$.
A big reason for Gates leaving M$ was the damage M$ was doing to Gates personal reputation and, strangely enough that damage was being caused by Ballmer abusive and arrogant behaviour as the CEO and his complete mishandling of M$.
M$ staff don't call Ballmer the 'billy' goat without due reason and a certain wry humour.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Now compare with AAPL. Notice a difference?
One their own though none of those products can stand by themselves. xbox is only just starting to pay for itself, it does have the most to gain and is well on it's way.
Yahoo has less strategy than MSFT. they are floundering and fumbling. recent javascript "upgrades" are shedding users faster than you can shake a stick at. I used to use Yahoo finance daily. the new version is so horrible I think yahoo hired MSFT designers. It has more features but is harder to use, with key pieces of data hidden. yahoo is burning themselves, have no products MSFT doesn't already have, buying yahoo would be like an anaconda swallowing a crocodile. In the end both lose.
The only thing Yahoo has that MSFT doesn't are customers. If your spending $40 billion dollars just for customers you need a better strategy, or better products.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
In the absense of such laws, the the EU has taken actions against MS that get no promise of interoperability from the rest of the industry. They have saddled MS with regulatory oversight, fines, and forced them to sell IP at rates below what their competitors would charge. In the long run this solves nothing -- it just makes it likely that in the future we'll face the exact same problem, but from some company other than MS.
..instead of letting them dump unsellable stock and call that paying their due? No, I thought the fines were altogether unreasonable. In any case, whether you agree or not, the point is that the EU vs. MS has been a very significant hurdle during Ballmer's tenure as CEO. The EU can't break up the company the way the US DOJ threatened to, but it does add to the list of adversity the company has had to deal with since 2000.But most importantly it isn't clear how much longer their current business model is viable.
/. this quote from BG to the DOJ There's no level of performance or specific application of corporate information systems that we don't intend to go after... [and] there won't be anything we won't say to people to try and convince them that our way is the way to go.
What does someone speculate as Microsoft's business model?
Yesterday, I saw posted here on
That seems to be their business model, which defies most all of the characteristics of a goal. Its not achievable, believable, or concrete.
I simply refuse to use their products. I don't like them, nor do I have a need for them, but I hear about them all the time. A coworker yesterday switched from Outlook to Thunderbird yesterday because Outlook wasn't able to get his mail reliably for a few days. Switched to Thuderbird, and now he can read his mail. Someone that works in the cafeteria where I work knows I work with computers and was complaining about the new interface to Excell. I mean, I'm sure he does not do much besides put crap in there for inventory or something for the kitchen, and he was like "Why do they just change crap around. Its not like its better, its just different".
Actually, the two best things that come from MS are things that most people never see. Their development tools and their research division. Outside of that, they just throw crap out there because they have little competition, or have been able to eliminate the competition.
The sad thing is that it really seems as though despite their ability to do things that people want, they are successful at making money.
And to think that all of this started from this crappy thing called DOS that was practically stolen, but the person let them have it because they didn't think much of it. Strange "success" story, and likely to never be repeated.
Had to stop at "been treated like an ATM machine by the EU". Ever consider there might be some merit to the EU's side of the argument?
you had me at #!
I think you are right that this is a power play. Call Yahoo's bluff and walk away. Now the share holders are left thinking I cold have had hard cash within 20% of my pipe dream about what this company is worth. Now I'm back to the pipedream. Which state do I prefer.
Before balmers intervention the pipdream valuation was rock solid. Every one thought it was realistic Someone someday would either pay that for yahoo or yahoo itself would generate income on that scale. If they did not they would not have invested in the first place. No one had to think about when that someday was coming or even if it was coming.
Now MS bid, and Yahoo desperately tried to find a white nite to counter offer.
No one else bid. Now MS withdrew theirs.
Sould searching time for yahoo investors. They are going to demand profits, not get them and in a year the company will run out of cash. The engineers MS covets will still be there, the company MS did not need will be cored out and bought for a song.
All that said. I don't think Monkey boy planned it that way at first given his string of high profile failures. But once the ball got rolling be probably realized the opportunity.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
1) it's not "internal" business that is the problem. It's how MS fucks customers, the marketplace, the ecosystem, the truth, etc.
2) "Better for consumers"... Now you're on to something. When a single company can sit on its fat American ass telling the whole world that it has the only single option you should use (and it would criminalise/destroy every other option if it could); overselling the abilities of its product, lying about the competition (insofar as competition survives); use predatory and dishonest bundling/lockin/selling practices; manipulate governments, companies, and individuals through bribes, threats and coercion; it's breaking the law (and not just in the EU, you may recall).
