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Bungled Mobile Bet Will Be Ballmer's Swan Song

Posted by Soulskill on from the tablets-tablets-tablets dept.

snydeq writes "'If Windows 8 and the Surface tablet flop, you'll see a shareholder revolt that will send Steve Ballmer packing by this time next year,' writes InfoWorld's Bill Snyder. 'First it was the netbook, then it was the Ultrabook. Microsoft, Intel, and the PC makers keep looking for a way to convince buyers they don't need an iPad or Android tablet. Neither initiative gained much traction, so Microsoft bet big on Windows 8 and the Surface. ... Maybe we're wrong, and buyers will decide that the new OS and the Microsoft's first serious venture into hardware are what they want. It would be a huge boost for the industry if it happens, but I'm not optimistic. ... There's been a string of bad quarters, and the stock has been frozen for nine years. At some point — I think we're getting really close — investors are going to demand a shakeup. When they do, it's going to be good-bye, Ballmer."

6 of 300 comments (clear)

  1. Netbooks by romanval · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Netbooks were started by ASUS and their peers as an 'appliance' laptop- They were Linux based and only cost a few hundred bucks. Microsoft didn't try to get into it until it was posing as a threat to Windows!

  2. Re:Hell Hath No Fury Like a Shareholder Scorned by JMJimmy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So Microsoft releases the first stable version of Windows 7 on February 22 of 2011 and a year later you're calling a 1/3 drop in Windows sales "frightening"? Perhaps they were just coming down from everyone's move to Windows 7? I mean you (hopefully) only need to buy that once for your machine.

    When revenue in just about all divisions drop to near 2006 levels, you've got a problem.

    http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-microsoft-income-by-segment-2012-10

  3. Too late... by QuietLagoon · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Mr. Ballmer should have been sent packing after the Vista debacle. He should have been sent packing after the iPod/iPhone/iPad cleaned Microsoft's clock in the mobile world while Microsoft just sat on its collective monopoly-enhanced fat ass.

    .
    At this point, I doubt if Microsoft's Board of Directors (who are chartered with looking out for shareholder interests) are any less to blame than Mr. Ballmer.

    Maybe the shareholders should demand significant fresh blood in Microsoft's Board of Directors, since the BoD has allowed to continue, even fostered, the Ballmer problem far longer than they should have.

  4. Serious Cherry Picking of Dates There Jimmy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So Microsoft releases the first stable version of Windows 7 on February 22 of 2011 and a year later you're calling a 1/3 drop in Windows sales "frightening"? Perhaps they were just coming down from everyone's move to Windows 7? I mean you (hopefully) only need to buy that once for your machine.

    When revenue in just about all divisions drop to near 2006 levels, you've got a problem.

    http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-microsoft-income-by-segment-2012-10

    Uh, we're also at the same levels were were in March of 2010 and March of 2011. Mind explaining why he wasn't ousted then? Or why you skipped those dates and went all the way back to 2006 before the recession? Yeah, everyone was riding high before the recession ... we know ...

  5. Bad Performance? by Giant+Electronic+Bra · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Where's the bad performance? Anyone looked at the stock market? The tech sector OVERALL is at -22% since 2003 (9 years ago). MS is BEATING THE INDUSTRY, lol. Sure, APPLE is way up, but if you discount that one stock MS is actually pretty much the best performer around. I mean I'm sure you can find smaller plays that are of course MUCH MUCH better, or Apple, but I hardly think that the shareholders at MS have any big reason to complain currently. They MAY feel uneasy about the strategic direction of the company, but the notion that stock performance is going to get Balmer tossed is probably not even close to realistic. Truthfully stock holders don't generally think a lot about strategic considerations either, sadly. If they did a LOT of CEOs would be out of jobs...

    --
    "Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
  6. Small and cool misses the point though by Gription · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Small new devices are 'cool' but that isn't where MS / Ballmer missed the point. They took Microsoft's flagship OS and optimized the whole user interface to work on 'cool' handheld devices where they don't have a serious foothold in the market. I know that they are salivating looking at Apple's App Store and Google's Play Store but they just thumbed their nose at everyone who uses the most entrenched desktop operating system in the world. It is a train wreck as a desktop UI and they are so obscenely blind that they didn't see it or just plain ignored it.

    How many people with a tablet and a PC will sit down and use the tablet for word processing or an spreadsheet? This is the biggest opening for a competitor to jump into the desktop OS market I've ever seen. And for the people who think hand held toys like tablets "are a paradigm shift" then explain to me how that correlates with the number of dual or triple display setups that are being rolled out?
    (Ask Oracle how the mas shift to thin computing is working for them!)

    The boat has been missed. Let's see if they notice.