Your post, besides being all of AC -1, is so incoherent and apparently contradictory I don't know why I bothered answering, really.
you had me at #!
That makes me wonder, is Microsoft's financial success/trouble follow the general tech-sector's success/trouble, or is the tech sector following Microsoft?
Oh how frustrating when the mighty haven't fallen.
Vista is not wowing critics. Nevertheless, 140 million PCs have sold with paid copies installed. Granted, some of those buyers may in fact be clamoring to keep using XP...But Microsoft's problems are merely normal challenges for a still-growing behemoth.
At the Motley Fool, Rick Aristotle Munarriz titled his recent article "I Spit on Vista's Grave." The best part was his lead paragraph, in which he asked "What do the future of computing, a hurricane-ravaged home, and Fred Flintstone's car have in common?" The answer, of course: no Windows. He suggests that Windows is fundamentally in trouble.
Give me a break.
Yes, Wall Street expected the company division that sells Windows to have higher revenue than it did last quarter. Results in the group were distorted by unusually high revenues and profits a year earlier...And sales may have subsequently slowed.
But those dollars flowed in because the product sold a lot, not a little, albeit much later and with fewer features than originally planned. Plus, the Vista disappointments are relatively minor in the larger scheme of things. The company projects a level of operating income for the current quarter which would mean that by the end of the June 30 fiscal year the total would be a minimum of $22.6 billion. That's not only a lot of moolah by any standard, but would represent a 22.1% increase over the previous fiscal year. Your list of $60 billion companies with profit growth that healthy is likely to be rather short.
Let's just say for a minute that you could somehow convince yourself that the Windows business, which in the "disappointing" last quarter threw off $4 billion in operating profit, is at risk of drying up entirely. It's salutary to remember that this group only represents about 27% of company revenue. Microsoft has done a phenomenal job diversifying into a wide range of software businesses.
Says Gates: "Exchange is out there cleaning up, SharePoint is out there cleaning up, doing super, super well." He's referring to the company's messaging software product line as well as SharePoint, an unheralded and little-appreciated dark horse in the company's arsenal.
SharePoint has evolved far from its roots as a mere corporate collaboration tool. Now it encompasses a full range of functions a company of any size might need for creating and maintaining applications on the Web. That means everything from a big-time corporate Web portal to your workgroup's document-sharing site. SharePoint this year will surpass $1 billion in revenues, getting to that scale faster than any product in Microsoft's history. But don't forget - according to the blogosphere, Ballmer is screwing up.
Speculation on whether or not Microsoft will succeed in buying Yahoo, and then integrating it, is rampant. It's a gutsy move and by far the company's largest attempted acquisition ever. Such deals are fraught with peril.
Those who sneer at Ballmer's supposed ineptitude or, as Wired puts it, "mismanagement," are simply engaging in speculation and armchair quarterbacking. They also show a poor understanding of internal dynamics at Microsoft. The real strategist behind the Yahoo assault is Kevin Johnson, who heads the group responsible for Online Services (and who also oversees Windows). Ballmer was sufficiently confident that "KJ," as he's known, could handle this project that two weeks ago he took a trip to the Amazon which put him completely out of touch with the office for days.
Ballmer, of course, remains the chief corporate strategist and the ultimate decision-maker. But the grown-up company he now heads, soon even to be sans Bill Gates, is one far more decentralized and well-managed than any version that has come before.
It is simply false to say Microsoft is in real trouble.
Microsoft: Decidedly not R.I.P. [May 2, 2008]
Just to clarify, I meant the parent, not the AC.
I am also kind of replying to the grandparent.
Not everyone needs an "OS". What people need is an interface to services. Thus far, the majority have been getting it through one time payments for an OS (interface), applications (services), and maintenance of the applications (quality of service).
There is nothing that says that you must have a distinct OS, that you directly interact with. The OS in the traditional sense should have long ago (~2002) become stitched into the fabric of technology and disappeared from sight. Yesterday should have been about browsers, thin clients, and such. Today should be about massive computing and energy savings. Tomorrow should be immersive interaction.
And Google is doing fine, thou the economic conditions might hit them a bit. No matter what we do, we always produce data and hopefully store it. Google's value proposition is to convert, index, and catalog that data into information. They do ventures, but everything pretty much ties back to that core concept.
If advertising is wanted in a few years, internet advertising will be it. Thou we might not view it as coming from the net. Today, advertisers are willing to pay millions to have specific non-interactive real estate at specific times on the basis of estimated viewers and potential return. The net offers that plus interactivity, localization, and more concrete viewers. Yet, advertisers pay pennies on the dollar. If anything, I think the billboard will feed of the net well before net advertising goes down.